In which Hannah makes a village in winter

Every day I put a different activity/treat/surprise in Hannah's advent calendar. Today she made a village in winter out of card, boxes, paint, glue, glitter (lots and lots of glitter) cotton wool and twigs. It went something like this:

First she painted the boxes to look like buildings.

 I love the details like the doorstep and the tiny stained glass window on the church

The houses remind me of an illustration from a Mr Men book

Next she made roofs out of black card and added some frosty glitter

When the biuldings were dry, she decided where to place them on a piece of cardboard and added a frozen pond made from silver paper.

I helped her collect some twigs, bits of pine tree and evergreen shrubs from the garden and she added some frost (yes, more glitter!) to them to make trees.

 Then she decided where to put the paths and I helped her make them out of black card. When the paths were in place, we coated the rest of the board in glue and covered all the available space in cotton wool snow.

When the village was finished, the Playmobil family and their dogs came out to play.

In which I wax lyrical about Hannah's drama school

This post is not about food (unless you count cake!). It's about Hannah's drama school and if you know me on Facebook, you may have noticed that I go on about it...a lot!

This is why.

To get why RAW is so important to me, you probably have to know Hannah beyond a superficial level as she is in so many ways hugely gregarious and socially confident. She is also a person who endures vast and often negative emotions. Like her father, she is prone to pessimism. Their glass *was* half empty but then someone came and *deliberately* kicked it over. (I daresay they find me with my periennial Tiggerish optimism and joie de vivre just as exasperating as I find their Eeyorish gloom.) Watching her at her riding lessons is often extremely uncomfortable for me; she always looks as though she is being led to her own execution! I offer her to stop any time she wants to but she insists she enjoys it...and I suppose she does, after her own perverse fashion. It is hard to see her slender frame weighed down by this expectation of misery and doom. I want her to find joy wherever possible, to exult in her own existence. She just doesn't.

Except for the day she accidentally went for a trial session at RAW. She wasn't meant to, although I'd always thought drama would be a good activity for her because she does like an audience! I just wasn't looking for it right then. We tried a trial at Perform when she first came out of school but it was way too soon and I am so glad now that that experiment failed. But her best friend was going for a trial and Hannah ended up going to "watch" and got drawn in.

When I came to collect her 2 hours later, she danced out, her eyes shining and declaring loudly that it was the best thing she had ever done (although it was not a huge surprise and very amusing to discover a year later that she had been invited to join in with the dancing and responded with "I don't dance!", then, on being told not to worry it was only a few minutes till singing started, "I don't sing!")

A year on and she still radiates enthusiasm in a way I have never seen before. She practices songs and dances constantly; she works so so hard to improve. This morning she told me that going to drama is like Christmas or birthdays. Every week she feels like that.

She has had so much to deal with over the past few years (the debacle of school, her dad's injury and long recovery) and she *worries* so much and takes everything to heart, so it is priceless to have found something that brings her this much happiness.

So that is why, collectively and as individuals, I love the people who make up RAW so very very much. I love how tolerant Jac and Dan are of her clingy affection, I love how she has great role models in the older students she admires, like Rosie. I love how much they appreciate her as the quirky individual that she is. I love how affectionate Sam is and how well she knows all the children as people. I love that they value effort and hard work as much as talent and I really admire the fact the Nicola has actually enabled her to sing. I love that they facilitate Hannah's friend's emotional needs because Hannah was like that only a short while ago and so many many people and organisations do NOT understand.

I'm sorry if sometimes this love manifests itself in a ridiculous sappiness that makes me look like an over-enthusiastic puppy slobbering on your trousers and I apologise to your waistlines that I so often express it in cake. But I love RAW and this is why!

In which real life provides material for discussion

is something I've seen on a lot of t-shirts and placards at home ed events and it's certainly proving true this week. I'd been trying to shield Hannah from hearing too much about what has been going on because it is challenging enough to get your head round as an adult. But it is all literally close to home. The tube station where Mark Duggan was shot is only about 5 miles from our house. We sometimes shop both at that retail park at Tottenham Hale and at the town centre in Enfield. And there was a shop looted and 3 police officers injured at the top of our road. I sat up half the night listening to sirens and following reports on Facebook while Hannah was sleeping, then tried to get on with normal life when she was awake, but today she became aware of what is going on.

It started on what would otherwise have been an idyllic afternoon. We went for a long walk in Epping Forest with the dog and some friends. Hannah and her friend found a small stream and paddled in it; they climbed trees and ran through grass pretending to be zebras. But away beyond the trees lies Enfield and from the Sony warehouse a thick black plume of smoke had been rising all day. It was unavoidable andmy friend, L, and I had to try to explain to the girls what had been going on. Man, that was difficult. And impossible to keep it from scaring the hell out of her. I explain as best I can, trying to tailor my own complex thoughts about society and state and police and family to the capabilities of a reasonably intelligent 8 year old. But I cannot promise her it won't come near us. It already has. and when we returned from our walk, my husband was watching the rolling news programmes compulsively so she was bombarded with images of shattered glass and fire.

In the end, knowing that there was no way to reassure her, we decided to be part of a solution, to be part of a community pulling together. In another part of the borough, the local MP was organising a Respite Centre for police and volunteers to come and have a cuppa and some cake (a LOT of cake actually..think a lot of people felt as we did, better for contributing something positive). So we went with some tea, coffee and biscuits to donate and offered our (well my) services to man the urn if needed. Tomorrow we are going to go through her wardrobe and her toy storage for things we can donate to a collection for the families made homeless in the first night's rioting in Tottenham.

I don't know how much she will have absorbed of the impromptu politics and history lesson, but she really wants to give things to children who have lost everything so I hope that she is taking away a very important lesson about who she is and her place in society.

In which I regret not being John Hegley

I'm reducing Hesfes to its component parts
By which I mean not only:
Taking down the tent and
Packing away the camping table,
The water containers, the mess tins
And the enamel plates and mugs;
Nor packing *all* the clothes,
Both worn and unworn for washing
Because it was so damp,
But also the bandanas and the copper bowls
And the friendships bracelets
And the friendships. That moment of
Spark as your mind meets another,
Joy explodes in the pleasure of like and like.
I'm taking with me addresses and phone numbers
And promises to see you again next year,
Intentions to do more, see more,
Take more photos, have *even* more fun.
Hannah dancing and still dancing,
Her temper in check, despite interruption,
All the very talented children,
Long conversations over coffee
Being roped to the chair by the dog
And after all that,
A little bit of envy that I am not
In fact John Hegley!

In which we bounce back

This blog has been quiet for a few months now. I don't suppose anyone noticed. But this morning I read a blog about being honest about the times that home ed doesn't go so well and therefore I feel I should say that part of the reason the blog has been quiet is that we have done sod all!

Although as soon as I typed that, I felt a bit Life of Brian and wanted to say, "apart from the activities...and the conversations about things and reading and watching documentaries and art and the socialising and the visit to Sutton Hoo, what learning have we done???"

But we have been building a new shed and therefore we cannot do easily do any work indoors. The table which is usually liberally spread with science experiments, paper, paints, crayons, fossils, books and half-finished projects is currently covered with the contents of the old shed. we've tried working at the coffee table and it is okay, but the puppy can get at things too easily. We've worked online and we've worked on a project at the library, but something about not being able to work at home makes me feel that we haven't done anything.

However, I am feeling very excited about the coming months because I am being made redundant. That shouldn't be a good thing, but it is. I only work just under 9 hours a week and yet that seriously gets in the way of stuff I want to do with Hannah. Already for the rest of the year post redundancy, she is going to be doing an archaeology course with the Museum of London, an art class and workshops about blood and roman costume! Very excited!

In which Hannah writes a song

Yesterday I went out in the evening and came home to find this, a song that Hannah has written lyrics to, in a notebook on the table. It's fascinating looking at the mix of generic song lyrics about unrequited love that don't fit with the spirit of the song at all and the clearly meaningful ones about wanting to be a rock star, not a fashion model (she spent the day yesterday with a friend who does want to be a model or a pop star or anything famous involving clothes and make up). I think it is pretty cool anyway and our friends who go to HESFES can probably expect to see her rocking the caberet in a few years' time!

Don't know where I am or how I got here
Even though I don't know where I am
I'm not gonna look back to the bad things
Look forward to the good things
And face the world with pride

Girls can rock the world and rock the stage
If you love someone but they don't love you
Gonna rock the world, gonna rock the stage
Go out there and fight some day

Girls don't have to be a fashion model
You don;t have be a boy to be a rock star
Girls can rock the world and rock the stage
Girls can rock the world!

In which Hannah meets Johnny!

Hannah has been a fan of Razorlight for years, influenced by her older cousin's liking for the song "America". She was 4 when she first owned one of their albums and just turned 6 when I took her to see them at the 02. Obviously we've missed them over the past year or so. But they are back and I had already bought tickets to see them at Guilfest in July when I noticed on their Facebook page that they were going to be busking at St Martin in the Fields yesterday evening as part of the Big Issue 20th Anniversary event.

I was in a complete quandary. I wanted to go. I knew Hannah would love it. But we'd had a couple of really busy days and she was supposed to have a swimming lesson at that time. But she'd love it and it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and we can swim any time. But the dog would be on her own for too long. But I wasn't certain exactly where it was. But, but, but!

Eventually I ran the idea past my friend Louise when we met at home ed group. She suggested I leave Hannah at group with her and go home to walk the dog, before picking Hannah up from her house and going into central London. Brilliant! So we did that, arriving at St Martin in the Fields about 5pm. Still not sure where it was actually going to happen, we were reassured by a drum kit set up in the courtyard. We sat down and got chatting to a very nice Italian lady in incredibly funky shoes. Hannah complimented her on her outfit (ha, don't think she has no social skills, do you...see very ranty post!).

We waited a long time. Well an hour is a long time if you are 8 and desperate to see your idol in the flesh! I can remember perfectly well what kind of state I would have been in if offered that opportunity to meet Curt Smith. In the interim, Hannah was interviewed by a journalist and we made friends with some scaffolders from Margate, and she filmed a police incident! Then finally Razorlight arrived. One minute everyone was sedately sitting around the edge of the raised stone platform, but Johnny wasn't having that and called us to come closer. We ended up no more than 3 feet away from him! Our scaffolder friend drew his attention to Hannah and when they sang America, this happened.

At the end we got a photo with him and his autograph! Hannah is planning to photocopy it and have it framed to go on her wall! She was on cloud nine for the rest of the evening! So glad I made the decision to go...definitely would have regretted it if we hadn't!

In which I rant about rude people

I'm just warning you in advance that this is yet another home educator getting hot under the collar over the bloody socialisation question!!!

I was going to call it the "dreaded" socialisation question, but I don't dread it. I think, given the unbalanced and highly biased image of home ed presented by the media and government, I cannot blame people who have never encountered home ed as it *actually* is for being concerned. And presumably, if their own children go or went to school, they *do* do most of their socialising with people in their class...school takes up a large part of their life. I am always happy to enlighten people as to the reality of this home educated child's social life...which is there is a hell of a lot of it.

So when I told this woman (a dog-walking acqaintance) that Hannah is home educated and she trotted out that old chestnut, I didn't get defensive. I told her I understood why the image of home ed in the media would lead one to think that, but actually.....and followed with a list of all the opportunities Hannah has to socialise with her friends, drama, home ed group, horse riding, music lessons etc etc etc.

"She sounds thoroughly spoilt!"

How I stopped myself from saying "fuck off" I don;t know. She is *lucky*, yes. We couldn't personally afford to do all these things for her; we are very fortunate in having relatives who offer to pay for some of the more expensive activities. but if she didn't do those things, I would still be doing what I do, scouring listings, museum websites and email lists for things that she might find interesting. And yes, I go to some effort to take her to things. But a) so do parents who send their children to school pay for activities and take them places...it has nothing to do with home ed and b)it's not all about her. *I* enjoy them. So sue me, I get personal gratification out of having fun with my child!

But what hit me most is *how* exactly is it acceptable to say to someone that their child is spoilt, when you barely know the person you are speaking to beyond the most casual acquaintance and have never even met the child in question. I wouldn;t dream of saying something like that, even to someone I knew very well. Somehow I don't think *Hannah* is the one lacking in social skills!

In which we are not on fire

Do Not Be On Fire!

This is Rule Zero at Hackspace

I can see why they need it; there is a lot of exhuberant passion for making things, investigating things and no doubt testing them to destruction! But you have to love a place that *needs* a rule like this. So much of life takes not setting yourself on fire for granted and I'm sure it's not nearly as much fun!

Today Hannah and I attended a Young Hackspace session organised for the Hackney home ed group on sound. First up was a session on rhythm with Anthony, a music technologist, involving clapping, discussion of what music *is*, natural rhythms of the human body, eg heartbeats, walking etc, and creating our own rhythms with a drum machine dating from 1985, the year in which music became more than a noise in the background for me!

Afterwards Morag and Pippa ran a session on the physics of sound, involving water tanks, speakers, balloons, air cannons, slinkies, corn flour gloop, pieces of metal pipe and a large wooden hammer, most of which was made by members of the community!

Came away buzzing; I love their enthusiasm and geekiness. It was a little like stepping through the tv onto the set of Brainiac..fewer explosions maybe, but at the end we'd had a blast and nobody was on fire!

In which we get started

I suppose I should do an about us post first, but I don;t suppose anyone but people who actually know us are ever going to read this anyhow....unless I use it as evidence of what we are doing on our journey into education outwith the school system, in which case, I'm Sarah, mum to Hannah, aged 5 and a half, for whom the stresses of full-time school were way too much. Maybe some day, but not right now.

I;ve been wanting for some time to write more about Hannah and now seems a good time to do so.

so...................

today, 24th October. a day in which everything we did involved measuring. Hannah needs to drink more water during the day so this morning we made a chart. I showed her how much water is in her average size glass by getting her to pour it into a measuring jug and explained how if one glass contains 5 fl ozs (I know I should probably be doing it in metric but I think better in pints...and I;m not even that old..I did all my school maths in metric!!!) then she needs to drink 4 glasses a day to get to the pint recommended by our lovely GP. then we drew a very straight sided version of this onto paper, and Hannah spent ages practising drawing straight lines with a ruler. I measured it out into four equal sections and drew lines across, writing 1 cup, 2 cups etc. Went to the kitchen to get a drink and when I came back Hannah had drawn the next day's chart, not measured but a pretty accurate approximation of four equal parts ruled off and labelled correctly.

she came up with a fairly complex system of colour and symbol codes for noting what she had drunk to make up the day's quota. I wonder how she plans to colour in the last section today which was completed over some hours partly in milk, partly water, partly squash?

Next up was shopping. I gave her a list (of one item, admittedly, but the point was seeing whether she could work from a written list to get the right stuff). she isn;t too clear about money yet but the shop owners know us and I trust them not to rip her off (hmmm, did she actually give me change though????). Then we made Dino Dung (cookies) from her dinosaur cookbook as presents for her auntie and uncle's birthdays. I need a better scales to do weighing things on...it is very hard to explain to her at the moment that each of the tiny lines = 25g, so I did the measuring in this bit. She did the messy stuff, rubbing in butter, stirring in egg and milk and squishing the dough into copralites!

I had to leave them to the tender mercies of my husband when they were half baked but they turned out nice.

Off tomorrow to Disneyland Paris...in half term...which is galling as I booked before de-registering her. Still, she might even get a chance to practice her French on a real French person. I still remember being amazed that my tentative "bonjour" was understood and responded to. that's pretty much the limit of Hannah's French at the moment...well, bonjour, merci and elephant (with appropriate accents which I can't figure out how to add!). Wonder how much use *that* is going to be???

In which we went to Disneyland

Woh, survived that! Our first holiday as a family unit and after a dodgy start (lost passport, late leaving, engineering on the Tube, general grumpiness all round, not to mention a fit of completely theatrical histrionics when A got on the Eurostar with the tickets and the security bod wouldn't let Hannah and me on...."no need to cry, love, " he said, waving us through in the nick of time. but it worked, I thought, wondering really what lesson my daughter might have learnt from that!!!! I spent a long time when she was a toddler teaching her that crying and stomping got her nowhere!)

anyway, Hannah tried out her French on some real french people...who could have been more appreciative of her efforts and managed without language showing real concern and consideration for a frightened child who had lost her mother.

On the trains to and fro and in the parks she made friends easily and it was lovely to see her social confidence back. So much for school being the place for learning social skills....Hannah seems to have unlearnt most of the lovely social skills she had before she started.

so now we are home and back in the swing of normal life. Of course for children who do go to school it is half term so we took the opportunity to catch up with one of her closest friends from her former class, who has really missed her. I'm really pleased we're keeping in touch, J is a lovely girl and she and Hannah seemed to play very peacefully together.

this morning was supposed to be a La Leche League meeting at which I would have expected H's best friend to be present but no one came. Still, planning the meeting gave H an opportunity to reflect about sharing and be open to letting others play with her toys...was very pleased with where we got to in the end. Back home and Hannah said she wanted to make a Sleeping Beauty puppet and a prince for her little cousin. there's been some tension between them recently and Hannah wanted to make up for being grumpy. So we now have two beautifully crafted characters made from the inner tube of kitchen rolls, dressed in tissue paper, faces cut out of cardboard and coloured, tissue paper hair, tin foil crowns and the prince also has a tinfoil sword and shield, all decorated with glitter and sequins. Bliss to have a whole free afternoon where we have time to do stuff like that.

A whole lotta nothing

S
Well I suppose it looks like nothing. the thing is, it isn;t supposed to look like school, although the people who don;t approve of our decision to home school probably feel better when we do sit down and do something formal, and sometimes we feel in the mood for that, but there's all sorts of leanring experiences open to her now...for instance, one of her latest achievements is to answer the phone very competently and politely...today she was taking messages for me from breastfeeding mums calling for support...and even answered the phone in the shop for me, which involves a very long and complicated business title! Otherwise we've done a bit of maths...A has started introducing the concept of tens and units so she;s been adding bigger numbers together. The three of us played a Tell the Time lottery game. We've done some experiments with magnets...listening to her explain to my mum about polarity was fun! We both have our favourite trick you can do with magnets but am baffled that she wasn;t impressed with the jumping ring magnet! Well I liked it! I don;t remember ever learning that stuff at school....wonder why not??? did we not learn it or have I forgotten? Maybe it was something they covered in physics when I was doing a crossword at the back of the class!

She's learnt to climb a new tree this week. I find myself feeling thrilled with this achievement, not only because I was an inveterate tree climber as a child (there is something so *right* about having a good climbing tree in your life!), but because her report from school at the end of last year mentioned that she was slowly gaining in confidence on the big climbing frame. Just goes to show you can learn more from a tree...and also, since she had some help on her first ascent from George who is nine, that you can learn more when offered the opportunity to mix with children who are older in an environment which encourages them to share skills rather than segrgates them from everyone but their exact peers. Hannah was one of the oldest in her class at school and while many had superior climbing skills, it would be rare to find a 4 or 5 year old who had the social skills or even the spatial awareness to help her out.

But the tree climbing is so good for her...from being a rather sedentary, indoorsy person, she has developed a real love of being outdoors, as long as she can climb. It;s been wonderful for her confidence too. God knows it needed a boost!!

Meanwhile the search for some kind of social activity continues. We see friends fairly often and she has an email penpal, the daughter of a friend, also home educated, for whom she has developed a genuine affection. Hannah is always very excited to get an email from Rosie and her replies are a mixture of her own attempts at typing with phonetic spellings and dictating the rest to me. We can;t seem to find any sort of activity she would like to do. I will organise her going back to horse riding but there seems to be no opportunity to mix with other kids. she;s toyed with going to ballet and will be going back to swimming in the new year...but there doesn;t seem to be anything on offer that really appeals. A friend and I are looking into Woodcraft Folk...apparently there's a waiting list but hope by the time places come up H will be more open to doing something without me. At the moment that seems to be a challenge. One possibility is tennis coaching which would be with three friends.

One thing that has struck me with Hannah and her friendships recently is that she is capable of incredible loyalty. Her friend H is one example...they met at pre-school where Hannah spent all of a term and a half with this girl..the first friend she made by herself without it being the child of a friend of mine...before H went on to another nursery. This was 2.5 years ago and yet Hannah still considers H to be a close friend. On the flip side she also has the tendency to bear grudges. she;s recently announced that she has decided to forgive a certain friend for biting her................in July 2006!!!!!

Just a day

These are the things that are so hard to record and yet I have to keep a log of things we have done. I am keeping anything like workbooks, stories and pictures that can be kept but Hannah seems to prefer writing that has a concerte function rather than imaginative stuff, so she will happily write letters but of course unless we took photocopies of everything (maybe I should???) the point of a letter is to send it. Her Nanny's friend bought her a book this week (The Complete works of Lewis Carroll, which I hope she will enjoy at some point...she's maybe a little young to appreciate the surreality of it..I got my copy as a present when I was 12 and loved the nonsense poetry) and she wrote him a nice thank you letter....hooray, maybe this is the year when she writes all her own thank you letters???

Tomorrow though she is writing a very important letter....to Father Christmas. I know she is expecting a letter back, as she has seen in her book, Dear Father Christmas. A nice creative challenge for me, but am a little intimidated by following Tolkien into this realm. I've never actually read the Father Christmas Letters and was planning to read it to Hannah this year but she is enjoying our bedtime reading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone too much and wants to carry straight on to Chamber of Secrets afterwards and then on through to the end of the series. I wonder how long that is going to take us...

Tomorrow also sees the start of a new Christmas tradition. As Hannah is not allowed chocolate on a daily basis, there is no chocolate advent calendar this year, but we have a gorgeous fabric one and each pocket has a Christmas-related activity in it, hence the writing to Father chirstmas, but others include writing cards, picking recipes and crafts to make, making gifts, going for a walk in the woods to see if we can find stuff to make a wreath or at least a winter display, walking round the neighbourhood looking at lights, decorating the tree, going to see Santa, going to the pantomime.

Other work we have been doing has involved playing games, especially a new one called Ooky Spooky which is a number game that requires counting and addition. We've also introduced the concept of maths as a language that can be read and Hannah has enjoyed writing down and answering sums. I started to do it using flashcards but she has never really taken to flashcards...sensibe child. Pencil and paper was better. How on earth do I record for the benefit of the Education people that we played a game? Mind you, after two terms at school she came home with a scrap book that contained at most ten pages of work and a selection of photos. Most of her time was spent playing, as it should be at 5...and still is. Her play is so wonderfully creative. I love listening to her telling stories with toys, especially when she doesn't know I;m listning. I specially love the way she has taken to blending her imaginative world with her knowledge of the natural world. she has so far created about 4 imaginary species, about whom she knows the most incredible amount of detail, where they live, when they lived in the case of mythosaurs who were post-dinosaur but pre-human, although from the pictures she has drawn they appear almost human and I sense her interest in human evolution at play even though she clearly conceives of them as animals. Others are hinders, which appear to be a kind of grazing herd animal with the appearance of a large cat...very feline ears and spotted like a cheetah, but have four identical babies at a time like an armadillo. I'm not entirely sure what a softer looks like and have forgotten the most recent species...altough there was an aquatic one as well when we were on holiday and spent part of each day in the pool. Her latest project is to create a book about her beasts and she has made a start, drawing very detailed pictures of mythosaurs and hinders (I had imagined the hinders to be more like deer and was surprised by how feline the are).

I suppose my next task must be to get the camera sorted so I can take pics of some of her writing and craft over the next few weeks, before they are all given away or eaten!

Everything Makes Sense

Yesterday Hannah went to a Home Ed chess club with some friends. Her dad taught her to play just before Christmas and she is really enthusiastic. I'm going to have to brush up my own skills because she beats me all the time. They had a half hour lesson first and then played games against each other. There were "children" of all ages, up to late teens, but Hannah was the youngest who sat through the lesson and played games.

Then in the afternoon she and the friends she went with went to visit a relative newcomer to the HE group we normally go to and made friends with her three children.

I wasn't even there, but hearing about it later, both from the other adults and from Hannah made me realise why I am so happy we made the decision to take Hannah out of school and how well she has flourished. Not only is she learning a new skill, but the social opportunties open to her are so much wider than those offered by school. Where in school life could a 6 year old interact as an equal with an 18 yr old as Hannah did with one of her opponents yesterday? Obviously he was a better chess player than she is, but from the reported conversation they had, they were chatting away very comfortably. Of course neither of them has been mostly obliged to socialise only with children of the exact same age for much of their time.

And apparently there was a 17 year old boy there who already has a degree and completely autonomously educated. so Graham Badman can put that on his needles and knit it!

Happiness is a place called Hawkwood

I think this may be my favourite place in the world at the moment. It used to be where our local council grew the plants that made our parks gorgeous when I was young (er..I'm not old...I'm not!), but then they decided plants could more cheaply be bought in from elsewhere and it fell into disrepair. More recently it has been taken over by local organic gardening organisation Organiclea and is being run by some staff and a horde of volunteers. My friend volunteers there regularly and takes both her daughter and mine. I go mostly to the open days but will maybe go more in the summer if I can.

I love it because it everyone is so friendly. I've only been there twice yet on my second visit I was greeted like an old friend by two of the staff. I love that it doesn't matter that I am a complete novice; someone will show me what to do and answer my confused questions about my own planting. I love the skills I never expected to learn. I've helped build the straw bale walls for the classroom and am filled with a deep desire to one day buy some land and build my own straw bale house. If feels wholseome and simple and very sane there. You bring food to share and everyone stops for lunch together, with a huge pot of nettle tea (which I *love*...didn't expect that as I am not an enthusiastic drinker of tea of any kind). People help each other and, even in London, there is space, and greenness and fresh air!

But most of all I love what it offers Hannah. The site is 13 acres, which includes building and glasshouses, grass and vegetable beds, orchards and woodland. She is spending these glorious spring days sometimes helping with the work of growing, but mostly she and her best friend just wander, free and uninhibited the way we were as children. Since I read Last Child in the Woods I have been yearning to find ways to give her what we took for granted as children, freedom to wander in forests and parks, to climb and explore, to learn about nature from being in it, to get wet and muddy and away from the grown ups! And here she can have that. She and her best friend build dens in the woods and invite the grown ups to visit them. Plans are afoot for the building of a semi-permanent tipi. She loves it here and her eyes lit up this morning when I told her we're going there tomorrow.

Plans and counter-plans

Plans and counter-plans

by smunkybee @ 2010-09-06 – 02:09:41

Am I lesson planning here? I think I may be. We’ve decided to give a more structured approach a go for a while. The children (my daughter and her friend who spends 2 days a week with us) seem to like it and were involved in drawing up the timetable. This is abundantly obvious from the fact that it includes things like "“bounce on trampoline” and “watch tv”. It does also include things like science, maths, history and geography. The inclusion of geography was great. L, Hannah’s friend, asked to include it, watch me writing it down on the list and paused for a moment before adding “actually, what is geography???”

Having the timetable seems to focus the girls and they appear very motivated by looking at it on the wall and knowing what comes next (who knew that would happen…I’ve never been convinced by the advocates of routines for babies who said “babies need to know what comes next!” My daughter never needed to know what came next; she just needed to know I was near!)

Sometimes we even stick to it. But the great beauty of our timetable as opposed to a school one is that a teacher has no freedom to look at the weather forecast and decide that maths and geography can both be covered by a trip to the beach. We looked at maps to work out the nearest beach, calculated distances and time required, discovered the different types of beach offered by moving short distances along the same stretch of coast…job done. And digging and bodyboarding pretty much covers PE!

And although we have this outline of areas to cover and as now, I come up with ideas I think will be fun and enjoyable, I’m completely happy to facilitate what they want to do. If they get engrossed in a project, they won’t have to stop because it’s “time” to do something else now. Hannah has asked if we can go to the forest tomorrow so we will, abandoning history and art for tree climbing and pond dipping.

But at the moment I am planning something to do with maps for tomorrow for geography, investigations with Hannah’s new microscope for science or maybe we’ll ditch the plan in favour of making jam!

Blogging

Following the example of some of my lovely friends on FB, I'm going to try to blog every day.

Today started way too early, having to take DH to work for 7am. Fortuntately, Hannah is not here because she, my little limpet girl, is enjoying a sleepover at her friend's house, some 20 miles away and as part of a group of nine girls of whom she only knew the birthday girl and her sister. Last seen making shrinkies and chatting away as though she'd known them all for years.

I ended up having to take the dog with me to drop A off because she's heard me come downstairs and couldn;t work out why she was still in her crate, but that was a good move because we came home via the woods and it was beautiful out there, bright and sunny, crisp and slightly misty. So peaceful and quiet, apart from a few other dog walkers and a lot of birds.

Now I'm trying to summon the energy to clean out some guinea pigs and then will reward myself with a bacon sandwich at the cafe.

It's a horribly to and fro sort of day today though. I have to pick Hannah up before 12, visit my aunt, walk the dog again, either pick Afzaul up from work and take him to his mum's or take Hannah to his mum's and meet him there, then pick up my mum and take her to bingo.

I apologise for the boring nature of this post...I just wanted to get into the habit!

Why do people worry so much...

....about home educated children being isolated and not seen by anyone outside their family. Chance would be a fine bloody thing. Yet another day when we barely stopped to let our bottoms touch a seat.

First up, need to report than despite an almost total lack of sleep, Hannah had a fantastic time at her sleepover and seems to have grown even more attached to her friend. I am pretty proud of how well she mixed with children who all knew each other while she knew no-one but her friend and her friend's sister. Not only that, but she says she was really cold all night. I asked why she didn;t wear her thick fleecy dressing gown. She had lent it to another girl who had thin cotton pjs on, while Hannah's were fleece. She is sometimes surprisingly generous. And it is particularly satisifying to see it in this situation because her friend's mum has been fairly vocal in her views that only children are difficult and don;t know how to share. Some of them do, see!

So an early night was called for last night and she was up earlier than usual this morning, just in time to come shopping with me. I'm sure it annoyed a lot of people waiting behind us that she scanned our shopping on the self-checkout while I bagged them. Yes, she was slower than I would have been, but I believe in letting her help. Home and then she did some games on the Times Spelling Bee and Science Monster websites while I unpacked the shopping.

I decided that as we had a lot of errands to run, it wasn't worth starting anything major so Hannah and her friend L just listened to music and checked their animals on a safari park game they both play until it was time to go out for lunch. I had a small windfall yesterday so treated everyone to lunch at our favourite cafe (and myself to a break from making 4 different lunches!). The girls now sit at a different table, place their own orders and pay for their meal themselves (with my money obviously LOL) so felt a bit as though DH and I were on a date! Immediately after lunch we had to go to drop off the deposit fee for a safety awareness course she is booked on, home via the library to change our books, then after a brief break, off to drama school.

From there, L's mum dropped her at my mum's where she is sleeping tonight because I have been out at An Audience with Jean M Auel, one of my favourite authors. In person, she was lovely. All her books have been massive bestsellers and yet, 30-odd years after the first came out she seemed genuinely delighted to see such a good crowd there. I liked the way she spoke with more enthusiasm about her children, frequently and with such obvious love, than about her books or fictional babies. When I went to get her autograph I told her I had been reading her books since I was about 14 and I can;t kid myself it isn;t obvious that's a long time and she grasped my hand and shook it with a real warmth. I came away buzzing! Not only do I love her books, I really like *her*

Bowling and Friendships

Yesterday we went ten pin bowling with the Hackney home ed group. We haven't been going all that long and it seems that most of the children are either much older or much younger so, without her best friend who no longer goes, Hannah is finding it a little difficult to find her feet there. I thought an activity I know she enjoys would be a good way to break some ice. She still needed a little help though, to make the first approach to a little girl who looked to be similar in age. It reminded me of when she was at school and had had the confidence to bounce up to new people and ask to play knocked out of her.

I don't remember ever being taught these skills myself but I do remember having them...maybe back in the days when children just played out we were more used to encountering strange children and making our own introductions? I have always tried to give Hannah suggestions for how to do this from when she was tiny, eg "hello, my name's Hannah, what's your name?" and so often this is all that is required. She can talk enough for twenty, but asks questions to involve other people so once contact is made, I have never been too worried on that score. However, I am beginning to wonder whether there isn't something in the age issue here. She is almost 8 and although she is friendly with most people and does a good line in polite small talk with people she does not really connect with, it is becoming noticable that she is moving into a stage where proximity is not enough to form a friendship. She has a rather temptestuous friendship with her best friend L and they squabble like siblings, sometimes with real power struggles going on, but they really *talk* to each other. Although they also dress up and chase each other shrieking like banshees and play on the DS together and make believe...they have the kind of conversation that you might expect of much older children or even adults, about how they feel about life, the universe and everything. There is also her growing attachment to her friend A where they have many common interests and a very mutual affection for each other.

So I wonder whether her social struggle at the Hackney group is just that, as yet, she hasn't found anyone she can connect with on that level. Not sure though how much it matters though as long as she is enjoying the activities and can chat to anyone and everyone.

Homeschool Swapping Adventures

I actually don't know when Hannah has been so excited about a project as she is about our various swapping projects.

HSA is a Facebook group. The other members seem to be mainly in the US, but there are a good few in the UK and one who sometimes lives in Bulgaria. The swaps give us the opportunity to learn about how other families live in different parts of a country or of the world. First up is the Flat Traveller project. We are swapping with a family in Iowa and our traveller, a dalmatian (of course..Hannah chose it!) is ready to go with his passport which will go with him on each adventure to collect stickers or stamps and a journal for this specific journey. The journal contains questions about his host family and their daily life, their town and so on and spaces for them to fill in anything they want as he goes out and about with them

In return, we will host a traveller from them. It;s really exciting planning what to do with our "guest". Fortunately she or he's picked a good month to come. We have visits planned to 2 museums and a university department of Physics and Astronomy, 2 science fairs to attend and a whole host of family birthdays and their attendant social occasions. If it arrives before next Saturday it can even watch Hannah dancing in a St Patrick's Day celebration as well as all the usual activities and classes she does.

She has been hugely enthusiastic about making the traveller and all his paperwork and also about learning the geography involved. We have printed out a map of the US (can add a world one if we get swaps with families from outside the US) and the plan is to colour each state our traveller visits. Brilliant way to learn some geography as well as make new friends.

The other swap is a Box Swap, where we prepare a shoe box of information about the place we live (God I am so glad to live in London...there's just such a lot to say about it!!) and this month we are swapping with a family in Pennsylvania. We started to look a bit at our states for this month (well, to be honest..I read what Stephen Fry did on his trip around America) and Hannah was very impressed with Pennsylvania's role in the birth of the USA so we look forward to learning a lot more.
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Finally, there's the birthday card swap, where anyone signed up sends a home made card to every child whose birthday falls that month. Hannah's is next month. I haven;t told her about the card bit yet (which probably means that for March I'll have to make the cards myself) but can;t wait to see her face when she gets loads of cards in the post!

You can read about our Flat Traveller adventures here

Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Friday...hmm, the habit slipped a little there! Started with Mad Science where they were testing acids and bases with litmus paper, something we have done several times before and somehow, although she loves science, it never seems to stick in her brain. Maybe this time! Also used the reaction between bicarb and vinegar to blow up a balloon. That was fun!

Afterwards I dropped Hannah at Hawkwood and left her there for the afternoon. She complained about having to go there, saying there is nothing to do (precisely why I like it...there is so much space for them to do "nothing" in), so I sent her with a book, sketchpad and pens. Of course as we get into a more active growing part of the year, there will be more she can do in terms of actual work, which she did in the end. She and L got so enthusiastic about harvesting salad that they ended up with 6 extra bags and got to bring some home...yummy!

On Saturday some friends came to lunch. Hannah and M were really good friends in toddlerhood and until they were about 4.5/5ish but a combination of work and life circumstances meant we haven't seen much of them for a couple of years. It has been lovely to spend so much more time with them lately (M's mum is a good friend of mine too). We also walked a lot, well I did. An hour out with the dog in the morning and again in the late afternooon.

Today I really thought about how much having the dog has disrupted the rhythm of our home ed life and tried to help Hannah back into the habit of working. when we first got her, I knew Hannah would be so excited it would be futile to try to do too much in the way of sitting at a table with workbooks and after all, she wants to be a vet; learning to care for the dog is important too. And it was almost Christmas so there were cards and presents to make, special food to make, cake to make and ice and before we knew it It was January and we had got completely away from the time table we had worked from so well and the pattern of our week had changed with L only coming on Mondays and us going to the Hackney home ed group on Tuesdays. I do like the group but I am not planning on going every week simply because, despite popular beief, we are so rarely at home and I think she does need more time to work on her projects. We haven't looked at her new chemistry sets yet, nor the electronics kit more than once. She hasdn;t touched her recorder for months and the French ahs rather gone by the wayside. So at least some Tuesdays will just have to be for staying home and cracking on with that sort of thing.

Today turned out to be a good day for getting on. We did go out..for my sister in law's birthday, but only quite late so we had several hours free for working. I think it had been so long since we did any maths that Hannah had forgotten she likes it. But she did some good work today in a couple of different books, then made a card for her Auntie and we baked cookies.

International Women's Day/Pancake Day

Today has been an excellent day!!

Not the earliest of starts but very productive nonetheless. It was one of those rare days when it was just Hannah and me I(and the puppy and the eleven guinea pigs!) at home. I like those; we don't have many due to my husband's shift work and looking after L and all the activities H does and visits to places of interest.

This morning, after I'd done some housework type stuff and of course after we'd had pancakes for breakfast, we settled down to some work. Hannah started working her way through the next section of her favourite maths workbook while I made her some spelling cards. She hasn;t bothered too much about spelling until she got into playing on the Times Spelling Bee website recently. She does get disappointed if she scores badly, but we have noticed the same words do tend to repeat so she is writing them down in her "Writing" book, then I am making her flashcards so she can learn them.

I try not to, but I do feel under pressure about her progress. My poor husband is constantly getting grief from his family and it doesn't help when Hannah looks illiterate compared to her cousins who are younger. It may just be that writing is their thing...or maybe it's because all the other kids have been subject to the repetitive drilling of Kumon....which is so not mine or Hannah's style, but she seems ready to take the spelling thing on now and that will do as a trae off between her autonomy and the needs her father and I have to make sticking our necks out for this just a little easier.

Hannah has a bit of a fascination with very big numbers so we looked up a googolplex to look at the number of zeros involved and discovered that it is the second largest named number, so of course it made sense to look up what the largest was (a googolplexian) and the zeros made our eyes go funny!

After that, we wanted to grow crystals so we went to the chemist in search of powdered alum. They didnt have any so we were going to do something else instead, but found a crystal kit she got for her birthday last year and set that up in bowls of vinegar instead. A break for lunch and a mooch in the garden in the gorgeous sunshine, then as it was International Women's Day we did some research for our Edwardian project about the suffragettes. We read some info online, listened to a recording of a speech by Christabel Pankhurst in 1908 (our year of choice for our project) and looked at some images of women marching, then Hannah drew a picture of a woman in suffragette colours waving a banner that read "Women shood be allowed to vote!"

We watched about half of Wonders of the Universe (I do like Brian Cox...) before the cookies were finally cooked (did I mention the cookies before..made a batch of dough on Sunday but they spread so much and take so much longer to cook than the recipe suggests that I ended up having to cook them on three separate days!) then headed off to Connaught Water to walk the dog. It was a beautiful evening for it and we met a very nice family of mum, grandma, boy about Hannah's age with whom she struck up an instant rapport and a puppy of about Bella's age so dog also had a good play. It is so cute watching her play with orher pups!!!

Finally swimming and then home.

Hannah's Party

Hannah's Party


We only did one year where Hannah was at school and we had a big invite the whole class plus all the outside friends as well party. Since then, I keep thinking it will get easier and it really doesn't. When she turned 6, she was no longer at school and I had this idea that we would take a couple of friends to see a film and get some food. I looked but couldn't see any appropriate films coming out at the time (which was odd as her birthday is generally in or nearly in the Easter holidays). So a change of plan and we booked a party at the stables where she rides. We invited 7 children, but only 2 of them could come in the end and they were her cousins! Her best friend was going to be on holiday so she and her mum took Hannah on a special birthday trip (celebration one), we had one meal out with her auntie who happened to be in London on her way back to Edinburgh on the day before her birthday (celebration two), the usual meal out with family (celebration three), took two friends who were unable to come to the riding party to the cinema....err, wasn;t that where we started?? (celebration four), the actual riding party (celebration five) and a My Little Pony tea party for her friends who were under 5 and therefore not old enough to attend the riding party (celebration six). Hannah, being good with numbers (sometimes...more of this anon!), noticed that she was six and had had six celebrations. Did this mean she could have seven when she was seven and eight when she was eight. Only if I can have 39 for my birthday, I told her and we heard no more about that idea!

It *was* more straightforward when she turned 7. Meal out as per usual with family and we stopped trying to make it "easier" and booked a venue for a big party to which she could invite everyone.

Then for her eighth birthday, which is soon, we started off with a plan to have a 10 pin bowling party and invite 11 children, plus her. This ought to be easier than it has in fact proved. She's a home educated only child...she isn't supposed to have any friends!!! So far this list of 11 children has 21 names on it!!! Fortunately for her, I had a small windfall last week and decided to spend some of it on her party so I can afford the extra children...it;s just the logistics of it. Maybe they won't all come. what worries me is that they won;t *say* they are coming and then turn up! am going to have to be very strict about chasing replies. Except that the people who will reply are the people I have contact with on a regular basis anyway and the ones who probably won't are the ones I don;t know and never see!

Next year I want to do the Natural History Sleepover and she will be *VERY* strictly limited to 4 friends. Really, I mean that!

Fruitful Friday

Fruitful Friday


Well I hope so. Yet another of those days that gives the lie to the term "home" education. Hannah was out the door within ten minutes of getting up this morning, on her way to her friend L's house so that L's mum can take them to a workshop called "My Universe" at UCL. It looks fascinating; it is hosted by the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy and there are sections on the Solar System, Cosmology, Rainbows, using telescopes, Playing God and something else. They have sent 8 worksheets that are not so difficult that I think H will switch off, but challeneging enough to keep them engaged. Hope she comes home with a fired up passion so I can indulge in lots more watching Brian Cox and call it work!

Meanwhile I have caughht up on some phone calls. walked the dog for an hour, bathed her when we got home as she'd been in the lake and was filthy, made scones and cleaned up the kitchen. Just the guinea pigs to feed now then I can get changed and go to work for some peace! the last few days have been manic and it isn;t going to ease up much for the foreseeable future.

Wednesday I took Hannah to drama in Harlow, then left her there to spend the day with A, which meant driving home and giving other friends a lift home, going to work, going back home to collect the dog who had been alone for as long as I like to leave her, driving back to Harlow to get Hannah, then immediately to her Irish Dancing lesson, where I dropped her and took the dog for a walk for most of the hour H is dancing. From there we had to go home to deposit the dog, then via Sainsbury's to buy cards and presents for my niece due to poor planning, before arriving very late at my brother-in-law's house for Zara's celebrations. We got to bed about 11pm!

thursday was less manic as it *only* involved horse riding lesson for Hannah during which I walked the dog on the bridle paths, taking the dog home, dropping Hannah with her grandmother for the afternoon, going to work, collecting the dog, picking Hannah up again, walking dog, taking dog home, collecting my mum and going out for dinner. I have in fact not cooked a meal at home since Sunday lunch and we have eaten somewhere other than at home every day this week!

I am planning to pick Hannah up today about 4.30 (after visiting my aunt..in case today was beginnign to look too straight foward) so we can go to H and M's house for dinner. I invited myself which is very cheeky of me, but they are Jewish and celebrate Shabbat and I thought it would be interesting to learn about it as well as have fun and nice food with our friends.

A Funeral, A Fair, Family and a Feis

The day did not start well with Hannah having to be told about the death of her oldest guinea pig. We bought Molpy (and his brother who died nearly 2 years ago) for her third birthday so she doesn't really remember not having them. We only had the two of them for almost 2 years so we handled them a lot more and our relationship with them was much closer than it has been with our subsequent piggies. Molpy had the most personality of any of them; he and Tolly were the most chatty, not just when they heard the fridge open, but often appeared to be having conversations with each other...especially if they had been out with us for a cuddle. We imagined them discussing their adventures out of the cage when they got back "I had a lovely cuddle with Hannah," "I sat on Sarah's shoulder!" (this would have been Tolly sitting on shoulders; Molpy sat still and purred, Tolly liked exploring!) After some crying and some cuddling, both with me and with poor little Molpy's body, A buried him in the garden. We didn't actually have a proper "funeral". We did when Tolly died, but frankly, I was in too much of a rush to let myself dwell on the real sadness I feel about Molpy. The next stage in yet another frenetically busy day was beckoning!

And the next bit was the Big Bang Science Fair at ExCeL. We had booked in for the 12.30 showing of Brainiac Live and arrived at 11.30 to find the queue for the auditorium already forming. A bit of a dilemma because the website had warned that you needed to queue early as places were not guaranteed, but I really didn't want to make Hannah stand in a queue for an hour, so we went into one of the exhibition rooms and just as I was thinking that it was quite likely we would meet someone we knew, Hannah spotted Isaac and Saska from the Hackney home ed group. They were busy building a tall structure from straws and invited Hannah to stay and help them while I queued up for the show and then they brought H to me in the queue about 10 mins before it opened. She still moaned about having to queue! Brainiac was excellent...lots of explosions! We had lunch, bumped into a few more people I knew from the school, and spent the rest of the afternoon in the Family Science bit making various things like a balancing clown, a balloon buggy and other simple toys to explore the scientific principles involved!

After the Fair closed we did a bit of shopping (no idea where this girl gets her sense of style from, she puts some apparently random clothes together and looks amazing and individual!) then went to Nandos for Afzaul's mum's birthday meal. Ate chicken, talked to relatives. Found something on the menu that Hannah actually liked eating, ratatouille and grilled halloumi! Her six year old cousin asked what she was eating, Hannah explained it was ratatouille and Zara replied,"Don;t be silly, Ratatouille is a film!"

And finally it was off to St Pat's where some of the children from Hannah's dancing class were performing as part of the St Patrick's day party. I don't know what it is about watching Irish dancing, but it makes me feel very weepy. Maybe it's because my beloved grandmother always wanted me to learn and I didn't and I think how happy she would be to see her great-granddaughter doing it. Or maybe it's because my mum wanted to be a dance teacher when she was young and had her dreams destroyed by an accident that left her with a fused left hip and one leg shorter than the other. Maybe there's a hereditary nostalgia that floats around in the DNA of part-Irish people brought up in other countries and cultures and turns them into weeping saps at the first sound of the old diddly-diddly! Whatever it was, it wasn't just the sight of my gorgeous girl in her new dancing dress looking lovely, although she did because I had tears in my eyes no matter who was dancing. Silly old fool!

I did have one of those moments though where the love I feel for her rises up and seems too much for my heart to contain it. I was sitting in the audience and through the open door to the stage I could see her chatting away to the much older girls with her. None of her own class were there and she was really not confident about dancing with the older girls...but she did it anyway, mostly forgetting the steps, but because everyone thought she was much younger than she is, they just said "ahhhhh!" I thought how blessed I am to have her, prickly, feisty, beautiful, generous, pinionated, stubborn, intelligent, quirky individual that she is. My niece and nephews seem to "achieve" lots which Hannah doesn't; she is often not very good at the things she does, but she is such an amazing person and being with her is (mostly...I do still have days I want to lock myself away and tell her to stop being so SEVEN!) such a great pleasure!