The Benefits of 'Sleeping On It'

If you read yesterday's entry, Going with the (slow) Flow, you may remember that Middle got stuck while working on a Volcano acrostic.  Of course the beauty of Home Ed is that there was no pressure for him to have to complete it there and then, so rather than let him get frustrated and down on himself, I suggested he leave it until another day.  Well, it wasn't a long wait: he finished it today - I asked if he'd like to get the dictionary out this morning to see if we could find words beginning with the letters concerned, that might give him ideas. It worked a treat - it was so lovely seeing him light up with self-belief again, at being able to do something he had previously found to be difficult, just because sometimes all you need is to sleep on it.
It has been well documented that the brain has an amazing ability to continue working on problems while you rest over night - and it certainly proved to be the case for Middle.  The same thing that was so discouraging for him yesterday became an opportunity to triumph and feel good about himself the very next day.  It made me think about the school days: he would quite often get discouraged because he couldn't do something in time, or if he had the chance to come back to unfinished work, it could be up to a week later when inspiration had faded again.  I know when I was planning lessons that it was often frustrating to me to know that if the children didn't reach a certain target by the end of the lesson, it could be another week before they had chance to pick it up again - and a week can be too long, in terms of momentum.  So for Middle to be able to leave a tricky problem just for a day was ideal: no pressure to finish it immediately, but coming back to it with a rested and fresh mind soon enough to remember where he left off.
I know I'm a super-proud Mummy regardless, but I do think his finished article is just lovely!

The art of 'Leaving Them To It'

... and it really is an art form!  At least, it is for someone like me who swings from hyper-vigilant tendencies, wanting to check on every little thing that goes on, to feeling as if someone has velcroed me into the armchair & I couldn't move if I wanted to (until I hear suspicious 'noises off', that is, when I hoist myself into action).  Happily, almost a year of home educating has taught me many things, one of them being the ability to just step back and let the boys get on with the business of learning.  They're not entirely left to their own devices, as you know - but when it comes to the pressures that seem to accompany "normal parenting" (like all those developmental and academic targets that most children attain significantly earlier or later that the norm, causing stress for their parents who feel the sting if the targets aren't reached 'in time'), I feel like we've really escaped the rat race.  We have no age-specific targets.  In fact you could say our only real target is that of confidence - at any age...

Anyway, today we had a lovely little illustration: Youngest (our little independent one) has long since wanted to do things "all by myself" - that may even have been one of his first sentences!  However some things are just too tricky even for his determined little personage... such as doing up buttons.  Now, as their dress code since leaving school seems to consist of joggers, T-shirts and jumpers, this hasn't presented too many issues.  But today he and Middle decided they wanted to wear their "fancy" clothes (ie shirts with buttons), even though today had become designated a pyjama day after our socialising plans fell through.  Well I managed to stall them for a while (shirts = ironing), but determination usually wins, and after lunch they disappeared upstairs where I heard them chattering beautfully so I left them to it.  I admit, I do still have to tell myself to do this, especially during school hours: my default position is still set to thinking "they should be working", but I know this is a fallacy, not least because the word 'should' generally means I need to ignore whatever follows (see Attack of the Killer Shoulds) - and also, working does not equal learning.  In fact I would go so far as to say if they are having to work at it, they're not learning - because learning comes much faster when they're so interested that it doesn't feel like work, even if  they are having to really apply themselves to grasp something new (and that's another thing I've learned more clearly after a year of Home Ed).

Well, having left them to it upstairs, Middle came down asking me to go and do Youngest's buttons up.  I'd like to say I deliberately left it a while, knowing that Youngest's determination would win out, but the truth is, I was having an armchair-velcro moment (and chatting to Eldest about his lapbook, so I couldn't just go, now could I?)  Ten minutes later, and down came Middle beaming in a proud big-brotherly way and ushering in Youngest who was declaring " Mummy, I worked out how to do the buttons on my fancy 'suit', all by myself!!!"

So there we go: if I had followed my old school-minded autopilot I could have "made" (or tried to make) Youngest do some "work" - and we would have missed the absolute joy of him learning to do something "all by himself"- something that he has been trying on and off to do for at least a couple of years, and that he mastered in a few minutes - just because we're not tied anxiously to commonly-held developmental timetables: he was left to it.  Just think if we could all have that confidence in our children when it comes to reading and writing!

See, one of my pet hates is the insistence in state school to get children reading by the age of five (or sooner - new government guidelines want to set even earlier deadlines for nurseries to get children learning to read at age three)! Actually it is perfectly within normal developmental limits for a child to not get the hang of reading until they are seven - and yet in most schools now they would be having "remedial" help (and feeling like failures) by that age.  All because we can't just leave them to it.  Well OK, so teachers are paid to teach - it wouldn't really work if they just left all their class to their own devices all the time... but you get my point.  And the joy is that as home educators we are free from those constraints.  We have the luxury of being able to trust our children's natural curiosity and determination to learn what they want to learn.

I do know that not every child is as determined or self-motivated as Youngest... indeed Middle appears so laid-back there have been times when I wondered if I would still be dressing him as an adult.  And yet I have been able to learn to "leave him to it" too.  That doesn't mean neglecting him or not caring about what he's learning - I am still very attentive to his needs - but I can verify that although it took him about ten months to regain his confidence as a learner after leaving school, he is now absolutely flying!  It's just flying in a more under-stated way that Eldest or Youngest who like everyone to notice what they are doing: Middle likes to be left to it to conquer things quietly on his own so he can build his confidence without anyone noticing - and then do a grand reveal with a modest, "it was nothing" feeling of accomplishment. 

So although I haven't done much of a diary entry: I haven't mentioned our lovely morning yesterday at craft club, or marvelled with you at our successful shopping trip (shoe shop plus queue-laden post office and prescription chemist - plus newsagent to buy comics to thank boys for behaving so well in aforementioned shops); I haven't told you about making a wordsearch with fridge magnets, or how I keep wandering into rooms to find Eldest or Middle with their noses in books; I haven't boasted about Youngest being able to recognise not only all the letter sounds but also most of the letter names in the alphabet - upper and lower case (thank you, Reading Eggs)... I may not have filled you in on the whole day (although the above sentences may have helped you catch up quickly), but sometimes it's nice to just stop and celebrate the little things - because sometimes they turn out to be about the really big things!

And just in case you miss something pretty to look at, I'll leave you with the boys' creations from craft club yesterday - Youngest and Middle made some lovely collages, and Eldest wanted to make a board game (because he was sad to miss the group making them last week).  Happy Wednesday!

Youngest's "Owl"

 Middle's "Hedgehog"

Eldest's board game

Backlogged but Blossoming

I've got the most horredous blogging backlog!  Last week was so busy and I was so tired, I kept meaning to write in my blog, but then something would come up (usually my pillow calling my name!)... so apologies to my lovely faithful readers who I have neglected shamefully.  I hope you've all been having a good time!  Anyway,  for today I'm going to have to just give you the highlights of the past week, and then try harder to get back into a blogging rhythm

So we've still been carrying on in the same way: mostly child-led but with a few parent-led aspects.  Middle has spent a lot of time recording videos and playing with effects on his kidizoom camera.  He's also been just finding books and picking them up to read... more evidence of his increased confidence in his own ability  These aren't the picture-books that he previously beleved he was restricted to, but older books like The Story of the Olympics that is well within his grasp, and even Bulging Brains that he would have completely ignored up until a few weeks ago!  I still remember that in September he said he wanted to read "big books" like the ones Eldest and I read, and I was slightly baffled about the perceived block in his mind... I'm so happy for him that as per everything else in his life, it just took time with no pressure - and he has done it, by himself! He really is blossoming into the beautiful person he was created to be.  Happy boy, happy Mummy!

Youngest has also been blossoming - he is starting to make more sense of the world around him, particularly regarding how the skills he has been learning (mostly on Reading Eggs) apply to everyday life.  He has started to blend the letter sounds on labels of things in the kitchen cupboard, and titles on books and boxes around the house.  In one sense, reading is such an abstract skill to learn, but it is one that it is very difficult to live without - and it's just lovely to see him applying that concept to life in general.  He's also been learning everyday life skills... there's been a lot of wrestling with scissors and sellotape, buttons, zips and other things that I would usually ask if he wanted help with.  To be fair, he usually says no anyway, he's such an independent little thing - but lately I have consciously held back from asking as I don't want him to get the message that I don't believe he can do it - and it does seem to have increased his confidence (if such a thing were possible)... or maybe it's just increased my awareness of what he can manage by himself!

Eldest has been enjoying a bit (OK a lot) of a nature documentary-fest on TV.  Every now and then I catch mysef thinking he's "not doing anything", but that's ridiculous.  It's well known within the family that if you want to know anything about undersea creatures (and an increasing number of other wildlife), we ask Eldest: he knows way more than any of the rest of us, and how does he know so much?  simply because it's his favourite subject, so he absorbs like a sponge the information presented in books and on his beloved documentaries.  It really is easy learning!  Fortunately as we've gone on in our HE journey I'm getting better at recognising my illogical twitches  (such as 'learning is supposed to involve hard study'), and am getting faster at silencing them before I try to make the boys conform to my old mental programming - yay!  Oh and Eldest also found an electric circuit-maker that produces animal sounds - it was given to him a while ago, and he just found it and decided he wanted to have a go.  I was glad he found it as it was amongst the things that were buried in piles in the study where we've been sorting out ready for our new shelf unit to arrive and be installed in the front room (much more accessible for spontaneous inspiration).

Of course, I was over-the-moon at a beautiful new storage unit (I feel like I've turned into Anne from Enid Blyton's 'Famous Five'), and the boys were even more happy when I told them they could have the four 6ft boxes that the unit was delivered in. First they got some paper and blue felt-pen to draw up some blue-prints (I didn't even know they knew what blue prints are.. gotta love HE) and then they commenced construction.  I even managed NOT to tell them "don't waste the parcel tape" - see, Mummy's learning too!  The only problem is, we now have a cardboard structure that almost entirely fills the front room, so I'm not going to get to enjoy the longed-for sense of order in my lounge for a while yet until the fort has been removed (I want to try and get it upstairs, but that's going to be a 2-person job at least!) 

Other than that, the boys have also been continuing with Reading Eggspress (which they all really enjoy and more often that not, spend more time on it than their required thirty minutes) - and MathsWhizz (not quite so loved, but they have still been known to be on it for hours)... and the lapbooks are a continuing succes story.  Middle is getting onto a roll, he's been thinking of loads of subjects that he wants to do, and seems to be really gathering momentum.  It's just so lovely to see, given what he was like (depressed, anxious and zero-confidence) this time last year when we were about to start home educating.  So today I'm going to leave you with Middle's completed "My Body" lapbook.  He calls it the "biggest, most flappiest lapbook ever".  Most of the flap templates inside came from Jodi Small's Human Body unit, on the HomeSchool Share website, and a few from the My Body unit by Friedrich, Franks and Sako.  I actually prefer the bits that Middle does entirely by himself, they're so cute - but the HSS templates are awesome for when he runs out of ideas!

Happy Monday everyone!  Have a lovely week - and I'll try to be back here sooner than I was last week!

front cover

inside front cover

middle

inside right flap

 right flap

And some of the fold-outs/ flaps...

Middle's depiction of the body's various systems (top left to right: digestive, skeletal, nervous, muscular, circulatory, urinary, respiratory) - he did these entirely off his own back, after watching our Human Body DVD

 This was Middle's favourite bit: he loved having me measure him

 cue much sniggering...

A Little Wobble

I don't ever seem to get major wobbles - you know, the sort that make you seriously consider if your child(ren) would be better off in school.  Because mine have already done the school thing I am completely confident that they are better off with me (for reasons that regular blog-readers will be familiar with, so I won't take up space by repeating it all here).  However, the little sneaky wobbles where you just catch yourself wondering "am I doing this right?"; "is my child ever going to get interested in anything other than Minecraft?"; "should we be doing X Y or Z?" (argh, "should"... *smacks head*  shoulds are never far from the wobbles!)... yes, I get those! 

So I've been thinking about this again, and I've concluded that I'm feeling a bit directionless.  One thing I liked about teaching was having it all laid out before you - the national curriculum clearly showing the way; a nice broad path, clearly marked out, heading ultimately to one goal: GCSEs (or equivalent).  Subjects, Topics, Workbooks, Attainment Targets, Lesson Plans, Assessment Forms - easy peasy (apart from the phenomenal amount of work involved in creating and maintaining all of the above!!).  Of course, the main problem was guiding groups of different children with different abilities and different passions along the same path.  It wasn't in fact a production line where you could put each child through the same process and get the same results at the end.  Some children flourished, some struggled, some were ruined.  Hence the perceived need for Home Education: the chance for us to walk a different path; one of our own making... a little adventure.  No nice straight path here - more of a meander through the woods, exploring whichever openings take our fancy, with some openings leading to dead-ends, some possibly getting a bit boggy, and some leading to absolutely glorious, soul-flooding places of wonder where you just want to set up camp.  Best of all, getting to share that path with the people I love most in the world.

But... do you see the problem?  Wandering in the woods is lovely - truly; it's one of my favourite things to do.  It's just that sometimes you can get a bit lost.  And at times like this you can find yourself longing to be back on the straight open road with signposts everywhere, and the reassurance of millions of other people all doing the same thing...  No?  Well OK, maybe not - but at least a map would be nice!

So that's where I am: a little bit lost.  Yes, we're dong the English & Maths curriculum.  My twin safety blankets of Reading Eggs and MathsWhizz - the equivalent of those little yellow arrows you get in the woods, giving a vague sense of direction (and a little sigh of relief: "oh good, a yellow arrow: at least I'm on a recognised route; even if it's not the one I started on, it'll take me somewhere civilised!").  If sometimes I get a little concerned that the online 'work' is getting too boring for the boys, or it's going against my desire to have them following only their passions, I give them a few days off (like we have this week), and reaasure myself that half an hour a day is hardly going to stop their brains working for themselves.  And yes, I have given myself permission to make suggestions, to invite them into the things that I think would be interesting.  They make suggestions too.  It's nice; we have fun; we learn... I'm just feeling a bit 'where-next'-ish.

OK then, so when I'm lost what do I do?  Well first I try to work out where I am. In HE terms, this is like taking stock of where we are.  Take Eldest this morning.  I didn't think he'd done anything much except mooch, but after a lovely little chat (I wasn't interrogating him honest, just taking an interest!) it turns out he had...
1/ written a poem for Mummy about Mummy
2/ learned about the Tudors and pirates on 'Horrible Histories Gory Games' (TV)
3/ drawn Spongebob cartoons for Middle
4/ built lego constructions
5/ experimented with building a tornado machine using plastic bottles
6/ learned more about wildlife on 'Barney's Barrier Reef' and 'Natural Born Hunters'
7/ read a few books:  the Ultimate Official Guide to Club Penguin,  Waddle On Joke Book,  Professor Bumblebrains Bonkers Book of God
For a mooch, I'd say he's been quite productive!  What a little star!
And as for Middle and Youngest?  They played together really nicely all morning!  Marble runs, Kid K'nex constructions, imaginative role play... and more.  They were playing so nicely I didn't want to interrupt.  Yes I would have liked them doing things I could more easily tick off as 'subjects', but I know better than to try to make them confirm to my wobbly insecurities.  Personally, yes, I would like a bit more structure (not least because a few of my friends are having very successful structured times of it at the moment, which always brings it to my attention again) - but I'm fairly sure that Middle at least would balk at the idea. Eldest might go for it for a while, but he's doing OK without anyway. Youngest has lost any interest in workbooks etc - but he's easy in the sense that he's very definite about his likes and interests. If he wants to learn something you won't stop him, and if he doesn't want to, there's no point trying to persuade him.  Generally, it's quite clear to me that there is still some deschooling in process.

If I know where we are (we're doing OK, learning, and to a degree still deschooling), we can't be totally lost!  The next question then is: do I know where we're going?  Not in terms of having signposts and maps, or tickboxes no - but generally?  I need to remind myself of why I'm doing this - what's the goal?  Basically, we're aiming at producing happy, well-adjusted individuals, capable of discovering and pursuing their own interests.  Exams are not our goal.  When you've been in educational surroundings for as long as I have, it can seem that exam results are the be-all and end-all of education - so forgive me if I'm stating the obvious... I just need to remind myself so I don't go into autopilot.  You know that feeling when you're an experienced driver - you're driving along and realise that you weren't paying full attention, you're just on auto-pilot, following the familar roads that you're used to, to get home or another well-travelled-to destination?  Well in educational terms, exams are my auto-pilot. I need to periodically remind myself that that is NOT our destination any more.  True, they may well be a valuable stop off along the way, to help any of our boys get to where they want to go, but my focus is on producing enthusiastic and capable learners, and eventually adults who are fulfilled in their lives.  The boys don't yet know what they want from lives occupation-wise, so there's no point looking for a map to follow.  We're back to meandering, exploring & looking for the next inspiration to strike.

To go back to where I started then...am I still feeling lost?  Um... well, still a bit directionless, but given that none of the boys have expressed any desire to learn/ achieve any one thing at the moment, that's understandable.  We are heading in the right direction - and I'm pretty sure at least some of us are still deschooling (I certainly am).  Whatever we do, while writing this post I have come to realise again that the hardest thing about HE for me is that I can't use any one method with all three boys.  I think I need to focus again on the best way to help Eldest, the best way to help Middle, and the best way to help Youngest - and see where that leads us.  Following three individual paths at once? Now there's a challenge!  And a whole other blog post!  Excuse me while I go & let my brain whirr...