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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!!!!!
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