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...

Party Weekend

Wow, busy few days!  It was Middle's birthday this weekend, so since Friday its all been about getting ready for the celebrations.  He had a party on Saturday afternoon - I don't know whether that was more for him or me, as last year's party for him was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me, regarding school.  It was when he invited his entire (small) class to his party - he's not the sort of child to leave anyone out - but to cut a long story short they basically (with one beautiful exception) boycotted his party.  That was my penny-dropping-with-a-loud-clang moment: I knew of Home Ed and definitely liked the idea, but I had bought into the socialisation ideal of school life - and at that point (when I heard that one of his "friends" was persuading their peers not to go to the party) I realised what a fallacy the socialising argument was - I had sent the boys to school so they could make friends and have fun social experiences, but for Middle at least it was quite the opposite.  It was tortuous to watch and obviously I still haven't quite got over it.  Judging from his behaviour (showing increased social anxiety) in the few days leading up to his party I would guess that he hadn't forgotten either.  So it was such a joy to have a really lovely party this year.  Considering the dreadful weather and road conditions, the fact that only one of the invitees couldn't make it speaks volumes.  He had so many people he wanted to invite, I even had to restrict numbers, as there's only so much our house will take!  And they were all happy to come, happy to join in and make it a lovely day for Middle. Perfect!

Other than the party planning there have obviously been lots of wintry excursions: snowball fights, sledging etc.  And speaking of making the most of the weather, a few weeks ago we made some giant ice marbles to put in the garden when the temperatures dropped below freezing - and we used them this weekend to decorate outside for Middles party.  Making them was a bit trial-and-error - we eventually got them to work by putting a squirt of food colouring directly into the deflated balloon, then putting the neck of the balloon over the end of the tap and filling it with water that way (holding it so the weight didn't pull it off).  We tied knots in the balloon necks and put them in our freezer.  Friends who have also made them have tried freezing theirs in the garden once the temperatures dropped below zero, but I have heard that freezing them this way takes several days, and you can still risk having them explode due to not being fully frozen - so we recommend the freezer route (although of course, they may take several days in the freezer too)!

When not outside we've been enjoying lots of snuggly time indoors, including TV time, which led on Thursday to a lovely little project.  As you may well know, we record plenty of programmes from the BBC2 learning zone, as well as CBBC and others, for learning purposes.  Then it is up to the boys to choose whatever takes their interest.  Last week it included an episode of "Finding Stuff Out" on volcanoes.  Well that set off the day's activities nicely for Eldest and Middle.  They drew some volcano pictures, they read the books we had at home, Volcanoes and Horrible Geography's Violent Volcanoes - and I found a lovely workbook resource on Volcanoes, from the TES website.  (You have to be a member to download their resources, but it's totally worth joining for hundreds of great ideas, plus it's informative those of us who like to keep up to date with education in this country...).  I said to the boys that they could do as much or as little as they liked of the workbooks, I just thought it would be interesting for them.  Eldest whizzed through his, and loved it.  Middle took his time and stopped when he'd had enough - he can pick it up again later if he likes.  We could have made our own volcanoes (we have a bottle of red fizzy drink and mentos in the cupboard), but with all the snow on the ground expected to stay for at least a week, I didn't want the garden to look like a bloodbath for that long with red splashes all over the once-pristine whiteness! It sounds silly, but I know it would bother me... so we will be revisiting volcanoes at least once again soon, after the snow has all gone!

 Eldest's 'Volcano' (sadly we cant find Middle's)

 

Following on from the theme, there's a programme on CBBC at the moment called "Fierce Earth" - the episode we watched today was about hurricanes,and we had a good chat about why the eye of the storm is safer than being on the edge, ranging from spinning tops to centrifugal force etc.  Also today we watched some clips of my favourite owl, the great grey owl, like this one - and then we got the sketching pencils out.  We've got a set ranging from 5H - 5B, and we definitely need to practice with them, to get the full benefit of the range.  Youngest wasn't really in drawing mood today (he was off playing with some of Middle's birthday presents), but the others loved experimenting with the soft smudgy look, and produced some lovely pictures of the owl hunting in the taiga.

 Middle's 'Great Grey Owl Hunting'

 Eldest's 'Great Grey Owl and Lemming'

 Mummy's 'Great Grey Owl'

 



Not-so-boring Routine

We're fully into our "normal" routine now (if there is such a thing as normal).  That said, we didn't make it to to craft club yesterday:  I just couldn't get the boys all ready in time. Well... I probably could have, if I'd reverted to the Sergeant Major alter-ego of our school days, hustling them and barking orders to get them all up, dressed, fed & ready in time.  But the truth is, I really don't like the shouty version of me - I'm trying to lay her to rest!  And anyhow the boys are usually up and ready in time, so I guess there must have been a reason for their lethargy yesterday morning - most likely how cold it was outside (I found it hard to leave my duvet too!)  Once we were all up, there was the usual MathsWhizz for the older two while I played a Maths game with Youngest.  This time we played Bus Stop, helping him to master counting skills, spotting the patterns of dots on a dice, counting on spaces as he moved around the board, recognising the plus and minus symbols etc - and he got Mummy to himself, which always goes down well!

After that it was time to pop to the local shops for a few bits, so we got wellied-up, hats & ski-gloves on etc, and off we went.  There's something about snow that just transforms a normal 'boring' walk; they loved it (again).  Once home again, it was Youngest's turn to do some baking: gorgeous choc chip cookies...

 

 ...and then we got the paints out to do some snowy paintings inspired by our wintry walk.  We started with these Easy winter landscape instructions, that I had bookmarked a few days ago, and added a few extra bits of our own, using strips of cardboard to make the trunks & branches, and lastly adding falling snow by dipping paintbrushes in watered-down paint, and tapping the paintbrushes - another tip found on the Deep Space Sparkle website.

Mummy's snowy landscape

Eldest's snowy landscape (using a brush to paint the trees, not cardboard strips)

 

Middle's snowy landscape

 Youngest's snowy landscape

(he wasn't inspired by the snowmen, so he painted a red snail with a scarf instead.)

After that Eldest was still in full arty mode, so took himself off to do some sketching...

"Winter at Night"

"Robert the Owl"

Today we had a bit of reading with Youngest while Eldest and Middle were on Reading Eggs. Eldest was pleased to find a book to read on there today about three hedgehogs.  He's also very happy that he's collected 58 out of  214 printable animal collecting cards on the program.  Middle's favourite at the moment is the 'Quote Quest' part... well, anything that looks like a game is a winner for him!  After that we had another wintry walk, this time round our local park, to feed the ducks and geese (with peas out of the freezer - bread is really not good food for them when it's this cold).

 

      

 

Then we came home for the obligatory mugs of hot chocolate, while watching recorded episodes of "Got to Dance" (Sky) - because the boys love it, and it shows a great cross-section of different dance styles - followed by "Winterwatch" (currently showing on BBC2 each evening this week) which I had recorded last night.  There was a sad bit where a baby seal died (or was about to), but the boys coped OK - they're getting more used to the harsher side of wildlife documentaries, I think.  They loved the shot where the humpback whale breached behind the guys on the boat, who were all looking the wrong way.

At home we have our own mini-version of Winterwatch too... we were hoping for some visitors to find our new nesting box, and this morning we had our first one (as far as we know).  He had a good look round, and we even got some video footage, although unfortunately it picked up my calling one of the boys (by name) to have a look, so I can't post it here.  I can show you a couple of stills though...  it's very exciting!  It is too soon for them to be making a nest and getting broody, but still, it's nice to know that they've found it!

   

So we may be back into our "routine", but it's anything but boring.  We're having lots of fun - long may it continue!

Snow Motivation

I couldn't get motivated this morning.  At all.  I think a lot of that was to do with the fact that having looked forward to having Hubby home for the weekend, we then ended up with him having to go out a lot, so I was on my own with the boys again for most of Saturday and Sunday, with them waiting for him to get back from the various places he had to go to.  Don't get me wrong, I totally love being with them - but I ended the weekend more worn-out than revived.  Also there was an accumulation of mess over the weekend, and as I have been learning since we started HE, that really, really affects me: it just depresses me to be surrounded by mess.  That makes me sound terribly houseproud - I'm not at all.  I suspect I'm just too lazy to be really house-proud.  But it's true: messy rooms get me down.

It wasn't all bad though: when we woke this morning it was to see a beautiful layer of snow everywhere, which is always exciting (I'm as childish as the boys in that respect) - so they all got dressed (instead of staying in pyjamas - well it is Monday) so we could go out for a walk in it.  Having checked the forecast I saw there was more snow forecast for the afternoon, so we stayed in in the morning and tidied up while the boys also did Reading Eggspress etc, then after lunch we went out for a glorious walk in the snow: throwing snowballs, trying to catch snowflakes on our tongues, making snow angels and patterns in the snow with our footprints etc.  And then to have a tidy house to come back to after having fun outdoors in the beautiful, soul-restoring snowy countryside... well, I felt much better!  They're now snuggled up together under a blanket on the sofa, hot chocolates in hand, watching the Tigger Movie (the snowstorm on the film matching the snow still falling outside our window) while I go through the photos I took... lovely jubbly!

Another benefit of the cold weather is that finally Squidge has decided to join her brother Midge in hibernating.  (If you're a newcomer to my blog you may not know that we have two rescue hedgehogs in our shed, waiting to be released in the spring)  Hooray for hibernation! Midge seems to wake slightly about once a week, have a little snack and then return to his nest - so I check on them every day to see if I need to refill their water and dried food, and to put more hay in their boxes in case they need to make their nests warmer.  Generally though, they take very little work now they're both hibernating, so that's a blessing!

Anyway, I took loads of photos (of course!), but most are of the boys (again: of course!)  However, to give a taste of our lovely walk, here are a few that I'm happy to share - 'til next time... xx

Mini-Structure and Pop Art

I love Facebook.  I was in a conversation on it the other day, and identifying with that familiar HE struggle between the heart's love of the unschooling philosophy, and the head's need for a degree of structure, for sanity's sake.  This term, although we're only a week in, I feel like we've struck a balance that works for us.  Every day that we're home, the boys (particularly the two older ones) do half an hour (or more if they like - they sometimes do) of Reading Eggspress and MathsWhizz, while I do some reading or maths games with Youngest.  He stalled on Reading Eggs last term, and is still consolidating the skills learned and building his confidence to be able to go back to where he left off.  Also, most days we do an activity of Mummy's suggestion (the boys have the power of veto) - from a list of ideas.  Eg yesterday we played Middle's brilliant new game (another Christmas present), Scabs and Guts.  It's a board game with lots of questions on the body, healthy living etc - it seemed that every other question involved poo, snot & other not-so-refined topics... the boys loved it, of course, and Middle was particularly delighted when one card asked him to do a demonstration of someone with food-poisoning... his acted-out vomiting was very convicing - yeuch!

So other than half an hour of online curriculum in Maths or English, and one activity from Mummy's "what shall we do today" suggestion box, the boys are free to explore, watch, play etc as their interests dictate.  If the TV goes on they watch something that we have recorded (from BBC2's Learning Zone, or CBBC and CBeebies).  Horrible Histories is a particular favourite of Eldest's, and the younger two are currently enjoying William Whiskerson (geography) and Curious Cat (design & technology), which we recorded last term. There are a few great programmes on the internet too (we really like Grid Club) but more often than not, they're just off creating or having fun - not so much evidence of screentime this term ('hooray' says Mummy!)  Sometimes they need/ want my involvement, often they are happy to just get on with whatever it is.  It certainly all seems to be working so far :)  People who are purely unschooling may well suggest that we're not doing it properly by having any structure, and those who are fully structured may be horrified at my doing "so little" with the boys - but it works for us.  At the moment, anyway.  When it stops working, we will find what works better, and adapt.

So yesterday our learning (that I was aware of) looked something like this: Eldest and Middle were on Reading Eggspress while Youngest and I read a few small books from the Oxford Reading Tree - him sounding out & blending the simple words, me reading the ones that he couldn't/ didn't want to read - and of course, having fun chatting about the illustrations, to keep it fun (given the choice of 'sharing a story' or 'practicing reading', I know which seems more appealing!).  Middle baked some smartie cookies, but somehow they all got eaten before I remembered to take a photo - oops; Eldest read his new book, "Predators" (Steve Backshall); we all played the aforementioned delightfully disgusting board game, 'Scabs and Guts', and then Eldest (and Middle) played camera challenges where I had to give them a challenge of something to take a photo of  (eg something with a triangle in it, something with spots/ stripes, something shiny etc.   All in all, a lovely day!  Like I said though, that was just the learning that I noticed - so much of a person's learning just cannot be quantified.  They were off playing and creating for hours - who knows what they were absorbing while enjoying themselves!

And today? Well, we've had MathsWhizz; Horrible Histories and William Whiskerson on TV; Youngest has been further exploring the CBeebies website; Middle counted the bones in his foot (then we looked it up to check the "real" answer); and Mummy's contribution was to make some Pop Art.  I showed the boys Andy Warhol's 'Marilyn' prints in our book, "Famous Paintings."  Eldest remembered it from the from the Art programme they watched last term (recorded from the BBC's learning zone), and they were all keen to get the paints out and have a go at our own version.  I looked online to see if there were any instrictions to follow (I'm not totally confident when it comes to teaching art), but as I couldn't find any, we worked it out as we went along.  In case you fancy a go, this is what we did...

Pop-Art Self-Portraits

We wanted to do four colour variations - and four x A4 would have been too big I felt, so I folded an A4 page in half, to give us a smaller starting area each.  We each drew a basic head (and shoulders) self-portrait.  We are blessed with a photocopy function on our printer, so I made three further A5 copies of each self portrait.  If you don't have access to a photocopier, you could just trace the simple outlines.

   

Next we mixed six colours of paint (I only keep paint in the primary colours plus black and white at home - partly because of limited storage space, partly because it provides plenty of practice at mixing colours).  We decided the best look would be to limit ourselves to using five colours each.  We laid our four identical self-portraits out in front of each of us, and started painting.  It worked better for us to do a kind of production line: rather than completing one self-portrait at a time, we each did all four faces first (making sure each was a different colour), then each mouth etc...

   

That was as much as Youngest could handle really (ie just colouring his faces in with different colours on each page).  With Eldest and Youngest we looked at Warhol's colour variation and talked about how they weren't all uniform - in some of them the eyes and lips were the same colour; in others it was the lips and hair etc.  As we went along we tried to not only vary the features that were the same colour on each self-portrait, but also make sure there was a balance of colour across all four pieces. 

When we had finished filling our faces with colour we looked at how Warhol used colour to make bolder backgrounds than just leaving them white - so (with the exception of Youngest, who declared his to be finished), we assessed our faces so far and looked at which colours would work best as backgrounds to tie the four mini prints into one work of art (that sounds more pontificatory than it actually was).  Most importantly, it was fun, and we're all really happy with our completed "artwork"

 Mummy

 Eldest

 Middle

 Youngest

And then this afternoon we had a play date with the boys' old school friends at a soft play area - so now they're all nicely exhausted and happy from another lovely day.  And what's more, it's now the weekend, so we get Daddy at home too - hooray!  I'm off to enjoy the weekend - hope you have a good one too!

Gentle Pace = Time to Focus

I'm really enjoying getting back into the gentle swing of things.  Christmas and the New Year was even more chaotic than usual, with an increase in parties, plus a few family members needing surgery/ medical tests etc - oh, and we went to the local pantomime, which the boys loved, but then we lost Youngest after (it was late, and his tiredness combined with pantomime-induced excitement sent him even loopier than his normal energetic state.  He didn't want the experience to end, and the only way he found to protest at our leaving was to do a runner.  At least ten minutes of searching later, and he was eventually found outside the theatre!  You know, I really value his zest for life and unquenchable determination - they are such great qualities to have - but sometimes he makes me look with admiration (and sympathy) not at the great explorers and adventurers of history, but rather their mothers, who must have wondered at times if their unstoppable youngsters would ever make it to adulthood!

Anyway, I digress.  He was returned to us (still in full-on stroppy mode), we got the boys home and into bed as quickly as possible - and then sat and stared at inane TV while our adrenaline levels returned to normal!  Since then, things have calmed considerably.  The family members undergoing surgery and tests are all doing well, and I am really grateful for the slightly manic cleaning that I did right at the start of the year.  My house is clean and tidy (apart from the obligatory room-whose-door-must-remain-shut-at-all-times-to-hide-the-accumulated-junk) - and as I blogged in early September, it makes a HUGE difference to me.  We are back in our lovely routine of getting up; making sure bedrooms are tidy before going downstairs; having breakfast (without the TV going on first), and then having the day stretching ahead of us, full of possibilities, with only a few daily chores that we all share.  I can't really explain how peaceful it makes things for me, but I just knew from the beginning of last term that if this term was to get off to a good start, we would need a tidy house.  As soon as it gets beyond a certain level of mess, I seem doomed to spend my time endlessly trying to catch up on tidying and never actually getting to focus on the boys.

Anyway, so that is I've been doing: focusing on the boys.  Other than a mercifully successful (and therefore short) shopping trip this morning (Middle and Youngest have both suddenly and strangely ran out of socks), we have been at home, enjoying hanging out together.  Often this involves learning academically: such as my having one-on-one time with both Middle and Youngest at different parts of today, showing Youngest how to form letters, and helping Middle to make a start with cursive letters, and Eldest showing me part of a grasshopper leg and bicarbonate of soda (his favourite experimental material) through his new microscope (fab Christmas present).  There was also time spent learning valuable life skills: such as when wanting to negotiate for the game any one of them wants to play, they are (slowly) learning that gentle persuasion and kind words are more effective than shouting and dictating... also that working together makes a team more likely to conquer a certain difficult level on a computer game than getting frustrated and shouting if one's brother doesn't do what he "should"! (imagine that!).

Oh, and I received a parcel in the post that I'm very excited about... it's a nesting box with a built-in webcam!  We can put it up in our garden, hope for some bluetits (or similar) to move in - and then ideally via my laptop screen, watch them raise a family...!  We loved the nest cams that we followed last year - but how much more exciting to have our 'own' birds to follow!  I can't wait to get it up outside...

The Learning Never Stops

Happy New Year!  Here's hoping that 2013 will be a prosperous and fun year for us all!

I was in two minds about continuing to blog - it can be time-consuming when I am busy with multiple entries on my 'to-do' list, and with the exception of one or two who are really generous with their feedback, it can be weird wondering if anyone's actually reading.  That's not a self-pitying hint for charity feedback by the way - I'm just being honest (insert winking smiley face here... why don't Blogspot have emoticons?)  Anyway, I reminded myself that I started the blog for myself primarily - and it has been REALLY helpful to have it as a diary to look back on at certain times.  I could just as easily have written it in Word, saved it to my PC and kept it private - but I thought it might help the odd person to see how it really is, warts and all (some times are more warty than others) for someone else on their own journey.  So here I am, back again - and actually, really happy to be back again.  As I (still in my PJs after we all had a rare lie-in) peeked out of the window and noticed my neighbours taking their children to school this morning I stopped and counted again the blessings of having my children at home with me.  We are so happy learning at home (and elsewhere) together!

So we've had a lovely holiday - and confirmed that our holidays look hardly any different from "term-time" (except we don't usually stuff ourselves silly with rich party food or visit all our closest relatives within a few days).
No sooner had I written my last blog post of the year and declared us "on holiday" than the boys were creating, learning and exploring some more.  Youngest has been learning about habitats, Middle launched into a new vein of creating, this time in a song-writing groove.  It was lovely listening to him and Eldest as they chatted together, exploring different tunes and sound effects on their toy electric guitar and jumbo keyboard.  I behaved myself and stayed out of it, but confess I did listen in every now and then - it was just too cute!  Eldest found a PC game where he had to go round as a penguin, solving puzzles and rescuing undersea creatures etc - and he wrote a story involving a fart in a pond of acid (there was more to it than that, but that was his favourite bit!)  Youngest has been doing a lot of 'writing' and drawing - and his fine motor skills are really improving.  Their creativity has been endless.

The boys were also given some lovely creative games for Christmas presents - we're looking forward to getting into those!  I think this is another benefit of HE: the boys get to more fully enjoy the toys etc that they are given.  In previous years they would be blessed in abundance with presents from all sorts of family members and friends - and I hate to admit it, but they never got the full benefit of all their gifts, as they just never had time to enjoy them all before going back to school and the 'new stuff' getting forgotten.  This year it's been lovely to have it all at our disposal, and know that we have all the time we want to explore their new games at our leisure.  In fact we've deliberately saved some of it until this week, so we can really take our time and enjoy it, rather than getting it out, having a quick look, and putting it away again to move on to the next thing.

So yesterday saw the return of our much-loved Pyjama Monday.  Well - except for the fact that Eldest and Middle forgot, and got dressed.  Then later in the morning we realised we were out of eggs.  We could have jumped into the car with Youngest in his PJs, and gone for a 5-minute drive, but I was determined to make the most of having time to do what we wanted - and if there's one thing I love, it's walking in the countryside, enjoying the fresh air.  So Youngest happily put his clothes on, and we all went for a stroll - trying to sing together louder than the rooks above us were cawing.  What a lovely start to the term!

Eggs purchased, and home again, we had fun making self-portraits using paper, oil pastels and wool - and Eldest made some scrummy toffee brownies for lunch while Middle carried on creating works of art and Youngest got absorbed into undersea adventures on the CBeebies website.

    

Mummy                                               Eldest

     

Middle (he did the wonky eyes on purpose    Youngest (wearing a red hat)

                   cos he thought it was funny)

hooray for home baking!

Today we have been to craft club, where the boys were happy to see old friends and make new ones - all the while having lots of fun "creating".  As I mentioned to Heather who runs the group, it's so lovely seeing them free to explore their own creativity.  Much more than when we were in school, they seem really happy to explore the resources available and come up with inventive ways of making things from their imaginations, or versions of things they have seen elsewhere.  OK so they don't always do the suggested creation for the day (though usually at least one of them does), but Heather is so encouraging and helpful in whatever they are making, they absolutely love going.

Youngest made the weather mobile that was suggested - and did a really good job, I thought.  I keep forgetting that he is growing in ability, and am often surprised at his improvement in controlling a paintbrush or pair of scissors.  I claim responsibility for the raindrops - he ran out of patience for those - but he came back to make the sun, and finish the mobile... 

Middle made a 'happy aeroplane' and painted a 'spooky picture'...

and Eldest made a balloon squid head...

Sometimes I wonder if I should get them to improve their work, or be more accurate, or finish it better... but then I wonder why?  True, it may help them to do "better work" - but for whom?  If they are happy with it, why can't I be?  I always remember being told at school that I was no good at art, & consequently losing my love of it for decades.  I don't want to put my boys off by being critical - and at the end of the day, where there's a sentence with a 'should' in it, that is enough for me to blow a metaphorical raspberry at the notion.  I celebrate my children's art, not because they are gifted Artists-with-a-capital-A, but because they are happy and confident to express themselves - and if that's all they learn from me, I'll be happy with that.

And now I'm out of time again.  There's so much more to say - there always is; this learning business never really stops, whether it's stuff we're trying to learn (such as how to make a balloon squid head) or the stuff we learn while learning how to make a balloon squid head (such as confidence to express ourselves without fear of criticism).  I'll try to write more soon, but suffice it to say, we're really enjoying the "start of term".  Though it's not that different to 'holiday-time',  it's just another chance to relish again this funny but oh-so-rewarding journey that is Home Education.