Time to take stock.

One of the fantastic things about home ed, is that even when one or other of us is feeling under the weather we can have a pyjama day and still get things done.

Kitchen chemistry in pyjamas with red cabbage indicator.

We first made the decision to home educate, or rather, having let K know that 'some children don't go to school, but learn at home with their mummy or daddy', had her pronounce with utter conviction, 'That's what I'm going to do,' when she was about four and a half.  Most of the time we have followed the girls' lead, mainly because it clearly worked but also because on the odd occasion when I tried to push more formal learning when they weren't up for it, it failed miserably and often ended in tears (theirs and mine).  That doesn't mean that we haven't done anything towards the more structured end of the spectrum, but the times when it has worked best have been when it's been lead by them, for example, when I made worksheets to go with each concept in this maths book, because K liked it and thought it was a good idea.  We have been through numerous periods where it feels like we have done lots and just as numerous ones where I start to think that they haven't learned anything for ages, although I'm often proved wrong on that score.  Eventually, however, sometimes the fallow times last beyond my comfort zone, and that usually leads to a conversation about our home education.

We had one of those conversations recently, which involved a reminder that we had agreed that the main aims of home education for us as a family, was to ensure that K & M were numerate and literate and could find out about things that they wanted to know about.  While we are well on our way to achieving that in some ways, neither K nor M do an awful lot of writing that they are willing to share with me.  K is in the process of writing two books, but doesn't want to share them until they are finished, which, since she is only on chapter one of one of them and two of the other, could be some way off!  While I have no doubt that both she and M could communicate whatever they wanted to, I know that their writing would probably not pass muster in any slightly more formal situation.

Things feel a bit different now, particularly with K, who would have started secondary school this term, had she been in the system.  It used to be that she would only do anything that she saw the point in, but the point needed to be pretty immediate and relevant to her now.  She is still like that to an extent, but now has the maturity to rationalise things and realise that some things take time and effort and may have good reasons for doing, even if the end result isn't immediately beneficial.  She also has incredible patience and persistence, as evidenced by the amazing quilling things she has produced, so I'm hoping that she will be able to harness that in other directions too.  We're planning on having a dig in to our non-fiction books and seeing what grabs her, with the aim of going a bit deeper into a topic, probably something either historical or geographical.  We have also found another couple of maths books, one of which she has started working through each day.  She still prefers to do things on her own, but is willing to ask when she's not sure about something.  She's got a couple more birthday thank yous left to do, but once those are out of the way we will also be doing more writing.  As a starting point I have asked her to write me a letter about her home education, why she thinks we should continue rather than her going to school and what her plans are about what she'd like to do and what she thinks she needs to work on.

M in some ways is the complete opposite to K, with a very strong preference to having me there with her whenever she does anything from a workbook.  She's currently working through a maths one that is far too easy for her, but she is insisting on doing before moving on, despite finding quite a lot of it boring.  While it can be easy to think that it's a complete waste of time, there is usually something that makes it worthwhile, whether that's a reminder of something she does know but we haven't covered for a long time, or something that sparks a conversation and in any case it is getting us back into the swing of doing some of it each day.  I've asked M to write me a letter too, it will be interesting to see the similarities and differences.

So that's where we are at the moment, we've moved slightly on the autonomous-structured spectrum, but particularly for K, a little nudge with a bit of structure and she seems to have run with it pretty autonomously!  One thing is pretty certain; school isn't in the picture for the foreseeable future at least.