Exploring Central Florida

We found some great little places to explore today while on our mini-roadtrip through central Florrida from Naples to Legoland. We mostly drove along the Highway 17 and first stop was at the Cracker Trail Museum. 

Inside the museum was loads of intriguing exhibits from American Indian times to history in more recent times. Many of the exhibits surprisingly linked in with books we've read this year, and I had many a proud moment when Eden without any prompting, recalled moments from the stories. We were reminded of Little House in the Big Woods; Ma's kitchen utensils and butter making and Pa's smoke house. The museum had a full size canoe and lots of American Indian artefacts that reminded us of Paddle to the Sea. Eden pointed out a chair just like the one that Van Gogh painted. It's times like this that I realise just how broad an education she is receiving without any effort, and how effective learning through 'living books' using the Charlotte Mason method really is. 

After our museum visit we stopped for a picnic at Paynes Creek State Park, it felt very off the beaten track and we were the only visitors there. After a play at the playground, we followed one of the trails over a suspension bridge, enjoying the wildlife and nature around us, with Eden and Asher role playing imaginatively along the way, using sticks as swords and telescopes. 

We passed some other interesting sights while driving; while passing through Arcadia we saw a cowboy! And we passed several trucks filled to the brim with oranges, which overspilt into the road everytime they turned a corner, on their way to a huge orange factory where we saw glass windowed rooms filled with the fruit, ready to be processed! 

Photos to follow as they're all on my video camera. A wonderfully unexpected and educational day on our way to Legoland!

A lovely autumn day spent outdoors

We had our twice monthly home ed meet-up at Clent Hills this morning and spent a lovely 4 hours in the fresh autumn air! This is the fourth time we've met in the natural play space. All the kids seem to love exploring it; there's bramble patches, dens, tree stumps to step across, wooden huts and sticks. Lots of sticks! We usually bring along a couple of activities as a back up for bored moments, but the kids are far more interested in doing their own thing, so our activities have so far stayed in the bag. 

Today, the kids demonstrated a fantastic bit of team work and initiative all on their own. 7 of them, ranging in age from 18 months through to 7.5, worked together to move a 12ft long, large log from one end of the play space to the other. It was impressive to watch them busy at work, navigating their way around the various natural obstacles in their path and problem solving. 

We aim to finish the meet up by lunchtime. Today way such a warm, sunny autumn day that a few of us decided to walk to the top of the hills instead of going straight home. The kids did very well considering most of us (me included) hadn't gone prepared with enough food for hungry tums, so energy was flagging on the way back down. 

All tha fresh air is tiring and Tuesday afternoons are turning into DVD afternoons while we catch our breath. Today, My Little Pony was the pick. After a few episodes and some snacks, we read some stories and poetry together before tea. 

We're on week 10 of a house extension at the moment, and today the door to our new utility went in, meaning that we have a secure back garden again. The kids were keen to play outside after tea and spent 45 minutes before it started to get dark, jumping on the trampoline and picking the last of the raspberries. Eden spotted the half-moon and decided to do a nature journal entry, which was a nice finish to the day. I had a sit down on our newly created decking area outside the new conservatory, watching the kids play, feeling content and enjoying the lovely autumn weather! 

Starting out at forest school

This morning we went along to our second time at forest school, run by our local park rangers. The rangers have cleared a special place for us to meet in the park, complete with a fire square and lots of interesting nooks and crannies to explore. 

Today, the kids helped build a den, first finding large sticks for the roof, then 'branchier' sticks to cross-cross across the top, and finally adding some 'thatch' from hay cut earlier this week in a nearby field. Eden loved helping one of the Rangers take a wheelbarrow to collect the hay, she told me her favourite bit of today was jumping up and down on the hay bales to compact it. She also proudly carried the sharp shears over to the den area and I watched her confidence grow through the session as she realised her helping was useful and making a difference. 

Asher at the moment is a little shy in taking part in activities. He has had some behaviour problems over the last year, which have massively improved more recently by carefully modifying his diet. But over the last few months I've found it heartbreaking to watch his self-confidence take a bit of a knock, I think probably linked to his behaviour and natural consequences, sadly, of his behaviour. For example his low tolerance to frustration at not understanding an activity leads to him quickly and impulsively losing control beyond the point of going back, and therefore missing out. Forest school is great for building up his confidence. Today, he helped to pick sticks of differing sizes, putting them in the correct pile ready for building up the fire. He's a strong and capable boy outdoors, tramping through the tangles of ivy, brambles and stingles, snapping twigs beneath his feet. 

Asher's a kinaesthetic learner, and so he's in his element at forest school and it naturally fosters a 'can do' attitude in him. This afternoon at home ed group, it was so lovely to see the fruits of this so soon afterwards. Probably for the first time, he joined in confidently and happily in the activities. Usually, he would be very reluctant to join in an 'unknown' activity that he doesn't understand. Today I watched him go with the flow, much more settled and comfortable with the unknown. 

I love that home education gives me the opportunity to be at my children's side, watching the small everyday triumphs, which may seem insignificant to an outside eye, but to me, their mum, who knows them better than anybody, I see these, and treasure these moments.

Stay at home Mondays and an awesome visit to the fire station!

Today has been a brilliant day of home education! Most days the kids choose to stay at the table after breakfast, pottering with activities, working to a loose rule of 20 minutes max per activity/topic, and before we know it we've done a day's work in our PJs before 9am!

I look forward to Mondays being our 'home' day. I try and get all our washing done on Mondays. And we do our 'Charlotte Mason Feast subjects' - composer study (we're listening to Rachmaninoff this term) and picture study. Today we started looking at a new artist's work - Mary Cassatt. Last night I did a brief Google search to find out some interesting facts to tell the kids about her, which I try to do to help them build connection and relationship with the artist. For us today, this included her growing up in America and moving to France (we have family living in both places), her teacher being Edgar Degas (coincidentally our previous picture study focus for the last few weeks) and the fact that she was blind for 10 years before she died, meaning she had to stop painting (we have a guide dog pup living with us so the kids were interested in why Cassatt didn't have a guide dog). I showed the kids her self-portrait, before introducing her first picture in our picture study. I think I'll save how we go about studying a picture for another blog post... 

After finishing our table work this morning at 8:30am (just as most kids at school are starting!), the kids had a bounce on the trampoline in the garden and then Eden, with my help, made a cushion for her bedroom that she'd been researching how to do yesterday. She was very excited about this! We continued watching our Muzzy French DVD with a snack and then had a quiet time before lunch. 

As I mentioned above, usually Monday's are our 'home' day, but today I decided to take advantage of a local home ed visit that had been arranged at the fire station, and I'm so glad we did! It really was brilliant! Never mind the kids, I learnt so much! I'll leave the photos below to do the rest of the talking about what we got up to there! 

Social skills in home education

Usually the first question asked about home education is 'but what about socialisation?' This afternoon at the park I watched Eden, aged 5, making friends with a just turned 1 year old. They were sharing lovely moments together. I watched Eden proudly holding the hand of this toddling unsteady one year old learning to walk. She spun her gently on the roundabout. She asked the little girl if she'd like to watch her ride her bike, she showed her where to stand for a good view and waved as she cycled past. The little girl responded by putting her arms out for a cuddle when Eden returned. Lots of moments. All the time Eden was chatting away to this little girl's Mum, completely comfortable in this social scenario of young and old. 

It was an example of how broad the social skills are that Eden is developing. She may not be in school 5 days a week, spending her time with 30 children of the same age, but who decided that was the necessary length of time required for children to be adequately socialised?

If we wanted to, there are local home ed groups and activities to get involved with everyday, we're spoilt for choice. We see our friends perhaps on average 2-3 times/week, which suits us as a family and it varies week by week depending on how we feel. But when we do see them, the children are spending quality time together often with no other agenda than to just have fun. As adults we catch up with our friends by going to each other's houses, out for meals, the pub, church. Thinking back to my own school days, my memories of quality time with my friends didn't happen at school, but rather I remember visits to friend's houses, going to kids' clubs together, sleepovers, parties, and trips to the fair. Our home ed children go to friend's houses, parks, soft play centres, parties, church, children's groups to see their friends. They will spend a few hours at a time, a morning or afternoon together, with no agenda and no interruptions to their play.  Eden will just as readily play with a baby, enjoy a shared interest with a child of similar age, follow the lead of a much older child in play, or chat to an adult. In the home ed community I see first-hand the children mixing together, boy and girl, old and young, comfortably talking to everybody, seeking common interests, cooperating, and inviting others to play. Research supports that home educated children are ahead in social skills for a number of reasons, including having a wider range of role models than that typified by peer-interactions at school. 

We may not be seeing our friends everyday, but that doesn't mean that the kids stop socialising inbetween. Home educated children have many opportunities to regularly and actively socialise with people in their communities. Social skills are transferable. The kids chat to each other, us parents, the grandparents, they use FaceTime. They're out in the real world, doing life everyday. They talk to the shopkeepers, the shoppers waiting in the queue, the librarians, the people at the bus stop, at the allotment, the museum, the dog walkers we pass with Viking, other children at the park, at church, at home ed groups. They are exposed everyday to people interactions of some form or another. Their communication is broad, with people of all ages and backgrounds. 

"But what about socialisation?" 

My opinion is that more thought is needed as to what 'socialisation' actually is. Is 'socialisation' the same as 'forced association' with 30 other children of the same age sat in a classroom? I believe our children's interactions with people can be a much richer experience than that. 

Nature study in the garden

"Children should be encouraged to watch, patiently and quietly, until they learn something of the habits and history of bee, ants, wasp, spider, hairy caterpillar, dragon-fly, and whatever of larger growth comes in their way" 

Charlotte Mason, 19th century educator. 

I am absolutely loving the Charlotte Mason approach to home education. It really clicks with us as a family. As the kids are under 6, the Charlotte mason approach involves much of our days filled with outside-time, the weather at the moment is certainly lending itself to this! There are lots of ways to spend time outside, often I leave the kids to decide themselves. 

Today, Eden was excited to find an ants nest! I decided just this week that for the time being (until the summer or longer) I'd like us to focus on getting to know insects better, so this was the perfect opportunity for me to run inside and grab my Handbook of Nature Study to look up ants. We made a nature journal entry answering some very simple questions on the ants' activity around the nest, and if we find another nest this year we'll add to our answers. 

A little while later, the kids found 3 snails on a plant pot tray. They were very friendly snails! The kids spent ages this afternoon observing them close up and looking after them. They really grabbed their attention. I love the photos I took, capturing those special moments. 

Summer home education

Back into our 'routine' today after Easter. I'm excited for our first summer ahead of 'official' home ed. We've made a great start this morning (it's just after 10:30am at the moment). When the kids wake up they have a bit of tv time. At the moment they're both really enjoying Dora the Explorer and learning some Spanish! Then at breakfast time we usually have some bible time and say a prayer. Today we've started bible verse memorisation using the Simply Charlotte Mason system for remembering scripture. I'm pleased that even Asher at just turned 3 can join in with this. 

Usually after breakfast the kids choose to stay at the table. Sometimes I have something seasonal planned that captures their interest, but usually they'll find something of their own to do. This morning, they both wanted to add to some paintings that they'd done last night. Eden drew people and animals to her background scenes that she'd painted. Asher had mixed blue and yellow paint last night to turn his white paper green, he'd then announced that he'd 'made a jungle'. When they got their papers this morning, I found some jungle animals scissor practice pictures off Twinkl (love it!) and we added these to his background. He then went and found all his animals to match to the pictures and did some brilliant imaginative play! I was so proud :) 

Eden is really enthusiastic about helping with chores today. She's made her bed, plumped all the pillows in the house (her idea!), dusted and loaded the washing machine. Asher joined in too. I'm glad they enjoy this and it teaches them great life skills and the value of everyone in the family helping out around the house. 

Before snack time we got the spielgaben out. So far this school year we've been using the MEP curriculum to cover maths, but we finished the reception year's work before Easter, so we'll now switch to using spielgaben until September. It comes with 1000s (literally) of pages of fantastic learning ideas that get progressively harder, and I'm sure will stay used for many years to come. 

After snack time, Asher's having a nap and Eden did a page of a reading practice lesson with me and some spelling, she loves to write but it's got to the stage where some spelling would help with deciphering what she's written! She's now having a quiet time in her room. 

After lunch we still have the day ahead of us, planning on lots of garden time! I love when we have days where there's lots of hours to fill and we get lots done.

Buying a trampoline and kinaesthetic learning

After many weeks of delay waiting for the delivery, our new trampoline for the garden finally arrived last week and we've begun assembling it. I'm sure the kids are going to love it, and spend a lot of time on it. So with this in mind we decided to go for a ground-level trampoline, perhaps more permanent, safer and more aesthetically pleasing than the more usual garden trampolines on the market. It's another reason to be outdoors, in the garden, keep fit and burn off excess energy and for Asher particularly, I think it will help his learning. 

Interestingly, I recently looked up learning styles, particularly kinaesthetic learning. Knowing that Asher is a do-er, right from the word go when as a newborn he was born strong and learnt to roll at 13 days old. Many of Asher's emerging interests as he moves into preschool age, fit with the kinaesthetic learning style. For example, kinaesthetic learners have good hand-eye coordination. Until a month or so ago, Asher had zero interest in sitting down with a crayon or pen. Then one week, all he wanted to do was colour. He sat for hours at a time carefully colouring in just one picture. His attention to detail and hand-eye coordination in his colouring was astounding for his age! These first pictures are now framed on his bedroom wall in pride of place. 

Kinaesthetic learners are good at sport. Asher has always hit his physical developmental milestones early and I want to encourage opportunities for him to continue to develop his gross motor skills. The trampoline will help here I'm sure. But more than this, I think we'll be able to use the trampoline to help in other areas of learning. Just a quick google and Pinterest search brings up lots of ideas for using movement and activity to teach literacy and maths skills. Quite literally, jumping into learning! 

Kinaesthetic learners learn through discovery, through doing and through using movement to enhance the learning process. I'm interested to see how Asher's home education develops as he gets older, and with us as his parents being the facilitators of his education, how we will go about helping him and optimising his learning. 

(Asher measures the depth of the pit below our trampoline)

Week 11 of home education

Week 11 of home education and our days have flown by. We've naturally fallen into a loose routine that seems to work for us, of being home in the morning, then out and about in the afternoons. This works well for us, as since stopping nursery school runs Asher is far more settled in a pattern of a 2 hour nap at home in the morning - the timing of which is a little odd as he's 2.5 and sleeps through 11 hours at night, but he still asks to go back to bed at 10am after Mr Tumble has finished! During this time Eden does 20 minutes each of reading and maths. The rest of our morning time is spent playing, doing craft or baking, looking after the animals, writing, as Eden loves to write, or time spent outside in the garden. 

After lunch we'll go out somewhere. Sometimes if we're having a 'home' day we'll go for a walk over the fields by our house, taking our guide dog puppy Viking with us. The kids love these walks, seeing Viking leaping around freely as puppies do, and I love to watch them running along together, happy and free as children should be and enjoying nature around them. 

Other times in the afternoon we'll go to a home education group, or see friends or grandparents, go to a soft play centre, or visit the library, or take the bikes to the park. This year we have national trust and English heritage membership, so far we've been too busy to fit in using our pass as much as I would've liked to, but hopefully it will get more use over the winter. 

There are also special one-off events that we've been to over the past 11 weeks - we've been to the seaside for a short break, gone bowling, taken part in the National Harvest Service, been to the cinema as part of film fest and gone along to various organised home ed events, such as not back to school picnics and home ed days at local places of interest. There's so much to do, every day is varied and different. 

The kids have so much to learn from the world around them and the people they meet in the process. They are simply 'doing life' and we are all having an absolute blast in the process. 

My role is to facilitate, not to teach

Day 4 of home education:  yesterday I wrote how well our loose 'timetable' of activities before lunch was working for us and how much we're managing to cover 1:1. Some might call this approach a semi-structured method of learning at home. Today I would say the opposite has been true where learning is concerned. We still covered maths and reading, but on reflection it's very obvious to me that the MOST learning today hasn't been our maths and English, it happened unplanned and unexpectedly, very much in an unschooling way. 

For example, first thing this morning the kids decided to get their new Lego building kits out (a present from daddy). Both of them watched me and helped where they could, in following the instructions to put it together. Using concentration, fine motor skills, team work, seeing the big picture to name a few skills in the process. Perhaps more importantly for my under 5s, they spent a lovely time playing together with their newly built vehicles, Eden helping Asher fix his, Asher being patient with Eden and asking to take turns. I was very proud of them both. Nurturing the sibling bond is so important and a huge advantage to home education. 

Another example of unplanned learning today was a trip to the park. I had our guide dog puppy with me, so spent much of the time on the playing field right next to the enclosed play park while the kids played. With me not around, I observed the kids playing so well together, helping each other out, laughing and having fun together, enjoying each other's company, forgiving each other, thinking of each other's needs (turn taking) without my being present. If I had been there, both would've wanted my attention and wouldn't have played so nicely, or would've turned to me to intervene rather than work out their differences between them in the amicable way that they did - they're only 4 and 2 and yet they managed it perfectly well on their own! 

But my biggest pride today in their learning comes from our geomag play this afternoon. We have learning shelves where I store all the special learning toys, things I only bring out every so often, as I know they have high play value and don't want them to become part of the furniture and taken for granted. The kids have free access to these shelves, so if they do ever want to get anything out we always do, but the rest of the time they're stored away. 

Today was one of those days where Asher went to the shelves and picked our geomag set to play with. Now he is only 2.5, and we haven't had our geomag set out in ages, in fact I don't think he's ever had a long, proper play with them as they're full of small parts and a swallowing risk for babies and toddlers putting things in their mouth (he doesn't do this anymore and is more reliable). Today however, Asher absolutely loved playing with them! If you don't know what geomag are, they're a magnetic construction set consisting of magnetic balls and bars. Both kids stayed so focused on these this afternoon for so long, building away and making some awesome creations all on their own. I'm super proud of their creativity! Asher made an amazing flower, and Eden some beautiful jewellery. Their interest was a strong motivator for how much they learnt through this activity. With parent-led activities (or teacher led lessons at school) yes the children will learn, but to me it's clear how much more depth there is in their learning, when children are given the freedom to choose what and how to learn, when their motivation comes from within. This freedom and flexibility for each individual child's learning is why I love home education. 

I don't think I'm at the stage yet where I could completely put myself in the unschooling camp of home education I don't think I'm brave enough despite seeing all the advantages. I'm not sure I'll ever be brave enough! But in the years to come I can see us as a family using a mix of unschooling and Charlotte Mason methods in our home education. One thing's for sure, as the parent, I'm not trying to be a teacher, my role is facilitator for the kids' education, it is them that need to lead the way. 

Day 3 of home education

Another awesome day of learning! It's early days but we seem to be falling into a rhythm of home ed that's working well for us so far. It was 12 months ago that we first started considering home education - how far we've come in that time! We're drawn to Charlotte Mason principles, and I've done a fair amount of reading up. We like the outdoor aspect, and learning from living books. It makes a lot of sense to us that her motto 'education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life' rings true. 

Having said that, Eden, our oldest who is nearly 5, has always enjoyed, and thrived, on structure in her day. So, while Charlotte Mason would not advocate formal learning until at least 6, we've started a very flexible timetable, which includes hands-on maths and reading continuing what Eden can do already through play, and in addition, building in Charlotte Mason's 'extras' - composer study, picture study, French, nature study. We also do daily bible time and handwriting, Eden loves to write! 

Over the last 3 days following our loose 'timetable' I've realised just how much we've covered and achieved in just a few hours. Educating 1:1 appears to be very efficient! It gets to lunchtime and it feels like it should be much later in the day with everything we've done. It's not like the topics we cover have needed a lot of planning either - a lot of it happens naturally, organically, with one activity flowing into the next being led by Eden's interests. For example, we followed our maths lesson curriculum today on my iPad (saves the trees). When we got to the colouring page of two girls, which I obviously hadn't printed out and was just going to chat through instead, Eden asked to have a copy so that she could colour it in, cut it out and make paper dolls. So this led to an activity in itself. I love her creativity! 

It doesn't always work to plan though - this morning was our first French 'lesson' - I thought we could learn an easy French song using YouTube. I found a lovely farm animals one with a simple tune. Unfortunately it went straight over Eden's head - too fast-paced and it felt like it was a complete waste of time, but then on the other hand she has been exposed to listening to French this way. Next time though we'll try something different. 

With the planned stuff over, we headed outside for the afternoon (Charlotte Mason style). The farmer was harvesting his wheat in the fields across the road so we went to watch, and then had some garden time. After mixed weather for a few weeks it's back to warm sunshine again - always seems to be this way in September. 

A quick, but necessary, visit to the library after tea finished our day. Eden collected her summer reading challenge certificate, which ended today (hence the necessity of the visit). I love that both the kids look forward to visiting the library each week. Even active Asher loves going to pick his books, as soon as he knows it's library visit day he'll ask in his own way a dozen times if it's time to go yet! When we arrive they both grab a book and find somewhere to sit to read it. It's very sweet to watch! 

Two tired kids in bed by 7. While I wouldn't say our daily routine has especially changed all that much (I've always encouraged the kids to be 'busy' and limited screen time) I think the slightly more pro-active learning approach over the last 3 days has challenged them enough to be appreciating their sleep at night! 

I'm still super-excited to have started our home ed journey. It's such a privilege to be present in the many moments of learning, seeing something click, observing the progress in Eden's reading, watching her creativity, answering really thoughtful questions! And for Asher, who is going through the disagreeable toddler stage (at home at least, he's an angel for everyone else!) celebrating the small victories; like today there have been moments of obedience and other moments of him *nearly!* saying yes. It may not seem much, but it's taken a lot of parenting input to get to that point and seeing a little self control shining through in my nearly 2.5 year old. Looking forward to another fun-filled day of learning tomorrow! 

Happy non-first day at school to us!

Today we officially became a home educating family! We celebrated Eden's non-first day at school. She had a great day, full of learning and surprises. These are just a few moments from the day. While I had some activities planned, many more developed naturally as a result of the children's creativity and curiosity. Looking forward to tomorrow!