A question I'm being asked a lot lately, so I'll tell you. It's going good. Very good in fact. I'm enjoying it, and the girls are too. I think.
We started 3 weeks ago, and even though I think not much has happened, when I laid in bed last night thinking about what I could put in this 'blog', I did come up with a few things.
Why am I doing this blog? Cause my friend asked me to, and also to keep a record - for memories, lest we forget!
My biggest fear of homeschooling is - can I actually do it? especially maths. I was actually useless at it in school, and in my 'O' levels, (yes I am that old) I got a 'U', which for any of you who has never heard of such a grade, it actually stands for ungraded or unclassified, it other words - you are useless at maths! I then decided I would have another bash at it about 10 years ago, and try to get my GCSE, but after about 1 month I left because I was still useless. So fast forward 10 years and here I am trying to teach it to my 11 and 9 year old! Now the 9 year old is ok, I can manage number lines and long addition, but teaching Venn diagrams?? What the heck is one of them I hear you ask, yes exactly what I said. So teaching it is not easy, especially when the answer book had not arrived, and I didn't even know if I was teaching it right. Sophie looked more scared than me when she looked at my confused visage!
Ok so now we have the answer book, Praise God! I now look slightly more confident.
Everything else is going good. We are managing to include lots of different lessons, which is what we intended, and because the weather has been fantastic, we've had our 'lessons' outside!
We decided to go swimming last week, and obviously because we went through the day, the 'regulars' aren't used to children being around, when they are 'supposed' to be at school. At first I really did try to keep the girls quiet, and behave in an orderley and calm manner, but then I just couldn't help myself, the rebel came out. Just seeing the old ladies glaring at us because a splash of water landed on their cheek, sent us into a kind of mild hysteria. I started laughing (loudly) which set the girls off squealing and jumping and splashing around. I could see them gathering at the deep end muttering to each other, giving us disapproving looks, which made me laugh even more. As a British person, I am so careful to not upset the boat, to not cause trouble or upset anyone, and would even shush my own kids if they were upset, so not to cause a scene or bother anyone, but in that moment, I really felt it was wrong to try and squash that joy. It was pure freedom. It was beautiful.
Anyway the lovely ladies all soon left, and we had the pool nearly to ourselves and had a great time.
We started 3 weeks ago, and even though I think not much has happened, when I laid in bed last night thinking about what I could put in this 'blog', I did come up with a few things.
Why am I doing this blog? Cause my friend asked me to, and also to keep a record - for memories, lest we forget!
My biggest fear of homeschooling is - can I actually do it? especially maths. I was actually useless at it in school, and in my 'O' levels, (yes I am that old) I got a 'U', which for any of you who has never heard of such a grade, it actually stands for ungraded or unclassified, it other words - you are useless at maths! I then decided I would have another bash at it about 10 years ago, and try to get my GCSE, but after about 1 month I left because I was still useless. So fast forward 10 years and here I am trying to teach it to my 11 and 9 year old! Now the 9 year old is ok, I can manage number lines and long addition, but teaching Venn diagrams?? What the heck is one of them I hear you ask, yes exactly what I said. So teaching it is not easy, especially when the answer book had not arrived, and I didn't even know if I was teaching it right. Sophie looked more scared than me when she looked at my confused visage!
Ok so now we have the answer book, Praise God! I now look slightly more confident.
Everything else is going good. We are managing to include lots of different lessons, which is what we intended, and because the weather has been fantastic, we've had our 'lessons' outside!
We decided to go swimming last week, and obviously because we went through the day, the 'regulars' aren't used to children being around, when they are 'supposed' to be at school. At first I really did try to keep the girls quiet, and behave in an orderley and calm manner, but then I just couldn't help myself, the rebel came out. Just seeing the old ladies glaring at us because a splash of water landed on their cheek, sent us into a kind of mild hysteria. I started laughing (loudly) which set the girls off squealing and jumping and splashing around. I could see them gathering at the deep end muttering to each other, giving us disapproving looks, which made me laugh even more. As a British person, I am so careful to not upset the boat, to not cause trouble or upset anyone, and would even shush my own kids if they were upset, so not to cause a scene or bother anyone, but in that moment, I really felt it was wrong to try and squash that joy. It was pure freedom. It was beautiful.
Anyway the lovely ladies all soon left, and we had the pool nearly to ourselves and had a great time.
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