Weirdos

We are regularly reminded that our boys will not be developing social skills by being outside of mainstream school.

This is a sensitive subject because social skills aren't easily measured or assessed. There are underlying individual factors - character, genes and disposition. It's easy for people to say: "they won't develop the social skills they need" without defining the skills to which they're referring.

It's frighteningly easy to feel defensive.

To decide whether we're enhancing or diminishing the boys' social skill set there are a few considerations before we begin:

1. What are social skills?

2. How do you measure social skills?

3. Do my boys' social skills need attention?

There are lots of lengthy definitions for social skills but I like the succinct one from Psychology Today :

[Social skills are] the abilities necessary to get along with others and to create and maintain satisfying relationships. Social skills are about being able to flexibly adjust our behavior to fit a particular situation and our personal needs and desires.

A fine starting point, but good luck measuring it. 

I accept the challenge and head to point 2 : how do we measure social skills?

A key aspect of HE is the lack of competition and comparison because the focus is on the individual child but to be able to assess anything, even something as fluffy as social skills, you have to have a yardstick. 

So who or what are we assessing the boys' social skills against? Is there a model human being out there hailed as the pinnacle of socialisation to whom we must all aspire? Of course not. The biggest underlying factor by a mile is individual personality. We're not all wall flowers. We're not all the life and soul of the party.

Human diversity is layered over a simple common core. Emotions are universal; Darwin identified 6 : surprise, fear, anger, happiness, disgust, sadness. In the context of social skills what's important is how we handle those emotions, whether we can identify them in others and how we respond when they're expressed by the people around us.

Rather than looking at how an individual impacts others, which can only be observed and inferred, it makes more sense to assess social skills by looking at how an individual feels about their own interactions. In short, a person with good social skills will usually feel comfortable and capable in social situations, even if those situations are diverse, difficult or new. A person with weaker social skills may feel anxious, be unsure of how to respond and/or avoid new situations.

It gives a loose framework to assess the children by they way they speak to others, their acts of consideration, their willingness to go to new places and meet new people.

When it comes to point 3, it's getting personal. 

The boys were the same people before we took the home schooling decision however their social skills weren't judged directly because we were conforming within a well established system. Any and all personality traits were chalked up to who they are, their disposition.

Now we've left the system it's acceptable to assess the boys for social awkwardness against the backdrop of HE as a cause rather than an effect. Ouch.

I could write a book about K&W, assessing how much of their character is nature Vs nurture, why they behave as they do, which traits come from family members, experiences, failings or big high-five parenting moments or decisions, what we'd change - if anything, how they socialised at school. It would take so long that the boys would have left home before I'd finished, rendering the whole exercise pointless.

Here's the crux : my boys are not the most naturally social creatures. Like their parents they love being at home and love being with family. They prefer to have a few close friends than to be in a big group. In this respect, they are no different now to when they were in mainstream school.

There have been changes though since de-schooling and we, and our closest friends and family, have seen the boys' confidence grow. They don't feel invisible; they are asserting themselves, being more independent and interacting more confidently with children and adults.

So in answer to point 3, yes the boys' social skills need work - just like every single child and adult on the planet. We aren't teaching social skills so that K&W succeed at school. We're teaching social skills so they succeed at life.

PS. Everyone's definition of success is different. Explore your own definition here : https://www.ted.com/playlists/152/what_is_success

I'm not interested in competing with anyone. I hope we all make it. ~ Erica Cook ~

 

Background reading:

For a fantastic discussion of social skills in schools:

http://www.nasponline.org/resources/factsheets/socialskills_fs.aspx

The US Stop & Think project 

http://projectachieve.info/stop-think/stop-and-think.html

Darwin's 6 emotional states & assessing them across cultures

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/18/facial-expression-culture-_n_1434175.html

Forest Fun

It's been raining non-stop so while the boys bicker I'm drinking tea and dreaming of sunnier times. Like last Thursday.

Out in the woods there's a lovely big hollow which we speculate was a T-rex lair, meteor-impact hole or the result of an aborted attempt to dig to Australia. Whatever its origins, it's now perfect for running/sliding down to the bottom, or scrambling out, or... actually that's about it but remarkably that's good enough for an hour of play.

It's one of those places where the reason we leave is parental boredom. S & I kick our heels at the edge, spotting birds, whittling sticks to pass the time, lamenting our failure to bring a thermos of tea... but after 60 minutes we have an arsenal of spears, sore hands and still no tea so it was time to get moving.

We headed over the edge of the ridge and straight into a magical fern forest. The evidence that it's magical is circumstantial but with an abracadabra there were some disappearing boys and Bailey the dog made an enthusiastic fern monster for the purposes of our game.

We impaled ourselves on some blackberry thorns and noted their position for a foraging return in the autumn. On the way back we had time for a bit of balancing and tree climbing, plus all of the usual stick-throwing for Bailey. A perfect way to spend an afternoon.

The boys are still bickering, so it's wellies on and out we go. Just as beautiful in the rain!

Catch of the Day

My Facebook news feed is a lot busier since I joined a raft of HE groups. As well as feeling more sociable it's a nifty way to find out about the events and activities happening in our area.

Yesterday, a post on the Canal and Rivers Trust led us to the Love Parks event which led us to the Tring Anglers. It's like a treasure hunt for fun things to do on a Monday.

That's how we found ourselves sat by the canal learning the basics of coarse fishing under expert Richard's watchful eye. The afternoon had it all : folding chairs, maggots, a very persistent duck and a nature wee in the nettles.

Safety briefing complete ("don't fall in") we were assigned our rods and a pot of colourful maggots and we took up our position on the bank, trying not to look like people who have never held a fishing rod before. We had taken our own chairs in a futile attempt to disguise our inexperience. It became clear that a thermos of tea and a hot cross bun were the must-haves. Noted for next time.

I was relieved that Richard took control of the bait situation and got us started. I'd love to say we then sat, relaxed, for hours, whiling away the afternoon but it was not to be : those fish were hungry. 90 seconds in and we had our first bite from a cheeky little perch and a level of boy-excitement roughly equivalent to getting 1000 coins on Dragon Mania Legends.

I'll skip the catch-by-catch account but in no particular order we caught 2 rudd, 10 perch, 1 mallard and 1 roach. All of which were returned to the canal to live to catch another maggot. Perch #4 did look an awful lot like Perch #8 though.

The boys loved it and are asking to go again. I'm all for it but I'll be taking a thermos.

Loser!

I forgot to acknowledge a win.

It was a massive win because K was a loser. A total loser. Sunday games night - he was knocked out of knock out whist like a boxer who was knocked out in round 4.

We held our breath. Finger poised on the super-nanny speed dial. Shoulders tense as we prepare for the inevitable. Whispering 'we're playing for fun' like a mantra.

And then :

Nothing. 

No grumps. Not a grumble, not a grizzle nor a strop or a stamp. He took his loss with good grace and kept score for the rest of us.

I couldn't be prouder. Sunday evening forced-fun-time-dread has been replaced with Sunday evening forced-fun-time-fun.

Happy days!

If Music Be the Food of Love..

.. play on.

The weather was kind and so the play was indeed on - and it was fantastic!

Surrounded by the reassuring sound of champagne corks popping and a sea of Waitrose picnic food, we picked our spot and then passed the time cartwheeling across the lawns and eating our tea while I tried to conceal our haribos in the infinitely-more-becoming mint crumbles bag, bought specially for the occasion.

The play was performed by a traditional all-male troupe which adds to the fantastic confusion of a man playing a woman who is disguised as a man. It's asking a lot of a 7 year old and a 9 year old to follow but our pre-reading last week really paid off.

As the play opened and the first infamous line was delivered with gusto W expressed his confusion at ye olde English language with an embarrassingly loud 'HUH?' while dramatically shrugging his shoulders. I reached for the Fox's glacier fruits like a child-shushing ninja.

K was mesmerised from the beginning and it only took a little while for W to get drawn into the rhythm of the play with me whispering the main character names as they appeared on stage. As the farce continued apace we passed notes to keep abreast of the story line. Amazingly, both kept up although evidence suggests K was briefly distracted by the glacier fruits..

We laughed ourselves silly when Malvolio appeared in his yellow stockings. We were on the edge of our seat during the duel. The boys loved Feste the fool's lute playing and singing. The teenagers in front of us giggled every time the word 'bosoms' was uttered. It was pure joy.

And posh though Waddesdon Manor is, you can still get a Smarties ice-cream during the interval.

The boys may have consumed a week's worth of sugar in one evening but it was well worth it. As I tucked the boys in at 11pm, a final thought from K :

"I like Shakespeare Mummy"

So do I darling. Why this is very midsummer madness.

Delicate Matters

Money. The most delicate of matters. If you choose to HE you are rejecting the state option so - like private education - the costs are yours and yours alone.

In theory there are savings : no uniform or commuting to school, bye bye fund raising requests from the PTA and gallons of nit shampoo. The reality is that being solely responsible for a child's education does cost - the question is, how much?

We'd considered private schools for K as he doesn't thrive in a big group and we had some savings earmarked. They may yet be used for school, who knows, but in the meantime we're nibbling at the edges of the fund to support home education.

I say nibble.. it's more of a big greedy bite.

Home ed for us has been more expensive than we'd expected even if it is considerably cheaper than private school. This is my list of the financial impact of HE (so far). I've deliberately ignored the opportunity cost that if I'm home schooling then I'm working less because the reality is I am sleeping less. Some of the outgoings would have been spent even if the kids were still at school but now the boys are not wiped out at 3,30pm Mon-Fri we do more clubs, outings and adventures.

Costs
Things that are supporting our primary level HE - not all essential but they make life and learning easier, more fun or both

Resources - books, online subscriptions
Stationery - folders for work, art sketch books, drawing and painting materials, exercise books
Tutors - for the kids' interest areas, weak areas or strong areas, including Explore Learning, music teachers and subject tutors
Memberships - like the National Trust
Sports - swimming, badminton, bowling etc
Trips - zoos, theme parks, city trips
Topic kits - like science experiments, sewing kits

Looking ahead if we were home schooling into secondary (not something we're worrying about yet) then we'd need to budget for exams as they are expensive. The cost can sometimes be spread as you're not having to do them in a single lump.

Unexpected Costs
Things we didn't factor in, because, well you just don't think of these things 

Extra food - more fresh air and running around means more food
Printer ink - from enthusiastic printing of resources
Fuel - so many outings, we're clocking up miles on the car

Cheap & Free

Places to claw back some value

Museums and open days - best if you go for a specific exhibit or event to keep things focussed
Libraries - reading in the children's section for a change of scene
Places that give annual membership when you've been once - like Beaulieu and Bletchley Park
Natural resources - woods, rivers, lakes, etc with a picnic for the best in outdoor learning. Take a picnic and a reference book and go spotting for wildlife or historical interest. Unconstrained by the timetable, go when the weather suits
Matinees - be surrounded by school groups by heading to the theatre for the Wednesday matinee or get Tuesday daytime cinema tickets if you want to feel like you've booked a private screening

Online resources - thank you internet, especially YouTube, the BBC, TES

Holidays - everything's cheaper and quieter in term time although we have to go without friends

Back in the Game

We saved the week!

Friday was a big pile of awesomeness topped with a cherry of brilliance.

We managed (despite a few internet issues from the preceding rubbish-week) to do our maths first thing and then the boys made their own lunch - that's home ec right there - and we headed out for a swim. Sorry, PE. Which happened to be swimming. Conveniently it's the same pool where K used to have his school lessons so how's that for continuity?

After that we had a bit of a lunch break and then hit literacy with a big Shakespeare-shaped stick. I would say BOOM but I think that's implied.

We read the charmingly accessible Marcia William's version of Twelfth Night. Not to miss an opportunity for a bit of cutting out, we picked out the main characters, made some cute little red hearts and visually tried to keep track of the bard's star-crossed, cross-dressing, love-struck chaos.

W (very much a web-thinker) grasped the story better than K (logical-steps thinker) which is no great surprise but I was chuffed to bits that they both kept up as Shakespeare wrote some great plays but it's probably fair to say that the under 10s weren't his target audience.

There's an outdoor production at a local stately home next Saturday and I'm hoping our bit of background work will make the live production a blast while we picnic on the lawns. Idyllic.*

O, had I but followed the arts! (Twelfth Night 1.3.94)


*Success on Saturday is by no means guaranteed. We have read a very short kids' version of Twelfth Night. The weather may or may not be wet and/or cold and/or windy. The play is authentic - so the boys won't understand most of what is said. It's 2 hours long (see previous note about wet, cold and windy). I'm still willing to give it a go but I am taking a lorry-load of sweets and I'm not promising the boys won't end up playing Angry Birds on my phone.

Fail

A chaotic few days as life and work issues throw the entire timetable out. This is the flip side to HE flexibility - not covering what you want to cover and then berating yourself for it.

The phone ringing for the 8th time during maths. The printer running out of magenta ink. Watching a film instead of doing spellings. Internet connectivity issues. A proliferation of Mummy minutes, as in 'I'll be there in a minute' as I frantically empty a cupboard to find dishwasher salt because the stupid machine won't stop beeping at me.

When I say "you've got 5 minutes" the boys ask: "are they real minutes or Mummy minutes?" Over time, we've worked out that one Earth minute is equivalent to 10 Mummy minutes. This is not something I'm proud of.

Weeks like this are wearing, moments when life's treadmill gets up too much speed and you can't do anything other than concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other.

Luckily weeks like this pass and if I don't beat myself up too much then I'll emerge next week a bit fitter. Albeit bruised.

Non-Holidays

I'm feeling a bit unsettled.

In less than a week the schools break up and the tables turn. While I make the boys do their maths every day and march them to their classes, the sounds of carefree, lesson-free children will be drifting over our fence.

Suddenly all 'our' places will be overrun. The parks, swimming pool, museums, river - everywhere we find peace and a notable lack of queues during term time are no longer ours alone.

Like a toddler, I have to learn to SHARE. Hmph.

This will be our first long holiday since taking the boys out of school so it'll be interesting to see how it goes. We'll be more flexible because we've got friends to see and adventures to plan. I can't see us ducking off in the middle of a picnic declaring "Sorry, we have to learn 3-column subtraction".

But a flexible routine in term time necessitates some continuation of the routine into the holidays. I'm feeling the pressure to grab any consistency I can now that the Monday-Friday school pattern has been thrown out.

There are some advantages to the ongoing learning approach. As the boys get more free time in their afternoons they're not strung out or exhausted so a big break isn't a necessity any more. Particularly with maths and literacy, the little and often approach to learning is an effective way to maximise retention and encourage application.

Maybe it's not that we're missing out on the holidays, we're grabbing them as just another learning opportunity.

Colour

The boys had some homework and it's a minibeast behaviour investigation. Hypothesise, theorise, colour in - and then my favourite bit - sit down in the sunshine for 20 minutes. Lovely.

The objective was to find out which colour insects prefer. To land on I mean, not for their lounge wall. For lounge walls it's got to be dead salmon, mouse's back or clunch http://www.farrow-ball.com/colours/paint/fcp-category/list

The little critters didn't disappoint. The bugs were well behaved too. Within seconds of setting up our experiment we had creepy crawly visitors landing on our colour spots.

Orange was the run-away winner... or should that be Charlotte's Locks?

More Disasters

Today we said hello to tsunamis *waves*

We're still on natural disasters but the boys are loving it so I'm indulging their boundless interest in how nature wreaks havoc on humans, cats, cars and buildings.

We need to move on to some cheerful weather but I'm struggling to find any. Sunshine? UV rays! Sunstroke! Melting chocolate! Warm white wine! Argh! We tried rainbows but I died a little inside explaining that rainbows aren't a thing you can touch, they don't have an 'end' and even if you kept running towards one you could never ever reach it. Inspiring stuff; sucking the fun out of one of nature's finest creations. Well done me.

Perhaps I should go for safe and boring weather. A lesson on drizzle perhaps. Or snow that looks like it might settle ........ and then doesn't.

Our investigation into tsunamis took us onto the map to find Indonesia and Japan and identify the main tectonic plates. We spent a few hours exploring disaster responses, human and environmental impact, rescue efforts and the awesome power of water.

We got practical with a bit of swooshing up and down the bath and should there be a tsunami on the River Thames in the middle of the Eurasian tectonic plate I am confident that the boys are adequately prepared. To run away. Quickly.

Enough doom, we learned about drizzle.

Unnatural Disasters

Really enjoying our weather topic.

Today was all about tides which is perfect opportunity to do some timetable reading, how the universe works, gravity and water safety.

The boys were mesmerised by videos of rip tides and how waves are formed. We covered beach safety, what to do if you find yourself in a rip tide and watched a video of a boy being rescued by the RNLI.

There's been a lot of talk about disaster planning this past week. Think hurricanes, lightening, earthquakes, blizzards, tsunamis, UV rays, rip tides, running out of biscuits ... OK, the last one is not weather related but I'm getting very low on bourbons and that is serious.

I'm concerned that I've over-egged the safety element. K shouting 'we're all going to drown' every time there's a light shower and W lying face down in the middle of the lawn because a door slammed wasn't what I had in mind.

With the gorgeous weather I was planning a beach trip but I fear we'll get all the way to the coast and K, who is a worst-case-scenario boy, will insist that he's identified a rip tide or that the water DEFINITELY just sucked back so a tsunami is imminent, thus ruining my paddling plans. W, my err-on-the-side-of-caution boy, will probably refuse to get out of the car.

Aged 8, I spent an entire holiday on the Isle of Wight under a blanket because there was a solitary wasp on the beach. Nature, nurture.

While we were discussing the moon we had a quick diversion into planets. It was about time for a snack (it's always time for a snack in my universe) so we made an edible line of planets. Notice there are no bourbons.

Mysteriously, during clean-up Saturn was most popular.

Oh, and we exploded the sun in a vice (mwah ha ha)

Grammatical Errors

The back of a yoghurt is an unlikely place to find cause for complaint but as I emptied the boys' lunch boxes I spotted a very bad joke on the packet:

What's a vampires favourite fruit?

Punchline aside there's a serious problem in this horror story... and so begins the case of the missing possessive apostrophe.

There's an art to complaining. Sadly I'm not very good at art. I've emailed my grammatical concerns to Yoplait with a helpful image to illustrate the issue and how seriously I'm taking this affront to the English language.

Neck-tarines.

Brilliant.

PS I know I urgently need to see a hairdresser and/or put some make up on but I have no time in the day now. The best I can do is whack on a pair of fangs.

Break Times, Finnish Style

My sister sent me a link to an interesting article last week about Finnish schools.

The small Nordic nation's educational success and reputation can be irksome especially when it goes against the assessment focus of our own schools. There's a concept of 'Finnish envy' as the UK and US take Finland's success as an insult to our own exam-driven, competitive schooling culture.

Here's a brief summary of some ways in which Finland's schools differ from our own:

1. Shorter school day : fewest school hours in the developed world
2. Minimal homework : rarely any until their teens
3. Regular outside breaks : 75 minutes+ per day
4. Cross-curricular topics rather than subjects : see article below
5. No ranks, comparison or competition between students or schools
6. Minimal formal testing : just one standardised test at the end of high school

At an individual child level, the parallels to HomeEd are evident.

The article my sister sent was reflecting on Finland's system of 15 minutes breaks after every 45 minutes of instruction. Breaks have been embraced as a way for children to regulate their energy levels and improve engagement and knowledge retention. The UK and US education systems have moved the other way however - with an ever growing curriculum that puts pressure on teachers to utilise every minute of the day with longer periods of sitting coupled with ongoing suggestions of introducing a longer school day.

A shift in attitude is crucial to appreciate that length of time teaching isn't directly correlated to amount learned.

For the original article mentioned :
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/06/how-finland-keeps-kids-focused/373544/

For a more in depth discussion with research links, see :

http://www.creativitypost.com/education/the_benefits_of_movement_in_schools

For a comprehensive report on why Finland's schools are successful:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/?no-ist=&no-cache=_page%3D2_page%3D1&page=1

The news that Finland is replacing subjects with cross-curricular topics:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-schools-subjects-are-out-and-topics-are-in-as-country-reforms-its-education-system-10123911.html

We're All Winners

We've been scheduling forced-fun time on a Sunday.

K has many wonderful traits but one of his less endearing ones is that, to put it mildly, he is a bad loser. One hint of being the underdog he'll roll out the grumps faster than you can mutter 'don't play then'. 

The game of choice was kids' Monopoly. An easy game of chance with a bit of counting and a temperamental cash machine that either dispenses a single £1 or its entire contents.

Ignoring the 'it's not fair', 'everyone is lucky except me', 'I NEVER win' etc we carry on with grim cheery determination as W & dad win every square on the board between them and begin a property empire while K & I have £5 and one bad attitude to our name.

When K lands again on one of W's swanky hotels and duly hands over his last £5, W helpfully points out that it does include breakfast.

S, K and I all end up in prison (if the game had gone on much longer there's every chance life would have imitated art) and W also landed on the square but 'just visiting'. He said he'd brought some of the leftover muffins from one of his hotel breakfasts. Thoughtful boy.

We roll on. S loses patience, not the card game though, and I point out that the only way we'll improve matters is with exposure therapy. The only cure for bad losing may be to play more and more games of chance until you realise the odds are roughly 50/50 and it's fun anyway.

Looking forward to next Sunday evening already ... 

Snow in July

After our wilful abandonment of the timetable earlier in the week, it was time to knuckle down in the blissful sunshine. Cultural obligations require me to point out that it's far too hot and it won't last so we have to prepare ourselves for (moaning about) the grey weather which will undoubtedly blight the great British summer.

This is a perfect time to learn about rain and snow.

I'd covered water cycle with K earlier in the year so it was revision for him but a new topic for W. We found some fantastic little wheels for showing stages of the cycle and with the sunshine outside our water cycle experiment was a breeze. Which was good because it's been really hot today. Too hot really. I mean would a few degrees cooler be too much to ask?

W's commitment to the experiment was admirable as he put 3 Lego people onto his island with a cheerful comment that if everything went well they'd be drowned by tea time. Slightly sinister but then this is science.

We learned how snow is formed, which is roughly the moment I realised I have NO IDEA HOW SNOW IS FORMED. I get the gist; it's made of tiny ice-cubes carved by the cloud elves, but when K asked why some water vapour falls as rain, some hail, some sleet and some snow ... I blagged it with a response about air temperature but the smart cookie spotted my lack of conviction and requested further clarification.

I turned to google, the font of all knowledge, finding a nice summary and some precipitation I never even knew existed. I thought snow pellets were what you fed to snow rabbits. http://www.theweatherprediction.com/preciptypes/
In a nutshell it's all to do with the bands of temperature in the troposphere.

The Met Office is good too, this is their area of expertise after all, and they have a handy video although there's nothing in there about the cloud elves.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/snow/how-is-snow-formed

A few cut out snowflakes later and a brief diversion into hexagons; then we learnt about similes and metaphors before tackling a quick acrostic poem on Snow. Literacy side notes on what creative writing is and identifying occasions where similes/metaphors aren't appropriate.

I asked W why snow was naughty as a naughty boy. "Because it's cold."

OK then.

Grow Your Own

We planted seeds earlier in the year and K & W have (mostly) remembered to water them so we are beginning to reap the fruits of our labour. The beans are doing well, so too are our pepper plants and tomatoes.

It's not all happiness and hoe-downs in the garden though; our strawberries are rebelling. This might be the rudest strawberry we've ever grown.

Sex ed next week perhaps?

The Vortex of Flex

I was 100% committed to the plan. I had weekly and daily timetables and I was going to be strict every day. I said we would be regular, routine - like All Bran. It's not nice but it's good for you.

And then boom. Just like that we've gone a bit Coco Pops. The kids think it's great having it every day but it was really only ever meant to be a Sunday cereal.

I've been sucked into the Vortex of Flex(ibility). So powerful it's a proper noun.

Being British it's traditional to blame the weather and I do like tradition. This week was just gorgeous - Mediterranean gorgeous - it's a rare thing to be able to get your washing done and dried so fast you feel like you've literally stolen time from the Gods. So satisfying.

Washing done (in record time), back to the timetable :
Option 1: Stick with the plan. Learn about longitude and latitude.
Option 2: To hell with the plan. Swim at the lido.

I'm weak I know but the water looked so inviting*.

*the lying water. It was flipping freezing even though the air temp was 28 degrees. "Fine once you get in". Pah. I spent the morning with my feet dangling in while K & W splashed about.

Not content with the morning skive swimming lesson we topped it off with a walk down the river, chilled and happy as we spotted fish and dragonflies, K pointed out how the ducks had dinosaur feet and W collected swan feathers.

A typical EHE conflict. On one hand I feel guilty that we didn't stick to the plan, on the other hand we improved our swimming (OK OK, I just improved my paddling), got a lovely big dose of nature and fresh air and took advantage of an opportunity that presented itself.

Oh - and I got a teeny tiny hint of a tan.

So good, it can't be wrong.

Missing, Presumed EHE

I miss
Catching up with mums in the playground
My 8.55am cup of tea
Being up to date on the washing
Regular play dates
Sleep

I don't miss
Ironing school shirts
Buying school shoes
Homework lost in the bottom of a bag and only discovered 5 minutes before school on the day it's due
The morning rush
Stinky PE bag trainers
Post-school crankiness
Nits

Swings and roundabouts.