15th April 2008

It's been a funny day here. I don't feel we have done anything hugely productive, well not much really.

The children did some work this morning, Mag answered some questions from his science books. He loves sciences, and 'has' to write it all down. He measured his feet and calculated some mass and areas. Toni did some reading, writing, and some number work from her work books which she loves. We read some more about volcanoes and checked up on the currently erupting Nevado del Huila volcano in Columbia, the children are interested in volcanoes in a big way just now.

Miss Toni is suffering with the cold just now, so this afternoon I gave her some sudafed and the children just had some down time for a change, I think they needed it after the busy couple weeks we have had. I found Toni and Seb asleep on Mag's bedroom floor wrapped up in 'pie beds', Mag was dozing on his bed. The boys toys are still piled up in the TV room as we are waiting to finish off the bedrooms, and I know this must be affecting them. I hate having things upside down, I know Toni and Seb are affected in the same way when things are not as they usually are.

And Mag - well this evening I have to say he did a brilliant job - he made his first flat pack up by following the instructions and with no help what so ever. He is as pleased as anything, and I think with it being a little cabinet for his new bedroom it might help to give him a bit of pride in his room and maybe keep it tidy.

here it is ...

Found this on yahoo - an ITN news report from March 08

I know this is old news but I find it beggers belief that 22.4 % of teachers have dealt with kids carrying weapons. So for every child discovered with a weapon in school how many are not discovered?

Growing numbers of pupils are found carrying drugs and weapons every week at school, a report has warned.
A core of schools saw a significant increase in pupils with guns, knives and illegal drugs over the past seven years, the study from Warwick University found.
Teachers warned the trend was not restricted to gangs in large cities as provincial towns and rural areas also saw more youngsters arming themselves with weapons for "protection".
The study of 1,500 teachers by Dr Sean Neill, from Warwick's Institute of Education, suggested some schools faced severe problems.
"More teachers encountered offensive weapons more frequently in 2008 compared with 2001," the report said.
Nearly one in four teachers - 22.4 per cent - had to deal with pupils carrying weapons at least once a year.
The research also found "significantly more" teachers encountered pupils dealing illegal drugs on a monthly and weekly basis than seven years ago.

14th April 2008

I was speaking with a teacher today - not your every day teacher but a man who taught my husband at school who now runs a private tutoring place. Anyways - you would think being a private teacher he would be a bit more open minded about home education ...

He was a real go to school advocate - got to get no1 son to mix with other kids his own age. LOL The son in question goes to Boys Brigade, Two different Chess clubs (is close to be playing at championship level for seniors), Games Club, Youth Club, Bible Class, Goes to camp in the holidays and believe it or not he DOES in fact have FRIENDS.

Seems we don't learn enough either, my children 'need' to be in school so they can learn a wide variety of subjects. hhhmmmm I was wondering when the last time my kids were just restricted to the handful of subjects on offer at schools these days - makes you wonder what people think about us.

TODAY

Was a funny day, I got Mah kicked off doing some work out of his English books today. He doesn't like English but I like him to do some sort of formal study on the subject ... though sometimes I wonder whether or not I should push it, as he loves learning about everything else. He learns by many means too so it is something we need to explore for English, I have tried different books but it still doesn't light his fire. Toni read to me for a while and then drew pictures of things from her books. Her art work is brilliant these days, she would ask to draw virtually every time she sits at the table. She also copied some words from her book to make a little story.
I didn't push any of the children as I am pretty tired after the 4.30 start this morning. Hubby was heading off for Scotland and of course when he is up showering, having breakfast and so on everyone else knows about it. I never known anyone to make so much noise when trying to be quiet, seems to me the harder you try to be quiet the noisier you get.

My friend came round at lunch time and we both got stuck in trying to make the rest of the house look a bit more normal, seems to me that when you are decorating one or two rooms the mess migrates outwards at an amazing speed. She left in time to go collect her son from school and I just got some other bits done around the house.

Tomorrow morning my tesco.com shopping arrives, just as well as we have no cornflakes left. Also the boys' new bedding and some other bits for the rooms, so it looks like I am building up flat pack tv units tomorrow.

14th April 2008

Bad start to the day, and I am not one to moan usually. but (there is always a but) was up at 4.30 so he could head off and catch a flight to Scotland for three days. He has left us in chaos (not his fault), we were waiting for the paint to dry on the floor in one of the bedrooms and last night it was still tacky. So I had the prospect of moving two beds this morning with 11yo DS. he tries you know, but 11yo just dont have experience in furniture moving, and now I think I have pulled a muscle. Other DS is very load and active this morning, where is Super Nanny when you need her?

Well I had better get my butt of this seat and go get some decent clothes on. My friend is coming today to help out a bit, she does cleaning for me too ... works both ways I get stuff done she gets £££.


COME BACK DH - ALL IS FORGIVEN!

A peg too close! 13th April 2008

Look at this!


This yellow peg which is from one of those picture maker toys. This peg ended up side aways up my Seb's nose. Funny - yeah right! I put him for time out, he was being stupid and the sad thing is I cannot even remember now why he was in time out. Time out is our porch, some people have a naughty step but us - the porch! Its got a glass door where you can keep an eye on 'them' when they are in time out! YEAH RIGHT! There is a 8 foot tall plant in there too - Arthur, he looks after the children when they have been naughty. If the kids mess about in time out Arthur tends to fall over so they daren't move an inch. Well - after a moment or two in the porch my 4 year old started yelling, I called him him and saw he had a bloody nose. Wondered what he was up to, I was also half way through doing Sol's nappy change so I made him stand still and be quiet while I finished up. I managed to get a few sobs about a toy up his nose, and sure enough I looked and there it was. He kept sniffing but thankfully it was wedged side aways so could not go up any further. I yelled for No1 son to go looking in my little pen basket for a pair of tweezers - I just put them there a couple days ago .... thank goodness. and we got Seb up on the kitchen stool and performed the surgery.

Crying afterwards he was complaining about me sticking tweezers up his nose - ungrateful boy! His nose bled off and on all day, the peg cut him while it was coming back down but there wasn't much I could do about that.

10th April 2008

Reaching the point of inner contentment with regard to our children's education has been a long road. Forgive me if I don't make sense here, I do understand what I am trying to say even if no one else does.

It seems to me the last few months has been an extremely steep learning curve for our family. We became home educators in early 2007 - quite by accident need I add and here we are over a year on and just feeling great about it all.

What can be more liberating than just taking control of what your children learn, see & do? Who wants to be sending children into the schools we live so they can have a 1 in 3 chance of being bullied, worse still being the bullies. With 4 children that's a big risk, a big risk that something bad will happen to one of my 4 most precious things in my life. Would you let your kids go somewhere if they had a 1 in 3 chance of being damaged? Who wants to send them to school where they have a 2 out of 5 chance of leaving school not being able to read or write sufficiently well to get some basic qualifications? I think we will take our chances at home - thank you very much.

A VISIT FROM THE TOOTH FAIRY

We had a visit from the tooth fairy this week. And what a drama one wobbly tooth can cause too, my dd took several days out from real life to walk around with her hands clamped tightly over her mouth so her tooth would not fall out. She was terrified, and boy did she let us know. no sleep, no eating - she would not do anything.

So in the end the bad mommy that I am got my friend to hold her hands and I pulled the tooth out. After the initial shock she was the proudest girl in the world.


Strangest thing is that her replacement tooth is now growing in the gap, but her other new front tooth is actually growing behind her other milk teeth. I am sure they will straighten up, but it still is odd.