It's all Encouraging (well, mostly!)

Eldest has gone off MathsWhizz at the moment, so he asked if he could do a workbook today instead.  No problem there - the boys have a drawer each with workbooks in (that I was beginning to think would never be used), so he found the Maths one from this set, and got to work.  It was really interesting to me how exercises that I know he has done on the computer with little problem became harder when presented in a different medium, in this case on paper.  I suppose this is why it's important that they have a variety of resources available to them, to help them to consolidate what they have learned - and I'm encouraged to note that left to themselves they naturally choose to use different methods of learning after an amount of time on another...  Of couse, there's also an element of referring back to his old school workbooks that he hated - maybe the association is still too strong!  Nonetheless he said even though the workbook this morning took him longer than MathsWhizz would have done, he still preferred it today, so that's good.

Also today Eldest completed his lapbook, hooray!  He really wanted to finish it by the end of this week so we can show it to relatives at the weekend.  I was definitely more involved this time.  Every chapter was chosen by Eldest and he chose what to write, what photos and mini flapbooks to use etc;  I just encouraged him to find extra interesting facts when he came to a page and lost inspiraton - and I helped him with the layout, such as showing him how to make all the chapter titles the same size & font etc... I think it does look more 'grown-up' than his previous, first ever lap-book, which is nice, but a bit sad for me personally too, as I loved the chaotic creativity of his first one... but he's really proud of this one, and quite rightly as he put a lot of effort into it!  Both styles are effective, so it's good that he can choose which he prefers, next time.

This is the front page...  all other pages included at the end of the post, for those of you who'd like to see.it all... (Grandma and Grampie, either don't look, or when we see you tomorrow you'll have to pretend you haven't seen it yet!)

Middle is full of cold today, bless him, though we've had no colds or illnesses in the house all winter, so I can't complain!  He was still keen to learn and do stuff though - and inspired by his big brother he also rejected the online MathsWhizz, had a look in his workbook drawer instead and found his wipe-clean workbook on Telling the Time.  Thanks to the learners clock we have on the wall next to the kitchen table, he is completely used to me casually asking "what's the time today?" and being able to work it out... so his workbook was no problem at all.

I absolutely LOVE the fact that just by giving him space to gain his own confidence, he is really starting to want to try things for himself.  When he left school he was really discouraged and refused to try anything as he had so little belief in himself... it's totally lovely (not to mention a relief) to see the change in him *Happy HE Mummy dance*
He did a little more on his lapbook today as well, but ran out of steam quite quickly, so I just encouraged him to finish the flaps he was working on so we could stick them in and not lose them - it took us about two hours of distraction and re-focus (writing one word at a time before he wandered off, or so it seemed!) and then it was definitely time to just rest!

Youngest was in a funny one today - he loved watching Middle do his Telling-the-Time workbook, and was able to join in with some of it - but then he just wanted to build things with lego (which is fine) and then generally interfere with everything his brothers were doing (not so fine), which was tricky as they both seemed to need a lot of my involvement today so I wasn't able to distract Youngest from harrassing whichever brother I wasn't helping at that point.  Happily, he eventually found the wooden train track set, so that occupied him in the end.

Oh, and also encouraging to us - simply because we are really hoping that our nestbox with camera will be used this spring - was this footage caught this morning (please excuse the sound track - I haven't worked out how to turn off the built-in mic on my laptop when recording the nestbox images)...

... it's lovely to see that having found the next box and given it the 'once-over' last month, the blue tits are still popping back as if to check it's still there and still vacant... oh we do hope they will nest in it in due time - what a lovely spring project that would be!

It's been such a positive and encouraging week - and I think in part this is because after the most recent wobble & self-examination earlier this year, I have become much more confident in our approach.  Having now given myself permission to adopt a partly adult-led approach, things are flowing so much more easily.  I had become so caught up in the 'autonomous v structure' debate, when it turned out that really wasn't our issue at all!  I'm so grateful to be part of a community that can help bounce ideas around and share helpful books & blog-posts.  Anyway, we're still very child-led too: yes, I do ask the boys to do a bit of English or Maths every day, four days out of five (whether online, in workbooks or otherwise), and I usually have a game, some baking or an art project up my sleeve in case the boys seem uninspired - but they have the power of veto in all of that if they can't face it - and the rest of the time is theirs: they lead the way when it comes to choosing projects that they want to do, or the subjects that they would like to do lapbooks on etc - and I make sure they have lots of time available for free-play, imaginative games, educational TV etc.  It just feels like the perfect balance for us for now - and when it stops being so we will tweak as necessary!

Anyway, now for the weekend, and time with Daddy after a very busy week, hooray!  So I'll leave you with the rest of Eldest's most fantabulous 'Desert Animals' lapbook...

Mood Swings, Muffins and Matisse

Eldest is having a growth spurt.  I had noticed some hefty mood swings recently, and his appetite (which is usually tiny) has increased several times over... he eats more than me at the moment!  As with all times when my children exhibit unusual behaviour, I take it as a sign that I need to draw closer to them - and this week I have really enjoyed the chance to spend time together working on his lapbook.  He had quite a few really lovely comments made about his first lapbook (as shared in "We Love Mondays"), and that spurred him on to do an even better book next time, for his "fans"!  Perfect opportunity for Mummy to sit down with him and spend time working on it together.  He still did all the work, but I gave him a few tips, like for every animal pictured, include their name, where they're from and an interesting fact about them.  I don't want to load work onto him so it becomes a chore, but I do feel that he is ready to be stretched a bit, and left to himself he has great ideas, but tends to rush them through a bit - so I've sat with him this week and helped him to focus on getting each page exactly as he wants, not rushing over mistakes.  We've had so much fun going through it together, giggling over mispronounced words and funny facts found while researching, it's been lovely!  I'm so grateful for Home Ed once again - the chance to spend quality time with my boy when he most needs to be reminded that he's loved.

And today it wasn't just Eldest, either - I had some precious one-on-one time with each of my boys, while their siblings were occupied elsewhere (it would be lovely if it were like that every day, but usually we just muddle along, bouncing between rooms, children and activities).  Eldest and I worked on his lapbook as mentioned above, and later I also "helped" Middle with his lapbook.  Whereas Eldest's lapbook is almost entirely done on the computer (with a bit of cutting and sticking) and our working together involves researching, some dictation etc (him to me), Middle's is a lot more practical and hands-on: I've printed off lots of little folded-books, flap-books etc for him from the Homeschool Share templates, some of which already had the information written inside, and we had lovely some snuggles this morning with Middle reading the amazing body facts out to me (he particularly enjoyed boasting that he had more bones and better hearing than me because he's younger).  Then once Youngest had finished his puzzles and time on Reading Eggs (in the same room as Eldest and me, so I could marvel at how much he has progressed while having time off), he and I went to bake some muffins - "just you and me".  He particularly wanted to make some that our lactose-intolerant lodger could share, so we made some carrot muffins.  I thought they were lovely, but Youngest couldn't get past the thought of vegetables inside a cake, and has decided that he doesn't like them.  He loved grating the carrots though - we used the grating attachment on the foodmixer, and he relished pushing the carrots down with the plunger while watching the sharp grater holes do their thing.  He loves gadgets generally, so it was a real winner (apart from not liking the taste of the end result!)

After all the individual work we had some Mummy-led together time where we looked at some art by Matisse, using one of the Smart about Art books that we have - we really like that series.  We talked about how Matisse used just scissors, paper and glue in his later pictures, and how he liked bright colours... and we grabbed our own scissors, glue and brightly coloured paper to have a go for ourselves.  It is harder than it looks, not to use pencils for details or to draw outlines to cut along, but again, we were all pleased with our finished art...
 

"Insect Hill", by Eldest

 



"Underwater Creatures" by Middle

he took extra care over his Sea Hare (top left corner), complete with anatomically correct 'poo-cannon'!

"Zoo" by Youngest

"Jungle Flower" by Mummy

Finally we had a game of Animal Families (like 'Happy Families', but based on animals grouped by classification).  Another lovely day - but for those of you who may be tempted to compare yourselves unfavourably, you'll be relieved to hear that yesterday was nowhere near like this.  Our HE group that we were looking forward to was cancelled at the last minute, and we all felt a bit "flobberly" (it's a family word!) without that focus to the day.  So we basically did very little, which somehow resulted in a lot of mess.  I can't actually remember any of what we did - it was that 'good'!  But I'm including it here for the sake of balance: a little inspiration (hopefully) for those who could use it, and commiserations with anyone else experiencing a non-productive 'flobberly day'.  Whichever applies to you, I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Finding Our Way

It's been a really good weekend - I feel like I'm starting to make sense of things.  As I mentioned at the end of Friday's post, Structure v Autonomy, a friend pointed me in the direction of a really helpful blog about what the author, Melissa Wiley, calls "Tidal Homeschooling", where home education flows in seasons, at times led by the mother/ educator on projects that she leads them all on, and at other times led by the children's freedom to explore and mull over things that appeal to them.  The post may have been a few years old, but I read it at exactly the right time for me!  In the post there is a link to all of the Tidal Homeschooling posts that followed the original, and they were also really helpful.  One in particular caused a lovely penny-dropping moment.  It was while reading her post Tidal Homeschooling, Part 3.  I recommend reading the whole post as I found it all so beneficial - but the bit that impacted me the most was a quote that obviously similarly impacted her...

“The adults in the child’s life,” writes the Headmistress, referencing Charlotte Mason,

"have the ‘power of appeal and inspiration,’ and the responsibility to act ‘the part of guide, philosopher and friend’ to these young people with wonderful minds but no knowledge to speak of.
“Or… we can just abandon them to their uninformed judgment about what’s important and what isn’t, leave them to their own devices, and allow them to believe that their own judgment about what is and is not important to know is just as well informed and solid an opinion as Mortimer Adler’s, Thomas Jefferson’s, Peter’s, Paul’s, or…. yours. Leaving children to pick up what scraps of knowledge they think to ask about, willy nilly, is not doing them any favors. It isn’t respectful of their situation as newcomers to the world or to the adults they will grow up to be. And if we don’t do our job as the adults in their lives when they are small, the adults they grow up to be will have a malnourished background upon which to build.’ "
 

Reading that was like coming home!  It was like somebody had put their finger right on the area that had been niggling away at me since we started exploring Home Education and trying to find a balance that works for us. Once I read the above quote, and the subsequent comments made by the blogger, about the importance of guiding your children (in an autonomous setting that usually involves strewing interesting books, TV documentaries, day trips, experiences etc across their paths, that they would most likely otherwise not have noticed - and seeing what they choose to pick up and run with), I realised that at times I had fallen into the trap of thinking that autonomous education is about just leaving the children to it (it's not) - and it was at those times that I started craving more structure as it's the only way I am familiar with of leading.   

So clearly, for me now it is not so much about structure v autonomy as it is about parent-led v child-led.  And I have given us permission to be a delightful mixture of both.  Tidal learners in fact (thank you, Melissa Wiley) - at times led by Mummy's (and Daddy's) ideas of what they might enjoy or what would be good for them to be exposed to, with all the enthusiasm and fun we can infuse into whatever it is - and at times led by their own choices and decisions on what they would like to learn more about - with plenty of time just to mull over and play.

*Big sigh of relief*  I feel like my head is back where it needs to be!  Such a relief! Thank you for still reading and being patient while I sorted my thoughts out!

So anyway,  having given myself permission to be more pro-active in their learning (I know, it's embarrassing the silly muddles I can get myself in), I had one-on-one chats with the older boys on Saturday (I have no qualms about Youngest currently), to find out what they think about what we're doing.  It turns out one of the things they miss from school is "Merit Box": a box of small toys and treats that they would 'buy' with the merits they had earned for good work or behaviour during the week.  Much as I don't like a system that invariably falls into unhealthy comparisons (the "good" children always getting more merits than the "naughty" ones), I don't want to deny them something they enjoy - so we have started a small treasure box with the left over party favours from Middle's birthday (chocolate coins, glowsticks etc) - and now we just need to agree on what basis they get the treasure...

Also, I showed Eldest some lapbooks that friends had been kind enough to post online for me to see.  Well, he couldn't wait to start making one - about ocean life, unsurprisingly - but he wants it to be a big one, with chapters - so I taped a few square files together to give him ten pages to fill.  He has already designed and printed the cover, printed some photos and written the 'chapter' on endangered fish. When I say chapter, it was a sentence or two with photos under flaps, but it's his, and he's enthusiastic about it (and he's learning while researching) - so I'm happy!

Whe I asked Middle what he wanted to learn about his smile vanished and shoulders slumped.  "Oh poo" I thought - "he really is still deschooling".  I hastily changed the 'schoolish' terminology of "learning" and reassured him I meant was there anything he was interested in finding out about.  He thought seriously for a moment and then his face brightened a bit and he said, "we-ell, I could do about growing!" (still thinking in terms of having to perform).  I asked if he'd like to get some frogspawn later on and watch it grow into frogs, and he got much happier and started describing a "circle with arrows" (lifecycle) picture that he wanted to draw... and hopped down and ran off to draw just that.  When I showed him the lapbooks online his response was not so enthusiastic as Eldest (Middle seeing it as work to be done), but when I provided him with a folder today to stick his drawings in, he was very keen.  I just need to remember that with him it's all about momentum: just get him interested and the rest follows; if you present a task up front he finds it off-putting, regardless of how much he would actually enjoy it in practice.

So hopefully I'll have some lap-book photos to share in my next post - but for now, I just feel a lot happier that my head is settled and my boys are enthusiastic learners once more - we're still mooching round the woods, (see A Little Wobble from last week) but not feeling so direction-less any more... we're meandering wth purposeful enjoyment once again!