Home Educating the Puddle Girls…

The girls are despatched (is there a difference between dispatched and despatched, does anyone know?) to my parents. Ammi had a bit of a wobble about being left but not much. Evidently this is a global problem, not just nursery. I acquired Primark nighties (6 nighties and 12 pairs of socks for £13!!!!) so Max will be pleased with my wifeliness. I’ve done as bid

Josie achieved her first drop from top of stairs to bottom today - with somersault, double flip and pike and some extra difficulty points awarded for the full length carpet burns. Whoops. Obviously, she hasn’t learnt from her mistake though. She’s said “Dad-deee” very clearly several times today while asking for Max.

We plan to totally clean and sort the house and send much to tip/dump/ebay too - feel quite energised by the idea. So much for romance.

While in the car, Fran and i had a long talk, since she was in the front to accommodate the crib which was going back to my mum. We covered alcohol, tobacco and drug abuse, poisons, hormones and bodies changing, adults who do cruel things to children and when its okay to keep a secret and when the last thing you should do is keep it secret. Felt like a very grown up conversation. Had a mildly unnerving moment when she told me something that happened at HESFES in the playground when i wasn’t with her, but i *think* it was okay - she doesn’t seem scarred by it anyway. Odd she hadn’t told me, but i’m fairly sure that its because it didn’t make her worried. Slightly shocked by her being given attention by 13 year old boys though, having watched her pull an 11 year old without even trying the other week. (*SHRIEK*) Still, its no matter, she’s going to marry Ernest.

Right, i’ll go make a start. Wish me luck. Its a jungle in here.

Pleasantly girly day, other than the bit below, today.

The big two have developed sudden mini-mutant tendencies and have grown out of the coats they’ve had for the last 18 months or so. (Cheeky blighters.) So today was the day that we decided to replace them, plus go on a hunt for sundry other items of stuff people needed.

I do think that shopping trips that go like the following are to be commended - we wanted to replace two H&M fleece zipper jackets - we walked in, immediately saw this years version of the two they used to have, they both instantly like one or other of the two colours, we bought them. Bingo! Plus we saw, while there, a t-shirt in a colour of blue that Maddy adores; she asked, i gave in and by convenient co-incidence there were a couple just near by that both the other girls fell in love with too. I love it that Fran goes for pink and sparkly still but has no desire at all for anything particularly “grown up” - she is quite happy as a pink “tomboy” as it were.

Was a bit of a shock to have to shop for both of them in the 7-13 section though What happened to my miniature children?

Didn’t have quite such luck in Tesco Extra; Max had demanded they have nighties, because he gets stressed if their pj’s don’t match but i couldn’t find any. Well, at least i found 1 fairly horrid £2.50 one but that was all. If anyone knows of a place online i can get decent priced nightwear, preferably unbranded, do let me know.

Still. Next stop was wellies for Fran, who has achieved the dizzy heights of Size 13 and needed new ones (to go with her new tap shoes no doubt.) Brantano’s was opposite the checkout, moreorless so, looking rather nervous, she set off and when i got there she had found a lady, got her feet measured and chosen wellies. Very brave of her really, she still finds speaking to strangers quite tough. Testament to how much her speech has come on really, that she had no difficulties at all.

Maddy has been begging for slippers for a year and wheedled some out of me, she has worn them solidly since she got home. Here they are, modeled with her Rainbow Uniform. Yes i know it looks like a burger bar outfit, but you can’t tell her. She’s wanted one desperately for ages and more and more girls in her pack wear them. When we got there today, one in her size was going for 1/3 of the price, so i gave in

Very little “education” has gone on today but its been another pleasant Thursday - we made Brownies and they are suitably yummy (excellent recipe Kirsty!) I’ve had nice phone calls with Half Moon Peter, Linzi and a mad cold calling idiot. Fran did some maths and we’ve all sat and read “Mik’s Mammoth”, which Tammy let us borrow and is a really gorgeous book, perfect for a Stone Age project.

No, i’ve not started putting them in cardboard cubicles, or whatever it is that some curriculums suggest, she was just trying to escape Josie!

And here is Maddy with her Learning Explorer game. She was so proud to earn it.

We’ve ended up with Rainbows and Brownies, two activities which seem to score 100% here and now i’m settling down to a (i hope) peaceful evening. Although, now that Josie (who said “YES” today, i’m convinced of it) has discovered how to unpack boxes, my last safety net has gone. I used to be able to leave boxes around… no more. This child is a firm kitchen cupboard/box looter.

We went, she cried, we came home again.

I’ve backed myself into a corner with this now. She’s knows i’ll take her home, i know she actually quite enjoys it, she knows she doesn’t have to go, i know she doesn’t have to go.

I don’t know if i’m being given the run around, she doesn’t know what she really wants “I like it but i don’t want to go”, i don’t have the flexibility to stay and settle her endlessly.

Have i given it a fair try? Is she doing this because she senses my ambivience? Is she genuinely not ready/not interested? Is she afraid of something new but secretly wanting me to help her get used to it?

I don’t know. Bits of me just think “bugger it” and bits of me think “give her a few minutes and then walk away as long as she isn’t crying.” I don’t have that many options really and i don’t actually know what i want anymore, never mind know what she wants, that bit is just unutterably beyond me.

Predictably, Amelie wanted to go to nursery, right up to the point where we arrived. At that point she went all wobbly and sad and bottom lippy. Sigh. it seemed to be a genuine wobble rather than mummy-killing and i didn’t really know what to do. Fended off the instantly available arms and retreated for a brief conference with Amelie. No, she didn’t want to go home exactly, she just didn’t want to go to nursery on her own. So she agreed to go and sit with a staff member while i went and got the others from the car, then i said i’d stay while she decided what to do.

When i got back she was sat looking at a story on a lap, still looking rather woebegone but not crying and not looking for me either. Spent a bit of time observing, then went over and asked her if she’d decided what she wanted to do. She said she wanted to stay, so the rest of us left.

*Sigh* its not been this hard before, the others have gone to playgroup/nursery without a backwards glance. I’ll give it another week or so and then make some sort of decision i suppose. As it was, i went back to get her early and she was absolutely fine, clearly cheerfully into whatever was going on. I think its just a confidence thing.

Otherwise the rest of the day has been more of the same. I think everyone is enjoying a bit of routine after a busy summer and a varied year. Mornings seem to be passing in a haze of “basics” in the form of computer games, play and workbooks. I’m increasingly impressed by Singapore maths, its paced just right for Fran, i may get the First Grade stuff for Maddy.

Fran finished her Richard the Lionheart picture and this afternoon we read about him and King John in Tony Robinson’s book and added them to the timeline. Also read a bit about the Crusades in Storming Norman’s. Maddy and i have agreed to ignore estimating in her maths book (”what’s the point? I can just count them”) and now everyone is zonked infront of a dvd. I’ve got to parcel up beads.

Josie has been adorable today and impressed us all by standing, straight and unaided, for nearly one minute today.

I had a brilliant summer, it was excellent but i must admit i am enjoying a bit of mundanity right now. Its been highly pleasant to sleep at home for more than 2 weeks at a time!

Mr Dowling

You’d think i’d have some inkling of what’s going on by now, i mean i do have 4 of them and i am with them 24 hours a day - and i do put in a reasonable amount of thought about them. But no, i seem to stumble about in the dark quite a bit.

Still. Tammy came over today to sit the 3 others while Amelie and i tried nursery again. Amelie came out with the surprisingly lucid (if you think about it) comment “I do want to go, but i don’t want to go.” For a 3 year old, i think she expressed that fairly well. So we went, to give it another try, and within minutes it was obvious she was perfectly happy for me to leave her. Which given yesterdays performance was a trifle surprising. On the way home though i had a lightbulb moment and came to the conclusion that this is a control thing, not in the negative sense but in quite a reasonable and acceptable sense. Amelie likes to be in control; going to nursery is a big thing and she needs to know she is calling the shots. Well, that is fair enough. I think yesterdays tears were about checking that if she said no, i would listen and when i did listen, that made it fine.

So *Gold Star Mummy* points there i think. Must admit feeling really frustrated for the screaming little boy at the door while i was watchnig Ammi through the window though. His mum held him and cuddled him, promised she wouldn’t leave him then walked in, let a nursery teacher peel him away, turned around and left. Now, i know its not easy, but the last time i left a child like that, Fran was less than 1, accepting a few weeks when it just couldn’t be avoided when Maddy was 6 months or so. And i just feel so frustrated for people who perhaps don’t realise this doesn’t have to be obligatory. I’m just such a different person from the one who thought lying to a small child was okay. (EDIT: Just want to qualify this a bit; i’m not being judgemental of the individual here, though it might seem it, but i do think that we have a system set up completely wrong if it mainly revolves around children being “broken ” from their parents. If we had the school system right, it would start at an age where children were ready to move away to some extent and this whole culture of having weeping children peeled away from sobbing mummys just wouldn’t exist. If Amelie had wept, i’d have taken her home, i only wish she had really.)

Anyway. This morning passed in a haze of normals, maths book boardgames, colouring etc. Fran did some stuff on Richard the Lionheart, which we talked about in some depth (not that i know a great deal.) We talked about how the “infidels” of our story are actually a Religious group we know well, the difference between Religions having an impersonal “hating” face and the personal level of people who know each other, how the Crusades are probably responsible for much of the Worlds troubles since. And yes, you’ve guessed it, she’d quite like to know more. So we’ve got a plan to look at Islam and Christianity in more depth and also try to find out the story from both sides; i think i know the perfect people for that.

All of which did make me think that while i’m not good at fascinating my children with the wonders of maths, something i beat myself up about rather a lot, i am a pretty good resource when it comes to the story of our world historically. And more, how wonderful it is that my children have inspired me to know more about that.

(PS “Scarf ladies” as the girls here refer to you, Tammy and i were wondering about covering Eid at group and then some other religious festivals in the run up to Xmas. Would you be up for that? Would be nice to cover several different religions to give it balance.)

This PM we did some Rainbow Rock, played with Sam, finished off First People and decided to do a Timeline of some of the things we’ve discovered and then the big two played while i fed Josie.

Maddy has decided to give up dancing, she has found the instructions to hard to follow, so that meant only Fran was going to be going. I needed to collect Ammi from Late Club promptly because if you go even a minute over the cut off point you get charged for the next hour, which is an extra £3. I bathed Josie, settled down to feed her, gave Fran a 30 minute warning and reminded her of exactly what she needed to do. 15 minutews later i called out and asked her if she had everything together and asked her to start changing. “Yes, got it all, done it” she called. So, 5 minutes till leaving, Josie finishes and i tell them to go get in the car. At which point it becomes obvious that Fran is not washed, not changed, has not brushed her hair, has not found her missing sodding ballet shoe. ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And what i hate about this is that a) she had lied and b) i just start screaming. So i turn into the mother from hell, she cries, we end up driving like a loon to get there, all because she thinks i’ll nanny her into everything (which i never do with this so you’d think she’d have learned) and because she is incapable of putting her uniform and shoes into the uniform and shoes drawer. I mean, how difficult is it? I’m not ferrying her to ballet for the good of my health. She does actually want to go, so i mean, come on?

She got her come-uppance today because i charged her the £3 the extra minute cost me, so that is this weeks pocket money gone. *Horrid mummy*

Tomorrow will hopefully have some arty-crafty, hands on stuff in it. We’ve finished ETC4 and are going to take a break from that, so i think we’ll aim for drive-by-normals of a few pages of Singapore (nice and easy for her and clear and simple) and a bit of Smelly Spelling. She and i looked at some CGP History too; might use that as normals for “jumping off” points but really, given its supposed to go up to age 11, its stupidly lightweight. She’d be bored silly with that level of stuff in school. Might get back into a reading book too as she isn’t reading much now all out long car journeys have stopped.

My last thing of the day is the complete warfare that has broken out between Amelie and Maddy. They are being utter bitches to each other and it makes me so sad as up till now we’ve generally had very harmonious sibling relationships. When i think how badly my own relationship with my sister broke down during our childhood, it made me realise tongiht (after they were sent to bed in silent disgrace for a cat fight), that i have to approach this differently. I need to give them some strategies for dealing with the strong natures they have and their different abilities to deal out, deal with anger. Maybe if i start now and give them some understanding of how they hurt each other, the teenage years will be almost bearable.

From the level of bobbing up and down that went on, it was fairly obvious that Fran had got the idea of who Jadis, Queen of Charn might be. Maddy wasn’t far behind and both of them enjoyed the humour of Uncle Andrew the “King”. I hate being interupted while reading outloud but i swallowed my ill-humour and, inspired by Sarah, i managed to stop for a few conversations about what was going on. Fran is an interesting little person to have a conversation about the rights of a ruler over his/her subjects with. For a 7 year old, i think she’s got quite an able grip of the politics of royalty; certainly, despite her abiding love of Henry VIII, she doesn’t think he was a particularly good man. Anyway, the “Deplorable Word” bit of this chapter is fairly blunt but did give us food for thought.

It did also bring up “dying suns” again though; HESFESers may remember Fran sobbing with fear about our sun dying then coming up with the classic “Mummy, i’m really worried about the end of the world. I’m worried we’ll start again and be cows and i won’t be able to learn about Greek Myths.” Lol. So we might be doing something about that tomorrow i suspect

Might be interesting to explore the use of the word against “the bomb” at some point too i suppose, given it was written just after. It can only be a matter of time till WW2 interests Fran.

Study Notes

Today has been one of those days i’ve thought of as “spinny” days, ever since a post of Alison’s long ago. Some spinny days are fab, today was slightly hard work, although fruitful. I never felt like anyone was getting quite what they wanted from me.

However, the day started badly with Fran and i having a bit of a strop at each other over lolling about. She’s been off colour for a week and having nose-bleeds and i really don’t think she feels brilliant, but that didn’t entirely excuse a strop at me because there was no Primary History/Geography on. having refused point blank to do any normals, she then picked up a colouring/short stories book Heroes and Villains thing (must find link later) and saw the page on Boudicca. i photocopied it, she spent an hour doing a good effort at colouring it (which is a whole other post in itself) and then read me the page of it, with only a couple of words help.

Then she decided that she did want to do her normals and breezed through a lesson of ETC and Wizard Whimstaffs Challenge page. During this time the Sonlight parcel had arrived. Since i had a free voucher, i’d ordered a couple of Singapore book, Grade 2 level (which is Yr 3 here). We had a look, tbh, its not going to stretch her but she was up for doing some as practise/strengthening stuff. Fran is all right in practise, but not always that good at recognising stuff in different formats. Anyway, she adores HTU stuff and that is what it starts with so we did that. Please to see that our drive to learn number words has had immediate results; she can not only read and spell them all now but can also finally get -teen and -ty to ocme out right. Not bad for 40 minutes effort.

Maddy meanwhile was doing Spark Island and StudyDog for HOURS… and Amelie was being a bit of a pain, due to not getting enough attention. Josie (yet another blog in its own right) had gone down to sleep in her cot with a bottle, not a breastfeed, for the first time ever. Very mixed feeling there.

Amelie and i recouped the bad morning by me listening to her, discovering she was frightened about going to nursery and agreeing not to go. (That would be another blog in its own right then.) So she and i got out Rainbow Rock, the Singapore Maths cd-rom and she did various levels of that. I was rather impressed with how she did. Maddy took over, Fran had a go at the next one, Vroot and Vroom and then helped Amelie for ages on a Pooh bear cd-rom. Thank goodness for big sisters, i was so overstretched by then i was coming apart at the seams.

Jury is out on the cd-roms though, first impression is they don’t have anything like the scope of some UK software we have. But they were free, so who cares.

Now the big two are in the bath getting clean for gym, Ammi is still on Pooh and Josie and i are off for a snuggly feed.

Edit: Is there some trick to comments in WP then? My most recent posts were randomly allowing or not allowing comments and i’ve just noticed these ones were “closed” though i cettainly didn’t make them so *confused*

Lots of thanks to Helen and Chris for giving us lunch at the Beans, where we caught up briefly (oh all too briefly) with Jax and Tim and Big and Small. As usual, the kids all did a perfect impression of well socialised and normal children. (Lots of running around and shrieking!)

After lunch, on to Hinchingbrooke Country Park for their Ancient britain day; can’t remember exactly what it was called. They’ve got a Roundhouse there and some shelter things and it was busy with medicine makers, pot makers, people being trained for Post-Roman Occupation Battle, spinners etc etc. Not sure any of my lot were hugely up for “learning” anything but enjoyed the ambience. The wode covered storyteller, doing the story of Boudicca was very dramatic. (He made Josie cry!)

In the visitors centre they kids all got the opportunity to be archaeologists and dig up artefacts. Always a winner ) The 6 of us had a lovely time anyway.

Home now for roast dinner, Turkish Delight (rescued from gloopiness with a second boiling and more corn flour) and stories. 4 extremely tired children here, a quiet week is probably in order i think.

Hunter-gatherer jam - blueberries, raspberries, hazelnuts and syrup.

Yummy, yummy in our tummy!

Using bar charts.

Photos from the Ancient Egypt Theme.

Uncle Andrew by Frances.

Uncle Andrew and Digory by Maddy.

A photo to horrify Joyce

MUST wash the wall and hob after cooking a job lot of chilli
Anyway, this is what Turkish Delight looks like cooking. Not convinced its going to set actually.

We’ve been badly in need of a day at home all together, for a while. We haven’t had a full weekend at home since July and we are going out tomorrow too, so its not going to happen in the next 3 weeks! So we made the most of today.

I got a lie in, something that hasn’t happened for a while. if you can call it a lie in when it starts at 10am and goes on for an hour. Still, i felt better for it. Then Max took 3 of the girls for a walk to Sainsburys and Maddy and i stayed home together for a bit of bonding time. This manifested itself in finishing off her Maths book, 8 pages or so, which she sailed through. Its a reception book, so essentially just stuff she “ought” to be able to do - and she can. We’ve got the next one too and she’s keen to start it, its great to see her enjoying maths and numbers. With the Egypt day yesterday she’s had a good couple of days.

They all spent lots of time in the garden, Max cutting back the Deadly Nightshade *shriek* that was berrying nicely and the girls playing with the rabbits and tomato picking. We’ve had an excellent tomato crop. mysteriously we have a brood of something tadpole-ish in the paddling pool - not sure what they are larvae of some sort anyway, with a curious sidewinder-like swim. They seem to have slightly hairy bodies and a square-ish head. Fascinating. Fran has alos put her postcard collection together for her Brownie badge - just need to help her work on her bits that she needs to talk about ready for testing in the week. Then she’ll have her first badge.

Did a bit of de-cluttering and washing sorting in the afternoon, then later we made Turkish Delight. Thanks to Sarah for her testing out session that saved us the bother

While the sugar was simmering, i got the girls to draw me a picture of Digory and Uncle Andrew, as they imagined them in the study. Very impressed with both pictures, particularly Fran’s. Her drawing has come on a lot - she’d got a door, set back in the picture and was really pleased with herself for achieving the effect. She’d also thought to do the picture of the mad godmother on the wall. Maddy’s had the detail i’ve come to expect from her. Then i asked them to imagine the world the children had gone to and draw that. Maddy said she couldn’t because she can’t draw from her imagination and Fran drew a load of planets round the sun. i think i got what i deserved there

Finished off with The Wood Between the Worlds from TMN, which captured both their imaginations. Loving reading these too them and its great to be doing it because they asked for them, rather than me choosing a book.

Amelie is exhausted, Josie has been resolutely kept up all day as we’ve got no bed for her tonight and she’s going to have to be suitably exhausted! The crib is down, sob, but there are bits missing from the cot so its not up yet

Managed to pack quite a lot into yesterday, which always feels good, especially if its different and inspiring.

Started off in the morning by Fran effortlessly doing her normals in order to win her weeks pocket money, which she then spent on Beanies Wizard Whimstaff was again instructing us on something new, right angles this time. Found it slightly hard to know where to start explaining it, so may try to do a bit more on that fairly sharpish. She was enjoying it anyway. She’d spent lots of time on Neopets as well, learning to copy and paste and navigate the Shop Wizard. She deserves a bit more time being spent with her on her computing skills really as she’s getting quite competent and could use some more stuff to explore.

After that we made “Hunter Gatherer Stone Age Food” from the 120 projects for History book (1 down, 119 to go). This was a huge success, for kids who don’t like jam (!) and after we’d boiled up raspberries, blueberries, hazelnuts and honey, they ate it for lunch with hunks of nutty, wholemeal bread (from Sainsbury’s )

After that it was time to go to MuddlePuddle group. i contributed clay scarabs but they weren’t as appealing as a lot of what was on offer. I’ve got photos of the various pyramids and so on being done but need to go through them first to make sure i haven’t inadvertantly got in any children who aren’t supposed to be. Added to the “don’t put my child on the web” care that its only right to take, lots of the group is Muslim and i’m very conscious of Islams rules over images of people so have to be extra careful to not include some chiildren - meaning the photos are not that representative!

Its becoming an excellent little group though; there were a good 10 families yesterday, and not all the regulars were there - more than 20 kids who paid (not including toddlers) and 5 babies. And for me, that is great. If we are going to make the point that “school age” becomes a stupid cut-off if you are never going to use school, if people are going to say they HE as a lifestyle choice, then its lovely to have an available group and space that can accommodate people with children of lots of ages. It offers support to people who become entranced by the idea and want to throw themselves into it at once. And i think that means those people are more likely to actually end up HEing, rather than become disheartened or unsupported and fall into school. I feel as if MP here is building a future community of young people who will never have been to school as a positive choice.

I just profoundly don’t agree with the notion of “come back when you are school age” but perhaps that is because i knew i was going to HE when Fran was only 3 and i know i needed support to become an “HEer” and not feel like a lunatic everywhere i went. One of the first things people say, when the familiar cry of “how do i start???” comes up on lists is “just carry on as you have for the last 4 years.” If we are going to say that it figures, to me, that we need to be equally clued up to providing a welcoming environment for children who’s parents really do decide to HE them from when they are babies. There doesn’t seem to me to be much difference between a 2 year old who is going to be HEed and a 2 year old who is at a group because of an older sibling. I know from my own experience anyway, that as soon as i decided to HE, i immediately felt a pariah among the toddler group world of “how soon can i get them in playgroup/nursery/school.”

Anyway, there’s my answering opinion, its been knocking around in my head for a while No offence to anyone who thinks differently, different circs do mean different things are important.

After that it was off to Activity World to meet T and her Dad. Lovely to spend some time with T again and to get to know her Dad. Girls all seemed to get on very well and keen to play again soon. Hated AW with school kids there though, what a bear pit! All round a good get together; felt sad and a bit guilty to know that i have been, for the intervening years we’ve not known each other, held somewhat responsible for what occurred. Its probably justified, although i wasn’t in much of a position to actually do much, but a shock nonetheless. I had to walk away at the time, not that it made me feel good to do so, but of course, i was guilty by omission because of it - and i can’t change that.