What are you all up to today?

[Marjoriew]

It's gone quiet here - just wondering what you are all up to.
Grandson was up at 7 am. What's an Achilles Heel?
So we researched that>which lead on to doing some stuff on the Greeks>to getting out the skeleton poster>to learning about the bones in the body>to making a pasta skeleton>to making up the Glow in the Dark jigsaw we got in the charity shop.

Now I've got me feet up with a bacon sandwich and a mug of tea and grandson is on his trampoline in the garden.

wow a pasta skeleton! that's awesome what type of pasta?

DD (3 tomorrow!) got a new game yesterday, Cranium Cariboo, all about matching numbers, colours, shapes and letters. she's barely put it down. the 'advanced' level is for 5+ but I might try her with it as she loves counting.

will probably play with the wooden train set again too - the other day she was learning about straight/curvy pieces, and how to switch the points on it.

my DCs aren't school age yet but I thought I'd post anyway as it's so lovely to see DD learn something and know I helped her achieve that.

I got our pasta skeleton from
www.enchantedlearning.com
A lot of the stuff is free but we have a £10 annual subscription. Worth every penny.

Waiting for our science goodies to arrive so we can both play with them

I'm and aboutnas per. Music class this morning, then althletics, then his language class. Then home to practice his guitar for his grade exam.

Got to the place where he does his group music class an hour early so he could do some maths work, he's sat on a bench now with a friend doing some creative writing while we wait for sports to start. Then it's off again in the opposite direction to French class, where we usually stop off for a drink and cake afterwards as his friends who go there live nearby.

These classes are in three different towns by the way, one of the major downsides of living in such a rural area and having a child who wants to do everything.

One of the parents at another class he goes to was saying how she was looking forward to a break from the school run over the holidays, and then said to me 'oh, but I don't suppose the holidays are any different fom everyday life to you'. Luckily, it was on a day when he only has two different places to be, in the same city or I would have been mightily peed off.

Sorry, that should have said out ans about, typing on phone while trying to help ds and friend with punctuation!

Today mine are learning all about not screaming in the garden all day or Mummy will have to beat you.*

Very educational.

*People with no sense of humour please note that I will NOT be beating them under any circumstances.

We've just got back from the local church. Had a picnic in the churchyard. Grandson wanted to look at the stained glass windows - fascinated by them. Asked why some of the old graves had railings around them. Told them it was to stop the grave robbers getting in to steal the bodies.

Then he saw the notice about the Sunday School and decided he'd like to try it on Sunday!
Bought some runner bean seeds for our Dig For Victory garden.

I was wondering where everyone was too!

Had a fab afternoon yesterday, went to HE group for first time. Took about 2.5 hours, but finally at the end DS and DD1 were running round with all the other kids (about 12 of them, toddlers to Tweens).

Mum took them to the library this morning and stayed for lunch, and now it's supposed to be quiet time in bedrooms (hahaha cue manic laughter).

Horseriding, a walk through the park and a plate of chips each.

Oh, and a fair bit of squabbling

DD practiced sight words she is trying to learn while I made breakfast, we discussed Australian history/white invasion, also chatted about the words 'fault' and 'blame', now I am faffing and she is 'readin'/looking at a book and sucking her infernal thumb (she is 6)

Oh and this arvo she wants to make come clay jewellery and go to the butcher to look at the meat and ask what animals it came from Future anatomy student?

Dh came home last night saying he'd been laid off his current job. He's a carpenter so this is not unusual; there should be more work for him in a week or two.

Weather being what it is, finances being what they are, seemed like a perfect opportunity to go camping!! No un-cancellable appointments this week either. We took the kids to the outdoor pool all morning then spent all afternoon and evening getting the camping things together. (My children definitely eat torches. There is no other explanation for the disappearance of so many.)

10:30pm, the little one began puking. Aargh. Dh thinks we should go anyway. Maybe it was just pool water. I have no idea what we should do. Putting departure off another day seems like a bad idea - on Friday there are bound to be hordes heading for the seaside which will make travel bad and campsite-finding dicey.

good for you we are just starting out any original advise plrase welcpme

Actually we have re themed the day in the light of the Australian political shake up, although DD not very impressed and keeps saying she just wants Daddy to be the boss of Australia, not Kevin or Julia

We'd love camping, Saracen. We've been gathering stuff from freecycle and charity shops so we can maybe go this summer. We visited some friends down the road from us who were camping and grandson loved it. There were loads of kids there [it was half-term]. We did some flower pressing and made some cards when we got home.
We just missed an 8-berth and a 6-berth tent on freecycle. I think it's rapidly becoming an option for holidays, so they get snapped up pretty quickly.
My son is in the army and he says we can borrow his cooking stuff etc.

We're hoping to do some glass painting after our visit to the local church. Took some photos of the windows to give us inspiration.

How can all you lovely ladies get your kids to do all this stuff. I have been HEing for 6YEARS and my kids won't do anything. THey won't do arts and crafts, apart from DD who only likes to do certain things at certain times, they won't build with lego/meccano/whatever, again except DD, they won't do puzzles, play games, anything. And getting them to do traditional "work" type things is almost impossible.

No-one else in the area HEs so there are no groups. We don't drive, there is no local park unless we want a round 8 mile walk or to pay 15pounds getting 2 buses, and even then, there isn't much to it. Local library is a bus ride and 10pounds in fares away. Swimming pool costs about 3pounds a head as well as bus fares and a substantial walk. OH is out a work 6 days a week from 7am-7pm, so no chance of family days out either.

I'm always reading about all the fab things people get up to on here and on HE sites and forums, but we never seem to be able to do anything at all. I seem to spend my days listening to all 3 younger kids bickering and fighting, especially DS3 and DD, and nagging constantly for X-box or Nintendo. That's when they are not fighting over which garbage to watch on TV. I really feel like getting rid of TV and putting the x-box on Freecycle, but that wouldn't be fair to either the big boys or to OH. And yesterday, I caught my DS3 out lying to me about his maths work. I had been at the allotment watering (it hasn't rained here for about a month or more) he had stayed at home, as he usually does. He promised me that he had been on Maths Whizz, said he does it every day for 1/2 an hour. While I was checking stuff out on it, finding out what the kids have been learning etc. I discovered that he hadn't touched it in over a week and that, far from doing 1/2 an hout a day, he had been doing less than 1/2 an hour a week. I am so cross about it, I feel sick.

Oh gosh, I am so sorry. This has turned into a major league rant and pityfest. Sorry. Any advice on how to regain some initiative would be welcome, though.

We visited a Lavender Farm, which which was stunningly beautiful - rows of waving purple and green for as far as the eye could see. All looked ridiculously idyllic, wandering through the rows of lavender! The children were given jars and sent out to find the pesky rainbow beetle, which eats the crop if left to its own devices - this proved trickier than it sounds. There were several HE families there whom I've not met before, and my DD2 made yet another 'new friend'.

DS1 was a total nightmare though, so we didn't stay for as long as my girls would have liked. Picnic-ed, picked bugs, picked (v. small bit of) lavender, and went home and I collapsed in front of Wimbledon while DS1 slept his mood off.

DD1 picked some more strawberries off our plants: they have an excellent flavour and sweetness!

Am really posting to re-assure myself that the day was worth the exhaustion and grumpiness it provoked in me (I'm four months pregnant with my fifth, and STRUGGLING!) It was . Phew!

StressedHeMum ,The telly, the DS, the MP3 player do not get touched until all stuff is done for the day.
Those have been the rules from the start. Grandson knows it. We home ed partly structured and party autonomous. Maths we use The Maths Factor [Carol Vordernman] and we have a couple of CD roms for other stuff.
It may sound a bit of a strict regime but it does suit both of us.
I daresay it's more difficult with more than one, though.
Don't panic. I'm sure there'll be others along who do things differently and will be able to help you out.

StressedHeMum, I am the same as Marjoriew, no TV until work is done, and in reality, it's TV only at the weekends, unless he is up a bit later in the evenings. Those have been our rules from the begining.

How old are your DC? Can you bring in a new set of rules about TV etc that they have to stay to?

stressedhemum Oh how I wish you lived near me, then we could whine together. I am in totally the same boat; I think you replied to a thread I did not long ago, about a very similar thing!

I am fed up with the lack of motivation, and tbh, even when I have structured things, it feels like the only reason they are doing it is to get it out the way and do screen time/fighting!!
Which for me, defeats the whole object..

Anyhooooo, I am breathing through it all, with mild insanity creeping in from time to time, followed by mini meltdowns, at which point sometimes stuff gets done.

It is awful sometimes, reading how much other people get done, and how tickety boo it all seems; we're all different though and am sure a level will be found at some point before my hair falls out.

DS2 doesn't feel too well, so is watching YouTube videos in the kitchen near me.

I've done washing up etc plus reading some of Everyday Blessings and cancelling his trip to the dentist this afternoon.

If he's ok to be left home alone I'll be shopping and putting up a prayer card in church for a sick relative. Discussions about that relative's cancer, MacMillan and all that may happen later today. That will go under RE and PSHE.

Our routine is quite unlike the active ones some other people have, we are very home based, I note down discussions and topics if I remember and I try to keep focusing on my top priorities, kindness, peace and quiet.

Just slightly annoyed him with some spoonerisms I couldn't help myself with, based on his YouTube clip. Hmm, that counts as English.

Hi, Catbus, I did reply to your thread about similar stuff. Sometimes, it all just gets a bit much sometimes. AS I say, I have had years and years of it and it never seems to get any better.

My kids (the HE ones) are 17, 13, 10 and 7. It's a lot tougher when they are older and a lot tougher when you have a few, especially with a spread of ages. None of them are at the same stage nor do they really have any interests in common. Couple that with 2 of them having AS, one of them having a specific difficulty with reading and writing and one of them being a pubescent girl and it's a bit of a nightmare. You have to trust that the older ones will do their stuff responsibly while you work with the younger ones. To be honest, DS2 (17) does, he works on his stuff as and when he wants to in a completely self directed manner. He will start college in September and gets on fine. The rest of them seem to think that they can do the same, but fail to realise that J. actually does a lot of studying that they never see. The 2 years that he was HEed on his own were productive and enjoyable, I even taught him to cross stitch, despite his AS and dyspraxia.

I do have a no x-box etc. in the morning rule, but that doesn't stop the continual whining and nagging. Particularly from the little one who has AS and wants what he wants and wants it NOW! Over the years, I have tried every approach imaginable from completely laid back to completely structured and timetabled. Nothing seems to work and it doesn't help that I have no support from anyone. Even my OH doesn't take anything to do with their education except to criticise that the younger 3 are practically illiterate. DS3 did 5 years of school and still failed to learn to read and write properly. 4 years of HE hasn't made that much difference (except he can read better now. Still writes like a 4 year old, though.)

it makes matters worse that we live in such a deprived area with no facilities at all. There really isn't anything to do round about here, not even a swing park, nowhere to visit that doesn't cost a fortune to get to etc., there aren't even that many other kids for the children to play with. So we are practically trapped here all the time. Even a visit to my parents less than 4 miles away costs 15pounds in the bus.

I'm sorry. I just sound like a complete whiner. I'm not, usually. But I'm getting really frustrated at the lack of progress and the bad behaviour, to be honest. Thanks for the advice, though. it is much appreciated.

God that sounds really difficult stressedHEmum and catbus Sounds like you both need a break from the routine. I live in south east london where there are loads of things to do, and places to go, so I would probably be pushiing it if I said I know anything about what you're both going through re; activities and things; but I can relate to your frustration with kids that just don't seem self motivated AT ALL. With mine it was 'Mum can we play the Wii' 'Mum can we play the Wii' 'Mum can we play the Wii' 'Mum can we play the Wii' 'Mum can we play the Wii' 'Mum can we play the Wii' 'Mum can we play the Wii'.....or DS...or computer...or watch rubbish all day. Even if I said no it was nag nag nag.

After a year I saw that no, they were not going to get tired of trying to beat the fifty thousandth boss in Sonic black Knight etc etc. So we braced ourselves and disconected the Wii and confiscated the DS's. Which was REALLY hard on me the most. I felt really horrible with crying DS 7 begging me day after day - refusing to eat dinner- and acting like I had sold him to an orphanage (which he would have preferred if he could have taken the blasted console)

Anyway nearly six months on, and although my kids still do not spontaneously pick up encyclopedias etc, they do do their work (some math, science, english etc) when I ask them MOST of the time. (That's usually if I'm sitting there watching mind; and if i don't tell them to do it, you can bet your life they won't) I've noticed an improvement in their concentration and DS8 had been forced to make his own entertainment. Eldest does CPG science books on his own sometimes(I think those books are life savers) It still requires a lot of work from me to actually keep them interested, I tend to initiate activities a lot rather than waiting for them and sometimes they discover something new that way instead.

At first I used to read all these stories on seemingly perfect HE families and compare mine to them but having now talked to more HEer's I've realised that there are lots of people who are just taking it one day at a time. Also there may be loads to do in my neck of the woods but the travel fares add up. Things are rarely ever within walking distance. I spend a fortune in trains and bus fares; have spent at least 40 quid alone this week which was was really bad budgeting. And I'm within walking distance of 3 parks but haven't gone to any of them for 3 weeks because I manage things like chores etc badly. We don't have any really close HE friends either. My eldest had more friends in school. Also theres lot's more of the wrong stuff going on in my very lively area; Eldest DS prefers not to walk down our street alone because of cannabis dealing/smoking kids hanging around. Sometimes I actually wish we lived in a quiter area where it was safer. I think it's all swings and round-a-bouts but the good still weighs up the difference. Over-riding thing that makes it all worth it is feeling like I'm doing what i'm supposed to which sounds smug. Sometimes it feels like it's all uphill but I have faith it WILL work out well in the end and even on the days when i could seriously contemplate killing them they say they would rather risk death than returning to school, so i'm doing something right. Sorry this was supposed to be encouraging but I think it's starting to be about me....Just wanted to say don't despair!

Majorie, that sounds wonderful!

StressedHEmum, I am ashamed to say that within this last week I have threatened DD2 with (whispers) school if she doesn't knuckle under. I know I'd hate to do it, so it's stupid really, and I know it would be cruel as a punishment, but I have seriously felt like it.

2010 has been a thoroughly crap year on a personal level. I had a complicated but much longed for pregnancy at the start of the year, culminating in a complicated miscarriage in the spring for which I am still undergoing hospital treatment. . So work kind of got put on the back burner (though it was an absolute blessing they weren't in school). Then DD1 had her GCSEs so all my time was on her. Finally last week DD1 was finished and I thought, OK, I'll get back on track with DD2. Cue complete loss of interest in learning and moan moan moan about anything I try to do with her. Added to which, she cries at every tiny thing that goes wrong. I keep telling her she's nearly 11 and if she was in school it would be completely unacceptable - which of course makes it worse and makes me feel mean into the bargain.

So, I said to her that if she didn't knuckle under she would have to go to the high school in September - and I meant it. She's really been trying since then, to give her credit. And I have to tell myself that we've all had a tough year - she's seen me go through so much crap - and that sending her to school on top of it all would not be the answer for any of us. But it is very hard at times.

DD2 has been so easy her whole life and suddenly she's either crying or giving me (and her dance and singing teachers ) a load of attitude. I feel worried when she gives outsiders attitude that it's the home ed, but probably it isn't, probably it's that she's nearly 11! Hormones probably add to the mix but it's a shock when she has always been the world's easiest child!

Anyway, today........ DD1 did nothing. She's on "ignoring week" where I have promised to completely ignore her (in a nice way, no requests to do anything remotely helpful or work related!) as a reward for all her hard work on her GCSEs.

DD2 did some maths in her book, then had a shower and I bug-busted her hair as a school friend reported nits (none, thankfully!). Then she did her piano and keyboard practice - I stayed around and helped her with a new chord. Then she went to my mum's for a poetry lesson (my mum is a godsend, especially when I am stressed and busy). After that we had lunch and she has a break, then we looked at population changes and she drew some pictures in her Geography book. Then I took her to her drama lesson she does at the dance school on a Thursday. Later she tried ironing some hama beads by herself for the first time, with great success.

So a good day - but I don't feel our days are terribly inspiring at the moment - I'm all inspired out and we've lost impetus a bit this year - but DD2 is at least trying this week, bless her, and I'm hoping that by September we will be back on track again. I'm reluctant to have a summer break as most of this year has been a break, but on the other hand I think we can then make a concerted effort to start again in September.

Sorry this just goes on....I'm always so positive about home ed but this year has been difficult on many levels. I still think we're doing the right thing - just I think if you're struggling a bit it's easy to think you're the only one - which is not the case. I think Shineynewthings, you are right, we're taking it a day at a time.

Marjorie, I want my days to sound like yours - they used to

posy, it hasn't always been like this for us. I also used to look at other HE'rs posts/blogs and feel that I wasn't doing it right.
Grandson has his own little personal problems as a result of his background, but I know that HE is the best for him.
He just turned 11 a couple of weeks ago and he seems to have sort of grown up a bit. We discussed secondary a couple of weeks before his birthday and he says he still wants to be HE right through now. I explained to him that we would work together but I did have expectations of him and we discussed the changes to our HE. We used to have quite a rigid structured day, and there have had to be compromises on both sides.
After a few hiccups, things have taken off really well.
I used to worry when I read other people's stuff that I wasn't doing it right/that I wasn't making it interesting enough/that he wasn't progressing/and, more worrying, that he just wasn't a 'natural learner'.
We went on a visit to my son's yesterday, and my 5 year old granddaughter had got in from school and she had made a big cardboard surfboard and decorated it in school. He was playing out with her in the garden and the neighbour had some cardboard and he cut him one out. He asked if he could paint it today and I said 'Yes, but when we've done our 'work'. As I was saying goodnight to him, he said that his surfboard looked like a shield shape, so he decided it would be a shield instead like the knights had. So it's knights and castles today, so I'm up rummaging in the shed getting the paints out He hasn't always been like this posy - it's been like pulling teeth sometimes, but I don't get so stressed now on the days when we don't appear to get much done.
I'm more relaxed than I was about the whole HE thing. It's like SDeuchars says, learning is taking place all the time.
He has a very low reading age, so now we just read for a purpose. A lot of what we do is project based, so we now just read for a purpose on whatever subject project we're working on. It's half the battle when his interest is being held.
You are so good at what you do and so talented. I've always admired you all the way along. You and yours will get through this, I know you will. I don't worry so much about what we haven't done, but I know when I collapse in a heap in the evening, and rewind on the day, that we have done more than we thought we had.
Maybe a wee break will do you all good, just so you can catch your breath and gather your strength. You must look after yourself, posy, and be kind to yourself.
One of the things about HE is that the attention is always focussed on the child/children and it can be hard to find 'me time'. Take it where you can get it.
I'm blethering on here when I should have my face in my OU book.
So it's a bacon sandwich and tea before I do anything else.
Chin up, you lot that are having problems. Today is another day and so is tomorrow.