Add moving house to our list of things to achieve, sprinkle on a bit of new year flu! And you have the house of loopiness!
I've been swearing like a trooper at inappropriate moments, exploding with bursts of anger at bedtime (just when the house is starting to become still...), attempting to carry a 9 year old who refuses to go to bed, oooo the list goes on!
Just wanted to balance my blog out with the real picture!!
And thank heavens for telly these last couple of days!
And thank heavens that I am as free with my apologies, forgiveness and revisiting/reflecting as I am with my expressions of anger!
Hope you're all well and that 2013 is beginning well in your families.
I've heard positive things about other schools considering offering flexi-school options. Benjamin's school, a new approach to schooling in Norfolk has completed its bid for starting in Sept 2014 -- sending that proposal much much light :)
It all begins with ideas and with sharing them.
However off-the-wall our dreams may be to create innovative, down-to-earth, real life preparation learning spaces and experiences for our children, we can look around and find that others are having these dreams too.
Whilst my blogging wavers all over the place along with my life experiences, I am holding the light for sharing more, dreaming more, and manifesting more. So that the positive experience we are able to share with our kids, much more family based than any current school offers, can show itself as the very real choice that it is for any other family considering it.
Yes, go on, do it!
Showing posts with label flexi-schooling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flexi-schooling. Show all posts
Saturday, 5 January 2013
Wednesday, 11 July 2012
No room for school!
I want more photos on this blog! I guess thats up to me isn't it! Still only just managing to weave the writing on the blog let alone make it as attractive and colourful as some of my blog sister sites (I have totally made this phrase up but it is how I have come to find this late night blog surfing)
Today I got a job! 21 hours variable shift work, fairly low paid but something I wanted ~ with elderly folk ~ new skills and new beginnings all round. We will be threading it into our home ed lifestyle and I have every trust that it will fit in well, shifting us towards supporting ourselves financially. We are only now learning to earn our bread after a combined formal education of forty years, I trust our journey will put us in good stead to model this essential skill for our kids.
We recently stayed with good friends where I had a trial run at home educating whilst doing school runs for my niece. It was too much for me! Sure, one or the other, but both was too much. One of the beauties and central bonuses of the home ed lifestyle for me, is the honouring of natural cycles. Of letting the day unfold, play its course and then curl up to bed.
I have never been a great fan of the clock, and then when adding children to the mix it surely went out the window. Try explaining to a 2 year old that the clocks have gone back and bedtime is at a different time today it just never washed with me. Biorhythms, dips and rises in the humidity, heat, moon phases, these are the nuances to our days. Our routine is structurally sound but moves as a fractal not a machine.
I know this will not wash with my new employer! And clocks are great for meeting up with others, not to mention their clever mechanics and maths opportunities! Maybe its just 9 and 3 I struggle with! Perhaps 7.30 and 12.30 would suit me better, where have our individual choices gone?!
I think that for Elderflower it is one more year all together with no flexischooling; we will of course check this through with her, but we've already giggled together that with our current timetable there is no room for school! I know myself well enough to know that it is better to do one thing well than to try to do many things half-cocked. One home ed group in particular is flourishing, building these relationships is where I am at.
I commit myself to more natural unfoldings, to including our children in their own growth and development, to listening to their needs and the advice and inspiration of other families, to trusting myself as my child's guardian and nurturer.
Bring it on! Next year's gonna be great!!!
Today I got a job! 21 hours variable shift work, fairly low paid but something I wanted ~ with elderly folk ~ new skills and new beginnings all round. We will be threading it into our home ed lifestyle and I have every trust that it will fit in well, shifting us towards supporting ourselves financially. We are only now learning to earn our bread after a combined formal education of forty years, I trust our journey will put us in good stead to model this essential skill for our kids.
We recently stayed with good friends where I had a trial run at home educating whilst doing school runs for my niece. It was too much for me! Sure, one or the other, but both was too much. One of the beauties and central bonuses of the home ed lifestyle for me, is the honouring of natural cycles. Of letting the day unfold, play its course and then curl up to bed.
I have never been a great fan of the clock, and then when adding children to the mix it surely went out the window. Try explaining to a 2 year old that the clocks have gone back and bedtime is at a different time today it just never washed with me. Biorhythms, dips and rises in the humidity, heat, moon phases, these are the nuances to our days. Our routine is structurally sound but moves as a fractal not a machine.
I know this will not wash with my new employer! And clocks are great for meeting up with others, not to mention their clever mechanics and maths opportunities! Maybe its just 9 and 3 I struggle with! Perhaps 7.30 and 12.30 would suit me better, where have our individual choices gone?!
I think that for Elderflower it is one more year all together with no flexischooling; we will of course check this through with her, but we've already giggled together that with our current timetable there is no room for school! I know myself well enough to know that it is better to do one thing well than to try to do many things half-cocked. One home ed group in particular is flourishing, building these relationships is where I am at.
I commit myself to more natural unfoldings, to including our children in their own growth and development, to listening to their needs and the advice and inspiration of other families, to trusting myself as my child's guardian and nurturer.
Bring it on! Next year's gonna be great!!!
Tuesday, 26 June 2012
Free Range Guinea Pigs
I've got to start typing to find my flow again - its been a week or two!
An aborted visit to go look at the flexischool I hope to be postponed rather than cancelled, at least so that we can put the idea to rest one way or the other. Its the inbetween decisions that I least like, I need a fair bit of structure myself although I am letting go of the more restrictive elements of this.
There is a cat in the neighbourhood who has figured that we have guineas and a rabbit grazing in the evenings. I am one eye on the garden! They look so tasty, if I was a cat, I'd have 'em.
A longer term homeschooler balmed me with 'it takes time' when I bathe in the 'togetherness' of her boys. They always seem to be into projects, exploring the world, keen to engage and be responsible for their learning, their life together. (Of course this is through the eyes of being a visitor, but there is much truth in it!) They are a few years out of school.
We are not far off, but we jolt from easy-going flowing learning to fights still, unresponsive, refusal, desperation. There is so much I value about the chance to work through this together. Doing less, being at home more is a key I feel. The process of simplifying warps into many areas of our life, returning to the breath, compassion for ourselves and others (well, this is my journey!) Allowing silence from which questions arise rather than pouring question after question on a hot fire.
I want to say to Elderflower (new self-chosen name for Middle) - It takes time - as there's a bit of me passionate about home ed and wanting to hold on to what we are 'just' grasping. Perhaps 2 weekly days in a classroom won't disturb that. Trust trust trust. What will be will be.
I am hoping to be in half time employment myself before long for my own getting out in the world reasons, it may be the same for Elderflower. I could harp on about this sitting on the fence for paragraphs! And I won't. Lets stick to what will be will be.
The cat is circling, the pigs are unconcerned. They play, they munch, they skip around. And when dark comes they happily wander back to their resting place fairly oblivious to the dangers of the world around them. Who am I to spoil it?!
An aborted visit to go look at the flexischool I hope to be postponed rather than cancelled, at least so that we can put the idea to rest one way or the other. Its the inbetween decisions that I least like, I need a fair bit of structure myself although I am letting go of the more restrictive elements of this.
There is a cat in the neighbourhood who has figured that we have guineas and a rabbit grazing in the evenings. I am one eye on the garden! They look so tasty, if I was a cat, I'd have 'em.
A longer term homeschooler balmed me with 'it takes time' when I bathe in the 'togetherness' of her boys. They always seem to be into projects, exploring the world, keen to engage and be responsible for their learning, their life together. (Of course this is through the eyes of being a visitor, but there is much truth in it!) They are a few years out of school.
We are not far off, but we jolt from easy-going flowing learning to fights still, unresponsive, refusal, desperation. There is so much I value about the chance to work through this together. Doing less, being at home more is a key I feel. The process of simplifying warps into many areas of our life, returning to the breath, compassion for ourselves and others (well, this is my journey!) Allowing silence from which questions arise rather than pouring question after question on a hot fire.
I want to say to Elderflower (new self-chosen name for Middle) - It takes time - as there's a bit of me passionate about home ed and wanting to hold on to what we are 'just' grasping. Perhaps 2 weekly days in a classroom won't disturb that. Trust trust trust. What will be will be.
I am hoping to be in half time employment myself before long for my own getting out in the world reasons, it may be the same for Elderflower. I could harp on about this sitting on the fence for paragraphs! And I won't. Lets stick to what will be will be.
The cat is circling, the pigs are unconcerned. They play, they munch, they skip around. And when dark comes they happily wander back to their resting place fairly oblivious to the dangers of the world around them. Who am I to spoil it?!
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