Books From Bananas....

I love getting a delivery of books, we got all these bargain books for a grand total of £13, part of an order from Bananas, Girl 2 is now happily reading her way through them.

Maths Resource Timez Attack....

Math is a four letter word in our house, so imagine my delight when I was sent this link to a multiplication game that Girl 2 absolutely loves, it's fab and even better it's free!
p.s. There is an ogre in the game which some children might find scary so you might want to check out the tutorial first!

John Holt Interviews And More....

Browsing the internet and reading blogs while I should be doing other things, but found this interview with John Holt from Mother Earth News in 1980 and this interview with him from 1984. I also came across an American site called Self Made Scholar which has loads of free resources for self education.

Blah, Blah, Blah....

I am emphatically not a winter person, and tbh like a lot of people I find January difficult. I do try to make the best of it, noone likes to feel they are wasting precious time trying to completely ignore a whole month but this time of year does make me feel very, well, blah is the best word I've heard to describe the feeling, it's not depression, S.A.D or otherwise, that's too strong, it's just a grit your teeth and get through it kind of feeling looking forward to all the plans we have for when the weather is warmer, the days longer. It's because of my inner 'blahness' I haven't felt like blogging too much, so I thought in order to kickstart some bloggy interest I'd do a kind of round up, a bit of a hotch potch of things we've done/read/watched and random things that have caught my interest over the recent weeks when we haven't been sleeping for much longer than usual, our form of winter hibernation!

We have happily returned to the weekly local home ed meeting and it's lovely to see so many old friends, and new ones for that matter, several new families have turned up in recent weeks so the home education 'word' must be spreading. Girl 2 has taken her time getting back into going to group meetings but that's only to be expected as we hadn't been since last September and it's now at a new venue so that will take some getting used to for her. I am relieved we are now able to take part in home ed activities again and am definitely feeling that reducing my hours of work was one of my best decisions ever, we are already feeling like part of a community again and much less isolated. Hopefully we will soon be able to return to Wise Up as well, they have certainly grown very strongly since we were last able to visit and have a whole myriad of activities available, I am hoping Girl 2 will be tempted to join in one or two, I'm just waiting for them to move to their new building, don't want Girl 2 to go through the trauma of getting used to one place only to move to another!

I have been trying to get us outside as much as possible to minimise the January blahs, the garden has been one option, not much to do but clearing and tidying but there is certainly plenty of that, Girl 2 has helped sporadically, she is not much enamoured by clearing fallen leaves and debris and we haven't been able to get our chickens yet which is dissappointing but hopefully in the next few weeks we will have someone to take us here to choose two or three chickens (I say two, the girls want three!)to live in our Eglu. We've also paid a couple of visits to a local park which we hadn't been to for a while as there was a lot of renovation and landscaping going on, we mainly go to birdwatch but stopping in the new cafe for a milkshake is always good!





Um what else? Oh, lots of indoor activities of one kind and another, not surprisingly given the recent weather. Girl 2 has had a some new audiobooks to listen to, Famous People In History, Roman Myths, and A Family Christmas inc Dylan Thomas A Child's Christmas in Wales She has found a new programme about chimpanzees called Chimp Eden which she has been watching and using to add to her already extensive knowledge of monkeys and apes, along with various books she's borrowed from the library. Artwise she's actually been enjoying colouring books for the first time in a long while including this Charles Darwin book and this less conventional one called The Anti Colouring Book. However, she has been using ordinary crayola crayons which are fine in their own way but not very pleasing in their finish, she says she wants some better crayons and coloured pencils to draw and colour with so if anyone has any suggestions please leave a comment. Oh and we have also watched some documentaries from here and here, The Future of Food and Inside Nature's Giants get two thumbs up! Never sure if these sites are completely legal though, I figure they are as I'm not saving the films just watching at the sites and I guess it's a bit like youtube in that respect but if anyone knows otherwise please let me know as I don't want to recommend anything that's illegal! I've also found some great resources and short courses on a couple of other sites, The Open University Open Learn and MIT Open Course Ware, they are mainly for my interest at the moment but I think that Girl 2 would enjoy some of the content when she's older, Girl 1 has already been checking out the science and environment resources. Oh there is lots more but this has turned into a longer post than I'd anticipated so I think I will save the other stuff as an incentive to write another post soon....I hope.

The Truth About Schedule 1 Of The Children Schools And Families Bill....

Can be found here!

Special Needs Of Children Increasingly Must Be Met At Home....

Special needs of children increasingly must be met at home

Medecins Sans Frontieres Haiti Appeal....

Medeicins Sans Frontieres is a charity we support on a regular basis, they had several medical centres in Haiti which have been destroyed, but are working flat out with the staff they have on the ground to provide urgent medical care to the people of Haiti,

"The situation is chaotic. I visited five medical centres, including a major hospital, and most of them were not functioning. I saw a distressing number of dead bodies. People have gathered outside, lighting fires in the street and trying to help and comfort each other. When they saw that I was from MSF they were asking for help, particularly to treat their wounded." Stefano Zannini, MSF head of mission

I am posting the link to their Haiti appeal, if anyone who reads this was thinking of sending a donation please do so as soon as you can, anything, however small, will help.

Snow Days....

Well with the new year I had hoped to have lots of exciting(?) updates of our home education diary but what do you know since Christmas we've actually done very little, less than little really, more like close to nothing, oh except play in the snow, shovel the snow, slide in the snow, look at the snow.....we've had a bit of snow! It's still here, rock hard now and forming a lethal layer of ice over the pavements so we have stayed in trying to keep warm and oohh just lazing around, reading, watching the birds on the feeders outside and drinking hot chocolate, when I've been able to get milk that is - what is it about a bit of snow that sends everyone out in search of bread and milk to hoard? It's been great really, nothing to do, no particular place to go, Girl 1 has had several snow days off school and I have not had to return to work this weekend like I was supposed to because the campus has remained shut so lazy 'r' us, at least until tomorrow when the school reopens and I have to go in search of food supplies.

Christmas Present....

Our new Eglu, which actually looks more like an igloo in this photo! We just have to get the chickens now which the weather has delayed somewhat, the girls have already chosen names and we will soon welcome Princess Layer and Hen Solo (or Cluck Skywalker, the jury's still out on that one!)to their new home which has been renamed....The Millennium Chicken!!!

Babies The Movie....

This looks interesting, looking forward to seeing it when it comes out!

We Went To London Three Days Before Xmas....

And yes, I need my head examined! Girl 1 needed to be in London on the 22nd to meet her Dad who flew into Heathrow that morning and had tickets for them both to see Paul McCartney at the O2, so I decided in my infinite wisdom to take both girls up to see their father then take Girl 2 back home in the evening. We had never seen the capital at Christmas and I thought it would be a nice day out, but OMG it was freezing cold, so very very crowded and the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square was a big dissappointment, and did I mention it was busy and crowded and that we had to climb 193 steps to get out of Convent Garden tube station because Girl 2 had a major meltdown at the sight of the crowded lifts, the only other way out of the station - I think I nearly had a coronary! Ok, it wasn't all bad, we went to The Natural History Museum where Girl 1 skated on the ice rink outside and later, because Girl 2 was so freaked out, we did duck into the National Portrait Gallery for an hour or so which was quiet and warm and somewhere we've never visited before in London and it was completely wonderful. Girl 2 absolutely loved the historical portraits and shocked the heck out of her Dad with her knowledge of the figures in the paintings. We also paid a short visit to The National Gallery especially to see this painting which has fascinated me since I was a child, didn't have a lot of time there though as we had to rush back to Paddington for the train which of course turned out to be delayed an hour whilst we slowly froze waiting for it. We like London a lot but I'm never going back again at Christmas and never when the temperature is below freezing!

Where's Santa?....

I'm still hibernating but I am just briefly popping in to share a family xmas tradition, tracking Santa with Norad, great fun!

Hibernating....

Yep, that's what I've decided I'm doing, I'm going to hibernate until the new year. It's been crazy busy the last few weeks and it's not going to let up anytime soon, plus xmas is a challenging time if you have an aspie in the house! I've started several blog posts but not had the time to finish them so I am just going to give up and catch up with everyone in a couple of weeks.
I wish everyone a wonderful Christmas/Yule and a peaceful new year!

Astra Taylor On The Unschooled Life....

We Are The People We Have Been Waiting For....

Is the title of a new documentary inspired by Lord Puttnam and Sir Michael Barber which explores the current education system in the UK. Amongst others it features Germaine Greer, Henry Winkler, Richard Branson and my personal favourite Sir Ken Robinson who was responsible for this Ted Talks. The Guardian is giving away copies of the DVD free this Saturday Nov 28th. Here's the trailer....




There has also been a similar documentary called The War On Kids released in the USA which features John Taylor Gatto in parts. Here's the trailer for that....

Rob Hopkins: Transition To A World Without Oil....

I have just started reading this book which I've borrowed off Girl 1, about the whole transition town movement and this talk has just been put online by Ted, which is good timing!

Trying To Catch Up....

With everything it seems, I don't know what it is about this time of the year but I always seem to have too much to do and not enough time to do it! I do get overwhelmed sometimes if I have too much on my plate and I have a tendency to retreat and hide from the chaos which is what I'm doing now basically, shut in my room with a bar of chocolate and Girl 2's laptop!! It is my last week of working before I change hours to a much shorter working week so maybe, just maybe everything will calm down. It has underlined to me though how much I need to work less and concentrate more on myself and the girls, especially Girl 2 as she's drifting somewhat at the moment shifted as she is between various carers while I work this past few weeks as both my parents have been ill, it's very disruptive for her, it's making her even more anxious than usual and I'm looking forward to spending more time on the home ed and having some sort of structure in our lives which will make things more stable for her. I'm also looking forward to reconnecting with all our home ed friends and I can't wait to have the time to spend on our permaculture project, Girl 2 is really keen to help with this and she's already learning about keeping chickens and planting veggies for next year and I am keen to permaculture the house as well as the garden and all on a tiny budget. So although from next week I am working less I really don't think I am going to be any less busy but it will because I am doing the things I enjoy.