Over Christmas I noticed a revolution going on. It was occurring so quietly, lead by my calmest and quietest child, but a revolution none the less. This radical change I speak off? L11, who absolutely, definitely, nothing was ever going to change her mind hated maths with a passion, had decided it’s not so bad……
Category: Homeschooling
So What Type of Home Schooler Are You Anyway? Part Five
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is……
One Year Pond Study: Week 44 – Winter Ash Tree Study
I’m really enjoying these last visits to the pond. Looking back over the year, especially over the seasonal activities we have done, it is satisfying to have a visual record of the changes that have occurred. This post is a quick photo collage looking back on all four seasons of the Ash tree: I can……
What Type of Homeschoolers Are We, Anyway? Part 4
Unschooling has evolved from simply not being in school (John Holt), to life learning in the 1980’s, to child led learning in the 1990’s. These days there is a plethora of radical unschoolers, who to be honest make me feel a little uncomfortable. I am glad I have been looking into unschooling from a place of homeschooling confidence……
What Type of Home Schoolers Are We, Anyway? Part 3
There is another reason, other than the older ones maturing, for me looking for an alternative method of learning for my guys. My first four children have been incredibly lovely, easy-going, easy to train and well-behaved children. I have never really needed to question too much what I was doing. If they were unhappy they……
What Type of Homeschoolers Are We, Anyway? Part 2
Over the past month or so I’ve been trying to organise my messy thoughts. This is nothing unusual. Everything about me is usually in a state of disarray. But to me, this was more important than my usual scatty mumblings. When we first started home schooling, my children’s eagerness to learn knew no bounds. We……
What Type of Home Schoolers Are We, Anyway?
I was asked this a couple of weeks ago, and I have been pondering it ever since. I’ve always maintained that I’m a nothing home schooler, not wanting to box myself in and hand other people expectations on a plate. People have enough expectations as it is. And really we do tend to do our……
Progress Report on the Individual Projects
This year I asked the children to choose one area of the historical period which would interest them enough to dig deeper on their own. The task was to put together a project on their chosen area and present it at our final medieval presentations in April (ish) time. They needed to come up with……
The Effects of the Crusades
This will be my last post on the crusades (ye ha! We’re done!). Just to get you in the mood for another information overload to do with the Holy wars, here’s a fun music video which towards the end handily touches on the effects of the crusades. There is one of the videos for almost……
One Year Pond Study: Week 43 – Checking out the Overflow
Here is our pond this week: The pond seems so quiet at the moment. There is little to report, with no gulls, two Moorhens and only four Mallards. The children went off exploring as I snapped away at the wildlife (and them): T12 has decided to write a letter to the RSPB (with whom he……
Looking Back: Ancient Greece – Spartans
I’ve found the rest of my photos pertaining to our ancient Greek studies (still can’t find my Roman ones) and thought I’d post some of them in a few ‘looking back’ posts. ‘Looking back’ posts are full of the learning we did prior to me keeping a blog. As they are part of our past……
Explorer Study: Ibn Battuta
I particularly wanted to study the Islamic, medieval explorer Ibn Battuta. Being a contemporary of Marco Polo, who we had studied at the beginning of the year, I felt a comparison study would be quite interesting. Both travelled widely throughout the Eastern Medieval world; both met with similar tribes and peoples; and most importantly both wrote about……
Mr Men School: Mr Happy
Literature We read the following books each day: And I also found a video of the book, which after we had read the story, the children watched on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZd_OxdgmOg I printed out some writing for A5 to do and some pictures of Mr Happy for B2 to do whilst the older ones were doing……
One Year Pond Study: Week 42 – Canada Geese Study
Thank you to everyone who was praying and thinking about me, and for all your good wishes and emails (and for Phil and Vicky for looking after our five children, so Gary could come with me). I had the scan this morning and they said it was nothing to worry about, just to keep an eye……
And Wings to Fly…
My blog header states ‘Homeschooling to give our children roots to ground them and wings to make them fly’. My goal in their younger years is to give the children principles to live by; a happy history to draw strength from and most importantly a love that stabilises them, that they can rely on to always be……