Not Back to School 2014 ~ The one in which Daddy Builds a Swing!

I'm skipping my last few 'summer holiday's' posts in favour of a 'back to school' one  and being up to date! ~ I'll blog the final bit of our holidays over at www.tmfh.me.uk/blog 

  So, this week marked the start of the new academic year (Sept - July here in the UK). For the majority of children here that means new school uniforms, shoes, haircuts, pencils and school-bags; a certain excitement about re-uniting with friends not seen over the summer, but also significant anxiety over new class-mates, new teachers, new routines and expectations. But for those of us who home-educate our children it really doesn't mean any of those things! 

   For us not much changes. Many home-edders will have even continued over the summer without a second thought. Education for these people settles on a continuum with all of life. It doesn't stop and start with seasons or the calendar. For others, like me, who do choose to take a long 'break', it just feels like picking up where we left off ~ although in reality education just LOOKS different over the summer - it never really 'stops' for any of us!! 

    'Back to School' for home-edders doesn't mean a return to stressful mornings spent trying to chivvy reluctant, sleepy children up the road to a classroom full of other sleepy heads; it doesn't mean leaving our children (crying) at the school gates; it doesn't mean exhausted children returning home at the end of a long day, grumpy about the thought of the hour (or two) of homework that they still have ahead of them; it doesn't mean playground spats and verbal teasing (for whatever reason the teaser chooses to find) or picking up the pieces of shattered dreams & broken friendships; it doesn't mean choices and options that cannot change, but that are supposed to determine their 'entire' future; it doesn't mean 'making the grade', or performing like dancing seals to the expectations of others who don't love them and have no vested interest in them beyond this single year; it doesn't mean watching (and missing) the last throws of summer ebb away whilst sitting at a desk, inside four walls, and the skies having clouded over by break/home-time. 

    Not Back 2 Skool in MY house looks more like this; wake up naturally around 8ish (little ones are usually up around 7am), get ready, maybe empty the dishwasher if it's your turn, eat breakfast and clean you teeth and be ready to learn by 9am. (If you're not ready by 9 then whatever you were meant to be learning between 9 & 10 you'll have to catch up on later - your choice!). I will be up about 8.30 and busy about, doing washing and odd jobs, before I join the children in the 'schoolroom' (never managed to think of another label for it) at 10am to do Bible Study with them all. On Monday's though, which I think most people will agree is the hardest morning to get going, I am realistic about my abilities and instead of pushing myself to get up before I'm ready - making me grumpy all day, the younger ones join me upstairs in bed, with our Five-in-a-Row book, and we read and snuggle while we learn! I'm not a morning person, which is why this year I have pushed Bible Study back to 10am ~ because realistically I am more with-it and human by then! 9am just wasn't happening often enough.



By 11am it's snack time ~ and if the weather is fine the children run off outside. In fact they may already be out there, if they've taken the morning into the garden already. There are no rules about 'where' learning has to happen ~ garden, bedroom, schoolroom ~ they can choose for themselves. Even computer based learning is reasonably portable if the light is favourable for a screen (and now I've managed to install flash on our android tablets). My only rule is that any writing has to be done sitting in a proper position, but there's two tables in the garden, so that's fine!

After half hour free time, structured learning resumes for a couple of hours, then they get a full hour lunch-break. In the afternoon they just do one hour and we are done by 3.30. We have 5 'structured' hours each day, but only four days a week. Friday is a structure-free day. Sometimes one child or another may have something they want/need to finish off from the week, or that they simply 'skipped' in favour of playing a bit more at some point ~ so they have the whole of Friday to slot that into. 

   The beauty of having a structure like this is that when 'school' is done, it's really done! The children know where they stand. No home-work, or unexpected demands! The children have a couple of chores to fit into their evenings once or twice a week, and they have clubs and activities that they go to 'after school' ~ they do have demands on their free-time, but mostly these are chosen demands, and the rest of the time they are able to simply 'be'. Obviously, as the older teens' courses become more demanding, there may be research they need to do over the weekend, but I don't/won't police it. They are expected to take responsibility for making sure they make reasonable progress. The 'junior' children might have a few spellings to practice over the weekend, but again, I leave the responsibility with them ~ and they know that if they don't learn them, then the consequences might not be ones they would particularly enjoy (like repetition)! 

   And so here we are at the end of Week One of the September term. It went smoothly. Everyone was mostly happy and all the 'structured' learning got done. Stitch struggled to adjust a little to the increased demands on his time (although it's not a massive increase in reality), and I anticipate it taking him a couple of weeks to settle into it, but he'll get there. He really is a boy who struggles to concentrate and be still (unless he's on a screen), but some essential things just can't be learnt/done whilst running around!
  
We've had a really great week tbh. The weather has been lovely which has meant a good deal of outdoor time, especially when Daddy came home on Wednesday with a rope and began sawing off a tree stump (from an Ash tree he hacked down last weekend) ~ and announced he was making a swing! The children were thrilled! They have wanted a swing in the over-grown pear tree of the neighbouring field for almost as long as we've lived here. They've made make-shift ones with skipping ropes and even borrowed Paul's tow-rope once, but they've never had a 'proper' swing ~ and now they do ~ and some of them even had a small hand in making it!! 

Usually at this time of year, when all the tiny (but perfectly edible) little pears have fallen and are rotting on the ground, the pear-tree is a no-go area because  there are gazillions of gorging wasps, but oddly, this year there don't seem to be any wasps around and, although the place smells of fermenting pears, it is safe for them to play. So play they have ~ re-firing their imaginations. A couple of autumns ago they built a wigwam against the same tree ~ now they've lined it with ferns to keep the floor less muddy, and woven ferns up the sides to make it more den-like. They've climbed the tree and Minnie, who had already made a 'seat' up there, has sat in it to write a story she has been inspired to start. They've thrashed down giant nettles & ferns (with sticks and a spade) to reveal hidey-holes amongst uncultivated, rampant plum trees. They've swung. They've played. They've run. And now they are talking tree-houses and Paul is planning a 'bridge' across the fence (we cannot remove the fence, or add a gate, because the field doesn't belong to our landlord, but to our neighbour (and the two do not get on too well), but the children do have permission from our neighbour to play in there). 

  

The wild play led to a desire to 'wild camp' but Paul wasn't too keen on letting them camp in the field, so they've camped in the garden instead ~ which is still pretty wild to be fair, especially at night! You'd have thought with two camping holidays this year they'd have had enough of sleeping on the ground, but apparently not!

Not only did Daddy build a swing on Wednesday, but Joel (Taz) also finished his go-kart that he began last summer! Admittedly part of the delay has been waiting for Paul to get him some bits and bobs to fix wheels and such, but he has done it now, with minimal help ~ and it works!

All of this loveliness was topped off by the fact that Tuesday was Paul & my 19th Wedding Anniversary. 

Having older teens affords us great babysitters for short periods, so when he got home from work, Paul bundled me in the car and took me off for an ice-cream treat at Snugbury's (seriously the best ice-cream EVER) and a walk in the beautiful sunshine! We chatted about us ~ the past, the present (yes, the kids) and a bit about the future. It was lovely :)

Time to Go Home - Via Frogmore Paper Mill

Beefie had been asking how paper made during the summer hols, so I did my research and to the best of my findings the only working paper-mill that allows visitors is to be found at Frogmore (Hemel Hempstead) so we decided that we would do a detour on our way home yesterday and pay it a visit. It was excellent and well worth it! Our friendly guide - Hugo - was great with the kids and we had the place to ourselves being that most children have only just gone back to school, so no school trips are in yet :D The children loved making paper and definitely one to be repeated at home - just need to make a frame...


Small Scale - Cottage Industry.




Larger Scale Factory.



Eventually we left there at gone 5 and set off up the M1 for home, stopped in Ikea for tea about 7ish and arrived home about just gone 9. All the kids grabbed their pillows and went straight to bed and were asleep in about 10 minutes of being home. Paul & I unpacked the car and then I went to bed too and have spent the day today gradually making a dent in the washing and other straightening-up type jobs that come after a holiday of epic proportions! Fortunately all the camping stuff was dry and organised so that just slotted neatly back into it's corner of the garage on extrication from the bus. The kids though have not had enough of camping out and 4 of them are camping in the garden tonight; Boo & Beefie in the S-tent (highly recommend!!) and J1 & Belle in my really old  & tiny Euro-hike that is still going strong! I figure the summer is nearly out, so they had best make the most of it while they still can ;-)

We’re all going on a Summer Holiday….

We travelled down to Colchester yesterday. By the time we got away it was nearly 11am so it was about 5 when we arrived (stopped for lunch of mega KFC en-route of course), via Tesco for supplies and then down to the campsite - Fen Farm in East Mersea. The site is lovely - clean, flat, near the beach and good facilities. We decided on a pitch beside the play area where we can watch the little ones from the tent - very handy! It was rather windy (though dry and warm(ish)) and the ground proved to be a little tough to sink pegs into and by the time we were all guyed down it was past 8 O’clock! J1 had already been down to the beach to take photos of the sunset  and the children had played happily in the park, but were flagging by then and it was getting cold. We fed the kids some late tea, hauled in the cases, mats and sleeping bags and quickly tucked them up :D They were asleep in no time!
By 6 this morning J&J were chatting and woke Paul; I. We got them whispering , but I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up and threw on my clothes and headed off to the beach for pictures of the sunrise - followed closely by the boys and I think Jake might have got some better shots than me in the end as they stayed down and walked on further whilst I came back to start toast and coffee - which by the time I got back Paul was already in the throws of starting :D

Once we were all sorted we headed off into Colchester for the day to meet up with old friends. As always when you do that the day never goes exactly to plan - but it almost did and none-the-less was great fun. We went to Go Bananas play centre first where they all had a great time and got thoroughly hot and thirsty. Then we went up to the park for a picnic and and more running around with yet another friend (all three friends are sisters) and her sister-in-law, so by this time we were 6 adults, 20 kids!!! But they were lovely together and played beautifully. Ages 14,12,10,9,9(twins),8,8,8,7,7,6,5,5,5,4,4,2,2,18months, 9 months, - they were awesome - and all home educated too (hence not being in school today now that they have nearly all gone back)!

Our intention was to go swimming as a family after that, but we never made it -we went back to their mums for a coffee - for at least 3 hours! I even got to play with Richard’s (also friend) proper DSLR - Nikon D700 - nice!! Very heavy, but makes me a bit covetous!! One day..!
So by then the kids were too wiped for swimming, so MD’s for tea, back to the tent and straight to bed - asleep by 9pm :D
Tomorrow we have a big Zoo trip planned and am really looking forward to it. Right now it’s getting cooler, so I’m heading for my sleeping bag and a good nights rest!
BTW- have I mentioned how much I LOVE our tent? It really is fantastic! And as an added bedroom we have bought an Outwell S Pitch (2 man ) and the boys are in that inside the porch area - perfect. That too is an awesome little ‘quick pitch’ and will serve us well, as the kids grow older I think.

More tomorrow…

Camping & Conversation...

So we headed off to The Lakes for the weekend and in summary we had a lovely time. It was a bit expensive to buy a tent and some of the other stuff we needed, but we had money set aside for a move which is now not imminently happening, so we used about 2/3rds of that. Not sure we entirely pitched the tent correctly (esp' at the front), but the main bit was right enough and it was stable enough to stand up to a fair amount of wind and rain. :) I've decided P needs to do the heavy work and I need to do the pegging out in future as he is far too laid back about it. FIrstly he didn't bang the pegs down far enough for my liking (I smacked them right down hard), or have enough tension in the guys to be of much use in high-winds ( I sorted that out too) and then he decided it would be fine to leave one back corner a bit baggy as he could not find somewhere to put the peg that wasn't rocky (we were a bit squeezed between a 'track' and a craggy bit). I was too tired to try myself by then so I left it too - big mistake!! Our first night was still, calm and dry and in fact I awoke to this outside;

Our second night was a bit different. The weather forecast was in fact spot on - sunny with showers towards evening. It began to ran just as our car came into view after our walk and continued through the night then. About 1am I woke up feeling a little damp and discovered things were only likely to get worse. We had a 'river' running under our inner tent. Natty - in between P & I was already pretty soggy, but sleeping soundly regardless (fortunately it wasn't cold). P at this point was still dry! We moved N onto a drier spot and contemplated what to do... Decided to sit tight in whatever dryness we could and keep warm till morning - and that is what we did. By morning, the duvet we were sleeping on was a soggy mess (we didn't have enough camping mats and the shop we got the tent from had sold out), as was the dressing gown I had put down for extra warmth under me AND the towel I had shoved under the inner tent to absorb some of the river! So we heaved out all the wet stuff, got into dry things ourselves and mopped everything out. Miraculously the problem was only in our section of the tent and a little had run down under the carpet, but had pooled at the bottom and wasn't much of a problem. The kids bits were the bits I had pegged out - and they were bone dry - thankfully, or else we might have had to cut short by a day. Instead we decided to go and buy 2 more mats and two sleeping bags for P & me - which we duly did (more money!!) Then back at base I pegged out the corner of the tent that P 'couldn't', nice and tightly - peg fitting snugly UNDER the rock and down into the ground. Night three - despite much rain - was dry inside :)

The tent was a palace and invoked several "that's what we need" comments from passers-by :) Stacks of room for frugal camping with 8 of us in. We only just got what we took in the car and if we build up our 'kit' we will need to get a trailer or a top-box I think. The kids couldn't move in the car - which is fine while they are small enough to stuff things under their feet and legs, but not so much as they get bigger. Need to work out how to pitch out the front of the tent and the front ground sheet better though - Michelle? Probably being on a fairly interesting slope didn't help a great deal - but did make sliding around on the carpet inside kinda fun for the kids. More like an indoor playground!!

Aside from the actual camping side of things (which for us as a family is all new and exciting, but probably boring for you old-hands!).

Friday evening we went and had a late tea (once we got pitched and sorted) of Fish & Chips. Despite a late night, kids rose early (like 6ish) oon Saturday, which forced me to get up for a wee and I was so glad I did. The scenery and the sunrise was amazing! I decided to stay up and have a quiet wander looking for a shower block. I did find one - just one - down at the back of the farm house, but in the end we never used it (I know - minging, but hey! we were camping!!). After a make-shift breakfast of toast cooked in a dry frying pan and dry chocolatey squares (no milk), we headed of to Haverthwaite Railway. This was very reasonably priced too, as under 5's go free (which meant 3 of ours!) and the family ticket was 2A+3K's @ £14.80. The kids really enjoyed it, but when we got to Lakeside they seriously pestered to go on a boat, or into the Aquarium (neither of which we could afford this weekend). We had lunch and headed back on the train.

Then we took a very pretty drive through Grizedale Forest, up to Hawkshead (which is supposedly very pretty), but it was very busy and three kiddies were asleep by the time we got there. We thought maybe we would go and take a look at Beatrix Potter's cottage over at Nr Sawrey, but it too was heaving (thanks to the film apparently), with bookings more than an hour in advance! It was another £15 to get in, so we gave it a miss - this time - and promised it to the kids for another time. Instead we drove back down to Thwaite Head Village (SE Lakes OS 1:25 - 349,906) and took an walk for about an hour and a half through some pretty woods, up to the edge of Grizedale. It was a bit muddy mind and at one point this was the puddle we had to negotiate :)

Abs had found a fantastic stick, which was a great help, but I broke it by putting too much weight on it to get through a muddy spot! She was so cool about it though.

Sunday, we went to church at Lakeland Christian Centre, which meets in a local primary school. It was very friendly and significantly more 'full' than WCC, but somehow did not quite fit with us. There were plenty of children there though. Next lunch and then a troop up School Knot. Joel has been nagging to do this walk since Jake told him about it the first time we went up. It was a lovely sunny day and it is a lovely walk. Going up there are lots of little craggy outcrops to clamber around on and scramble up and coming back down there are lots of little streams to play around in - and why stay dry when getting wet is an option!

When we got changed back into our Crocs at the bottom (boy do they feel good when you take walking boots off!) we decided to pop in one of the guys from WCC, who we sensed was a little unsettled by the decision that was reached. So went and watched the swans by the lake and the kids played 'tig' while P went and checked the bank balance. Then we nipped up to M's for a cuppa - and as it turned out eats in the end. Then we were joined by L (also from WCC) and M's neighbour with her two little girls - who coincidentally we had met at church that morning. It was lovely! The kids played on M's Wii for the evening while we chatted and ate and had a giggle :) It really was a positive evening and we eventually went back to the tent about 10pm! That night the kids slept in - like we didn't plan that!

It rained all night and into the morning. So we packed up the tent in the wet (which is a pain because it means we have to find somewhere big to pitch it to dry) and decided to make our way home. We were out of cash anyway - only just enough left for lunch and BK on route. It took us an hour to get to Lancaster services and then after eats it took us about 3 hours to get home - nose to tail the whole way near enough. But the kids were good (not!) and we made it home in one piece.

Today I have spent washing, washing and...washing - oh and washing up - with a little interlude to write this!!
And now I'm off to do more of the same.