At last, a proper blog post about actual real home education and our family! Sandra Dodd writes that unschooling can be like a dance between partners and we haven't had this background tune on for a while. First stop this morning was the local library where E walked out with armfuls and S not so much. Looking at the fiction she has enjoyed so far in 2012 most of it has been series based meaning we need to know the titles and authors before we can order them in. There is little in the way of inspiration for S, 7, on the shelves of our small village library now. It would be exaggerating to say she has read every book in the place but certainly of the topics that interest her most have been borrowed. We need a new series to order in.
So far this year she has read:
The series of Jane Blonde's, great stories about a young girl who is a spy, The whole of Caroline Lawrence's Roman Mysteries Series 1-18, Katie Davis' Pet Series, The Secret Garden, box set of Horrible Histories, Several Anne Fine's and Eva Ibbotson's and the Molly Moon series by Georgia Byng.
There are other themes going along too. S's purchase of an evacuee paper doll at Halsemere Museum on Friday has lead us on to bomb shelters and talking about whether there is a bomb shelter we could go and visit anywhere near our house and, in the way that Sandra Dodd talks about connections, we discovered that a late local celebrity Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop, was actually born in a bomb shelter in nearby Littlehampton.
The historical paper dolls have been great. S has the whole series now. Irritatedly they only sell them to match the Key Stage National Curriculum areas of history but the market outside of that is probably rather small. Regular readers will know my opinion of the current school history curriculum and its ability to simply ignore large chunks of the past!
After the library we headed to Arundel Swing Park on Mill Road for a home ed meet-up that I posted up several months ago to mark O's 3rd birthday. On the journey there it rained so hard the wipers were unable to keep up and a large branch fell on the roof of the caravelle but, for the hour that I had posted to say we would be there, is a secular pilgrimage kind of way, the clouds parted and left us with blue uphead.
The one advantage of keeping a blog for a year is that you have the annual posts to review and I see, here and there, I have blogged that the family dynamic suits our sibling relationships best and today was no exception. S was really upset that E ignored her to play with some boys and they are still discussing it now.......O well he is asleep, how will all the banging and crashing that is accompaninging the on going loft conversion next door I am not sure but he is........
It is me, that dreaded S question, you know the socialization one, I like talking to other home ed parents about what they are up to and how they are feeling about things. The trio are really not so fussed and are very happy playing and reading at home! Love these photos with the castle in the background. The weather kept almost everyone away today but I am pleased we went back as this is where we spent the day 3 years and 3 days ago. The day before O was born and it has special memories because of that. I guess Sandra Dodd has featured in the post today too as it is a park we took her too when she visited last summer. It has a new wooden turtle.
4 comments:
I see that castle in the background, too! :-)
The dance quote was Pam Sorooshians, but I like it!! http://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/2012/04/unschooling-is-more-like-dance-between.html
We've found some free historical paper dolls on the web. Printed on to card they can sometimes suffice. thought it worth a mention :-)
Thanks Lily :) Paper dolls have been a feature on and off for a few years now.
I think what S really likes about the historic ones is the little stories they come with and how they suggest names appropriate to the period and so on.
They are also not that expensive - normally a couple of quid each. By the time I've fed card into our antiquated printer and added in the cost of colour cartridges (why are they sooo expensive!)
It annoys me with books too. We really like Usborne history books but some of the periods outside the KS framework the texts are really out of date because there just isn't a market for them. It is very obvious in libraries where they have big constraints (and why they are not permitted to stock complete reading schemes in our area)
Hi Sandra :-) Sorry Pam! Carried on the dancing theme on today's post!
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