Sign here please

As of this afternoon there are 3552 signatures on the petition.

Brilliant.

Let's get it higher still, by clicking.

If you don't want to, just have fun by checking in every so often to see the number of signatures rise.

Joy

Joy was a beautiful hour this afternoon.

T has been stricken with flu, but at 10am this morning I went in again to see him and he had changed from a roasting, motionless, grey faced person to a smiling, laptopping, got out of bed for one tiny trip to the kitchen person.

H and I shared one sofa and one duvet while T sat in state with a whole heap of pillows and a good book. Our next door neighbour's black cat came to visit. She sat down and purred with us. Until now I have been zipping around between T and H, keeping H separate so he wouldn't get flu too.

It is so special to be able to all be together and have peaceful time. I got up from time to time to deliver cups of milk and pizza slices, the way you do! I did some laundry in between times, then went back to the sofa and our wandering conversations!

EHE Guidelines 2007

Here is my link to these important guidelines. This is like an Easter egg hunt, only it is for real.

Oddly they seem to have been removed from the DCSF website. So the Home Ed community is busy ensuring the Guidelines are still available for reference by anyone who needs them.

People who need them:

Parents
Voters
Members of the Select committee which will soon be looking into the Badman Review
MPs
Lords
Interested individuals following these events from overseas
Me, as they are relevant to what I am doing right now as a Home Educating parent

and of course the many Local Authorities.

Destroying books or data is a very, very serious matter. Controlling what is available on the internet is clearly an issue of huge importance.

As far as I know the 2007 guidelines are in force. So why would they be removed? And by whom?

New words

I only know when my sons have picked up new words when they pronounce them wrongly. That means they have never heard someone say them. If they have picked up the pronounciation correctly then the only way I know is if I 'know' I have never heard them use the word before.

The other problem comes when they use a new word when I am not right there to hear it!! Then I won't ever know. It will never be documented on my weekly HE book of pride (only good things go in there) and worse, the LA will never know.

But the new words are picked up, learnt and used whether I observe the process or not. What is a home ed mum to do????? What is an LA inspector to do???????

Chuckle happily to ourselves about the mysterious and wonderful ways of growing up.

Trees

We went out collecting conkers, beech nuts and sycamore seeds. Then we put lovely dark compost in some pots and planted lots of trees for the future.

Now the pots are settled in a special place in the garden and H is watering them each day.

I have decided to just sit when I am with H rather than just sit with a laptop on my knee. What a big difference this makes. The power of patient attention. I like to have a hot cup of tea in my hand at the same time. I can't remember such a successful day for ages and ages. Today H doesn't need me so much, so I am here on my blog.

Why don't mothers like me have this level of ability to just be when the children are really little? Why did nature plan it so badly that I am only beginning to have the talents I need as a mother over a decade into the job?

Badman

Oh, I don't know where to start..... the misrepresentation of facts, the twisting of words, the comment that 'most of my recommendations have not been challenged', the sheer, jaw-dropping arrogance of a man asking LA workers, who *we* pay for via our taxes, to find data to support his assertions.

Well, Mr Badman, if you are reading this, I do challenge most of your recommendations. If anything your words have put fire in my belly to get on with writing to my MP and keep up the fight. Your efforts are doing more to bring us home educators together than you really planned :)

Fellow home educators, I have found several more Home Ed blogs to add to my long list of links on the right of the screen. Please read them and get inspiration.

Nature

Lovely surprise mushrooms. Why do mushrooms grow in different places each time? I had never expected to find them here! This is a patch of gravel at the front of the house where there is a bench to sit on and lots of grape hyacinth.
Here is its brother. There is a third one, but putting that up might be overkill. Each one has a different shape. I can see why people talk to plants, or rather sit and listen in silence to them.
I prune my roses hard after flowering, and now I am getting a second set of flowers in the year. This is the very first bud of the autumn.
These wild courgette flowers are so large. The yellow is much brighter than the photo shows. It is such an act of faith or foolishness to produce these beautiful flowers late in the year. The bees and wasps seem to have gone already.

Will this work?

Bear behaving badly

I love this, we have little sessions of watching the after school tv programs. The nice thing is that we are not tired and stressed, so the uber activity of the programs isn't too much of a problem.

Book List

I am starting a list of books I come across which involve home educated children.

1. A Child Alone, The Memoirs of 'BB' - by D J Watkins-Pitchford

Born in 1905, educated at home by his father and others, followed many country pursuits, rode a lot, draw a lot. Left home to go to art college, joined the Territorials (horse artillery), then taught at Rugby School. The book is illustrated by the author. Published 1978 by Michael Joseph, London.

to be continued...

More Maths..kettle and toast

How long does it take to boil a kettle of water?

My guess right now is 3.5 minutes.

And how long for toast to toast to the way H likes it, brown, but not burnt.

Hmm, maybe 2.5 minutes.

Interactive maths post

Square root of 4981 is 70.9, H's guess.

Competition time, please put the right answer in the comments box!

What interferes with Home Education?

I am in two minds about this. Over the past couple of days home ed has not been working, but the reason it has not been working is in fact the reason why it does over the longer term.

Life happens, my friend has needed me and I have wanted to be there to help out in ways I can, with her cat and by bringing T to fix her computer. T has gone back to school into year 10 and I am concentrating on bonding with/telling the support teachers what to do.

The result of that has been huge tiredness, exhaustion, lack of attention to H, meal provision has gone out of the window and my hip and arm are hurting again. I was so tired I couldn't drop off to sleep until after 2am.

However.....getting back into a calmer way of life, getting back in synch with each other, making nice toast with butter and H's favourite strawberry jam, having discussions about 'what is the meaning of life?' (seriously, this is how lots of our chats start off) is how home ed is re-established.

Without the ups and downs there wouldn't be much to discuss! I'd rather not have the ups and downs though. What I'm getting to is that the ups and downs are real, not fabricated by me to teach H about real life, they *are* real life. What happens is grist to our mill, that is what we discuss.

Pool

Our pool table turned quickly into a place I put things on. Today my brother came to visit so we cleared it off and he beat me.

So I really want to improve my aim and my control over the amount of force I use. I also want to learn what angles to use to make the ball go off at an angle to roll sweetly into the pocket.

H isn't particularly interested by pool yet. Maybe we need to make up a non-standard version which is exciting enough for us to both play and enjoy. T has studied it carefully over a year of lunchbreaks.

I look forward to seeing my parents having a go!!

Really sad

My friend's dear little black cat has been killed in a car accident today. She loved her so much and was so happy when she literally walked into her garden and house. Pucci wanted to live with my friend and made her so happy.

RIP Pucci
xx

Being mugged or hugged?

H is in a very huggy mood, so we are doing a lot of that. It's part of his plan to encourage me to get a new pet cat.

Reading books

I am trying to relax when I read a book I don't agree with 100%. Even if the style of writing implies that I the reader also think the same way as the writer, I have free will and an ability to simply see that and just take what I need from the text.

I do find it mentally tiring to be reading with that sort of detachment. It is so much easier to read and agree with everything. Then I have the feeling of being understood, which is always nice!

Since starting to home educate I have had to engage with authors in several different fields, while engaging with the issues in real life at the same time. Assessing a whole field and learning the vocabulary at the same time is hard work. Within each field there are a range of approaches. Judging these for real, not just as a university level academic exercise, is what mums do.

Sometimes I want a holiday from the responsibility and the worries. Now I am 45 I can see that many adults do not know the answers and haven't the grace to simply say so. Interacting with anxious adults who feel they want to tell me what to do is a real old waste of my precious time and sanity. Not in a good mood at the moment!

Red Dwarf + Mock the Week + Qi

I love the guy with the fangs, and the plastic headed, slanty headed man.

The rest of the evening is going to be spent camping in H's room with channel Dave, the best medicine for feeling out of sorts. We are all sitting in a row with therapeutic crisps etc.

We even had a power cut earlier, my fault entirely because our tumbler keeps on fusing and I keep on using it! It was fun, we lit the tea light candles inside the ironwork lanterns I had bought for fun/HE purposes and were about to have an old fashioned evening of chatting in the flickering candle light. Then we realised that all our neighbours had power, so that was the end of that.

Photo and a questionnaire

Photo of me, the question master.

Questionnaire for H

1. Smells H hates: lunch box, dirty and horrid smells, hair gel, apple, fruit.
2. Smells H likes: nice, new stuff.

3. Music H hates: rock, rap.
4. Music H loves: anything really nice.

5. Surfaces/touches H hates: anything dirty or disgusting, bugs, flies.
6. Surfaces/touches H likes: stuff that I like, things that are new.

7. Likes to look at: things that are mine and that I use and respect.
8. Doesn't like to look at: ?

New term

I am doing a lot of thinking about all those going into new classes and schools this week.

When T joined his secondary school I got from somewhere an idea that a new demanding start for him automatically meant time for a new demanding start for me.

I started Friday night swimming classes and I certainly had no plan to take life at a slower pace. I thought that as the children got older I needed to speed up and take my proper place in society.

Life got in the way and I have spent the last 3 years learning how to slow right down the hard way.

So to anyone thinking that the first year of their first child going to secondary school is the time to start evening classes, a new demanding job......It might well be the time, but it might not be....just saying!