Happy New Year

So here we are back in blogland after nearly a month's break. As usual I don't know where to start...
Christmas was nice, in a sort of non-denominational way, the boys think Santa is a sort of postman as they saw me buying presents and worked out that we buy them and Santa delivers them... I hate to lie but don't have the heart to take Santa away, I tried to get the whole family involved in a historical research of what Christmas is and how it has been celebrated over the ages but no one was interested (yet! I have high hopes of at least one of them being interested in history).

Reuben is going through a Tinkerbell stage (don't ask...), we have the films, the dressing up, the website... You name it! In the picture he is doing a fairy dance.

We are also trying to keep up our woodland outings, even if it is cold and miserable, we like the Swithland area, Beacon Hill, the Outwoods, with not an artificial playground in sight.

This is Reuben with his dear friends Joe and Emily in Bradgate Park over Christmas


















Reuben has also developed a love of posing for his dad's pictures, here is one he made me take a few days ago (edited by Martin)






















And he has decided that he wants to write (as well as sorting out some basics like left and right, Martin was astounded when he realised Reuben knows directions) so he uses pens, pencils, sticks in the mud, and the ipad. Notice how often he has the Tinkerbell costume on...

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.