Home education support thread

[AMumInScotland]

A positive thread for parents who are home educating, those considering home education, and all others who want to contribute to the discussion.

But taking as a starting point the fact that Home Education is an equally valid choice, taken by parents for a variety of reasons, and is not illegal, immoral or fattening....

stopfighting said

It's going well, but some days I feel we don't 'accomplish' enough which makes me feel guilty that I may be failing her.

I'd like to know how many of you follow some kind of timetable and how you allow for flexibility, eg doing spur of the moment things like going out for a couple of hours

We don't follow any time table now- we did try to be quite structured when they very first came out but soon realised all of the pressure our children felt, were now being recreated at home by us!

Instead we started to 'deschool' there is an article on deschooling here
Slowly we realised how much our children were learning without any formal work at all and our deschooling became unschooling or autonomous education-there is an article comparing formal and informal home education here
and one about not imposing structure

Now our days are very relaxed, if there is a workshop or event planned then we organise ourselves around that, if there isn't we'll see what H wants to do with the day, sometimes she will have made plans with us the previous day, sometimes not.

And being informal we can change our minds at any time and decide to go out for a few hours-or just see how the day pans out.

the big key for us, was as i said when we realised how much they were learning so informally.

Hi, stopfighting

No timetable here. Lots of spur of the moment going out (because there's no law that says that educational activities and conversations have to be a) explicitly educational and b) in your own house)

You know, when I used to worry about children eating enough fruit and veg, my wise wise mother said "don't think about how many apples a child ate today. Just keep a rough idea in your head of how much fruit they ate over a month".

And she was absolutely right. A week would go by, with the fruit bowl looking mournful and full, and then one day every single piece of fruit in it would be chomped by someone or other. Today no bananas. But tomorrow 3, maybe.

I think education is the same. Step back. Don't think "eek, what did we do today!" but on a Sunday night, just have a think about all the things you talked about last week, and all the activities you did, and perhaps make a little list in a notebook or diary, and you'll find that there's plenty of "accomplishment".

Also, remember, the person who needs to feel they are accomplishing things is your Dd, and her ideas of what things are important might be different from yours. You might be thinking "maths! must do maths!" when actually, she's deeply engrossed in a book and is also finishing off a piece of french knitting, or something. And that's fine too.

EmmaAgain - I like your mother's view - it reminds me of reading about some research on children's diet many years ago, where they let the children pick all their own food from a selection without any input from adults. Over several days, they found that the children's choices had added up to a reasonably balanced diet.

Maybe with autonomous education, children are equally able to pick out a balanced education, if offered a "buffet" of resources and opportunities.

Education happens everywhere, as I've posted elsewhere, I had to explain why helium makes your voice go squeaky to my DS 10yr, in the middle of a crowded restaurant between raucous (sorry if you were on the table next to us) sucking on helium balloons. Now that will stick in his mind, and it will come up sometime in the future.
ATM we are giving/ structuring something each day for DS to do more for ourselves as we are still stuck in the needing proof synario, but we are consiously trying to make it fun for DS when we do interfere. Today it is helping me make dinner as its making batter for batter coated chicken. He will enjoy it because he loves helping me in the kitchen, he will remember it. Then not forgetting the obligatory storytime later on this evening.

"Maybe with autonomous education, children are equally able to pick out a balanced education, if offered a "buffet" of resources and opportunities"

yes, mama. What you said.

And Discover, remind me, why DOES helium make your voice go squeaky?

The helium 'tightens' the vocal cords. But why it tightens them I will have to study up on, Is it chemical or the cells not plumping up because the helium takes over from the oxygen etc.

No it doesn't.

Helium is less dencs than ordinary air, as the molecules of helium are smaller than nitrogen and oxygen that make up most of the air that we breath.

Because the He is less dense it allows the vocal cords to vibrate more rapidly. Think of the analogy that it is easier to run in air than in a swimming pool

The pitch of a voice (or any sound for that matter) is determined by the frequency of vibration. the higher the frequency, the higher the note.

nothing to do with the vocal cords per se.

Thanks for you encouragement everyone - my first proper flounce (and I didnt't flounce very far!)

Having a complete mare at the moment, and need to be off the computer, for all sorts of reasons. But not gorn forever.

dense

Thart was a correction of my spelling Sue, I wasn't calling you dense!

Thanks MB, it's all coming back to me now

And rofl at the unfortunate potential of Suebaroo thinking you were calling her dense, you evil byatch, you

A teacher called me dense! waaahhhhhh!

habit

any lighter than air gas would have the same effect. He is the usual because you can breathe it for a bit without serious consequences and it is inert (unless you put a massive amount of energy through it).

Hydrogen would do the same, and would make your voice even higher, but as it is explosive this would be a bad idea

chortle... BANG

Well there goes my credentials as a teacher. Duh!!! But its something that I can correct.
Its what you get for being under the influence of a bottle of wine and totally unprepared.

Julienoshoes and Emmaagain,

Thanks for your responses. I guess she can make pizza for lunch then, in place of doing some geography

Only concern is, though, she may go back to school next year so we do have to be prepared for that. I think I am still also getting my head around what we're doing.

Bump, because I like this thread.

"Only concern is, though, she may go back to school next year so we do have to be prepared for that. I think I am still also getting my head around what we're doing."

There is a very small area of knowledge where she might be "left behind" by going off syllabus - maybe in maths they'd have introduced some concepts which she hadn't been introduced to at home. If she is interested in rejoining school, I'd carefully identify the likely places where she wants to stay abreast of the school syllabus. But puts on flak jacket in most areas, it will be a matter of them having introduced various subject matter rather than various vital concepts that she won't be picking up at home. Just because they're doing plate tectonics in geography doesn't mean she'll need to - if she's interested in plate tectonics she can pursue that interest when she wants to.

Whatever she's interested in, that's the stuff to facilitate for now IMO.

And making pizza... they have cookery classes where you make pizzas in schools, and she's just getting to do it casually. Wahoo! (what, no "method"? Do you remember having to do all the timings of a recipe for cookery lessons? "Mix flour and eggs, 2 minutes..." this was with Granny G the terrifying home economics teacher. One of my friends always used to hide her washing up in a cupboard so she wouldn't finish the recipe late...)

Can I join in as a wannabe as well?

I have one 12yo who chose his secondary school and keeps on saying that it is a good school whenever I point out that he always has choices when some drama crops up.

The 10yo is getting more and more stressed by the same primary the older one was at, off ill so often I'm finding it near impossible to get out to look at other primaries. Looking here about HE and having joined EO is one of the steps I'm taking to look at the options we as parents can lay before him.

So thanks to everyone for your comments so far, and for the existence of the HE thread here.

WElcome milou2

Thanks Emmaagain. I think you're right.

Today, we both got really stressed because I was trying to get her to do a 'book review' of the book she's just finished. She dislikes this kind of thing, and is not very good at it, so I end up pushing it more because being able to write accurately is such a vital skill and it really worries me.

Maybe the problem is that I should give up totally on school style learning. What do you think?

(Hope this makes sense btw)

I've always thought that writing a book review at someone else's behest is the ideal way to destroy one's enjoyment in a book (and I'm someone who occasionally writes book reviews for publication, by choice, and at least I get to keep the book afterwards)

Just ask her what she thought of the book. Enjoy the conversation. The best way to learn to write formally is to have something to say in a formal way, not for its own sake, just like the best way to learn rugby tackles is if oyu want to play rugby, rather than just learning them because they are "useful" in some abstract sense. Just IMO.

stopfighting I was just doing some work with DS, a tiny bit of filling in the blanks and he got upset because school always said he had to write the words (for numbers) out in full eg: five and a half instead of 5.5, which I thought was a ludicrous waste of his time. When are you ever again (apart from this forum) ever going to use the whole word structure again?

Why should she write a book review thats for teachers to mark later on in the week when they have time. If you talk about the book she will be able to tell you in a very short time whether she understood it and you then tick it off in your mind as done. Sorted, no need for labourious writing.

Emmaagain and Discoverlife,

Thanks so much for helping me to look at it in this way..
It's a long process though isn't it?