March just after the Spring Equinox

Beautiful day spent in the garden, digging out weeds (one particular weed that is unidentifiable and is killing my lawn - everything else like nettles, dandelions and so on are not "weeds" in my book), withSpringy and her friend doing Easter egg colouring in pictures, making a den and with the hens wandering about, Lily watching the hens (and occasionally having to be stopped from being overzealous with squashing Violet) and the 2 guineapigs grazing away again. Next door came over for a bit and we had even more children doing colouring and following round the animals. C went rowing around the harbour earlier in his little rowboat and then later he and I did some salsa dancing (well I tried - I usually step on him and then nearly fall over) to some music he'd found on the net. I watered the borders this evening (from the water butt which is starting to look low again) to aid the rose bushes and then listened to the song thrush singing his magnificent repertoire in the top of the big tree in the garden. There's now a mist over the fields and a pink haze in the sky.

Skylarks of Spring

Spring is here - just heard the skylarks in the field for the first time this year. I managed to get a quick glimpse of one and then my eyes failed tracking it. We also saw a buzzard chasing off another buzzard and the kestrel flew by a few times. I can feel the sap rising in the trees as the wind blew through the empty branches.

Happy New Year for 2012

It's January.  Our Christmas did not go quite as planned.  I was ill before Christmas with a bad cough and some kind of flu-like virus and then on Christmas Eve Springy said she wasn't feeling too well.  On Christmas Day she woke up with a fever and no appetite.  We didn't have Christmas dinner 2011 and most of the next few days were spent on fever management with a cold flannel.

She spent the entire Christmas week at home and no friends round (one of her best friends' father is undergoing cancer treatment so we didn't want to risk giving him an illness either).  Anyway, in some ways the break was just what we needed.  It was simple:  simple meals, simple activities, lots of cuddling up together.

She's now back to Irish Dancing and Cubs (her last term and has just been made a Sixer).  She also got walkie talkies which is what she wanted for Christmas and an American Girl book on the body.  The book is excellent - just what I could have done with at her age in order to prepare for puberty.  It's very matter of fact but also deals with some of the feelings girls have about changes in their bodies.  Springy is a few years off puberty still but some of her friends have started to alter and I think it's useful because she can help them too with the information and it's opened her to knowing that she can trust and ask me about anything she wants.

This week and a bit since the start of the New Year has seen us returning gently to a rhythm for our home education (although it never really stops).  Springy has been painting, we did some maths involving graphs and bar charts (from Galore Park) and also today she has been modelling with Fimo, before going out this afternoon for her aunty's birthday lunch.  I must admit that I was in a panic last year - I felt stretched in so many directions.  As well as home educating I work and the work has not been as busy as we need to pay bills etc.  So I've been worrying about getting another job and then wondering how I could fit that in with home educating and already working.  I'm also studying for a degree and also a BTEC.  This year I'm not able to afford much of my BTEC studies so although I would love to do them (and not doing them is going to affect my therapy business as well the likelihood that I will ever finish the course), it's one less stress in many ways. 

On Wednesday we went down to the harbour to watch the sunset.  It was beautiful. There were loads of swans, oyster catchers, sandpipers and curlews - eerie bird noises along the shoreline and soon the owls were due out.  The tide was going out so the shapes in the mud flats and the bare winter trees looked spectacular.  We've also been watching a series called Earthflight which is about birds, on the BBC.  Although the script is rather 'dumbed down' in places, the visuals have been wonderful.

Crow and Dog

There on the path was a crow. It was minding its own business when along came a certain defective Shih Tzu with a short, curled but wagging tail. "Play with me," the tail begged but the crow decided to jump to the ditch and then took off to the west, away from the lonely canine.

In other news, Springy has been working on a scrapbook about her pets.  I had a beautiful scrapbook set which I had always intended to use but never got round to doing so.  I find the whole thing too time consuming so I have been glad to pass it on to Springy.  She seems to be really enjoying printing, writing, cutting out photos, sticking bits of paper and so into the book.

We've also started a new book today.  It's called the Children of Green Knowe.  We're reading it aloud.  Springy was leaping about during the story - she wants to be a wildebeest trying to cross a river with crocodiles in, during the migration season in Africa!  She has an amazing imagination and she can leap off the floor from all fours onto the sofa in single bound.

End of Brownies

Springy has been discovering that the snow today is not as it was yesterday and is different to the snow a few weeks ago. It's crumbly and not sticking for snowman making.  Why have a laboratory when you can have a garden and the weather?

We got back earlier from our daily walk. The Moon was almost full to the east and a golden egg yolk sun dropping down in the west turned to a strata of red, pink and orange. The temperature was bracing and underfoot was slippy - great fun and very beautiful.

 The other news this week was we ditched Brownies. Springy is glad and so am I. There was an unpleasant atmosphere there and it was having a negative influence on Springy. They did do some nice things too but some of the attitudes and behaviours from some of the girls was affecting Springy.

Covered wagon family

http://chasingcheerios.blogspot.com/2010/12/meet-ingalls-family.html

 Thought the above was adorable.

It snowed overnight - not good sticking snow but rather slushy and sleet.  However, it was a whiteout this morning and still snowing.  We had a lovely walk around the harbour this afternoon. Lily got very muddy, Springy got very cold but we made it back inside after the fresh air, the slippy slush and seeing the Brent geese, the lapwings and the oyster catchers.

Springy has also been writing a story about a goose landing in our garden (based on a chapter from Schoolroom in the Parlour by Rebecca Caudhill about the Fairchild family).  She also did Fl words in her Main Lesson Book.  She's been reading for a good few years and although this kind of simple spelling would have normally been done last year (in the Waldorf or Enki Curriculum), we've focused elsewhere.  We're going to do a whole load of words and finish off this MLB.  I tell her the start of the word, she has to come up with words and I join in too.  We compile a list of words in her regular text book - I write them out, she then copies them and then she transfers them all to her MLB in her best writing and for homonyms or synonyms she does a little illustration.

We're going to do Ch, Tr, and St words tomorrow.


Springy also had a playdate with a friend this morning when Scouts was cancelled.  They built a magnificent snowman.


Several of our relatives have received Springy's poetry book which we published through Lulu.  It has her poems and photographs in.  It's such a nice way of gifting a number of people with something personal.

12.11.10 - Springy  has created Hamster World in her bedroom with toilet and kitchen roll tubes, several cardboard boxes and lots of sawdust. (We don't have a hamster nor will we but she's trying very hard to hint).

She also has her own restaurant and has made a fat ball with peanuts and sunflower seeds for the garden birds.   We got some lard and softened it a little in our hands and then cracked open some monkey nuts and some sunflower seeds to add into it.  We've hung it up in the front garden in the hopes that we will see some of our winter visitors as they feast.

Friday, 11th November 2010

We are stocked up on dog food, hen food and guineapig food. We have a tube of cardboard wide enough to accommodate our guineapig and Lily has new dog toy that she is very excited by and keeps asking us to throw.

We also lit a lantern and walked around the kitchen table as it is far too wild and windy to go outside with a real flame. Poor Lily had to wait until this afternoon for her walk because it was pouring down at an angle.

We keep seeing either a curlew or a whimbrel in the harbour (not today though as it was far too choppy when the tide was in). I need to take a photo so that I can fully identify it with Springy's help. From the way it is staying it's more likely a curlew as they stay resident in the winter, whereas whimbrels just pass through.

 

And Springy   is currently still up singing her times tables in a rather odd operatic voice. "Numbers are are fun, threeeee times six iszzz eight-teeen..." !!!

October Nature Walks

Springy and I had a lovely nature walk. We saw a grey heron, looking very primeval, in the harbour mud flats. We also saw a sparrowhawk overhead. The swallows seem to have disappeared over the past few days.
In the past few week I've also bought a sewing machine (managed to thread it up easily but still can't sew straight!).

Walks in the Mist

Today we went on 2 walks down the farm path (including one this evening with the torch - we even had "pirate" mist). We also made purple almondoil/lavender essential oil soap, discussed hibernation, did some sorting out and played with the Sylvanian families amongst other things.

Model making and walruses

Today was a really good day. Springy says she really doesn't want to play the recorder so she had a go on our percussion instruments instead. We made 2 cats, a kitten and a dog out of Fimo. Our dog had a walk and a wash under the shower, and then Springy and I did some writing practice on vowels in lower case and we then read an Usborne Animal quiz book and discussed what we were reading about.

We also watched this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6iDtvGbIOU

Narwhals

We watched the new David Attenborough BBC series today (on the BBC website) and discussed bits as we were viewing it. The episode was called The Great Melt.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hn4hs

Rainbow Magic still going strong

Springy's fascination with Rainbow Magic is still going strong. I found a boxed set on The Book People website so ordered it since it is so nice to have her enjoy something.

Last night we were meant to be going to a firework display but it got cancelled because of the weather.

also, last night, I heard a noise when I was in bed and worked out it was coming from the bin next to the toilet. I got up very quietly and sneaked my way across the landing, turned on the light and a little fat, roly poly mouse scurried out of the toilet (room), across my foot and into Springy's room. It was so cute but it really is the enemy at the moment. One has chewed my velvet cloak at the bottom and yes, I'm too old to prance about in elven velvet cloaks these days but it is the principle of it - the mice have to go. I'm not sure how many we have but I am fed up of little poos and wees everywhere. Not only that but it or they raided Springy's dollshouse and chewed to pieces all the little wax fruit that she had made. They also chewed her froggy rucksack a little and destroyed the little nature area with acorns and corn dollies. I have set traps but they seem to be avoiding them and know how to set them off, take the bait but not get caught - smart mice. I have been ensuring that nothing is left out for them in the kitchen. We certainly have less woodlice and spiders than normal so perhaps they have been surviving on these. I keep wondering if I will find out what the major food source is (although everything is in jars and cupboards, swept up crumbs into the bin etc). Hmmm...if one could only talk to them because we do have waste but they just chew on everything.

White Plume Moth

In our front garden we have a patch of mugwort which I've allowed to grow, although a few days ago I pruned it back a bit to avoid it killing off the roses behind it, and also harvested the mugwort (it's not a herb I've utilised except I had moxibustion when I was pregnant).

Springy and I saw a beautiful moth and upon identification we discovered it was a white plume moth. We found one yesterday by our strawberry patch and I caught it (very gently) and held it until C came out to have a look at it. He thought we were a bit potty when I first described the moth from the other day because I said it had fairy wings and was pure white. I've been trying to identify it and it turns out it is called a white plume moth, although I prefer "Pandora":

http://www.bugsandweeds.co.uk/moths%20p4.html#LWhPlume

We also identified another moth we saw last year which was a cinnabar moth, looking quite tropical.

Around the garden I've noticed lots of cockchafer beetles (maybugs), mainly deceased. It seems to have been a good year for them to turn from larval stage into adulthood.

Today we had a lovely walk and saw 5 cygnets. Many of the ducklings and cygnets have been lost this year because of rooks predating on them. For some reason the grub cycle this year means rooks and other corvids have had to rely on other food (possibly the wet summer in 2007!).

Drawing and Form Drawing

This is a very useful article on drawing at the Waldorf Library:

http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journal_Articles/drawing.pdf

Today we got up, had porridge for breakfast and Springy went outside straight afterwards and found a pill millipede which she put on her hand, with the hope that it would uncurl and move. It didn't so she went a bit later to watch her wren's nest. She noticed that all the moss in the wren's nest had been pulled out but didn't tell me until this afternoon and it looks like the stoat has been there, taken all the babies and destroyed the nest. There is a stoat poo underneath the nest and we'd seen the stoat yesterday evening going through the flower bed. Springy was upset but we said that that is nature because the stoat has babies to feed too.

We went to the duck pond later and Springy saw some beautiful little ducklings. She was feeding them and they came very close and she was able to reach out and touch them several times which made her really pleased (she got very grubby knees from leaning over). It turns out that our own Mrs Duck is nesting next door to us now - hooray! We hope that she is well hidden and that her babies will hatch soon.

Practical and Conversational Learning

I find myself noticing that so much of our learning is informal, through practical, everyday situations arising which either leads to the acquisition of knowledge through necessity or through conversation. For example, Springy has known about the o'clocks of time for quite a while because she hears both C and I discuss what time we are leaving for somewhere or what time a meal is. She now has an awareness of half past and over the weekend started to ask about quarter past and quarter to. I don't tend to go into long explanations but when there is an indication that she is interested in something then I make the effort to engage with that. So now instead of saying it's nearly 8 o'clock and therefore you can longer eat at this time before bed I have started to say it's quarter to 8 (or nearly or just gone quarter to 8). That way, when she's ready it will just slip into her knowledge base.

We had the same today. We were shopping and I did a price comparison on some food and rather than overload her with the details I pointed out that I was finding out which one was cheaper by using maths and showed her the label. I didn't explain any further than that but the idea has been encountered.

I haven't listed all that we have in our garden in terms of fruit and vegetables. I tend to grow small quantities - to me the experience of knowing where food comes from, how to care for plants etc is a very important part of home education but I'm certainly not an expert gardener. Our raspberry canes look good this year (nettle mulch seems to have helped), we seem to have a lot of strawberries again, two blueberry bushes, a gooseberry bush (which isn't doing well - I need to move it), redcurrant bush (it looks like some little birdies have devoured the unripe currants because there were a lot), some dwarf runner beans, several varieties of potato (courtesy of the British Potato Council), leaf beet, tomato vines and courgette plant and lots of herbs (comfrey, nettles, dandelions, sage, rosemary, thyme, lavender, mints) and edible flowers such as calendula, carnations, and roses. We garden without pesticides and I like to companion plant. We often lose our crops to other lifeforms and I try not to mind sharing.

Re: Looking for lost things

Springy has been hilarious this weekend. She's really into telling jokes at the moment - at first they were not funny e.g. Why did the rabbit cross the road? Because it left it's car there! but she's slowly adding in more funny ones, the traditional jokes of childhood that I remember. For instance, she has been telling her Grandpa "Will you remember me in a day? ...a week? ...a month? ...a year?" to which Grandpa responds Yes and then Springy does the "Knock, knock" and Grandpa responds with "Who's there?" ...see you forgot me already... I also taught her a new one today which was to do a gulping noise with your throat and ask what bird is it. It's a swallow!

As I'm typing this Springy is playing before bedtime and the sky is a beautiful lilac, pink and orange colour. I'm hoping that means "Red sky at night, shepherd's delight" and that tomorrow will be a glorious day.

C lost his voice to laryngitis this weekend and Springy wondered whether he had lost his voice under his side of the bed. It was so sweet to hear her say this.

In our garden we have a wren's nest in the ivy. Springy has been watching the parent birds go in and out, bringing food to their chicks. The chicks seem to consist of large beaks, either in closed or open mode. The goldfinches have been fabulous this year - they are like clockwork birds at times with their funny little dances. We also have a baby wood pigeon who is now a fledgling but is still being cared for by her parents. Many of the birds seem to have no fear of Springy.

Springy has been watching the bees on the comfrey and in the foxgloves too. I told her to listen to the bees when they go in the foxglove because the buzzing noise makes more of a ringing sound. It is no wonder that foxgloves are considered fairy flowers in folklore.

This morning's maths lesson was about division. We had iced gem biscuits (a rare event) on a plate and I asked Springy to divide them between her, me and 2 toy dogs.

Another walk

We had another nice walk today. We had our scooter with us (very helpful if springy gets tired because I can stick her on it and wheel her a little - and I can go on it as well if I get tired and she runs alongside). We found lots of different types of grasses in the hedgerows and the elderflowers are almost in bloom (some are already but not enough to make elderflower cordial from).

Mrs Duck seems to be ready to lay again (her suitors have disappeared).

Springy had a lovely time yesterday with a playdate she had. She and her friend are so similar in terms of what they like to play with and both have that very fine motor control aspect with toys (both seem to be very careful and gentle with "things"). They also both like running around together, playing on the swing, cartwheeling and so on. I hope it's a longlasting friendship.

It was much cooler today--cloudy with a dampness to the air. We could do with a little more rain as the garden needs it.

I can't wait for our Mayfair that we will be going to. There is supposed to be a Maypole -it's late in that Mayfairs are usually early in May but nevertheless I can't wait because I know Springy loves dancing.

We didn't have a good morning at first. i've been under loads of pressure from my mum to get Spring to read and write. She doesn't understand that Springy can read and enjoys it - the last thing I want to do is to force her or "teach" her reading because it would just put her off. Springy can write all her upper case letters but not the lower case ones and I ended up having a panic last night and decided that Springy should be able to write them. I tried to get Springy to write all her lower case letters this morning and we both had an awful time. C helped a lot and what he did was all right because it was more of a conversation about if she could write what would she be doing with it and this got her interested to write. Then he left and it was obvious that she didn't want to do any more. Instead I took her knitting fork (lucette) chain that she had made and made a sigmoid on the sitting room floor and I started jumping over it. Springy thought this was great and joined in and then we tried some other shapes - walking around, jumping over and so on. This was much more fun than a pencil and paper for her and by this afternoon I was doing my best to throw off the voice of "In school children can do this" and "She's behind on...."

I really hate those voices of doubt and negativity because I know that what we are doing works really well and is developmentally and cognitively more appropriate than anything Springy would get in school. It's really hard at times to be out on a limb; even amongst other home educators there seems to be a race for academics. I need to remind myself all the time to go with Springy's age, aptitude and ability and not some theoretical child in a school.

We got our gnomes out today and they stood near their felted garden with pond (Springy found a tiny piece of red wool on the carpet and put it in the pond as a goldfish) and had their wooden tree. Penny Plus found 18 stones and she needed help - a golden butterfly came along but said she could only carry equal amounts but over 2 journeys only. Daddy Divide came along and helped Springy share out how many stones needed to be in each pile for there to be equal ones.

We also covered 4 and 5 in terms of number qualities. Springy was hilarious with Eyes, nose, ears and mouth (all being on the head) and got fingers and toes for 5. We also did our Vitruvian Man shape as a star (using one of the Eugene Schwartz poems on Millennial Child). She loved doing that and that old lady has gone back to sleep again (thanks Marsha Johnson for your wonderful files!) with the question of what is 6...

Springy has been reading a Letterland book that we got at a jumble - it was one of those books I got and tucked away and then forgot and it was only when I was tidying our bookshelf that I rediscovered it and she straightaway latched on to it. She really likes it. She also enjoys reading Snow White and Rose Red.

It's very frustrating trying to find resources at the BBC website as they are all computer-based and cartoonlike. I wish there were more resources aimed at assisting parents and teachers in helping their own knowledge so that I can then filter before passing things on.

We've done some lovely paintings this week - wet-on-wet ones. I did one myself which looks like a butterfly (by accident).

I was also feeling a little overscheduled at the beginning of the week - we have 3 activities for Springy plus work commitments and so on. It was the work commitments that got to me and feeling overwhelmed by things and I just wanted to sit down, relax and do nothing at all but had to get Springy to these things. It was a good thing we did because we ended up with one of the social activities we go to going for a lovely 1.5 hour walk with the sun shining and a breeze, amongst hedgerows and with water, fields and so on. We had a picnic along the way and it was so pleasant to eat outside with simple food.

I'm starting to feel a little better from my "cold" (a mix between a cold and intolerance reactions to pollen etc). We need to get the violin going again. Springy can play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star all right on the piano now (and on her xylophone).

Re: Spring walks

We have had a lovely day today so far. Last night we had a gorgeous beef and vegetable stew, all homemade, with pot barley too. Today we had a lazy morning as the clocks have sprung forward. Springy and I had our breakfast whilst watching Nigel Marven's Polar Bear Adventures and after seeing this we reckon that polar bears look very cuddly.

Our first main task was to go and look after our neighbour's guineapigs which was great fun. Springy was so happy because they have some baby guineapigs and she was able to hold and cuddle them. We watched them for quite a while - they are such fascinating little creatures. Then we came back to our house and let our guineapigs out in their run and gave them some cuddles too. After this (and having had lunch) we went to the big water and fed the ducks and swans. The dominant cob there came out and we handfed him. He had his fill of brown wholemeal and some wheat grain too and then set out to preen himself. He was using his oil gland on his rump to coat and clean his feathers and he looked so fluffy and babylike (very large baby!). It's lovely to see him because we've known him since he was a cygnet, although one is very aware that he requires a lot of respect.

After that we went for a walk in the woods. We visited the pond and found some frogspawn, although we saw a newt in amongst it so perhaps it is newtspawn. We saw lots and lots of pondsnails as well, which kept Springy fascinated. The bird song there was glorious and we also saw a goldcrest (tinier than a wren) - fairy birds:

http://www.garden-birds.co.uk/birds/goldcrest.htm

In my opinion, it is so important for children and adults to go out into nature on a regular basis and find out about their local environment. Even in a city there are parks but we're lucky in that we live in a fairly rural area so we have a lot of choice as to where to go. We also have a garden which, although unpleasant in the winter (like a wind tunnel), is a delight in the spring, summer and autumn.

Learning To Read

This is something that I feel I have to blog about.

Although interested in what are classed as "holistic" methods which often delay academics (hooray since they are given much too early), I believe that home education gives a different perspective than a school model of learning to read.

Springy can read at the age of 6. I was curious as to where she was and slipped in a reading game (to grown ups they are the Schonell and Burt reading tests). Her reading age is 8 years 4 months now and she enjoys reading. She still enjoys being told stories but when she can't sleep at night, she either wants to play in her room or read a book.

When she was younger (and still) we read and told stories, did puppet plays, sang lots of rhymes, recited poems and went on nature walks. The latter are great - whether it's just being out in the garden or going for a walk down a lane to see the hedges you can learn so much. Nature walks need to be child-paced. They love to stop, bend down, splash in puddles, pick up stones, watch beetles cross in front of them, see a spider on its web, follow the swifts as they dip or laugh at a pied wagtail in a carpark. All this is helpful for a small child in terms of they are in their body, they are breathing, they are moving and their eyes are tracking, their noses are inhaling and their fingers are touching leaves, ladybirds, cobwebs and muddy puddles. If they go all year round they see the seasons change (depending on where you live), they get rained on, the sun shines, the wind blows and plays with the leaves and so on.

If you tell The Enormous Turnip over and over, your child remembers it. They feel what it is like to pull and pull and finally, Pop!, out comes the turnip. If you tell them the Gingerbread Man they know "run, run as fast as you can" - the poetry of the language comes alive through assonance and alliteration but they just feel it as a giggle or joy.

She started about 18 months ago with wanting to play I Spy and although in Waldorf circles it probably is too much of a head thing, my attitude is that she is enjoying it. She has learnt loads of nursery rhymes (as I did) and no doubt she will pass them on to her children. They are full of phonemes and they sound nice too (well apart from some of the violent ones but we left a lot of those out).

In the past year or so our wet-on-wet painting has resulted in Springy announcing that she can see shapes. She sees shapes in her curtains - things that are not are appearing to her. Some of these shapes are now letters but she is dualist - they are things such as fairies as well as letter shapes. If she only saw the letters then I would be concerned but she's between worlds still and her imagination is very beautiful.

She started to ask what words said. Goats' Milk she could read on the carton over a year ago now. It was guesswork but I could not lie to her - "Yes, that says Goats Milk". And more words started to trickle in and now there is a flood and if she doesn't know and it seems to be relevant and she's not too busy bouncing then she will ask. She wanted to write her name so I showed her and now she writes little letters with "I Love you mummy" on and draws little pictures alongside. I have a draw full of her cards and pictures.

With reference to her reading, if this was a child who at 5.5 and 6 years was only wanting to sit with a book then I would be concerned. However, Springy is a bouncy thing who spends the day moving about, will cartwheel and leap onto cushions and although I'm a "holistic school" education failure because I have an early reader and writer I don't care. By home education standards I'm the only board that counts and I know we still have a long way to go but 0-6 years has been great so far. :)