Mud & Mischief

Just our way of home educating our three girls; assisted by an allotment, a Land Rover and a heap of ingenuity.

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Location: South Yorkshire, United Kingdom

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Normal service shall resume shortly...

Ok, been one of those months. Suddenly, it's almost June (and even more almost my birthday!) and I haven't really blogged a huge amount. A few pictures of our holiday, but nothing of substance.

There are a few reasons for that, but none that are worth going into here. My blog outlook has changed subtly over the past month or so, and I've had to reassess why I blog and what I get out of it.

We've still got two family members going through the chemotherapy thing, both coming to the end of their first courses of treatment. We're keeping all fingers crossed for lab/scan results in a couple of weeks time (although we have had one batch of very positive results for James' mum, which is an enormous boost). James and I are still wondering where we're going - but at least the mess of last year is over and we've decided that where ever we're going, we're going as a family. He's got a lot of thinking to do regards work, life direction, what he wants to do etc. Myf is telling anyone who'll listen that we're buying a farm. Which is ultimately what we want to do, to be honest, but where/when crops up again. (Personally I like Wales and the west country, but James would rather go North Yorks...)

But I think I'm going to leave all that kind of nonsense out of future blogs - my main focus of life at the moment is Myf and her education. Or lack thereof. Three large bookcases and two wide shelves full of books/resources/material, and she isn't interested in any of it. I've read up on autonomous education, dipped into Steiner-Waldorf, had a look at Montessori, imported some formal Sonlight curriculum, brought home bags of KS1 books and the like from various book shops and bought pretty much every Usborne that the Book People offer.

So far, the only thing she seems to have taken a liking to are the dozen or so pocket science books that arrived in the Book People box a couple of days ago.

Maybe we need to reduce our social life somewhat - Sheffield on Mondays, days out with Daddy on Tuesdays, Chesterfield on Thursdays, and visiting friends on at least one other day each week. But we spend too many days in the house and everyone goes completely stir crazy.

We have had a fairly successful day today though. We read through the 'How do Bees make Honey?' science book - made extra interesting by the fact that the chap we went to Croatia with keeps bees as a hobby. Myf was most impressed when I said that Wayne would probably take us to see his beehives if we asked him. I also got her big keyboard out today - it's been in Piglet's bedroom since Xmas, and they've all been playing with it. We found the Usborne First book of the Keyboard and worked through the first 6 pages. Then the two little ones found the recorders and I left them all to it in the living room. When the little ones went down for a nap, Myf brought me a little tapestry kit I'd picked up from the Scrap store and we started it. She got a bit impatient after 10 minutes, so I sent her up for a snooze.

So, for a little while, I think it'll just be a running diary of the things we've accomplished as a home ed family. With a bit of gardening thrown in, some Land Rovering... oh and the occasional HE camp. :) We are so looking forward to Kessingland.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

How about "organising" the social life? Making sure there is summat educational to do at the assorted friends houses?

Just a thought.

5:27 pm  
Blogger Allie said...

Hello. Maybe you could try putting some stuff away completely for a few months and then bringing it out and dumping it on the table/floor. This seems to work a treat for us with toys and games. The fact that they have been put away makes them seem new and exciting! Just a thought.

1:25 pm  
Blogger dottyspots said...

I can go for educational stuff here - no probs. with that, especially if you fancy doing some dyeing or similar, dress them all in old clothes and do it in the garden.

3:21 pm  

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