Planning for FrogAcademy 2015

This year sees the dawn of a year when I have my eldest son, who has completely finished his education and is job-hunting, whilst at the same time my youngest just begins the journey of his 'education' years. If I am being totally honest here, I'm 13 years in, with another 12 years looming ahead of me, and the thought is very daunting! I cannot even begin to drum up the mad-enthusiasm I had in those beginning years. In those early days (after we walked away from ACE) I would spend hours downloading - on significantly slower internet, printing and planning. And then I would try to muster up the same enthusiasm in my children ~ and often it fell flat, but I persisted anyway. Gradually, over the years, I began to hear my children better and started to model their education around them more as individuals, and life improved. If you read back over the years of my blog though, you will observe that we began very structured and timetabled; loosened up somewhat, but still had very much a formal style of learning. Up until now that has worked for almost all my children. I don't think it ever fitted Jake that well, but I was unable to make the shift in my head (or heart) back then and ultimately he has done very well, finishing college with Btec Level 3 Photography with great grades (D*DD), plus a GCSE in both English and Maths. For Joel, the girls and DD the scheduled approach has worked fine. Even Lilo, who might have struggled most, has been OK with the way things have been. Even if the content has been a stretch at times - and not that enjoyable for her, the structure hasn't bothered her. But then Stitch came along, and after him Chip. Stitch began home-ed with gusto and enthusiasm, but that has quite rapidly worn off because, as more has been 'required' of him, he has increasingly switched off to the idea of table-work. He is definitely not a child to sit still and learn to a timetable and the way we have done things has been a bad fit for him this last year - leading to tension in him and stress in me - giving me a sense of deja-vue that took me back to Jacob's early days, and I have no desire to go hang around there again! Adding Chip into the mix this year, and I am thinking it's going to be a nightmare to carry on doing things with the same structure this academic year. 

After a bit of a think I have come up with this:-

This is DD's sheet, but they each have one with slightly different headings - except Abbie, who has chosen to write her own timetable (without times). Phoebe is also unsure how she'll get on with this system, but she's giving it a trial run for a month and then she'll decide. In reality, it's a trial run for all of us, but I think it'll work so long as all the children are honest ;-)

The idea is that they are each entirely in control of what learning they do, how much time they spend and when they do it. It's centred around 10 minute slots and the only requirement is that there is SOMETHING written in every coloured box by Saturday bedtime. Although there is still a requirement for them to do a certain amount of learning each week I am chilling out about what that learning looks like. Math could be done in a workbook, on Conquer Maths, on a app, or on a learning website (e.g. Skoolbo, or Sumdog). They do however much they choose to do and record how much they did, and what they did by writing in the boxes. If they did 20 minutes of Skoolbo they'd just write Skoolbo in the 10 min box and a ditto in the 20 min box. 

General Interest will be filled in with things we do in groups together ~ like cookery and art. 

'English' I have split up a bit, so they can record what kind of learning they have done. This is because some of the workbooks they have contain various types of tasks and it's often difficult for me to make sure they are getting a balance. This way I will be able to see at a glance where any gaps are forming and address them ~ although not necessarily with workbooks ;-). I am also hoping to do a lot more literature based work with the younger ones this year ~ bouncing off the back of poetry and prose. We begun using FIAR a little last year, and it was enjoyed by all three younger boys, so I am hoping to inject more of that into our learning this year.

Also, I am hoping to make plenty of use of our Spielgaben set ~ especially with the youngest two boys.

All this could add up to very busy days for me - jumping from one activity to another as and when the children need my attention. I know am not too great at that in reality, which is how we ended up with a structure in the first place I guess. I do better knowing what's coming next and working with low-energy activities. I was a workbooks kind of child myself. I simply loved doing pages of little exercises. But imho home-education is about an education that fits the child (and as much as possible the family), and so this year I am going to have to make a big effort to make learning work more relaxed, happy and stimulating for my younger boys, whilst releasing my older children to take more charge of their own learning. I would really like to gradually phase out even this much structure and fall into a much more chilled educational style. I think it might be good for us all - because don't have the energy for so much nagging any more! I know my younger boys are bright, and intelligent. I am not concerned at all about their ability to learn, but I am a tad concerned about their desire to do so. Trusting the process is definitely not my strong point!! Maybe I will get there - I hope so. 

So, today the stop watches arrived (so they can know how long they've been at work on each activity, and help keep things honest) and Monday will be our first day of this new way ~ I'll let you all know how it goes at the end of the week!

This week at our house...

ART ~ we'll start here because it's pretty :D

This week, we did 'Big Face' watercolours, which are meant to be sort of Eric Carle-ish; here's how they turned out (youngest to eldest this week) ...

We liked how, despite following the exact same instructions, we each ended up with faces that had distinct character of their own. 

COOKERY ~ 
Regardless of what I said last week, we did in fact make pastry this week. I decided that as I was going to cook turkey pasties for lunch anyway, we may as well make pastry and pies instead. So that we did and it was a very successful lesson :D

I gave each of them a bowl and the ingredients they needed, then I verbally guided them through the whole process. 

This point was the hardest, and I did assist a little with the cutting and mixing, but purely for the sake of their arms - the pastry was perfect.

We cheated a little and used bought puff pastry for the lids, but in all honesty, the shortcrust pastry the chids made had more taste and texture to it :D

Don't they look amazing! And they tasted fabulous too :D

I've bought a book this week and Abbie has decided she is going to work through it as part of her studies. It was originally an Irish Home Ec' textbook, back in the 80's. Although it's a bit dated, it is still a lovely text to work with, covering all sorts of different aspects of health & home-keeping :D

TOT-SCHOOL ~  
We have done a fair bit actually, but I've sadly not taken many pictures. I did take some today though, while Chip was playing with the Spielgaben. We were having some fun with spinning shapes and seeing how they looked as they spun. Chip was quite fascinated with this, but not as much as I thought he might be.

We did another lesson yesterday too, where he matched these 3D shapes with others the same, and began to learn the words for 'cube', 'cylinder' and 'sphere' (or Sophia as he says it). He did well, and still remembered the names today. Spielgaben certainly works for him :D

This week I have also put him on a trial of Busythings. Stitch and DD used to enjoy this site when they were younger, and it's exactly the kind of experimental learning that Chip likes. He has been very fond of PoissonRouge (and still is), but I think Busythings might stretch him a little more now. So far he is loving it :D. He likes Starfall too, but prefers to play the songs on there over and over, which can be a little tedious for the rest of us! 

Besides that, he is doing numerous drawings and trying to write things. His writing looks like some kind of binary :  l + 0 l 0 + l 0 . Then he looks at it and sees it is lots of ones, zeros and pluses and says he was writing numbers not letters ~ smart kid ;-)

IN OTHER NEWS ~  
Saturday saw the girls and I trawling the charity shops in our local town ~ which is pretty much a town full of charity shops, coffee shops, designer shops, and a great market! I need clothes suitable for wearing in 30+ degrees for 3 weeks, and the girls just needed to re-stock their wardrobes since they have grown so fast! Abbie has gradually outgrown most of her clothes, but they don't all pass well to TP, who is a completely different shape. TP has grown loads this last year too, and was running out of choices. Charity shops here often have some very nice stuff, so we can do a big stock up for a fraction of the cost of buying new. My problem is, I have personal issues with the 'charity shop' smell ~ it brings back memories I don't like too much, but sometimes I have to swallow that and just get on with it.  We shopped for about 3 hours, spent quite a lot of money, and the girls came home with a handsome stash and a 'new' coat each. I really can't complain.

I, on the other hand was less successful in my search. Why is it that all the plus size clothes seem to be made of nasty polyester/viscose materials? I wanted cotton and it looks like I'm going to have to buy new, or make do :(

TOMORROW ~ 
Joel has his interview for college. He has applied to do BTec Level 3 in Music Performance. I'm hoping he will do well and win them on side despite not having a piece of paper to his name! Watch this space :D

A Little Art Post

I thought it was time to get the art-works up on the blog.

As usual we are following journal lessons/ideas from Cathy's Art Projects for Kids; 

We've started the year thinking about all the things we are each looking forward to in the next twelve months. This would also make a good January page, but I decided September is also a significant 'stop and take stock' point in the year. So here are all the things my children hold in their hopes and dreams... (listed from eldest to youngest, with mine at the bottom).

These are painted with water colour pencils, but by whichever method of use they chose. It's interesting to see the differences between them. 

Our next page of the year was just a bit of fun really, and a mix of two idea from Cathy's blog. Again we used watercolour pencils for the background, and they had a choice of making or painting clouds. Making was definitely the easier option, but most chose to paint (or rather not paint) instead.

Again oldest to youngest going down, with mine at the bottom.

There's one art blog that I need to add, which was our final page from last year, but apparently I haven't even taken the pictures yes, so I'll set to that tomorrow when the journals come out for the next installment :D

I must say, I am SO happy to have found Cathy's blog. I would SO be lost without her ideas and 'tuition'. I am NO artist (as you can probably tell), but all of us (with the exception of Joel at times) are thoroughly enjoying this low-pressure art and I am particularly enjoying seeing the children's individual styles and preferences beginning to come through in their work. It's interesting to see what art mediums they choose to use when a choice is offered and to see that the older ones are beginning to be able to make thought through changes for their own desired outcomes. For instance, in the balloon picture above, Joel chose to not use watercolour pencils, but rather ordinary pencil. He did try the watercolour ones first, but was unhappy with his outcome and decided to start again without the water and to be honest I think I like his sky best! At the end of the day, it's about them finding the materials and methods that they are most comfortable to use and them being able to feel content, or even happy, with the outcome! I can remember my own frustrations with art as a child ~ often as a result of hurried school schedules that meant I often didn't have time to finish my work, but sometimes because of a teacher's insistence on a certain 'finish'. I knew in my heart that my work would be better left without that final step ~ because I knew I would ruin it if I did it ~ and then being very disappointed with the final outcome. I don't want that for my children. I must confess that I have, at times, been known to loose my rag a bit with them when they really won't listen to ANYthing I'm saying, and then of course don't know what they should be doing/aiming for! But on the whole my repeated phrases, when they constantly keep 'checking in' with "Is this OK?" ,  "Do you like my..?", "Can I use..?", "Do I have to..?", etc... are to say, "It's YOUR art. Do YOU like it? Do YOU think it's OK? ", "YOU decide what you would like to use to make your picture look how YOU want it to. You don't HAVE to do anything. All I am doing here is feeding you ideas. It up to YOU what ideas YOU have for your work." My aim is to kind of give them art-starters really. I'd like to see them flying more on their own and maybe even coming to me with ideas for their very own 'lesson' :D Something to work towards I guess...

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 :)