What 'subjects' have your home ed DC's done today?

[discoverlife]

I thought this would help those thinking of Home Educating their children to show the spread and depth of subjects that can and are covered by their DC's.

Each childs needs are different so what is commonplace or regular for one will be totally different for another.

So today I did with DS 10yo with SEN.

20 minutes on the trampoline and playing catch to get his neurons warmed up for mental activities.

20 minutes on his gardening project where we have sunflowers seedlings, analysing why one set have not sprouted yet (probable answer 'not warm enough') writing down in his book a few sentances about todays readings eg. height of seedlings.

30 minutes Oragami, (maths) angles etc.

Then as long as he likes on an online game called 'Eve' where to get on you have to mine asteroids and sell the metals then buy new equipment or training etc. (economics and socialising in one).

Hear, hear to the last statement discoverlife. Although I don't think anyone (particularly me) has said you or us 'schoolers' shouldn't be ' be smug about our kids and their abilities' I agree we should. Why not, I mean boasting about your children's abilities is human nature However, it is the parents smugness that irritates me. I think you are the only one who has been bandying around words like hippy freak. Now I am starting to get at you so I will stop.
However I still am hazy on the progress to higher education (did have a quick look at the website mentioned). I think my key concern is that not all parents who HE are intelligent enough to take their children on to the higher levels of education. That is not meant as any insult to HE parents, I am absolutely sure my Maths knowledge (for example) and understanding could not stretch any further than GCSE and in fact I would not feel qualified to 'teach' GCSE level maths despite having got a B grade myself. Teaching requires an in depth understanding in order to communicate effectively but being able to DO something doesn't mean you can automatically TEACH it. So how is this problem overcome?

parent's not parents!

If the children want to do qualifications, some parents make use of distance learning courses, or in my case internet schools. Others go to FE colleges or use the OU.

Er, I mean the youngsters use colleges/OU of course, although some parents are inspired to studyfurther as well

There I go again, getting hot under the collar. Sorry if I blew up.
There are loads of courses, to attend, download or get the disks for that higher education its really a problem. I havn't gone that far myself as DS2 is only 10 and SEN to boot. Now I'm HE ing I do think he has got the ability to take some GCSE's in his own time, rather than being written off already by his school (and I believed them!)

Can I just ask, do the children not miss out on the social aspect that school provides, learning how to share, and speak to each other, chasing around the playground, having friends, and team games etc. Those are the best bits....... Just curious

My sons socialising consisted of being punched to the ground, stopmed on, spat at, kicked and punched. Then he had his school bag urinated in, then the story spread around school was that because he is 'thick' (SEN) he would never marry and would have to become a peadophile and have sex with babies. He was the one kept in at play time because the school were scared something BAD would happen to him

Don't get me started on the sociallising at school it is the most un-natural sociallising there is. A HE child sociallises with ALL walks of life, not with a segment of society that is age and sometimes sex regulated, with its own brand of jungle justice. There are bad sides to school socialising as well as good.

I'm so sorry to hear that discoverlife, I've never heard of children being that bad...thats really awful for him.

I doubt very much if I will ever send him back to school, but if he wants to then I will have to let him. At least he will be stonger and older by then to be able stand up to the bullies.

Crystaltipsandalaistar I have four of my own, and, generally speaking, my attitude is that, if they can't be friends, share and treat their own family with respect, they've got no business being trained to do it with other people

Which is a mildly facetious way of saying that none of the things you gave as examples are things which are out of reach to my kids. Between church, Girl's Brigade, people we meet out and about and family, they get as good a cross-section as anyone else might.

DANCESwithaMuffinTop I'm probably one of the more 'formal' HE parents on MN, and at the moment, our main focus is the basics of encouraging reading, a basic grasp of maths, the ability to write and working on character issues. Other than that, our children are just exploring the world.

In time, we'll start to introduce a little more formality - perhaps unit studies, perhaps more specific topics. We think we're going to move into the Trivium, or 'classical' way of doing things, but that's not set in stone.

The answer to your question about higher education is that it completely depends on what our children want to do. If there is a gap in our ability to help them learn, then we would do what someone in a school would perhaps do if the maths teaching at the school wasn't up to speed - we'll outsource.

I am indeed smug to the point of deeply irritating But I'm only that way online, in the few places like this where I have found other people who do HE and I feel free enough to say 'Yes! I absolutely love what we're doing for our children's education and I am really glad I didn't follow the suggestions of all the people who disagree with me!'

I assure you, when I'm answering mean-spirited criticism from my anti-HE SIL again and again and again, I'm not smug, I'm just ruddy depressed.

Anyway, back to the topic. Today we have entertained guests, we have done copious amounts of cookery, my eldest has done some of her english workbook and some cross-stitch. Dd1 is very interested in how our bodies work and are fuelled, so we've been looking at various food groups and the parts of the body that deal with digestion, as well as planning a two-week menu that takes into account everyone's different nutritional needs.

We did some bible-memory work because we've been learning about why Jesus called Himself 'bread', which has been a really challenging thought, particularly when we've been looking at physical food and digestion.

It's been a busy day!

I have just read the thread and think you are doing just fine without me!

Am knackered -but join in later

Would say have a good look round the main HE sites Home Education UK and Education Otherwise
Muddle Puddle for families who HE young children and
Home Education Special Needs for families who HE children with SEN.

But do need to say that children learn all sorts of things from situations/activities that they are interested in-even when you don't realise that they are.

There is a good article comparing formal and informal/autonomous home education

And yes it is pretty much what a lot of you seem to do with your children at weekends and holidays-just a great deal more of it, but also it is more to the child's timetable.

But then you don't have to push a child or guide him if he is interested in something you can't stop him.
There is a recent thread on one of the HE lists about a footie mad lad.
And between the responses they were able to cover just about very conceivable subject in some way through football!

Off to bed now.
Goodnight

Crystaltipsandalaistar
I'm knackered because dd and I went to the local HE group that we organise the room for and and the activitys at.

Watched about 40 families worth of children learning how to share, and speak to each other, chasing around the 52 acres of grounds, having friends, and team games etc.

for 4 hours.
"Those are the best bits...."
I agree-thats why I don't like restricting them to short break times.

I am not being smug, but is possible-if the child wants to- to have a brilliant social life when you HE-although it does vary around the country-certainly our children's social life is the envy of their schooled peers and cousins.

Have a peep at our local website to get an idea of the things that we get up to, if you like.

regards
Julie
Home Educating in Worcestershire
Home Educating in Worcestershire

well Matthew (7) and I today did 2 pages of his key stage 2 maths workbook,wrote part of a story from a book he is writing about a dog ...measured rainfall since saturday and updated our charts,practiced yet again telling the time(this hes finding tricky),this afternoon his daddy took him to the local museum(one of his favourite haunts) because he likes the old fashioned tameside.....after his brothers finished school he went for a bike ride with them and some friends(its only local and no roads are crossed and theres 4 14 yr old with them too)tonight we made pancakes from scratch and he played his glockenspiel whilst his brother practiced his electric guitar ....in between this and bedtime hes exploring the use of the bluetooth dongle for his new mobile phone!!......needless to say hes shattered and went to bed exhausted

This is a very interesting thread! It may feel to longer term HEers that you are repeating old threads, but for people who are new to the HE idea like me it is useful & reassuring to hear all these points- so thanks for taking the time to answer . (I'll need all the help I can get if it comes to telling friends & family we've decided to do it.)
And just a quick hijack... Bubble99 - what is the book you mentioned?

Thats why Julienoshoes is much better than I am at this. My sons hurts are still too raw for me to be objective about HE'ing. I do think that its great for people to have kids that are happy in school and I would never advocate them taking their happy children out of school. But for those who are unhappy there is a way out and that is HE.

Thanks discoverlife. I think I will join HE and find out what groups there are in the local area. I will probably send ds to school because he loves the nursery class so much, this morning he said "I can't take the big smile off my face because I am so excited to go to nursery because it is such fun!" .

I would have no reservations whatsoever at removing him from school if I felt that he was not reaching his potential or was unhappy there. On balance my gut feeling is that HE is better for the child but for now I think I will plan on sending ds to school and just see how it goes.

I am enjoying reading the examples on this thread of things different families are doing.

But there are a couple of things which are bothering me, so I thought I'd put them out there to be gunned down or mulled over.

There might be a danger in cataloguing the "subjects" our children cover that we buy into the mythology that activities have to be cataloguable in terms of school subjects to be worth doing, to be educational. For school-at-home HE, it's kind of easy and obvious: "well, we did 30 minutes of our reading scheme and then 30 minutes of maths worksheets, a bit of our history project and then off to the HE science group after lunch" (I am oversimplifying just to make the point).

But for autonomous home educators, the activities of our children may well not at all look like school subject-specific activities.

1. there is the danger of focusing on, emphasising, noticing the activities which fit the boxes. Of breathing a sigh of relief when a child does something which we can present to the in-laws as educational and within the realm of what they'll recognise as such. Of interacting with the expectations of wider schooled society on their terms rather than ours.

2. we don't know when our children are learning or in what form. Someone around here recently said something about their children spending all day playing computer games. And it's accepted generally in society that that would Not Be Educational. But there is a stage in a person's life when they first learn to use a mouse alone. In what universe is that not a major thing to have learned? There is a stage when they first learn to navigate icons to their favourite games and activities. Again, how are they not, gloriously, learning? And the learning continues; computers are just a medium like any other, which can be educational depending on what is going on inside someone's head.

It might be in the "down-time" computer games that our children learn the most in a day. Or in the building of a large lego structure. Or in who knows what - it needn't look like school, it needn't be good LEA-report fodder, and maybe we as parents will never know what our children learned from colouring in 47 pictures of the Teletubbies one day aged 2 (that's a hypothetical). There's a wonderful HE video on Youtube called "Learning all the time" which portrays some of that - that you can even make a video of unschooled children doing their thing, and there are glimpses of all sorts of wondrous learning going on, but it still can't be grasped and quantified. Poor old OFSTED, maybe that's why they tried so hard to shut down Summerhill.

But all that said, I'm really enjoying reading what everyone is up to

Excellent post, as usual, Emmaagain.

because matthew is home schooled and his 2 brothers are in school i tend to have several things per day that he has to attempt number work is no problem hed happily do it all day every day -however story writing and anything involving him writing it down is tedious for him he knows what he wants to write and can write it but his imagination goes so much faster than his pen and this frustrates him....other activities we can do if he wants if not he can go with his daddy or go on the pc or playmobil orlego or dough etc etc etc so i know theres a large proportion of learning that im not accounting for but that is what i feel hed do in his own time if he was in school...

God I love this Home Educating. Im having sooooo much fun. DS2 is loving it too.
We visited another Home Ed family today to finish of the last of the Dry Ice by sharing the experimants with them, then we cuddled 10 day old PIGLETTS. They were so ugly they were cute. Pudgy little noses, bristly coats, and squealing their heads off when we picked them up. (the other home ed family farm). Then DS2 had 2 hours climbing bales and feeding carrots to the foal, and geberally getting filthy whilst the other Mum and myself yacked about life the universe and everything.
What a brill day had by all.

Outrageous. Children are supposed to SUFFER, not get the idea that life is fun

where does one get dry ice from?

Discoverlife - I can't (but do iykwim) believe the treatment of your son...absolutely appalling. I am happy with the school system but think even I would have HE if that was the sort of abuse my child was subjected to. I'm still not sure I'm convinced about HE generally but this has been a very informative and positive thread. Pats on the back all round

Oh and since you are still sounding smug I shall launch a counter attack (!) My daughter who used to be so shy she would never leave my leg at toddler groups is full of confidence at school and very popular, she is starting to read which she is thrilled with and loves to lecture me on the things she has learnt...how was that?!

Hypothesis:

Because she's growing older and more confident.

Correlation doesn't imply causation.

She'd have learned to read at home, and she'd have grown in social confidence at home, it's just that those things happen to have happened at the time she started going to school.

End of (smug) hypothesis

well, my two

DD has played the piano, drawn lots of cartoons, researched the internet and helped with the cooking.

DS has worked on his computer skills, done some research into roman battle tactics, and improved his litening skills by using a spoken word CD.

Oops, sorry , I remembered, mine go to school, so I just shove them in a box at the end of the day

DS1 has played his clarinet - good for reading music, listening to rhythm and just having a good time. He has looked at Pokemon cards - and classified and sorted them into piles according to their evolutionary status.

DS2 has sung show tunes, and bounced on a trampoline and checked the weather station in the garden, and noted down the changes.

DD has talked to the dog, and broken two eggs, and read a book and gone on a Zoo computer game, where is aiming to be a Zoo tycoon.

And before they did all that - they went to school. And did loads and loads of stuff there too.