Baby it's cold outside!

My lovely log fire

Brrrr.... its cold, wet and windy.  I love this weather when I am tucked up next to the fire, but am not so keen when I need to go outside (which is proving tricky when you need to try and toilet train a puppy!).  I feel our home education for December is going to be focused around two main activities: Christmas Crafts in the morning and XMAS 24 (the Christmas Movie channel) by the fire in the afternoon.  These combined with our mince pie tasting challenge sounds like a good all round curriculum.

Last week I hosted a Sewing Workshop; we made Christmas Hearts with all the children having the chance to use the sewing machine.  I also took time to help a home-ed mum clean up and oil her old machine, followed by a quick tutorial on using it.  Since the workshop, Lily has got the sewing bug and has made some beautiful hearts to hang on our tree;  we also picked up some lovely fabric and will be making some Christmas Bunting (details to be posted later).  The local library had some lovely books on different craft ideas and we found one aimed for quite young children but with beautiful (simple) ideas to make . Over the next few weeks we are going to make some of the projects and I have also downloaded a calendar of ideas from the brilliant Nature Detectives website; we will keep you posted on our different projects.

Busy at the workshop

It's in the detail

Finished hearts

Last year we did some lovely Christmas activities including a Victorian Servants Christmas Workshop,  a day trip to London to see the lights and a visit to Richmond Theatre to see Cinderella in panto.  This year will be a lot more low key; not working for 6 months has meant a lot less money and the puppy also prevents full days out.  We don't mind having less money (mostly) as it means we are becoming more resourceful and creative, and personally I think there is something really lovely about home made gifts and decorations.  We feel more appreciative of what we do have, and afternoons snuggled together with hot chocolates, a board game and home-made laughter are just as enjoyable.

We started of the countdown to Christmas with a festive Carrot cake made by Lily......

angela x

Puppy Power!

This week we have been learning some very important skills: infection control and behaviour management  (AKA clearning up puppy poop and trying to toilet train our new Puppy Chester).

Earlier this year we had our very sad and difficult time with Bodhi, our rescue dog.  Bodhi was welcomed into our family, but sadly had so many problems he had to return to Battersea; we were heartbroken, and Bodhi very very sadly had to be put down.  During the difficult time afterwards, our friends beautiful dog had Puppies, and we tentatively thought about whether we wanted to try again: as soon as we met the teenie tiny pups we new that we wanted to welcome Chester into our home and the family consensus was YES!  This came with the caveat from me that everyone had to de-clutter and down size (I also wrote about this) so that I had less to manage and life could feel less 'cluttered'.

Chester arrived on Sunday and it has been great fun (apart from night time when he cries) - my instinct as a mother is to go get him and cuddle him, but for his benefit and ours as a family he has to be bottom of the pecking order (Pack mentality) and we have to leave him to get over it.  It's so sad. The basic rule is if you see the pee/poop you have to clean it, and the children have been really great at this; they love to play and teach Chester  and they are having to work really hard at not arguing around him as the books indicate that aggression breeds an aggressive dog.  This is an unexpected benefit as they can tend to argue quite a bit!

We still miss Bodhi, and loosing him was very tough for all of us; hopefully Chester will bring something special to us all.  And hopefully we will get our full nights sleep back very soon.

angela x

Try Try Again!

So I decided to take a small break from blogging - just a couple of weeks holiday as I took some time back for myself.  There are many brilliant things about home ed, but one of the biggest challenges is carving-out time for myself.  When the children were at school, I could go for coffee (without a self-imposed curfew) and my day was pretty much my own to work, think, tidy, shop, run errands.  Now my days are filled with the company of three others and 'my own time' is limited.  Fitting a blog in started to feel like a chore - and a burden - instead of something that I enjoyed doing, so over the past two weeks I have been re-evaluating where I focus my time and what my priorities are; writing is a priority for me and something I love, but not at the expense of my sanity, so I signed up to an e-course on making time and it has been really helpful in seeing how and where I can take time back.

During my 'mini-break', we have been busy at home with the new 'half-term'; the children have signed up to Ice-Skating lessons and we have decided to structure our learning a little again, so the Maths and English books have come out.  When we tried this at the start of our home ed, it was a disaster and we shunned the books whilst we de-schooled.  We all still have a lot of de-schooling to do, but everyone has taken a keen interest and is enjoying challenging themselves so I guess it was the 'right' time to come back to them.  I have re-visited some of the homeed books I brought, and The Ultimate Book of Homeschooling Ideas: 500+ Fun and Creative Learning Activities for Kids Ages 3-12 (Prima Home Learning Library) talks about 'school mind' and 'education mind'; school mind works like this:

Compulsory attendance + Curriculum + Focus on lack of meeting existing

standards = schooling

education mind works like this:

Time + Purpose + Focus on what is being achieved = Education

So whilst we are doing 'work', it's actually being led by the children, who are only comparing themselves to themselves and are enjoying it.  So whilst I do miss my own time, one of the best things about Home ed is it gives us the flexibility to keep trying different things................

Pumpkin Carving

Visited Ham House

Roasting Pumpkin Seeds

Learnt about Lewis Carroll (Guildford)

Visited Guildford Castle and Grounds

Climbed to the top of Guildford Castle

Constructing Lego

and practising measuring at the same time!

Making 'Minecraft' characters

a 'minecraft' buddy!

Making Poppys at The Poppy Factory

Poppy Making

angela x