Off Grid

As we're nearing the end of our adventure we needed a suitably adventurous send-off and headed off for a short stay in a tree house in North Wales.

Built 30ft above the floor, with wooden spiral steps, rope bridge, no electricity, composting toilet, wood burner and a gravity powered shower (situated underneath the tree house) it's the perfect off-grid location for top quality, back-to-nature family time.

I'm still habitually observing learning opportunities so it would be remiss not to mention the links to the history curriculum - how people lived, washed and cooked before electric lights, toilets and ovens etc - as well as practical PE and DT skills with all the usual log chopping, rope swinging, climbing and walking.

When I holler 'Pack your bags, kids - we're leaving in 20 minutes!' up the stairs, the only question I'm asked is 'How many nights?' As a by-product of our various adventures (mostly to much loved Youth Hostels) they have learnt the +1 rule : 2 nights away means pack 3 of everything. In the spirit of learning through doing I never check their bags : the boys learnt through trial and error the inconvenience of forgetting to pack pants, gloves, PJs or a book. A BOGOF lesson - first in the perils of careless packing and often swiftly followed by a bonus lesson in how to share with your brother or make do (socks make great emergency gloves, turn t-shirts back to front if they're filthy, a bin bag can stand in as a poncho...).

I love the ease with which we can head off on adventures these days. Practice has made (nearly) perfect.

Wales delivered the weather you'd expect at this time of year and we waded, jumped and squelched our way through 2 days of perfect family fun for our last term time adventure.

www.living-room.co

Village Fete

We love a village fete. Bumbling around with change in our pockets, buying overpriced ice cream and tickets for tombolas that are filled to bursting with things we either donated ourselves or that we just don't need.

I won a wine soaked Body Shop gift box. Oh, cruel tombola! I could smell the wine and the box was saturated with it - but the only bottle in my win was rose-scented body wash. I'm just saying it's not as good as wine.

Hook a duck, tractor rides and decorate a biscuit were fun but the highlight by a mile was the petting zoo. Amid my mutterings of 'we didn't have a petting zoo in my day' I ushered the small ones in for what turned out to be the most fantastic 45 minutes of their week and probably the best value £2 I've spent in ages.

K&W held ducks, guinea pigs, rabbits, chicks, geese, baby mice and fed a baby goat from a bottle.

The team running it were fabulous : competent, confident and with a sense of humour completely undiminished by 4 hours of small children wandering around their pen. They plonked furry and feathered beasts onto children's heads, laps and hands - giving them no time to be nervous or refuse. The highlight for me was a quote from a small boy who was sat next to us. As a rabbit appeared on his lap he looked faintly unimpressed as he turned to his mum and asked :

"What does it do?"

Mum looked briefly flustered before replying :
"It doesn't do anything - it's a rabbit."

Okay, this was no Xbox but we had a great time.

Parklife

We have amazing parks around where we live. From skate parks in Marlow, Princes Risborough and Missenden, to woodland ones at NT Waddesdon and Hughenden to the local public parks at West Wycombe, Naphill, Speen, Booker, Ellesborough and beyond - we are spoilt for choice.

No agenda here - it's just a fantastic way to spend a break time or wind down after school. Councils get a hard time but I can't fault our free public parks and green spaces and we make the most of these fantastic places.

Who doesn't love a bit of balancing, swinging, sliding, hanging and climbing...?

There is No Hurry

Rivers know this : there is no hurry.

We shall get there some day.

Winnie the Pooh, A.A.Milne

A morning spent in the river with sunshine, dogs & wellies full of water. Happy days.

Holidays

We usually work through the holidays; it means we can take breaks when it suits us the rest of the time ... however ... it's Christmas.

In the interests of honest reporting: we wrapped presents, saw friends, watched too much TV, ate sweets, played games and did absolutely no work whatsoever.

Happy Christmas!

PS The multi-coloured tree was not my doing. I went out for some final Christmas shopping, leaving a very classy all-white-lit tree in the safe hands of S & the boys. I came back to find it had been upgraded to a disco tree and the thing flashed a rainbow for the whole of Christmas.

Breath of Fresh Air

Flexibility is a theme in our life and we don't take advantage of it as much as we should. When we do, it's always brilliant. Like a damp afternoon when the four of us nipped down the hill to fly S's RC plane and get some fresh air.

A gentle wander turned into hide and seek, climbing trees to rescue the plane, racing Bailey the dog and commando crawling through a meadow. Blew away the cobwebs.

Spooktactular

We needed a low key, minimum fuss Halloween - we were all a bit worn out but the kids were enthusiastic and it's a perfect opportunity to do something fun with friends.

The night before, the Mums had a Pinterest frenzy for quick and simple ideas - as if there is any other way to prepare for a party. Lots of ideas involved too much work (or too many ingredients) to pull off in a couple of hours so we were selective; nothing is scarier than extreme efficiency.

We were all chuffed to bits with the outcome. For very little money and only a couple of hours of work we had a spooktacular Halloween party!

The quick and easy Halloween party list: pumpkins & apple corer, ripped clothes & face paint, glow sticks, witch fingers, spider marshmallows, worms in jelly, apple/donut bobbing. Smoke machine and green lights optional...

Simple Pleasures

Brain ache set in and everyone was grotty. The day was poorly planned, I was juggling too much and the kids detected possible cracks appearing in my no-screens policy which they were trying to widen. Enthusiastically.

When things are going downhill, there is a natural tendency to keep going. By working harder and doing even more I expect to accelerate into a solution. My logic is flawed; it's based on a faulty premise that I'm pointing in the right direction in the first place. So, against all of my instincts, I stopped.

I closed my laptop, put my phone on silent, turned off the hob and looked at the moany faces of my offspring.

"Let's make playdough."

K grumbled that he didn't want to - a position he maintained for about 5 nano seconds, no-one can resist the joy of playdough.

We spent a blissful 2 hours mixing colours, making shapes, moulding and chatting. We've baked our creations and they came out beautifully!

The benefits of pausing.

Happy Birthday - Home Ed Style

Going on about this could make a person unpopular but being EHE means you can actually do birthday activities on the actual birthday date.

It doesn't sound much but little things are the best : W got to open his presents sat on our bed in his PJs without the old Monday soundtrack of me screeching 'Do your teeth! Properly! I'll do packed lunches! What do you mean your homework is due in TODAY?!"

We had presents (W), a cuppa (me) and a cuddle (all) and bounced out of bed bright and not-so-early at about 9am. We packed a picnic and headed to the zoo which, predictably, was empty - of people, not animals.

It was so quiet that the animals actually seemed pleased to see us. W got sniffed by a wallabee. Monkeys jumped on the car. K got swamped by a flock of lorikeets. The squirrel monkeys surrounded us, even a new mother carrying her baby monkey. A cockatoo said hello. The penguins chased our fingers and the sea lions gave us a fantastic display of jumps and spins when we clapped. The zebras blocked the car in a move that clearly said 'you're the first car we've seen today - stay are marvel at our stripes puny lesser-spotted humans'. The staff were happy to fill time too - we had a private cockroach viewing and the keepers happily answered our barrage of questions about snakes.

At picnic time, the cafe area was blissfully quiet. We brought out the birthday cake and then realised that we had better not light the candles for risk of setting off the fire alarm. Too embarrassed to sing Happy Birthday we struck it lucky because the lady sat alongside with her little girl was an opera singer.

W might be the only child in history to have his 8th birthday marked by blowing out unlit candles at a zoo while a professional opera singer sang Happy Birthday.

Sunday Night Forced Fun

We should not have opted for chess. It was late, everyone was tired, we hadn't had dinner.

It became clear that not one of us is competent enough to ensure a fun family game in a reasonable time frame.

I printed out a Dummies Guide for each team but we still had to keep googling the more complex rules - eg: when pawns reach the far side of the board what can they be promoted to? I've never heard of the En Passant rule either; I'm convinced W & I would have been triumphant if we'd known about it earlier...

Anyway, we gave it our best shot, and ended up with S & K's white queen + king chasing our black king around the board with all other pieces captured. After 20 minutes of W & I gallantly evading capture, one gruelling space at a time, we called it a day. There may be an official name for it (stale mate?) but we'll just call it Boredom 1, Chess 0.

We were young (OK, not that young), we were crazy. We were riding high on an amazing week and a fantastic afternoon swimming. We took on too much, too soon - we reached for the stars and got stuck about half way up a ladder.

Speaking of which, we'll be back to snakes and ladders next Sunday.

Under Seige

A short, hate-filled post on cause and effect.

1. Aphids land on the green gage tree which sits between swings, trampoline and slide.

2. Wasps like to eat aphids.

3. Hundred of wasps swarm on the gage tree.

4. We can't go in the garden.

5. We spend yesterday entertaining ourselves indoors shooting evil looks at the wasps.

6. K can't settle at bedtime as he's been cooped up indoors.

7. 11pm, still up.

8. He's tired, I'm tired.

9. Today is going to be a looooooooong day.

Stupid wasps.

Is it Home Ed?

Now we're getting into our summer stride it's tricky to work out what's home ed, what's holiday fun and what's regular family stuff. (I wish family stuff was the same as holiday fun. I tried to pull a Mary Poppins and convince the kids that dusting was fun. Failed.)

We've gone from structured HE to semi-structured HE for the summer hols and it's liberating and confusing in equal measure : a line has been blurred.

Last week we spent a fabulous day with friends at a National Trust property. Here are two versions of what happened; my perspective is in italics and the boys' version is in courier.

We visited Waddesdon Manor. On the way we discussed divergent thinking and came up with as many ways as possible to use a paperclip to stretch our creative brains. 

We made up ways to make weapons out of paper clips.

When we arrived we met up with our friends, caught up on each others' news and went on a shuttle bus. 

Said hi, sat at the back of the bus.

When we arrived we looked at Vasconcelas' candlestick installation identifying it as modern art and discussing what it might look like at night. We looked at the symmetry of buildings and talked about Victorian Gothic architecture. 

We ran along the grass and saw wine bottles made into a tower and a big yellow house.

We practised map reading and sign reading skills. We read menus, ordered food and the boys had their own table to talk and socialise over lunch. 

Ate sandwiches in the cafe. No-one liked the yoghurt.

Afterwards we headed to the woodland play park and explored. There was excellent risk assessment in action during tree climbing, collaboration on the spinner and an abundance of team work when other children spontaneously joined them to design and build a den out of sticks. Sharing sweets, negotiation and great manners - tick. They developed their den to include seats, shelf, a secret hiding place and entry password. 

We played at the park, climbed a tree and built a den with some other children. It was fun.

We stopped for an ice-cream which the boys bought independently, working out the costs and change for 4 cones with a flake.

We had ice-cream and got chased by a wasp. 

Being solely responsible for the boys' education piles on the pressure to see everything as an opportunity for learning, analysis and extension. 

Thirsty? Of course darling, what's the chemical symbol for water? 

Biscuit? No problem. If I have 11 in a packet and we eat 2 each how many will be left?

It's a bore. I'm a bore. Some things are just fun, like friends, parks and ice cream.

I shouldn't moan because it sums up the reason HE is working for our family right now. The contextual learning, the confidence building and the socialisation all happens in the course of our normal life and adventures. 

As my own confidence builds I'm looking forward to relaxing into our new rhythm and putting my 'What Are We Learning' checklist down.

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!

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 ...