Happy New year!

After what seems an extra, extra busy Christmas, we are rushing headlong into a New Year!

We are not as a family good at staying up late, partying the year in, but we are already excited about what it will bring us all.

After big changes this year work and family life combine with our choice to home-educate so that we are able to plan our whole life to suit us and for that we feel very lucky. We hope we can continue to mix all aspects of our life in our own crazy way! Supporting, encouraging, working, playing, learning and laughing together.

Pics of the preparations and Art work

Make, make, make!

Artwork inspired by Giacometti, Andy Goldsworthy, jewellery designer Kleshna and loads more!

Crazy busy days!

We have had and are about to have some busy, busy days. All in the name of friends, family and fun leading up to Christmas. We are of course looking forward to it all. But the preparations continue, and each time I strike a name off the list another one seems to add itself, no idea how its happening!

Note to self, start earlier next year!!!

In addition to all this the kids have had end of term concerts and art club exhibitions which we have enjoyed very much and so have they. They have grown in confidence over this last year performing happily in front of an audience. David had his first ever guitar performance this saturday and was rocking the stage with his band!

Blogging on the go......

Thought I'd try and be flash in an effort to keep on top of everything, including this, and have a go blogging from my phone!

I feel a bit like I am swimming in mud trying to keep on top at the moment! Soooo much I want to do and so little time. I feel grumpy when thing interfere with my hastily arranged schedules. Why would I want to go to our lovely home ed group when I have washing to sort, dogs to walk, presents to wrap and buy, floors to clean, lights to untangle and most of gifts still to crochet and sew!!!

But we did, go that is, and the kids have had fun. They've played and made and rehearsed with friends. I've chatted and laughed and relaxed, and all is good. The washing'll wait, the dogs can walk with us to beavers and Thursday night is easy tea night and I've crocheted 10 cm more since we got home. As is the Phillips way, we'll wing it and it'll all come good in the end!

Snowy, Wintry, Christmasy - Yay!

It seems the snow the snow has crept into our home as well as our garden. paper snowflakes are beginning to adorn every available surface, with the cutouts falling to the floor like multi coloured snow.

Hands big and small are busy crafting and making and planning. And Christmas music wakes me most mornings.
It's really wonderful and has got us all into the festive spirit early this year. I think the planning has certainly helped me feel it. Knowing how many days I have left to crochet and sew, cook and craft has me really excited. I'm ready to put up the decorations, I have given up pushing any sort of "work" the kids way in favour of sitting and making and chatting while we create away.

And I love, love , love that we can do it!

Snow and friends.

What could be more fun?
When you're a home educated kid every snowy day is a "snow day" !!!!

Jinx

Hmmm, think I may haves jinxed myself by posting about all the lovely things and the weekly ideas.
The conversation went a little bit like this......

Me " So shall we look at coats of arms this week then Will?
William "what?"
Me "well we brought that book and you put it on the board as something you'd like to learn about"
William "yeah, but, I don't want to dooo anything about it, I just like the book"
Me "oh"

Ah, yes I forgot they they can completely turn their noses up at something they seemed so keen on just a few days earlier and no amount of cajoling can undo it. And then we're out of the swing of it. Days pass and nobody mentions a "topic". Yes stuff gets done, kind of, but the rhythm has gone and it's so bloomin' hard to find again. And you can't argue when you find a six year old doing work books at 6pm or brothers challenging each other to spelling tests for fun!!! Yes for fun.

Heaven forbid I suggest anything like that though!

A bit of "independent learning" photo montage!

independent learning

We call it independent learning, others letting them do "whatever they bloomin' want", and they don't mean that in a good way! But in our little home educating world it seems to be working! We've taken the pressure off of them and ourselves a bit recently and it hasn't seemed to have stopped anyone from actually learning stuff! Inspired by art group they have been drawing zen doodles all week taking the original idea further and further.

Music practice is happening all times of the day without nagging or cajoling. They are reading for pleasure and to research. And while they do still try and watch all sorts of things on the internet! They really are using it for good.

Gaudi!

On the learning list for last week was Antoni Gaudi. David is architecture mad at the moment, so this was his choice. His lovehas been enduring and continues to grow. He sketches and plans and researches, and Gaudi has always been a favourite. We went to Barcelona in May this year and visited the Sagrada Familia and then wandered the streets spotting as we went.

I think they all really enjoy visiting different places and buildings. We have always dragged them off round National Trust properties, Castles, Cathedral and cities, and although they often start with "why are we visiting another church?" they always manage to find something interesting!

And so last week sketches were made, duplo houses were built, they had a very interesting trip to nearby Peterborough Cathedral and all sorts of interesting facts found out!

Pets

We have a few pets! And as the children are getting older they are able to be come more involved with the actual care of them. As a child I grew up dogs and cats and stayed a lot with my grandparents who were farmers. And while we cant yet realise the dream of properly living in the country with land and animals to become self sufficient they learn the importance of animal care and responsibility.

Dogs need walking and feeding, poo needs cleaning up!

Chooks need feeding, cleaning out, raking over and health checked.

Cats need feeding.

And they all need to be wormed. deflea'd or pest controlled in some way or other!

But on the plus side they do love us! And feed us too (although not in this weather) and the children get to see all side of life and death.

For us having pets is a really positive thing, we love em!

P.S. Please can I have Aplacas for christmas, please, please!

This week!

This week we have started something new.

Each week one of the children will pick a topic to learn about and everyone else will join in and see what we can find out. Idea being that the person whose idea it is gets to explore something they are interested in and the others will hopefully find out something new too! We have to enter into the topic with open minds and when its not our choice, had to add this stipulation as the boys were worried in case Mia chose Barbies or similar! But when we thought about that possibility we realised that we could explore lots of avenues within a topic. so for Barbie it could be about design and manufacture processes, developments in plastic, social aspects and views of women.

We didn't have to battle too much this week as Mia was first on the list and chose Polar Bears!

Cue lots of DVD time watching the BBC Life series about ice worlds and the Poles. Environmental discussion, story writing and crafting and fact finding. We actually saw some Polar bears in a zoo in Germany last month while visiting family and we were not very happy with how it made us feel so this has led to further debate about animal welfare and the value of zoos or wildlife parks.

We only had one dissenter in the bunch, but I have to say it has been one of the best things about this week. Oliver has been reading, alone! Yay, and its a big old Harry Potter to boot. its this sort of thing makes me feel our decision to home educate has been the right one for us. Its been a long time coming but without force he has done it himself and discovered a love of reading again. It started slowly with fact books and easy reads to Mia but all week we have found him curled up all over the house quietly reading away. Wonderful!!!

Crafting

We have been doing all sorts of crafting these last few weeks, Mummy included!

Lots of hastily put together halloween outfits were made. David and William doing all of their own sewing. Pom poms were made as gifts for Pipin and Dibble Uncle Loz's kittens. Knitting projects have been started, and will hopefully be carried on! With the change of seasons there seems to be more time to start projects and take our time.

Next on the list are christmas gifts! We are trying as a family to be more thoughtful with our purchasing, to think about who makes things. What are they made from, how far have they come. So with that in mind, handmade from recycled seems to be the best option all round! And we are trying, but I have to say the children are better than me. Maybe because I buy the wool and fabrics for projects and they use all the odds and ends after?

Even still, just talking about our choices, thinking about what we need as well as what we would really like will hopefully encourage the children to be thoughtful consumers as they grow up.

Time

Time seems to be running off into winter without me. I am finding the days, hours and minutes are slipping out of my hands without me ever having achieved the things I wanted. We have Halloween in two days, with a party invite and at least 5 costumes to sort. A birthday in four days with no sign of a party sorted, friends invited or presents wrapped with two more family birthdays to follow in November. All this will fly past and I shall find myself faced with December and another birthday and Christmas looming large.


I have all good intentions!

Wool and fabric have been purchased, patterns researched ready to make all sorts of lovely gifts. Ideas for home Ed have been discussed and half planned, resources picked out. But still I find us running out of time nothing ever really accomplished. Or maybe it has. We have all been reading, sharing stories and ideas. We have welcomed in the sky plus box I had long fought against only to find we are able to pick and choose far more selectively what we and the children watch instead of sitting sifting through rubbish and wasting the time watching it! Music is being practised diligently and daily, and while not all of it is really soothing it is wonderful to hear.

Maybe the only time really lost is the time I spend worrying. All the rest will turn out in some way or another as time well spent.

Creative Kids!

Our kids always seem to be being creative.

With language, music, craft and even sometimes the truth!
All the pictures show them making and sharing and a wonderful snapshots of those moments.
But mostly they are creativein how they continue to play with each other and their friends. Their heads are full to bursting with all sorts of imaginary friends and characters, voices and songs. As parents we would love them to be put down into words maybe contained within poems. It definitely would be useful for others to see that they have been doing something more structured or definable.

That's just not happening in our house!

Perhaps we should tape cameras to them and put up cctv to track their every move to show that at the moment they are playing games full of greek gods and egyptian myths, Harry Potter and goblins. So much of our childrens lives are structured and curtailed its really wonderful to see ours flying around the garden on broomsticks or picking out a stick every where we go on the hunt for the perfect kobesh.

When the days get you down and you despair that you have not achieved anything of merit I think its good to remember the best achievements are the ones they set for themselves and attain. And that they still have those carefree moments of childhood available everyday. And then let them go outside come sun, rain or snow!

Creative Kids!

Trying........

Trying to get things done,

Trying to inspire,

Trying to create,

Trying to be confident,

Trying to complete,

Our days seem to be an endless round of trying and it can feel like we are never actually succeeding.

But sitting here having been through a very "trying" couple of days, I feel good about it.

Trying is like throwing all sorts of things into the mix all the time but with the knowledge that doing so enables everyone to find something that works for them.

I hope that means we are succeeding in finding the core of how home educating will work for us!

And anyway we'll keep on trying!

It's all good, right?

Well, we've all been fairly busy. But it's not easy to see the good stuff, I think this home-ed mummy still needs a bit of de-schooling. The kids have mostly grasped that idea and tell me with great venom when things are too like school. We are balancing a very fine line between total autonomy and structure. Sometimes it feels like falling down the rabbit hole into total chaos.

So we've made sushi, David has a bit of a Japanese obsession. Oliver has practiced his cello. Will did maths of his own accord. These are brilliant things. They should be praised and sung about!

Did I mention, Oliver practiced his cello! Fabulous.

But still I get bogged down trying to schedule the day, trying to make Mia read and cajoling Oliver into trying a work book. Because they should, we have a responsibility to educate them

fully, to their ability. Or should I? At the moment I have three little monsters running around the house. They have names and personalities, they are part of "the game" they're playing this morning. Should I call this drama? Team games? P.E or literacy? Does it count if siblings socialise? Because they are doing all these things, they have been co-operating for hours now. Surely it's fine, I know that they read when they want, if they ask me a question we find out the answer together. They know how to use the dictionary, library, encyclopedia and internet.

They are bright and funny, I just need to remember that when the big ugly "must do" pops into my head. Perhaps when it does we should put on our boots and go for a walk, leaving the mess and the worry behind us, and just enjoy the journey.

And they all came tumbling down