flynn011

A bundle arrived in the post from New Zealand, the contents of which included a little teddy bear, a selection of souvenirs from the Far East, Hawaii, and New Zealand, and a letter which requested we show him a good time in our country before posting him back to his homeland of San Diego, California. Isaac arrives in Britain: Notice the red phone box in the background, and all the cars driving on "the wrong side". Isaac Bear is part of a project for an elementary school in the US, and we were very excited to take part in it. He joined us for everything: our homeschooling co-op with the Aberkats, swimming training, meals out, cinema trips -- it was a great time for him to be with us, as it was our Easter holidays. Aberkats Co-op We especially enjoyed bringing him along to the various Easter celebrations: Good Friday walk around Banbury, doing the stations of the cross, and an Easter sunrise service in the fields of the Cotswolds, not to mention an all-you-can-eat Thai buffet w...

Bikeability Begins It isn't often that we ask the local council for anything, other than to be left alone a la rights for homeschooling families. This last week, however, we worked with some very nice people at the county who helped us to provide cycling proficiency classes for twelve local homeschoolers. The Tutor with her Watchful Eye Since most kids in England are put through cycling proficiency at their schools, it's sometimes hard to pin down the same opportunity for the home-ed community. When my eldest wanted to do it, she had to carpool with a neighbour to Banbury, a town about 16 miles away. This time, we made arrangements for it to happen right on our doorstep. Raring to go! Monday was a bleary, dreary morning -- the first day of schools' Easter holiday period, but we were up and out the door for a (generous) 10:30 am start, meeting at the car park to the local Bowls club. Bike checks. Helmet checks.  How's them brakes? A bit of obstacle course, and then over ...

This past week, we took a holiday in the Lake District, a week before schools let out for Easter holidays. We often do this to avoid the traffic, the crowds, and the holiday surcharges -- chalk up yet another advantage for homeschooling. Homeschoolers in the Hills On this trip, though, I became much more aware of how homeschooling is a whole package, that even on holiday, we are still teaching, learning, exploring, and best of all, growing as people. Let's take Lesson Number One: how you have to persevere, even when it's hard. Ascents can be exhausting! This is a great lesson to learn as you climb up mountains. Yes, it's hard, and yes, it's tiring, and yes, it sometimes hurts -- but you can never quit, because there's no other way to get home! Encourage each other; make up games like how many steps you can keep going in a row, or who can suck a sweetie the longest; keep your eyes on the goal ahead (ten more minutes, or keep going till that crag up there, or the summ...

Traipsing around Oxford in the pouring rain in the wettest winter on record (almost), we met up with 11 other homeschoolers at the Museum of Oxford for a workshop on the English Civil War. Flood Times in February Our hands-on portion was led by Kate of the Education Department, and she had the children try on replica clothes and think about what it would be like if suddenly 6000 extra people were billeted in a city of 10,000. Kate Dresses a Cavalier This discussion session usually takes about 45 minutes (so we were told), yet you know what homeschoolers are like: What do the beeswax candles smell like? How tall were the pikes? Did soldiers have to carry their blankets and food with them? What would water taste like if you drank it out of a leather flagon? Why would you even drink the water, if 6000 extra people were throwing their sewage into the Thames? Look at all those raised hands! So the 45-minute session turned in 1 1/2 hours, capped off by the chance to write with quill pens on ...

Following the Charlotte Mason method as I do, we are always reviewing our reading and studies for the day by using a technique called narration.  In simple terms, this is just "telling back" what we've just read, and is undoubtedly a brilliant way of remembering information: much better than fill-in-the-blank, or short answer, or even asking kids questions and having them respond. Narration is telling back what you've just read. (As an aside, I recently did a test of its effectiveness by narrating some of my own reading to myself by writing down summaries, versus just carrying on without reviewing after I'd read. My memory and understanding of the material I narrated was far superior to that which I didn't narrate, and I still remember now the things I summarized, but not the things I didn't!) Today's task was based on the Chemistry and Physics book, new from Apologia Science, in which we have been studying matter, and more recently, different properti...

At the beginning of the year, I made a mistake. I told my kids we wouldn't school on Friday. Hooray! No school on Fridays! There was method in my madness -- the year before, Fridays had been Busy Timmy's day to have private swimming lessons, and by the time we all trooped back home, it was about 11, and shortly thereafter, we would all head off to the afternoon youth group I run. Busy Timmy gets ready to collect children from the local school to come to the youth club Needless to say, that doesn't leave a lot of time for study. No time for Life of Fred on a Friday, I'm afraid. It's true that, over the years, I've come to the conclusion that it's actually a good idea to carve out a day where you can a) have social calls from other home-ed people, b) invite newbies over for a chat, c) schedule workshops without disrupting the other school days, and d) catch up with chores, laundry, and housework. So, why am I now re-thinking my announcement of a free-day Frida...

Most every year, we travel to Texas from England to visit my family, most of whom still live there. The cost and hassle of travel means that we like to stretch the holiday as long as possible -- sometimes as much as a month -- and this is of course only tenable because we homeschool (reason number mumbly-six for homeschooling, right?!). Off to Grandma's House! This year, we had a most exciting educational experience along with our family visitations. A baby horse was born, and we got to see it. Not only did we get to see it from start to finish, but we endured the grueling build-up to the baby's birth, camping out in a one-bedroom apartment in the barn for four cold nights, testing the mare's milk to see if we could predict when it was due, waking up throughout the night to see if she was getting restless, and feeling a great sense of relief and elation when she started to pass amniotic fluid and to get really aggressive. Time to Test the Milk Hooray, the baby is coming! Th...