TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2009
Where we are
Well Jasmine is still in school and is telling me she wishes she had never gone. She will easily be ready to say goodbye to the whole experience by the end of the academic year if not before then. Theo is still officially in school, but I can pull him out in a day. I will send him back in Jan then if he asks to be home educated I am pulling him out.
Dave is unsure about the whole thing as when Theo is pulled out he loses he place and can probably never return to school. This is why I hesitated and have not pulled him out yet. At first this was a scary thought but now I have switched on my home ed head and am really cool with that. I see no reason when I pull him out for him to ever return to school. I think once we do it and Dave sees it is all right he will relax and be fine. He did ask me whether home education or private school would achieve the best for a child and I told him home ed can achieve whatever you set it out to achieve- he agreed with me on this.
I think God is setting the path for me. I had a home educator who lives 20 mins away from me contact me and tell me of two families who live less than 10 mins away who home ed. Then Dave's friend told us of a family who have just moved into his village who home ed. So straight away I know of 4 families who are local to us. I just hope some have children near my own children's age.
I have asked God if home ed is the path we are to gown down, then can He please provide opportunities for us and this seems to be happening- so I am very excited. I will be even more excited when I pull Theo out of school and we finally start travelling on the path that Jasmine will all to soon be joining us on.
On New Years Eve we are off to a home educators house for some seasonal fun. She is a Christian home educator. We are hoping to meet other home ed children and parents and put the feelers out ready for our new journey. It is a shame Dave can't come with us to see how nice the home education netwrok can be as he thinks it is really unfriendly and weird.
So that is where we are right now- tentatively getting ready for the journey...
Posted by Crunchyat 5:50 PM0 comments
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2009
Emotional Roller Coaster
Well we have been on an emotional roller coaster and I have to say choosing to take your child out of school is harder than never sending them.
I pulled J out, we did 2 days of home ed and had a great time. Then she saw her teacher who told her how everyone misses her and she hugged her tight and said goodbye and it was all too much for J who broke down that night and cried she missed her 'friends' So the next day we sent her back and am re-thinking when we will home educate.
T is coming out at Christmas, this is so the right decision for him. He is not happy there, he is not settled, he plays alone a lot of the time. He is shy and school won't make him less shy. He tells me how no one plays with him and he looks so forlorn every day when I drop him off. He is always happy when I pick him up but I think that is the relief of finally going home that adds a spring into his step. So I am asking the head on Monday for authorised absence for him for January so we can see how he settles in home ed, if she says no then I pull him out anyway.
I have made a decision to let J stay till the end of the year but do feel the novelty of school has worn off and she may find it hard when she sees T come home with me each day whilst she is in school. They are not really friends of hers at school, she never sees them outside of school (except a few of them who she saw out of school when she was home educated last time) I think it will be easier for her to leave as over the Summer she won't see her peers or become attached to a new teacher. She has a few months left before I home educate her.
Posted by Crunchyat 3:29 PM0 comments
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2009
Getting there
Well it is 12-31am and I can't sleep, too excited about home edding, need to find a way to quiet my mind and go to sleep LOL. For the past 2 nights J has been awake gone 11pm because she says she is so excited about coming home. I let her lie in bed and read to try to relax her, we all just can't wait.
Today I was telling J and T about the government and how they are trying to make home ed very hard to do. I spoke about leaving and moving where we can home educate. They were both very happy to move if it meant they did not have to go to school. T put on 2 rucksacks on his back and told me he was packed ready for the move LOL. They are taking it all in their stride and are ready to be at home, it is so lovely. I am getting my children back. They have been playing today so beautifully and I can see that J is getting her sparkle back that I noticed had gone from her for a while now.
I am still in the process of planning things, using my new copy of The Well Trained Mind for ideas of schedules and topics we can do. I need to come up with ideas of joint things we can do then decide what they can each do whilst I am giving the other some 1-1 tuition. Maths is a worry as J is a little behind in this (well she is in the middle set at school) I have settled on Galore Park maths book 1 that we will work through and check she understands things in before we move on to book 2. I also ordered their English book 3 for J to do.
For T his maths is going to be designed by me with lots of hands on manipulatives to do, I can even set him up with some tasks whilst I help J with hers. We have a lot of resources like rods and cubes and bears, I am going to order a sorting set with sorting bowls to have some fun with. I also need to order some triangular pencils but can't for the life of me think where I got them from or what make they are..... might have a look at Learning Resources...... Okay found some, the felts are Handhuggers and this sitesells the pencils, so will be ordering from them in the next few days.
Did I say I was excited!!!!!!
Posted by Crunchyat 12:31 AM0 comments
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2009
A new start
Finally after a year and a half, my lovely daughter is coming home from school. I think the novelty has worn off, she is tired with the children’s cliques and behaviour and is fed up of getting distracted in class. So at Christmas I am pulling J (9, daughter) and T (5, son)out of school. I am spending this time getting everything redy for them, planning up some timetable so hubbie can see we can do this. I need to get the de-registraion letter ready to go in to school in a few weeks. Hopefully the LA will leave me alone over the festive period so we can settle in to our homeschool life.
We have given our ’school’ a name and I am going to get J to draw up a picture to laminate it to stick up at home. I have joined EO, will also be joining HEAS to get more info. I am re-introducing myself on our local home ed list so we can go along to things that are on, we can make their Christmas party so we can meet some new children and some mums!
I am beyond excited, it is like Christmas has come early for me. I am finding it hard to sleep at night with the excitement of getting my children back- yeah!!!
Just need to decide if I am going to buy a maths curriculum or if I am going to use Rupp’s book for standards and work it out from there. Either way, I will be placing an order with Sonlight and using Galore Park for English. I have most of the resources I need, just need to get the maths sorted really.
Well world we are about to start a wonderful new exciting chapter!
Posted by Crunchyat 5:58 PM0 comments
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