New additions to the family

Today started out like any other normal home ed day. The kids were doing maths and I was printing some stuff out in the kitchen. I could here noises coming from the incubator so asked L to check and inside 3 of the dragons had hatched!

L bought me one of our adult dragons for my birthday in January, we only had her 3 days when she first laid eggs, these are those babies. There are 4 more poking their heads out of their eggs so they should be born within the next 24 hours. Then there are 28 more eggs that she laid with a month between clutches that will hatch anytime between now and may.

We weren't expecting these babies untill next week or later as they are only 66 days and we have been told the average is 70 days minimum. The rest of the afternoon was spent madly dashing round trying to prepare the vivarium.

We have had a busy week this week.
On Wednesday I set the kids the task of doing the weekly shopping, they all sat together, planned the meals they would like to eat and wrote a shopping list based on these meals and adding in lunches, snacks and breakfasts. We printed out 4 copies of the list so that they had one each and set off shopping. J and A did really well with the task from start to finish but T got bored half way through and M struggled to follow the list.

Thursday we sat and watched a few documentaries about planet Earth. So far we have covered deserts and oceans.

Friday we met up with a few home ed friends at a country park. The kids enjoyed 3 hours of running, exploring, climbing, den building and just general play. M even decided that wading with the ducks would be a very fun idea and came home very wet.
In the evening we went to my mums birthday party where the kids stuffed themselves with yummy home made food.

Yesterday we had my niece and nephew to stay and a friends child visited. They all had lots of fun on the trampoline. In the afternoon I took A and my niece on a girly shopping trip, it's amazing how strong an opinion on clothes a 7 and 10 year old can have. They both made me chuckle a few times.

Today it's my niece and nephews christening so I must go and get ready, the kids can't wait for the afternoon tea and bouncy castle afterwards. I just hope the weather stays nice for them.

Catch up

We had a lovely relaxing weekend, just chilled out, didn't even get dressed, watched films and read together.

Yesterday we started reading the Murderous Maths - Codes, how to make and break them, that we borrowed from the library. The kids really seemed to enjoy the first few chapters about spy's and hackers and were soon off writing their own codes and passing messages round to be deciphered.
It may have looked like fun was taking place in here but it was really lots of learning ;-)

This afternoon we went swimming and spent an hour and a half in the pool. The best thing was as it was school hours we had the whole bottom half of the pool to ourselves. A is doing really well and I don't think it will be long before she is swimming widths. J needs a huge confidence boost as he can swim, he just won't. T and M are getting more confidence every time we go, they will both paddle and kick if you balance them now, where as before they wouldn't do anything but stand and play.

Tomorrow looks like it will be fun. I have set the kids the task of deciding what we should eat and creating a weeks shopping list. We will then take them shopping and let them do it. Here's hoping it works and I'm not eating junk food for the next week.

Eugh!

I am feeling rather ill today. J and T aren't too bright either (stupid colds!). We were supposed to be going swimming today but that has been put on hold till next week now.

We took it a little easy and had a crafty type of day. In the morning the kids created their own comic strip, we have stories about Faries, Cars who can talk, Pets and people driving cars.

This afternoon we made fimo pencil toppers and had a play with some of the printable paper crafts I had hoarded. I now have on display some lovely models of cars and dolls.
M has gone shopping with his dad, I think he needed to get out of the house as he isn't poorly and needs to get rid of some energy.

So even though we are feeling rather rough in this house we have had a fairly productive day.

What we have done today

J - Maths - Writing cheques and snap charts
     English - Fluency and variety when writing
     Reading - Snake head by Anthony Horrowitz.

A - Maths - Multiply and divide decimals by 10
      English - Spelling tips and homophones
      Reading - Narnia series by CS Lewis

T - Maths - Odd and even numbers
      English - Common letter patterns and homophones
      Reading - Yummy yuk by Heather Maisner

M - Maths - Giving change (money)
       English - Tracing letters
       Reading - Kipper, Biff and Chip books

Questions

As people are starting to ask the usual home ed questions I thought I would pre empt them and write the answers here.

I assumed the first questions people would ask were "Is it legal?" (yes) and "do you have to be a teacher?" (no). Surprisingly they weren't, but just in case, In England and Wales the education of the child is the responsibility of the parent. This education can be from a school or "otherwise". Check out the Education Act 1996 for further information.

The first question that I am always asked is "how will they socialise?" "won't they be isolated?". I don't intend to keep my children locked in a cupboard under the stairs or chained to a desk. We will take them out in the real world, they will socialise with shopkeepers, people in our community and people in the street. I already take T to home ed groups so the others can just come along with us. We will visit museums, Art gallery's, parks and library's. My children will get outside and meet people, don't you worry.

Another bug bear of mine is when people ask me if I am mad and how will I cope spending all of my time with my children. I like spending time with my children, I enjoy watching them learn and play and grow.
There will be times that I am not with my children, like when they are in bed or visiting family. They are quite happy to take themselves off and play together without my input for an hour or two.

I have also been asked how I will make sure my children can cope in the real world. I have read another blog where the writer has answered this question more eloquently than I ever could. http://freedomineducationunderthreat.blogspot.com/2009/09/but-they-need-to-learn-how-to-cope-in.html

The final questions are "Do you have to teach the National Curriculum?", "What about taking exams?" and "How will they get a job?". You don't have to teach the national curriculum but I will take at look at it now and again for ideas. As far as exams and jobs are concerned I am not going to worry just yet. J may be 12 but there are still a few years until we have to think about it.

I will try and come back tomorrow to talk about our educational philosophy.

Bye for now.

Hello and Welcome

I am a mother of 4 children aged 12, 10, 8 and 5. As of today I home educate them all.
I have been home educating my 8 year old for 5 months and have really enjoyed it. I had got to the stage that I hated sending the other 3 off to school in the morning and really wanted to keep them home too, it is better to have them home full time than to have tired, miserable children back at the end of a school day. After much soul searching, research and discussions with my husband the De reg letters were sent in today.

I am now waiting for the extended families reaction, I don't expect it to be positive. I wish I had the courage to say "this is what I have decided. I don't want your opinion and I am not asking your permission but it would be nice to have your support". Ah well, until I get to that stage I will have to just ignore.

Wish me luck.