Jesus following, natural living, Somerset homeschooling mum to Acey. Here is our blog to share with family and friends and anyone else who might be interested, about our home ed journey.


John 13:34 - ''A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.''

Wednesday 21 September 2016

Bishop's palace trip

Last week, after tennis we decided to take a trip  to Bishop's palace in Wells (England's smallest city), as we have been doing a lot of reading about medieval castles. It was a great medieval place to visit, with a moat, drawbridge, a gatehouse with holes in the roof where they would have poured boiling oil on their enemies, the bishop's chapel, stained glass windows, coats of arms, embroidery, battlements, arrow holes - everything we have been learning about castles!








 
Afterwards, we sat outside the beautiful Wells Cathedral, and bumped into a lovely homeschooling family that we know. The children spent about an hour running around on the green together. Home ed kids are never, ever short of friends to play with. Running around freely in an historic place, with all the time in the world is such a great way to socialise - and much more connected to the real world than attending the same classroom full of children the same age as you day in day out! :) We LOVE home ed!!!

Friday 9 September 2016

Not back to school...

So! This is the week we have been waiting for all summer, the week that the schools go back, and we have everywhere to ourselves again.... Bliss! We do miss our school friends though, but we will make an effort to get together with them out of school hours. Everyone has been posting pictures of their children on Facebook, with their uniforms and lunchboxes getting ready to start the new school year, and it is cute. I love seeing them all. Some of Acey's friends are going into Secondary school, which is kinda scary!

To celebrate NOT going back to school, the Taunton home ed group went for a picnic at the beautiful Fyne Court. There were so many other homeschoolers there, and it was really nice to catch up with friends, and have fun running around in the woods. It did make me feel blessed that they get to run and play freely, and I couldn't help thinking of  (and feeling just a bit sorry for) the school children who were sat in a classroom. With home education, there is so much freedom, to run around, get muddy, climb trees, and to express who they really are without peer pressure.



On Wednesday, art history class started back up again. It is nice to get back into the routine of all the different groups that we go to. After the art lesson, the children love to run around with the chickens and play on the trampoline.

The rest of the week was a bit of a write off, as Acey came down with a stomach bug and then I started feeling iffy too. So instead of doing too much structured learning, Acey laid on the sofa watching Horrible Histories and playing Prodigy maths while I had a long sleep. (some Minecraft videos might have been involved too) And then we decided that fresh air would do us good, so we went with Dave to the woods. It was what we all needed, we picked berries, went for a refreshing walk and played on a tree swing. We also saw a man with a quiver of arrows on his back, which was rather fitting as we have been reading Robin Hood, although slightly un-nerving too!  We had so much fun that we spent two days in a row there. I think woodland walks must become more of a regular thing. Nature is an excellent classroom, after all!





Happy September, thanks for reading!

Tuesday 6 September 2016

A party in the mosque, recitations and Monday maths

Acey and Rio had a Monday math lesson with their lovely maths teacher who is also a home educator. She is such a fab, fun teacher :)



Our friend Hannah turned eight, so we went to her birthday party in the mosque. So much lovely food and friends!


We did some catching up with friends who go to school, while it is still the summer holidays, and playing in the park with Dylan, who comes to our house some Thursdays while his mum goes to work.

Acey did a piece of handwriting I was really proud of. It was only a sentence, from his daily copywork book but writing joined up is something he struggled with for a long time, and this was so neat. So neat that I treated him to a jam doughnut! :) Sometimes it is good to celebrate the small achievements.

 
This week I have also been clearing out the bookcases, using the Konmari method. We had SOOO many books, it is taking a long time. I thought it would be difficult to part with books, as I love them. We have bookcases instead of a television! But actually it feels freeing to pass them on, as we weren't likely to read them again and now we have wayyy more space on the shelves. Infact, I treated myself to a new Ikea Billy bookcase as the old one had so many books on it that it buckled under the weight and the shelves were all wonky ;)
 
Whilst sorting through the books I came across this lovely old book of recitations for children, which belonged to my mum when she was a child, living in Australia. I have decided that Acey can read a daily recitation from it during our ''morning time'' routine...