Is home education a good thing?

For us, our children, yes it is. 

To some, it might seem that we spend a lot of time in the woods, or at the beach. Yes we do, but really what better way to learn about Eco systems, wildlife, the environment, photosynthesis, coastal defences, habitats, sealife. And that just names a few things that we learn when we go to these places.

Often our home ed trips are often trips that school children would go on. But because I'm taking my own children we can discuss things learn about things and my boys have questions answered. If I don't know the answer we ask the leader running the session and thus, allowing my child to know it's ok to ask questions, to not know everything, to find out, to share information. Currently we are interested in bird watching. We went to a car boot, bought a bird watching book and now we can identify the birds that fly into our garden. We can discuss migration, flight paths, life cycles, habitats, nocturnal birds. All things that T may or may not learn at school. But. He is learning, through discussion, exeperience and living socially in our environment. 

Life is a beach.

Home education isn't always about school at home. I mean take looking at the nitrogen cycle in a book... Wouldn't it be better to go look at some plants, find animal tracks and spot poo! For a five year old boy it certainly would... I mean find me a boy who isn't totally obsessed by poo.

We've recently been on an orienteering trip, we saw deer tracks, baby ducks, pond skaters, as well as learning about map reading, navigating, and making maps. We also did a bit of a simplified geocache activity and it was amazing fun and the children enjoyed it to :) 

And that for me is what our home education journey is all about, the thirst and passion to learn. The world is our classroom. Where people we meet have interesting knowledge to share. It is an adventure. And a really fun one at that!

Home education surprises.

I don't know how it happens, but everytime it does it actually truely amazes me. 

The way children learn like little sponges, in formation goes in, sinks in real deep, and then POP! Out of their mouth comes something truely fantastic. Like at the beach trip we went to recently, the lady running the session asked the children what they thought the might find on the beach, fish, stones, shells, debris, crabs. 

And then pop! T hears crabs and starts telling everyone about hermit crabs, at the age of almost five. While I'm stood there wracking my brains thinking when did we learn about those?! He taught me something that day!

Today was a pretty uneventful day, I needed to catch up on laundry, and yet, it had snippets of education through really fun things.

 Lesson 1: I set T a challenge to build me a tower of bricks that made a red blue red blue pattern. Sequencing, boom. POP! Let's count them! Maths boom.

Lesson 2: T was getting dressed and suggested that we play a game of camouflage. POP! I didn't even know he knew what camouflage was?! He picked out a tshirt and we had to find things around the house the same colour to make it camouflage before he put it on. Ok sounds fun. :) it was. We learnt about shades of colour. Matching. Boom.

Lesson 3: Writing practice, while I was on the phone in a strange chalk board book, T wrote some words. Doesn't sound like much but he did all by himself, no prompting, no practise, no copying, just POP! Straight out his head. (We haven't pushed reading and writing because we want him to find a love of it and forcing him to read or write with no purpose isn't anyone's idea of fun, yet he can actually read a fair few words and is beggining to have lovely handwriting) 

Lesson 4: Road safety, we walked to the shop, but T wanted to take his scooter, we live in the sticks where for half of the walk to the shop there is no pavement, T graciously accepted it was too dangerous to use his scooter on the road and waited for the pavement, even then when crossing smaller junctions he got off without being asked and carried his scooter himself across the road. POP! Road safety boom!

They are just small examples of our day where we did 'nothing' educational. Learning doesn't just happen at school. Learning opportunities are everywhere for a child, in all things. And on days where I feel like we aren't 'learning' I need to remind myself of this: wait for the POP!

How do I have the patience to home educate?

At a friends house last evening, a really lovely friend of a friend asked me, "I'm in awe, how do you have the patience?" My response was honest, but having slept on it, I want to expand on my answer and get it out there on 'how I deal with being with my kids all day.' When I first started home educating after 6 weeks of summer holiday with T in sports camp, and 3 weeks of school, my first week of home educating was that of an impatient stampy feet shouty kind of mood. My immediate thought was what the hell have I done, I should've left him in school I can't deal with this! 

Hold up, they are my children, they couldn't cope being in school and I made the right decision, I needed time to unschool relax and get used to a change of routine, just like they did. We needed to get busy, I found out all the local home ed groups close by and I took cakes as an icebreaker :) 

My tolerance of my children has grown since then and our day flows very nicely now. Very little shouty mumma comes out and when it does it's alarm bells to me that I need a break. But 'how do you get a break from your children when they are around you all the time?' I get plenty of breaks, but I get them in different ways to people who don't home educate. In short bursts rather than long ones. The adventure playground group we go to for instance, it's enclosed fenced off and gated. They run around with their little mates, they are happy and I can get a cup of tea, get chatting to other parents. And sure I still have to watch them, but seeing their smiles is better than watching the tv. During the day at home when I cook. When I sit and write this blog for instance. When I do a face mask however they all want to join in! The children play and I can be a fly on the wall. Hovering over them when they need help or someone to play with them. It's not sitting at desks all day in this house :)

I have things in place that mean I get a break and time for me, it's important for me to have my needs met so that I can facilitate being a calm person for my children. On an extremely bad day I know that when my husband gets home I can go to the shopping centre for two hours because it doesn't shut until 8pm. 

What's more, I actually like my children, they make me laugh, they bring me joy. Sure they really push my buttons at times but that's children for you! We get over things quickly and move on. Does my brain ever stop? Truthfully? Probably not! But my brain has always been busy, I think I'd be bored doing nothing. When I need down time I crochet or sew. 

Don't be afraid to home educate because you're worried about time to yourself. It's best to lower your expectations, relax and time will find you. 

Home ed wobble

Hey, we've been home ed now since October 2013 and along the way I've had my fair share of wobbles, things that have worked, things that went wrong. I've started this blog to, get it all out in the open how I'm feeling but also, the things we've achieved so I can look back and say it's ok that today went wrong and I'm sat in my pjamas! We follow an autonomous approach to learning, but as a person that grew up in the education system, I'm constantly trying to retrain my brain, my children are often more comfortable with unschooling than I am but, I follow what's makes them happy like any mother. I'd be pretty selfish to put them into a schooling system that just doesn't suit them.

I have two children, T who is almost 5 and should be in reception, and R who is only 2 but quite frankly drives me stir crazy. He is uncontrollably wild at times.

We don't follow a curriculum, we don't plan, we just live life as it comes, and take the opportunity to go and do educational things as and when they arise. Yesterday we played out in the open, wild and free, well the children did, in their pants in February while I sat with a cup of tea watching bbrrrrrrr. We got home had a bath and T read a picture book to his little brother. While their disorganised mother gave them tinned soup for tea. It was a great day.

I woke up this morning feeling so deflated, most likely tired from the long day we had and that R woke me to take him to the toilet in the night, this is becoming more and more common it drives me up the wall, but it would probably be ten times worse if I didn't bother to help him and he pooed in his bed.

R has just fallen asleep, he doesn't normally nap during the day but tbh I need a break. I've just whipped around the house and tidied it, because he is named after wreck it Ralph. T meanwhile is desperate to play games on the computer, and I'm struggling to find the strength to go yeh sure you aren't dressed, sitting in your pants playing computers all day is fine, you're five! but then in the back of my head, my self talk is saying one day he's going to have to learn that money doesn't grow on trees and he will have to go and get a job. His dad models getting up, getting dressed and going to work pretty well so maybe I just need to take a chill pill and breathe.

The boys dad is wonderful, he has complete faith in our home ed adventure, I'm sure there are times where he wobbles too but he doesn't show it, I sent him a really horrid text message today and then swiftly apologised he replied with "fancy fish and chips for tea?" He knows exactly how to make me smile, it's sometimes like he's just given me a hug through my phone. I'm so lucky to have him as my husband :)

Actually writing this is making me feel better, I promise future posts will be a lot better and less wooly :)

Don't get me wrong, I love home education, I love that my children will grow up to feel free and learn from mistakes, and not be afraid to make them. I love that we can do as we please, holiday when we want to, learn what we are ready to learn, and I love showing my children new, fun and interesting things. School just didn't work for us in so many ways and that's why we decided on home ed for our boys. Overall I feel free, not tied into a school run routine, and I love watching my children grow and learn in front of my eyes. They are beautiful and they are so interesting to watch. We follow their interests, we go at their pace. I love those moments of random information that comes piling out their mouth and I'm sat on Google trying to figure out if what they are saying is true! Some people don't understand how I don't know how T has learnt something if I'm the one 'teaching' him. He teaches himself, and what better way to learn, to have the self motivation to find out for yourself. That is a great quality to have as an adult, something I had to work hard to do, at school information is fed to you, at university that doesn't happen. My five year old is doing something so natural to learning at five, that I struggled to do at 19. He is already teaching me a thing or two about life. And how it's important to love it, live it, and learn it.