Mustn't overdo it

I am so so tired.

Good news though - we have exchanged our table like this (which we bought off Ebay ages ago) for a table like this, which has drawers and is a better shape for our purposes. I'm very pleased.

This week has been hectic. Monday was, um, something, and then swimming. Tuesday was vaccinations and shoe-shopping. Wednesday we stayed at home. Thursday was ice-skating and the library. And on Friday we had visitors in the morning and ERAPA in the afternoon and Girls' Brigade in the evening.

So today I was too tired to go to my meeting for the True Food Co-Op. Instead, they are going to do a supermarket-style delivery for me, but without the charge. I love them.

But that all meant I was here at home when our friend who didn't want drawers but did want chairs arrived to swap his butterfly table for ours. Now we can put stuff in the drawers, like the mini globe and the huge sellotape dispenser and a cup of pens and stuff. I'm sure which stuff should go there will gradually become clear.

And next week we're a bit busy again. Oh well. Perhaps busy is the way I secretly like it.

Busy again

We spent yesterday at home doing nothing, so of course we did square numbers (Linnea made a book called SQUARE with square numbers on every page, because I found some graph paper) and were highly amused by the notion of square roots. Also, Linnea got up first and did some worksheets I'd left out for her, and she proved and demonstrated that she could read a fair chunk of the instructions. And while I was in bed feeding the baby, she brought the middle girl breakfast in bed - toast and a drink - because it was vaccination day on Tuesday and the victim was still somewhat sorry for herself (justifiably, I feel).

Today I saw Linnea doing some more multiplication and division and she wrote all the numbers I saw backwards, just as she has been doing with letters. I have no idea why. Apparently it's a fairly common phase, and I was still able to read them, so it shouldn't be a real problem. I've shown her how to draw a bed to sort b from d.

We have hardly been doing the curriculum stuff from Five in a Row at all, but we are reading the book. We're a bit nonlinear about the whole thing.

Today we also went ice-skating, and Linnea had a 15-minute lesson. There isn't really a substitute for time on the ice, so we'll be going again, and I expect they'll both get their balance relatively soon. I must be careful not to overdo it with my hips, though since skating requires at least reasonable posture if I don't want to fall over completely it should be relatively ok, I think. Emer wore teeny weeny skates and did very little even standing on the ice, let alone skating, but she had a good time. Next time, I hope to bring a better picnic, as this sort of thing is much better if one isn't hungry or thirsty.

On the trains out and home she started making a book about a UfO, with illustrations.

And in the end we went to the library, where I learned that my baby is growing 75g/day on average and Linnea has to have her book physically removed from her grasp while walking home because she tries to read and walk at the same time. She can read the basics in a QPootle5 book, it seems.

Words like QPootle5, and bladder-monster.

Pictures - or possibly evidence

This is a shopping list. It represents Linnea's transition from not reading or writing in public at all to just doing it. I was too busy to write the things I was remembering and I asked her to do it and she did. I can't remember exactly when it was but I think it was August.

Mainly in mirror-writing of a sort, but there you go. Rob was able to read it and buy things and cross them off. (There's a bit I wrote too, when I had a hand free, but I'm sure you can tell which bit that is).


These two are the Storm in the Night oil paintings. We did the exercise pretty much as the curriculum book said to, which we tend not to do. Linnea enjoyed making little rain comets and in particular found it interesting that to make the rain go down she had to make the brushstrokes go up.

I'm not really sure what Emer was doing but she enjoyed exploring the texture, and working with only two colours.

Did we manage it?

Well, no.

On Monday we went to town and got passport photos, a new library card, and the children's feet measured - we have to buy them new shoes but non-urgently, so it can wait until nearer the end of the month. We ate lunch out. In the afternoon I brought everyone to the swimming pool and there were swimming lessons; Emer refused to get in due to some objection to the teacher, but wasn't at all distressed, just cross. This week she has a new swimsuit (apparently 4-year-old girls have to wear swimsuits which cover their nipples; I might argue this another time, but since Emer finds the idea comical rather than annoying it's not a big deal right now on the very personal, apolitical level) and permission to use a swimming noodle, so you never know what might happen. Then we met our visitor and all went home and ate. The visitor read Lentil and we sang the song out of it, and talked about shortcuts a little.

On Tuesday we went to the park for a picnic with friends, recycled the glass, then on to a café, then to the library, where I had the baby weighed and we got a lot of books out. In the afternoon we had friends over to play, but they were so tired from the first day back at school that they watched Kiki's Delivery Service instead. Emer and Rob went to the True Food Co-op in the evening and everyone was somewhat cross that Rob was going away.

On Wednesday we had a visitor; we ate French toast with chocolate spread for lunch, and the visitor read Lentil and we made charcoal from matchsticks and drew with it, and also found a working electric keyboard and picked out the tune of Twinkle Twinkle and Linnea got the beginnings of a grasp of how written music works.

On Thursday we went to a new home ed meetup, using the postcode and Google maps. We walked twice as far as necessary on the way there, but did find a lot of acorns, one of which later transpired (after being given to friend Buttercup) to house a genuine tame maggot. Also, I proved that Emer can walk a mile and a half in the sun in an hour, but doesn't want to. She's four, just barely, so.

When we got home we had icecreams and baths and tidied the garden; it was a lovely lovely afternoon and I was glad to be alive in it, especially during and after my bath with the baby. It turns out I can even wash my hair while in the bath with the baby, so that's a skill I didn't know I had.

On Friday we went to ERAPA, with banana sandwiches and bara brith for our lunch. The children did some clay modelling; Linnea made a lovely thumbpot and Emer made a digging snail. They are drying out in the kitchen now until I can make time to contact http://www.bluematchbox.co.uk/ and ask for use of a kiln.

Also, Rob came home and we all ate together, and then Linnea and Emer went to Girls' Brigade. I'm kind of surprised Emer is old enough for GB but apparently if one is old enough for school - which she allegedly is - one is old enough for GB. And she did enjoy it. We have to try to get uniforms though, and second-hand uniforms seem tricky to come by; there isn't a system for the organisation to arrange the sale as there was in my secondary school. I shall have to use Ebay and get to know people. Or lobby to have ethically sourced uniforms, of course. They purport to be a Christian organisation, after all...

We didn't do much with Saturday and Sunday because Rob brought a sore throat home from Portugal with him and shared it with me. I have stayed in bed and fed the baby a monstrous amount and he has been cooking meals for the freezer.

---

So we were busy, this week. Educationally, the most exciting things for me are that Emer started Girls' Brigade and Linnea has been both writing and asking me for spellings of things. She is fairly keen on the idea of illustrating stories and dictating the text to me when she gets tired of writing it herself. I think she's about to crack reading and writing; she has much more confidence now and will admit to having gained information by reading it rather than "I just KNEW."

The first full week in September

We're hoping to do something like this (Lentil is the book for the week, and I never thought I'd be glad to have a harmonica but I see it being used a lot, as the thunder-maker was for Storm in the Night):

Monday: Read Lentil. Go to town, get Astrid's passport photo, renew Linnea's library card, have lunch, take children to swimming lessons, come home, eat, collapse.
Tuesday: Read Lentil. Go to park, recycle glass, have picnic, play. Go to library, take out books. Come home, have friends over to play. My children then have Final Evening with Daddy including trip to the True Food Market.
Wednesday: Wave tearful goodbyes etc. Read Lentil. No other plans, phew.
Thursday: Go to breastfeeding drop-in at library, return books.
Friday: Welcome home and possibly also grandparent visit. First ERAPA of the season, I think. Also R's birthday. First Girls' Brigade of the season too.
Saturday: Community Garden working party in the morning. TFC meeting in the afternoon? Might be next week, must check.
Sunday: Meeting. Nothing else planned.

I hope I have enough coffee.

Not Back To School

This coming week is when most of the children we know are going back to school. We're not, obviously. We are going to a Not Back To School Picnic, on Tuesday morning, in the playground and recreation ground opposite one of the local schools -- not because it's opposite the school, mind you, just because it's local and has parking and is easy to get to on public transport and isn't too far for me to walk (I'm still not very good at walking).

We've been using the Five in a Row curriculum (in our own pick'n'mix way) for two or three weeks now - we interrupted to go to the Discworld Convention, so one book was split over two weeks. Today I mentioned to Linnea that I needed to see what the next book was and what we might do with it, and she was ecstatic. We fished the book out of the pack and she started looking at it, picking out words and examining the pictures. It so happens that it's Lentil, and we have a harmonica, so we shall see what happens there. We might use the electric keyboard to have a look at reading music. And I foresee a lot of making charcoal going on.

Or we might not bother and spend the time riding bikes back and forth outside the house instead. Or make pizza.

The curriculum was bought for Emer, who is a naturally adult-pleasing child, and (as predicted) Linnea is interested because it's optional. If I'd bought it for Linnea she'd have resisted it strenuously, because being required to perform gives her the highest possible grade of heebies and also jeebies, and she is inclined to destroy things rather than admit that she tried to do them well, just in case they're not perfect.

It's one of the reasons I think school might not be the most nurturing or educational environment for her.

Then there's the ravenous appetite for social interaction and the deep deep need for absolute solitude. 6 hours a day in a large group situation would leave her very little energy for her friends, let alone her family.

Emer is school age now - she's four years and two weeks, so if we wanted her to have her year of Reception, the more casual play-based year of school, this is it. But she's not into spending huge amounts of time away from her family, especially her new baby sister, so we're not. ("Not into" in this context means "gets seriously upset by, and takes weeks to recover, and absolutely does not gradually get used to it.") Linnea has been fine with sleepovers with friends and so on since she was 3 years old; Emer is not the same in the slightest.

So we're going to a picnic, with the birthday-present bubble wands and the glass recycling because the bottle bank is in the same park, and then we'll probably go to the library.

"The best thing about home school is you can do it whenever you like and you don't have to have holidays," says Linnea. "And the teacher is your parents so you can tell them what you want to learn."

Pictures!

What Emer drew while I talked about rivers:

What Linnea drew (Linnea is 6, p. 1):

The yellow is the mud which makes the Yangtze River yellow. Apparently the spring is underneath a swamp of it. (And can you guess what the triangles on the left are? they're beaks, because it's a bird's-eye view, and the bird can see its own beak).

Donwanna, so let's not

They don't want to do The Story About Ping for Homeschool, apparently. They don't mind doing the exercises but don't want to read it again; they've read it a lot because we've had it since before they were born.

So today we talked about how rivers are made, and Linnea drew three birds'-eye views of the process. If I can find the camera I'll post the pictures up. She took great pleasure in writing her name and the page number on each sheet.

Emer drew something too, but she wasn't clear on what it was; they were both drawing while I talked, but that doesn't mean the two were related in any way.

Today we also collaboratively read All in one piece, a Large Family book we've had from the library often and bought from the charity shop recently.

We didn't visit anyone or have visitors; when we went to the library there were several children and adults my children know there, but that was it for social contact. They seemed almost grateful for the quiet day.

And Astrid is learning to suck her hands with ever-increasing effectiveness.

Travel costs

I keep thinking train-travel is more expensive than it is. I looked a few trips up today and I can take the kids to Oxford for £6.40, to London for £12.75, to Bournemouth for £25 or less, to St Austell for £60... I must plan some trips. Actually, Linnea really, really wants to go to Scotland. Edinburgh would be just over £100...

Well, Oxford is on the list for ice-skating anyway, and London because we have to see the big museums and meet various people, and Bournemouth because it seems to be the simplest way to get to the seaside and there's the aquarium - Linnea wants to see an aquarium - and St Austell because it's easy to get to, mainly. Though I wish the Eden Project had a handy campsite. Perhaps it does; I should look. If we go there I think I'd want to go every day for three days, or something, though.

Planning. All these things - holiday stuff - are about to get cheaper, at least for weekdays.

FIAR: Ending the first week

Well, that was interesting. Initially neither child wanted to hear the same story again, so we did more art - this time with Fancy Markers Just Like A's Family Have - and then, for some reason, they used the abacus and counted. When counting, not reciting numbers, it turns out that Linnea gets confused over the change from recognisable to slightly altered at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and again twenty, thirty, forty, fifty. She did that thing John Holt writes about, of looking at the adult to get the right answer. It worked, too.

I spent a little of the baby-nap time this morning rearranging the kitchen, and so this afternoon Linnea made me a few cups of tea and she also made us all toast, with spread. She's really very proud of her tea-making skills. We have a flask with a pump, so she can just put the mug under the spout, push the top, and almost-but-not-quite boiling water is released. I consider it safe enough for her and so does she, so that's a win all round. I am pleased with the wooden tongs for getting toast out, too. I suspect they'll really come into their own for bagels.

Then we watched the video of someone else reading Storm in the Night again, and after dinner they watched the Magic School Bus episode about a thunderstorm.

They are looking forward to a new book next week. But I very much doubt I'll write about it daily; I'd bore myself silly. I found it an interesting exercise for this week, though.

FIAR, second-last day of first week

I had only the vaguest of plans today, but we had fun.

We read the story first, then finished the oil paintings from yesterday, which was nice. We looked at all the high-contrast bits in the book (that took a while) and the children had the opportunity to consider how yesterday's crayons, the oil paint over two days, and today's regular poster paints were all different to use and gave different effects.

A lot of the bathroom ended up blue.

Also, we listened to the story being read in a genuine American-South accent (not to be confused with South American; I'm really not sure what the best way to describe it is from outside America; within north America I think people just say Southern), and read a bit about the south of the USA and the slightly further north bit where the reader was actually sitting at the time of recording.

This led, again, to explaining slavery to Linnea; it first arose because I was in the kitchen, bending down to take things out of the dishwasher, then standing up and turning around to put them away, then bending down again quickly. Naturally, I sang "Jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton," and equally naturally Linnea asked for more information about the song, and of course I never know when to stop so she got a potted history of colonisation and slavery.

"People owned people? Like parents own children?"

That was kind of disturbing. We got it sorted out though.

Today's explanation of what "slavery" is almost made her cry. It made Emer go away pointedly and do something else. Then they both came back to look at the photos in the book of black Americans holding protest signs during Civil Rights Movement protests. I didn't explain segregation in any detail. White people didn't want black people to be allowed to do the things white people could.

"Why?"

That's a tough one. I'm not sure how I handled it.

From yesterday's DW/LJ entry, too:

[Wednesday], at lunchtime, between mouthfuls of sardines and sweetcorn in tomato sauce (don't ask me, I just work here), my fresh-faced and innocent (more or less) six-year-old gazed idly around the room and her eye was caught by a map on the wall, drawn by a friend of ours.

She said, "Hey Mum, why is a bit of Ireland part of England?"

I opened and closed my mouth a few times. Then I stalled - "Do you mean why is part of Ireland part of the United Kingdom?" - and finally I (stammering) said "Well, for a long time, the government of England was in charge of ALL of Ireland, but the Irish people didn't like that much. So before your Nana was born, when my Nana was a little girl, the Irish government and the English government agreed that Irish people would be in charge of most of Ireland, and the English government would be in charge of just that little bit."

Then I thought about the Omagh bombing, which I think about every year now, because it was exactly eight years before Emer's birth day. I got to choose Emer's birth date, as some of you may know, because that's the nature of a scheduled caesarian section. I decided, when choosing it, that there were no benign dates...

But still, sometimes I wish there were.

So I guess we've covered Politics, Geography, Art, Relationships, touched on a bit of World History, Science-and-nature-Weather (I knew the clouds poster we got in a stack of old Guardian pullouts would be useful one day), and Music. Oh, and Music crossed with Science because we had a long talk about why the thunder-maker made different sounds when you held it differently, and introduced the concept of sound-waves, though I'm not convinced they believed in them.

It feels kind of strange to work out what subjects these things cover. We usually just do interesting-to-us stuff and have interesting-to-us conversations. This more structured approach, even though I'm being very loose or possibly even slack with the structure, may well be changing how I think about it.

I might work out what we cover with a regular family mealtime one day, rather than with a pre-planned curriculum-extract. Just to compare. I have an idea they'll be pretty similar.

FIAR, sorta

I was very slightly better prepared today, in that I'd dug out my oil paints last night. So this morning we started with looking at the pictures of night and darkness and rain in the book, and then they got their crayons and drew some dark, rainy things on medium-dark blue paper, while I hung laundry (the laundry situation is somewhat desperate due to having a 3.5-week-old in the house, which is one reason I hoped to postpone starting this until after we come back from our holiday). I dropped in a few times and showed them different effects with different, er, crayon-strokes, for want of a better word, and how to make the impression of "dark" come out of the contrast of different shades surrounded by light. I've just remembered that the gibbous moon I painted on the wall over their heads was a good example; I might point it out tomorrow (the photo shows it without its current very dark blue surrounding circle). Then we looked again and they painted with different shades of blue to make a dark background. Tomorrow we'll paint over the top to do rain and lightning.

What we didn't do today was to read all the words, because they weren't desperate to hear them, and it was somewhat frantic.

And now I'm going to look up tomorrow's ideas, and next week's book so I can make a list of things to hunt up in the library. I feel sooooo behindhand and rushed, but we're having fun, so that's what counts, I think!

FIAR again, eventually

This morning was dedicated to tidying and laundry, and just when I was kind of thinking of planning lunch and the afternoon, Rob called to say that he was coming home and, since my plans were incompatible with having Daddy at home all afternoon, I cancelled them.

Turned out he needed to be at home and be able to WORK from home. Ah, then. That's a bit different. So he came home and we all had lunch, and then the three children and I went out. First we dropped some books off at the charity shop, and I had a look for any books they might have about North America or African Americans or anyone black in America but the stuff involving or about black people was all about immigrants to the UK as far as I could see. Which is also interesting, but not totally topical. I got some books about the Large family anyway, and a Michael Moore for myself.

Then we went to the library, and they had very very little too - a book on slavery which is probably more than either of my two girls can handle, and some Brer Rabbit stories, but I'm pretty sure Brer Rabbit isn't - oh, language is funny, I was about to say isn't kosher, but I mean isn't authentic - so I shall have to look that up. However, since I was specifically looking for books with black people on the cover, I found a bunch of lovely ones which we'll read anyway. My friend L was there and she did something for Black History Month a while ago about the slave trade, and had 11-year-olds role-playing and stuff, but she figured it might just plain be too much to tackle for my children.

Then we went to the True Food market, and re-met what was a very important part of our community until I stopped being able to go. It was wonderful. We might seriously cut down on supermarkets if we can keep this up.

And then we came home and while Rob heated up the lasagne I read Storm in the Night again and afterwards we three talked briefly about people who love other people, and why, and how they show it. Of course, during the reading we talked about all sorts of other things, including clock chimes (I must find out why clocks chime the hour with that semi-standard little tune; I'm sure Wikipedia can tell me) and what a powercut is.

It's interesting to me how they are responding to not-really-child-led-learning. Obviously it's still consensual but it's externally driven. I think it's gentle enough that both of them will like it; there's a lot of scope for them to choose what they want to do. And the idea of reading the book and then doing something about it isn't all new.

I might see if any of the "Negro spiritual" songs I know are not fake. I bet a lot of the popular ones are really dubiously sourced.

Heh. I might have to explain about the Bible if we do Joshua and the battle of Jericho.

That'll Larn 'Em

Today we started Five in a Row.

You see, there was a birthday at the weekend, and one of the gifts was a Thunder Maker and the first book was called Storm in the Night and the day before the birthday party we had had a thunderstorm which the children were actually OUT in...

And then when they woke up today we were all in the garden and Linnea said "Can we have homeschool in the garden?" and I said "Of course," and she said "The best thing about HOME school is that you can tell the teacher what you want to learn, I think." Then she skipped off and did whatever it was she wanted to do. I wasn't called upon to be a teacher at all.

I did really really want to get laundry done, though, and then we had lunch, and then we popped off with a family of friends to the community gardens again, and then we came home, and I read the book while feeding the baby, and the children opened our new delivery of extremely fancy marker pens, and so we decided to do some of the Art exercises, and actually did one of them - facial expressions. They mainly enjoyed using the Thunder Maker every time thunder rolled in the book, and working out where to hold the Thunder Maker to make the thunder louder or quieter (the further from the spring you hold it, the louder the noise gets, because your fingers don't stop it so soon).

I think as the week wears on we will get more out of the book, not least because a fair bit of the very American language had to be translated, but that too will get easier - they have as yet been exposed to very little in the way of "faucet" for tap and so on. It's nice to be reading extremely British stuff like Joan Aiken (we've started reading one about Arabel's Raven alongside very American-flavoured ones. I must have a look to see what else I have; I know that when I was little I had a mix of Irish, British and Canadian or American stories, so they must be knocking around somewhere. We also had translations of various Astrid Lindgrens, but those are ubiquitous, I think.

The main difficulty will be keeping the elder girl in check to give the younger one a chance to join in fully. But we'll figure something diplomatic out, I think.

It's like Christmas!

Parcels started arriving today.

We have a new art book which I read a recommendation for somewhere in the home ed blogosphere, and a new atlas because Linnea really wanted an atlas and my old school one is out of date and the huge Times one isn't a handy paperback, and I've just remembered that the other day we got a solar system poster, and today we got a wooden toast tongs so that the children can make their own toast, and also the Five In A Row storybook-based curriculum pack arrived, with a squillion lovely books which I wanted ANYWAY and a book to help guide me through what to do with them. I fully expect Emer to enter into the project with enthusiasm and Linnea to partake as long as I don't either ask her to or forbid her to. Also, I think I will enjoy it.

(And I got an invoice from http://www.schoolsurplus.co.uk/ for something I paid for in full on 1st July, so I've sent them an email. Hmph.)

And this evening Emer topped and tailed the celery and chopped it into bits, and Linnea topped and tailed the carrots and then I chopped them up while she wrote the shopping list for Rob - I started remembering things for her to write down while I was chopping, so I just asked her to write it, and she did.

I found it an interesting exercise, and the writing was clear enough for Rob to bring the list and use it, without transcribing first. This is not always true of his own handwriting.

I may get around to scanning and uploading it, in fact. I found it ve-ry in-ter-est-ing. Given the usual reluctance to share her abilities, and all.

Anyway, we had a nice time looking at the different kinds of maps in the new atlas and ended up talking about population distributions and energy sources. Which naturally enough reminded me of Twitter's mentions of this Daily Mail map (WARNING: links to the actual Daily Mail website, so they get advertising revenue when you click on it; I believe there's a website to avoid this somewhere but can never remember where) which made me want to go and watch this Dan and Dan video again.

Gender theory

The Health Visitor came today, to check Astrid's hearing. Linnea and Emer told her how old they are, of course, and so she said "Oh so you're in school!" to Linnea. "No," said Linnea, unhelpfully.

"Of course you're not in school NOW," said the Health Visitor, "you're on holidays!"

"No," said Linnea, unhelpfully, and a little crossly.

"We're GIRLS," said Emer. She's working on a theory that boys have to go to school, because most of the boys we see most often do, but girls don't. It's a good theory, and very logical, but her premises are flawed.

I decided to rescue the poor HV. "They're home ed," I said, "and Emer has been thinking a lot about gender."

"Yes," said Emer. "I hab a bulba."

"A?" said the Health Visitor.

"A BULBA," Emer said. Well, shouted. Clearly and distinctly. "Astrid hab a bulba TOO."

I translated; "A vulva."

"And THAT's why we're GIRLS," said Emer, triumphantly.

She started listing everyone who has a bulba. Emer, Linnea, Astrid.

The Health Visitor recovered from the shock and joined in, somewhere between willingly and desperately. "And Mummy!" she said. "Mummy has one too and she's a girl!"

"No!" said Emer. "Mummy's a WOMAN."

Teachable child

My eldest child dislikes being taught things. That's ok; I try not to do Teaching Her Things. Sometimes I can offer to Show Her Things, and sometimes that's too close to Teaching. She does a pretty good job of teaching herself, mainly, and I can get by with occasionally demanding that she demonstrate something to me so that I can stay reasonably secure in our decision to accommodate her need to learn things in her own way, at this incredibly early stage of her development (she's just barely six and a quarter years old).

But my youngest middle child (eek!) quite likes being taught, though, and then demonstrating things, and getting praise or confirmation of her correctness or something.

I was really really struck by this the other day. My middle child, who is almost four, had a few bits of Lego and my top fave bit of Lego kit, the taker-aparterer. But one 8x2 standard-height brick had an 8x2 flat bit on top of it, and she couldn't separate them. She asked me to help, and I did. Then came the bit that struck me.

I said, "Here you go - shall I show you what I did?"

And she said (this was the first part I noticed), "Yeah."

And I said, "Look - you were pulling them apart the long way, and the top one bent in the middle but didn't come away. I put this thing on the other side, and pulled them apart the short way."

And she said "Ohh! I see!"

It was really quite something, at least for me.

Another beginning

There seem to be a lot of beginnings in this whole parenting business. The most obvious one is that we have a new baby - Astrid was born at home last Friday morning, so is one week old today.

Before we had her, though, we had a summertime, which I have conveniently summarised in photographic form. I was confined to the house for 6 weeks of prodromal labour, after having been confined to the house by SPD, but we had a good time anyway.

We played with our food...

... and climbed high things...

... and ate all the peas BEFORE we photographed them (I think there were about 6 pods) ...

... and photographed the flowers before spacehoppering on them...

... and some of us got a little obsessive about websites with phonics stuff on them...

... and we did cycling and swordfighting...

... and got bigger and bigger ...

... and played some more.

Another new beginning, of course, is that now that I am freshly active and back to my able-bodied status, we can go back to the usual round of things we like to do - library trips, museum visits, maybe art galleries, possibly slightly further afield also - and of course the local home ed groups, if we can manage those, too.

And I've decided, after thinking about things for a bit, that I'm going to get a curriculum for my four-year-old. She is not the same as the six-year-old at all, and where externally imposed guidance grinds one child to a halt, it seems to give the other one a bit of zing and bounce.

I've decided on Five In A Row for a number of reasons. It was easy to get hold of, the books are lovely even if we abandon the curriculum itself untasted, and it seems like it will be easy to sell on if it doesn't suit us. Also, I've been following the adventures of the Tinderbox family and it seems like I would enjoy teaching from the FIAR curriculum, which you must admit is an important factor if I'm not to bore the child to tearful rebellion or, worse, apathy.

There are a number of other things I'd like to get regularly involved in. Both children are signed up for swimming lessons again, this time on the same day which should help Emer a good deal. There's a regular ice-skating group in Oxford, which we could probably get to every other week if not every week. There's the usual Friday at ERAPA thing, which I would like to get to more often than we have managed it for the past two years (I can't believe I've started going just over four years ago, that seems ludicrous). And of course Rob is now working right next to the museums in London and day-trips there are more appealing than ever.

I'm a little leery of taking on too much at once, but it's nice to feel so enthusiastic. Though it could be just newborn hormones.

Early Reading

I always assumed my children would be early readers. I was an early reader. I have a house full of books. Until we had children, all we did in our leisure time was read, really (now we don't have the same kind of leisure time).

And so when I had a child who was clearly bright but not obviously an early reader, I got very confused. She reached three without obviously reading and I was slightly worried. She reached four, and I was distinctly disconcerted. She reached five and I spent a lot f time persuading myself that it was ok if she wasn't an early reader.

Now she's six, and still not obviously a reader.

I'm not totally comfortable with it, and I don't pretend I am. I know that for at least three years she has been learning to read, in various ways - there were early word-recognitions and mispronunciations which she couldn't have arrived at any other way. A friend overheard her reading a book to herself. She read large parts of a book aloud to another friend. She knew things she couldn't have learned without reading.

And from time to time it has been obvious that she's working on word-recognition (see-and-say, whatever you call it) and at other times that she's trying to figure out phonics.

She really really liked the Peter And Jane learning to read books, as far as we can tell precisely because the stories are not the point, practicing is the point. She doesn't like practicing her reading on decent stories. She hasn't read me a Peter and Jane book for ages, though, and has been playing phonics games on the computer (instead?) and keeping very private about the whole affair.

She has asked me to find her illustrated Learning To Write books where she can fill in the words of a pre-written and ready-illustrated story, like the Peter and Jane ones but more interesting.

I remind myself that although I was reading adult novels starting about 4 months older than she is now, my own mother taught herself to read aged seven, while ill in bed looking at a packet of ASPRO on the mantelpiece.

I find it pretty confusing, nonetheless.

It's been a long few weeks

I've been having prodromal labour for five weeks now so things here at home are all a bit... strange. But we've had a few nice incidents. Linnea drew a picture of what she imagines might happen if I had the baby in the waterbirth pool we have in the front room (leaving no room for anything else at all) and the midwife was so struck by it she seized it to send to a midwifery magazine.

Linnea's first term of swimming lessons since the ones that stopped her swimming is almost over. She started lessons shortly after turning 3, because she could swim, but at that age they are sorted by age, not ability, so she rapidly lost interest and with it skill, and we left it for a couple of years. But now she's in with the five- and six-year-olds and has done a term of Level One, so can move up to Level Two in September. Apparently she's very good and the rest of the class were called upon to observe her backstroke the other day.

Emer will start in Level One in September and we shall see how that goes. She claims to be looking forward to it.

Linnea wants more Learning To Write books, like the Peter and Jane ones but with better stories - she likes the size and the illustrations but not, unsurprisingly, the plots. She still likes those minimal plots for Learning To Read though. Meanwhile she's working through her workbooks, allowing herself to do one thing from each page on each day, apparently.

Emer and Linnea have both been doing a ton of phonics and maths games on their laptop.

And we've been growing things, except when we've been killing them by accidentally or purposely bashing them to the ground with footballs or whatever.

Oh - the other thing we did lately was haul out my loom and have a bit of a go on that. It's interesting to see how it works but neither of them has anything they hugely want to create with it yet.

And we bought a pocket microscope which is incredibly useful.