Steam Railway

Today we went to Loughborough for a ride on the Steam train, Santa came through the carriages as well but that was incidental... Huge scope for learning, Reuben was fascinated by the steam, looked at pictures of how the engine worked, knows that you need a fire (for burning coal) and at the end wanted to see the engine itself, unfortunately the real fire was a bit scary! He also kept the whole carriage greatly entertained for an hour by making stuff out of paper and distributing it around as well as drawing on the glass and telling everyone about it. Isaac was wide eyed when we started to move (see video) and of course the whole ride was very enjoyable, and I really liked the 1940s feel to the train and station (our engine was older, 90 years old).

Reuben the Gymnast

Reuben, a couple of months ago, asked to go to gymnastics at our local leisure centre and he's loved it ever since. Yes it is structured but it makes complete sense to him, he enjoys pretty much all of it, he is very serious about it and concentrates very hard on getting it right, and he trusts the people who run it to look after him, so it works! Today the children did a little display for the parents and Martin had a bit of fun making a movie "trailer" out of it. Enjoy!

And I have to say that I like this aspect of home education, that you can mix and match the things that the children like, we can have structured, classes, workshops, free play, run around the woods, experiments in the kitchen, anything really...



Video from the Kangaroo Kids Exhibition

Martin and a few of us were interviewed during the exhibition opening party, this is the lovely result!

Art workshop, very much a success!!!

At last what I was looking for, a shame it's a one off. We went to an art workshop for children, in conjunction with the Open 23 exhibition in Leicester, and it was great! Lots of exploration, freedom to use any material that was available and any technique, the children were encouraged to put their work together with other children's work to make new things, or to put it on the wall or stick it on chairs, we loved it!

Reuben is writing!

We were sitting together the other evening doing some drawing and out of the blue, Reuben instead of drawing starts writing letters, naming them as he writes them. I was blown away... it's as if children keep these skills to themselves until they are happy to show them, a bit like learning to talk, then there's no stopping them. Wonderful!

Guardian discussion on flexi-schooling and home education

This was an interesting discussion... Some friends posted a link to an article in the Guardian about flexi-schooling, as interesting as the article was I was really taken in by the stream of comments, here is a link if you want to follow http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/dec/05/rise-of-flexi-schooling?commentpage=1#start-of-comments I'm signed in as Franandrubi.
I usually stay away from internet forums and discussions as they can escalate into personal attacks and various other unpleasantness, I do tend to be quite outspoken and my ideas are not really mainstream so, until I learn the art of diplomacy, I better not get involved.
But this discussion was really interesting, the article was about a set of families who take their children out of school once a week and teach them at home. This prompted a lot of home educators (and home educated people) to leave comments as well as teachers (in strong disagreement) and general comments from people who don't really understand how children can learn without being formally taught, as well as lots of understanding for home education (this is the Guardian after all).
My big issue here was with comments such as most children don't have the maturity or determination for independent learning and I guess that most who have been through the system since they were a few months old probably do not have this skill well developed, but it is a case of the chicken and the egg: I cannot trust children to learn on their own so I control their learning, therefore I create children who are unable to learn independently... If children (and humans in general) were not capable of independent learning how come children learn to speak and walk quite well on their own? Have you ever watched a child try to work out how a video game works? Of the phone? Or the ipad? How come we are not still in caves hunting and gathering? You cannot argue that only adults learn independently, humans, I guess, are born very flexible indeed (as you could be born in any sort of family, culture or geographical location) and an ability to learn is essential to survival, to fitting into any given environment, I believe this is genetic, I believe that human children have an enormous capacity for independent learning. What teachers and a lot of adults worry about is that children will not learn the things WE want them to learn, therefore we have to direct their learning so they will be productive members of our society. From our experience (I have been an artist, a teacher, an academic, a counsellor, and a shop owner... and my partner is a successful businessman who did not do well at school) you make your own way in this world, it cannot be shaped for you. You gain knowledge as you need it, if my children decide to be tree surgeons then we will find a route to get there, if they want to read English at Oxford then we will go down the route for that too. They will shape their life, not us or the school system.

Scope for learning

As usual, lots happens in just a few days and if I don't write it down I forget... Reuben has been helping his dad with measuring the frames from the exhibition pictures to cost them, so he's been involved in recording numbers and seeing his dad make calculations, he likes to physically measure things with the tape measure (including himself) and he seems to realise that numbers are used for a variety of things (age, height, time, etc.).
We were looking at words the other day and noticed that some words are short and some long, without actually counting the letters we were trying to guess how many there were in the word we picked, Reuben can also recognise words from a small list (things like, show me the word dog) so it looks like he is making sense of it somehow, some things I am sure that he knows but I don't know how anyone could measure his knowledge, luckily we don't have to.
He asked for some reading workbooks the other day when we were in WH Smiths and we gave them a go, Reuben just does them for fun so we have to be creative with the tasks as some are just weird... they had mixed up the letters of the word cow (owc) and other 3 letter words and asked for the letters in the right order to make the word. Where in the real world would you find this? If you have a love of anagram puzzles that might be useful practise but otherwise? But I have to admit that scope for learning is everywhere, as doing the workbooks is Reuben's idea he is not bothered by the weirdness and goes along with it, just for fun!

Art class for children, NOT a success!

I was really not expecting this one... the boys do a lot of (messy) arty stuff in the mornings, they love mixing paints to finger (and foot) paint and adore play dough, which we make ourselves. As I'm often doing something else when they're at the table being artistic, I though it might be fun for all three of us to go to a creative arts class for children. Well... we found one nearby which seemed to be what we wanted, on the website there were lots of pictures of kids covered in paint, lots of words like creative, messy play, exploration, different mediums, etc.
So off we went, very excited. We were slightly surprised at the (vaguely deranged) lady in charge sitting everyone in a circle and singing songs and shaking hands with the children, but who are we to judge? Although with only a 45 minute session maybe we should have just got stuck in. Reuben at this point was still very hopeful so off we go to the table, and here much frustration ensued. The activity had been decided for us (a Xmas snowman card) and we could only use certain materials (and certain colours) in a specific order so things were given to us and taken away throughout. Reuben was very upset by this as he wanted to work out for himself what would work/look nice. For example, we were supposed to stick things on the snowman's face but Reuben wanted to paint the face instead and of course the madwoman had taken the paints away as they were only supposed to be for the background not the snowman... so you can imagine what it was like. And I won't even mention Isaac being forced to sit at a table for 45 minutes without much scope for messing about.
10 minutes from the end Reuben stood up and said: "I don't like this playgroup, I want to go home!" the lady looked at me and said: "I suppose you won't be coming back then?" eeehhhh... no....

Moral of this story? One of the mums put it quite nicely: "This class is great, it prepares them for school". Really? It prepares them for being brain dead? Not once in the whole class was a child encouraged to explore or be creative in any way, it was like little robots being made to do what the adult had decided they were going to do, and in a specific order. I mentioned Reuben being upset by the materials being taken away and the woman in charge said: "If I didn't do that we wouldn't get anything done". Done? What do you mean? Wouldn't it have been better to show the card to the children, put all the materials on the table at the beginning and let them decide how to do it, and if they wanted to do something else entirely, why not? It ended up with the parents doing much of it anyway. So it certainly wasn't art or creative. Is this indicative of most children's classes? I hope not but I have a terrible suspicion that most will be like this, and of course everyone looked at us as if we were mad, as my children aren't mindless sheep who will be forced to do mindless things.

Kangaroo Kids

Lots of things happening this week, the big one was the opening of Martin's photographic exhibition with Leicester Sling Meet, Kangaroo Kids. We really enjoyed the opening party, lots of friends (mostly babywearing!!!) there and the boys ran around like maniacs for over 3 hours.
http://www.kangarookidsphoto.com

Warwick Castle

We went for my birthday, the scope for learning was enormous, so where do I start? The boys as usual made the very most of the visit and we stayed for most of the day.

Woodcraft Folk Ceilidh Dance

A great time was had by all!!!

Millie and Reuben danced solid till 8.30!

Isaac cruised below the surface, of tables mainly...

Writing

Reuben seems to have developed an interest in writing in the last few weeks, this has taken the form of scribbles on notepaper (letters to me mainly), making letters in the ground with a stick, and tracing letters in the magazines I buy for him, we were at the museum the other day and he wanted his own note pad "to write Reuben in it"!

Sealife Centre

As the boys have a great fascination with fish (and my parents sent us some money for Christmas) I thought it would be nice to visit the Sealife Centre in Birmingham. Forgetting for a moment the nightmare that driving into (and out of... a bit like Dante's inferno, lose all hope of ever getting out!) Birmingham is, we had a great day. The boys absolutely love going to these sort of places, I feel uneasy about zoos, but as we keep fish at home ourselves I can't really moralize about animals in captivity.



So lots of high points, unfortunately I didn't take any pictures as I was worried about losing the boys, Isaac likes to walk now more than being carried so I have two wild things running about the place. We all enjoyed handling the crabs and touching the anemones, the interactive pool with the Rays, the seahorses, the scary sharks and above all the beautiful turtles, one came up to the glass and seemed to nod at Isaac. And amazingly the boys sat through a 4D film with vibrating chairs, splashes of water and funny goggles... and liked the mirror maze at the end, it made me dizzy and a little worried but Reuben really enjoyed trying to find the way out.

Muddy puddles

We have recently discovered a real love for the woods, we try to go once or twice a week, so much so that the boys now have to wear waterproofs as the lure of muddy puddles is too much to resist. My dream is to have a cabin in Swithland woods (could be a reality if I mount a serious enough campaign to convince my other half...) so we can spend as much time there as we want. The boys are not interested in going for walks, they want to be part of the woods, they want to pick up every single leaf and twig, they want to experience the place, not just pass through it as us adults seem to do. We can pick a spot and stay there for hours, it's wonderful! And they are learning so much about the natural world, I cannot even begin to list the things we discuss. The other day I took them to the playground in the village where we live, they both ignored swings, slides and climbing frames and instead decided to climb the trees and make a "campfire" with twigs and leaves. And we haven't even started on dens yet!
























This was taken at Watermead County Park, we've just discovered the north entrance with more dinosaur sculptures including a giant woolly mammoth, this has led to getting books from the library about mammoths and finding out about ice ages.

Better get started then

Ok, so the blog looks all nice and pretty, but what have we been doing? I can't even begin to list all the things that the boys know already so I'll just do it day by day.

Reuben has recently started going to a gymnastics group, I thought he might struggle with the structured lesson but what a surprise! He loves to take things seriously, he listens carefully to all instructions and concentrates enormously on getting it all right. But more and more now I have started noticing the things he does differently, most children were happy to make their way across the trail in the gym, but often got stuck and waited for one of the instructors to come along and help, also there are some pictures strewn across the way, with positions the children should attempt (like touching toes and similar), I noticed that none of the children, unless prompted by and adult, attempted any of these positions on their own. Reuben is quite different in the sense that he's happy to take instructions from the adults but he very much does the trail on his own, he never seems to get stuck and if he's not sure what to do he will still do something, and he was the only child who attempted all the position he saw on the cards. I imagine this is because he does not spend the day being told what to do so he is not reliant on adults to give him instructions all the time. I compare Reuben and Isaac's experience of the world with the one of schoolchildren and I am so glad I can give them this freedom. Hopefully they will never know that learning is supposed to be boring.

Reuben has also started to "write" in the sense that he writes little notes he leaves all over the place, it's just scribbles at this stage but he thinks they have meaning, so of course they do! And drawing, here's another surprise. Reuben has never shown much interest in drawing, painting, colouring, anything like that, he likes to mix the paints to see what happens and he likes the feel of clay and play dough but he doesn't attempt to make them into any sort of recognizable figure or picture. Well, recently he has started to draw what he calls "little Reubens" and they're wonderful! Little people with giant heads and little legs who do actually look a bit like him (the curly hair gives them away).

Isaac is going through an obsessive phase, his loves are trains, play dough and the i-pad!!! You would not believe a 21month old could sit still for such long stretches of time. I have struggled with the boys using the i-pad and computer but have come to the conclusion that as these things are in the house they might as well start self regulating when it comes to them. And if I think they have been on them too long I will resort to distractions, lets make biscuits usually works!!

Changes made

Ok, changed the name and the look of it, not really happy with it yet but I'll tinker with it more when the little people have gone to bed. I think that what I'm trying to do is to keep a record of what we all do together, what the boys have done and learnt. I tried keeping a log but it's impossible as we don't like to separate thing into subjects, so this seems like the ideal format.

Blog changing

I've been very slack with this blog, I think that as the children grow up, the focus of this blog is a little vague. As the biggest thing in our lives (and for many years to come, I hope) is home education, it makes sense to keep a record of what the boys (and us) are doing and learning, so I will change the blog to a home ed record, I hope it will be of some use to those who are embarking on a similar journey or just to see what the crazy hippies are up to!!!

Our babywearing exhibition

Kangaroo Kids is an exhibition that brings together photographer Martin Zalesny with the Leicester Sling Meet, a group of parents with a strong interest in carrying their babies and children (babywearing) in slings, carriers or wraps, who meet regularly in Leicester as well as virtually in their facebook group.

The aim of this exhibition is to show babywearing as a natural, beautiful, useful and fun aspect of parenting.

More details here http://www.kangarookidsphoto.com

It is opening on the 1st December at the Leicester People's Photographic Gallery

Ode to the sling

Isaac is nearly 20 months old and I still use the mei tai carrier A LOT! I don't know how people manage without. How do other children go to sleep? How do they have a nap? With Reuben we followed the silly rule of putting him in a cot awake and of course he was awake for ages in the silly cot! So the time wasted going up and down the stairs to check on him would've been better spent with him on my back and with me getting on with whatever I had to do.
Not to mention going out with a very lively nearly 4 year old, I tried taking the double buggy a few times but what to do when Reuben runs off to play with something, then decides he wants to go somewhere completely different, then decides he wants to go down the slide with me and Isaac, and so on... I found myself racing after him with a very bulky pushchair and felt rather silly. So now we just use the buggy if we're going down to London or taking a plane or something like that.

Tired but still here

I have so many lovely thoughts, ideas and experiences during the day that I want to share in this blog but by the time I get to it (it is currently nearly 10am and I've just finished doing a Cohen Kappa statistical calculation for my course...) I'm exhausted. Anyway... the television has not made a return and we're all very well thank you very much, Reuben does do a bit of computer work (the reading website, cbeebies website and some stuff on the ipad) but now it's never more than an hour a day and I don't have to tell him to stop as he decides on his own that he wants to do something else. We watch films on the projector most evening so we get our movie fix (both the kids pre 8pm and us post 8pm), we all love a good film!! So I'm very happy at the way things have turned out, the children are using their imagination so much more, I wouldn't have believed it had I not tried it.

We also started going to Woodcraft Folk meetings and Reuben (who is a little woodchip) loves it. I'm sure I had lots of great philosophical and political things to say, but for now it's over and out. I'll leave you with a very autumnal picture of Isaac enjoying the fallen leaves.

Our castle

Here's some pictures of our castle, it still needs sanding and painting but it's being used already, the children really love to sit in it and read of all (and of course must have a dummy in my mouth when I read...), I imagined great fantasy play including sieges and battles or even attempts at rescuing princesses, but maybe they are too young...

The Outwoods

Thank you Sue and Roy from Charnwood's Play Rangers for a great afternoon at the outwoods near Loughborough, Reuben loved it and Isaac was happy to spend 2 hours in the carrier. You do a great job!

The laptop reappears

Today was a bit of a crappy day, Reuben had a really bad night due to growing pains in his legs and this morning kept falling over, I was zombiefied and Isaac was his usual cheerful self, at least one of us was. We were all so tired that my laptop made a reappearance and Reuben spent about an hour on the reading eggs website. I felt a bit deflated as our tv and computer free days experiment was going very well indeed, on the upside it meant that I managed to do some University work. So what now? I don't want to go back to a computer obsessed child in the house, do I enforce specific times when he can use it? How do I explain it to a free spirited nearly 4 year old? The continuum concept is easier to follow in the jungle I guess...

No telly update

It's been over a week now and the television and computers have not been reinstated yet (I'm writing this while Reuben plays upstairs...) and I think I'll try to keep it going as much as possible. The children have a new wooden castle we have made to play in (a sort of large wendy house but castle shaped, will post our own photos asap) we found the plans here http://www.buildeazy.com/newplans/kids_castle_3_06.html

and there's been a boom in reading books together and listening to music. It's very full-on for me as before I could count on about 2 hours a day when Reuben was either on the computer or watching a dvd, seems a lot now that it's gone down to zero but he is only 3, it was too much in my opinion. And as time goes on I have also found that the boys play more together and that Reuben is a lot more patient with Isaac and actually wants to spend time with him.
I am also concerned that passively watching something or playing a game that has been scripted for them will deaden their imagination and give them a more unconnected relationship with the world around them, I would rather they develop a strong imagination and creative thought now that they are so young.

New Open University course

My module has started today and it looks like a nightmare but it's actually quite fun... it's the research/experimental addition to the exploring psychology module I finished in June, I have no idea what's going on until it is posted week by week by the tutors, no course books, no assignments or exams. If the children go to bed relatively early I might be able to do it!!

The telly has gone on holiday

I've been reminded today that people actually read and like this blog so I apologize for being very slack, it's a combination of extreme tiredness (my two small people are still not sleeping properly) and the fact that for the time being I'm not using computers during the day. This is because Reuben was getting very intense and weird with using the laptop and my ipad, as well as watching a lot of tv, I think he was having some trouble dealing with some things here at home and was escaping to a world much easier to control (the computer or the dvd player). So we are having a break from all of them, no telly or computers at all for the kids and the laptop for me just in the evening. The difference is astounding! Reuben's insomnia seem to have disappeared and the general bickering and bossing people around (and I'm talking about Reuben, even though you might see the similarities with your here writer...) is also a lot less, the children now spend the day playing, using their imagination, exploring, singing and dancing, making stuff and asking lots of questions. It's a lot more full-on for me as I don't get a break now at all (when Isaac had a nap, Reuben would play with the ipad while I had a coffee and used my computer, that is no more!) but it's worth it as I spend less energy managing wild creature behaviour ;) and sleep better. Some people have suggested we have special times in the day when they can watch tv but that would go against my child led philosophy, you either give them something (and let them manage it) or you don't. Can you imagine trying to enforce such a rule on Reuben? God help us!! Sorry Reuben your 20 minutes are up, you have to turn the ipad off now... screaming ensues, the ipad would probably end up flying through the room... and you know what? That's how I would behave if someone gave me something then took it away.

And changing the subject entirely, we spent a nice couple of weeks in Italy recently. Here's a great picture Martin took of me and the boys with my sister and her brood.

Apps for my nearly 4 year old

I'm still not sure about the wisdom of Reuben using my ipad as much as he does, not really natural is it? Continuum friendly? The Steiner people would not agree... but we have found some great educational apps and I like to sit with him. Here's our favourites:

Tallytots. Counting to 20 while doing cute things like racing little cars and feeding a chipmunk...

Shape-O ABCs. Really cute, shape puzzle and word forming.

Toddler Alphabet. More puzzles, words and the alphabet song, lovely graphics.

And then Reuben's choice of Dora the Explora and Peppa Pig apps...

Dinosaurs at Knebworth

Spent a few days with my mum in Hertfordshire and we visited Knebworth house. As usual Reuben is not the most predictable child, hated the adventure playground and loved the house gardens, we got lost in the maze and went on a dinosaur trail, I have a culture vulture as a child! And I'm happy about it. I've also found that when we go on days out now I have to use both pushchair and baby carrier as Isaac is very heavy and I have trouble carrying him comfortably when he's asleep, Reuben also gets tired so the pushchair that I only used for the airport is now enjoying a renaissance.

Isaac not very happy... It's a big dinosaur!

Reuben at my mum's

More babywearing pictures

By Martin Zalesny

Babywearing by Martin Zalesny

Babywearing

Facebook

Facebook is a weird place to be, I'm sure I'm not the only one to have noticed this. In the last couple of days I've been deleted by a couple of people and it upset me, it is possibly because of some comments relating to the recent rioting in England or it could be something else. But it made me think that I have shared a great deal with people on parenting forums thinking that we were like minded but in the end we do not really know each other, some I have never met and some only once or twice. I feel that I have been judged and found lacking, not hippie enough, not unconditional enough, so why did I bother with these forums in the first place? I needed support, a tribe, to feel part of something. But it's not real. So I am now only in touch with people I know personally and the wonderful Leicester sling meet group, so I do have to thank facebook for one thing!

Continuum concept revisited

I was walking Isaac around in the carrier the other night, he has never been put to bed awake as most people seem to recommend... he happily falls asleep in the sling and then I put him to bed, not as much hassle as you would think, he's asleep in 10 minutes, and if he isn't we just go back downstairs again. And I was thinking... what a difference between my behaviour with him and with Reuben when he was the same age. And I thought I was being a responsive parent then as well. I had no idea. Isaac has never ever been left to cry, Reuben was put to bed from 6 months of age (he slept with me before then) and if he woke up it was expected that I go to him but then put him back in his own bed, sometimes up to 20 times a night... Exhausting for everyone, sometimes I wanted to just leave him...
So what made the enormous difference? Reading the Continuum Concept just before I gave birth to Isaac, I can't explain how much it changed me, I felt like someone was slapping me hard in the face at every page turn, thank you Jean Liedloff, thank you so much! There is nothing I have read before or since that has had such a bit impact on me as a mother, it resonated with me as a human animal, as a mammal, I got it completely and felt very silly for understanding how far we have moved away from our natural continuum. A year and a half later I can see the benefits that this outlook has bought to my family and feel very grateful to all the hippie mommies who recommended it to me.











Jean Liedloff (1926-2011)

The latest

So what's been happening with us? We've been to Italy again and I have found that staying with relatives when you have two small children is rather stressful... Not everyone has the same outlook on life or does things at the same time as us, so for us being as independent as possible is the answer, for now.

Our mr baby is no longer much of a baby so it makes more sense now to call the boys by their proper names (Reuben and Isaac). We are still very much intending to home educate, Reuben has trouble doing anything teacher led anyway, so just as well. I got him an app for the ipad (which he uses more than I do) on body organs (highly recommended) and he looks at it every day! Today we were at the museum, he saw a picture of a cell and said: "Mummy, that's tissue!"



















We're also trying to re-joing the local home ed group (we went once but then has a load of personal problems, including going to Italy twice in two months, so not given it much of a chance yet) as I think it would be great for the boys to be with other kids going through the same school-free experience.

I passed my Psychology exam for the Exploring Psychology Open University module, I thought I might give the degree a break as it is very time consuming, but now that I know I've passed what essentially is year one of the course, I really want to carry on. I had also thought of starting a small business babywearing related, maybe starting with a blog, but even though I still carry Isaac quite a lot, I wonder how passionate about it I will still be a couple of years from now when he's running around and not needing the carrier anymore. I guess that home education and psychology/counselling are the things that will be with me for a long time in the future. I have started going to Yoga classes again and love it, I try to do some at home as well as I was very involved in Yoga in my late 20s and I can honestly say it changed my life (for the better!!) but, again, looking after two little people is all-consuming. So I try to do a bit of everything, even if it's not all perfect!!

Italy, July 2011

Hi, here's some pictures of our latest trip to Italy. This is when we stayed with my sister in Palombara Sabina near Rome.














































This is in Rome, piazza Madonna dei Monti with our favourite drinking fountain

And this is in Sabaudia, on the coast.