A LIFE WORTH LIVING....: New years Day , Busy Busy Busy.

Tuesday, 1 January 2008

New years Day , Busy Busy Busy.

After a very late night I woke at 9.00 and couldn't get back to sleep with Emily and Alan snoring on either side of me!!! I got up and had a cup of tea whilst I read through some blogs and websites.
It was very peaceful and a great start to the new year.I got a few calls from Family and caught up with what they had been up to and around 10.45 decided to take a cup of tea up to Milly and Al as I was sure the calls must have woke them and they would be reading but they were still fast asleep. Eventually at 11.15 Emily came down and after discussing options for the day decided to have a day at home and after breakfast we all set about putting together the gingerbread house Emily had been given as a gift and we had great fun.

Milly had been going through her chemistry set and decided the goggles would be good to use so her and Dad would be safe in the kitchen...

I am modelling my gorgeous flowery apron I received from Emily

After testing the sweets out and a joint tidy up of the snowstorm that had hit the kitchen we decided to do some experiments. Milly had been desperate to get into the set but today was the first day we had the time to do it.
Her best friend had also got one and as she had a book to record her experiments in Milly set about making herself one and as we did the experiments on solutions she recorded the info in her own inimitable way asking for help spelling as needed. I did make the mistake at one point of suggesting we record certain information but pulled back just in time before the moment was lost and she took offence at my interruptions( she knew exactly what she wanted the book to look like and did not need my input!! old habits die hard..)

Are you sure that salt has dissolved Mum? Compulsory goggle wearing to deal with dangerous chemicals, rubber gloves were on hand should we need them.

Oil water and syrup with some food colouring added shake and observe!!
I love how focused children can be on a simple experiment when it involves test tubes and spatulas etc.It adds a whole new dimension to the kitchen science we have done in the past.

Alongside the cooking and science today we finished off a project started yesterday. Emily and I had a great game with Dr Who figures but wanted Rose as her set has Martha so we set about making one from Paper covered in tissue and glue then coloured tissue for her jeans and top,Emily had to do lots of Internet searching to get just the right picture of rose in the outfit Emily wanted her to be in.Here is the product just waiting for hair and features. I am sure she will enjoy going on many a journey with the Dr.....

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This is me.....

There comes a time when you have to stand up and shout: This is me damn it! I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel, love the way I love! I am a whole complex package. Take me... or leave me. Accept me - or walk away! Do not try to make me feel like less of a person, just because I don't fit your idea of who I should be and don't try to change me to fit your mold. If I need to change, I alone will make that decision.When you are strong enough to love yourself 100%, good and bad - you will be amazed at the opportunities that life presents you.” Stacey Charter.

Why we Home educate

( Slightly edited from a blog post I did when we started out) In the end the actual decision to take Emily out only took a matter of days but before that it had been around a year and a half of talking about ti and reading books, Free range education by Terri Dowty, Educating your child at home by Jane Lowe and Alan Thomas were two that had a real impact for different reasons. Free range education has lots of examples of real life home educators and I think I can say that it was this one that convinced me the most that we could do it. We are two very average people ,neither of us left school with many qualifications, we went on to do quite well in our chosen professions and had no need to think about the education system at all until Emily came along.

I knew about home education and when Emily was born considered it as an optionbut always felt my lack of education would be a problem and that I wouldn't be capable of providing her with what she would need.Looking back with hindsight it is easy to see how wrong I was!!

School never really suited Emily......After the nursery year at a very highly rated, high achieving school we knew that particular School wasn't for us and took her out. We enrolled her in a lovely village school with only 70 children in the whole school .The ethos of the school was totally different, the children didn't wear uniforms and there was much more emphasis on the children being individuals.The head was a sensitive and principled man who wanted the best for the children. We thought we had struck gold.Over the reception and year 1 Emily gained confidence and really started to bloom. It was at this time she was diagnosed with dyspraxia( we had had to go down the diagnosis route as our observations of Emily's difficulties were not enough to enable the teachers to tailor things so she was helped and given less work in class) but she managed quite well in the more relaxed play orientated early years.Year 2 with more emphasis on academic activities got progressively harder for her. She is very sensitive and it wasn't just the academic side it was the embarassment of having to put her hand up for the toilet,seeing others being told off and worrying in case she did something wrong and got the same treatment, panicking because she couldn't do the work and the teacher never had time to sit with her (alot of this did not come out until she had left school) her behaviour at home became worse and worse she was so angry and obviously stressed . At this time we began to seriously consider taking her out but held back because of my lack of confidence in my ability to provide her with an adequate education ,my health being so poor was also a major stumbling block.

Then in year three it became blatantly obvious that something needed to change .She was struggling on all levels and we couldn't allow the school system to damage our daughter anymore.She became ill with a bug that was doing the rounds and she was off for two weeks , during that time I had a conversation with a friend who home educates her two children and I was so upset I couldn't make a decision and she said just go with whats in your heart and that really helped me to shift my thinking and stop worrying about what I couldn't give her and focus on what I could give her.

We never sent her back.I still get emotional when I think of that time , the look on Emily's face when we told her she would never have to go back to school was priceless,the immense sense of relief that we were off the treadmill of school life and the excitement of the time ahead and to be honest the fear of the unknown......

So here we are four years on and a lot of reading and researching later I feel comfortable with what we are doing . The changes that have happened so far have been helped along the way by the many wonderful blogs out there.They are so varied and there are so many different approaches , I have found ones that I can identify with and have read a lot of archive material that has been written in each and found answers to so many of the questions I have had that they have helped me to sort out what will work best for us .As much as I wish we had done this earlier and saved Emily from the distress that she went through I do believe things happen for a reason and that the time was right for us to take her out and that looking on the bright side one of the benefits is that at least she has had a taste of school and now we all know without a doubt that it is not for us !!!!

It is very liberating to be making decisions based on what works best for us as a family and not what society expects.

Let your child be a child.

No child was ever spoiled by too much love.

Be authentic with your child.

Listen openly to your child’s needs.

Believe in your child’s good intentions.

Find the humour.

Look past the behaviour… what is your child feeling?

Have fun with your child today!

“There is no reason why we cannot say ‘No’ to children in just as kind a way as we say ‘Yes’.” - John Holt

“Play is really the work of childhood.” - Fred Rogers

“The best way to make children good is to make them happy.” - Oscar Wilde

Children thrive in a peaceful and loving environment.

A child needs love most when things go wrong.

Children reflect the treatment they receive.

A few qoutes I like....

Life shouldn't be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in, broadside, thouroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly shouting, 'WOW'.... Beth Moore

The perpetual testing of public school children is like a gardener constantly pulling his plants up by the roots to see if they are growing....(unknown)

Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instuction...Helen Kellers teacher

I hear and I forget I see and I remember I do and I understand...Confusious