Well Gabby is really interested in the environment, wildlife and conservation. She has already planned that when she is older, for her holidays, she is going to hire a house-boat and go collecting litter alongside the canals! Amazing I know, she has such a vision for her future, and is already saving for her 'mansion'!! So I looked into doing some conservation work, I thought it would be interesting for us all. I found a little group, and found the day and time it met and planned to just go along. My expectations were a few little old people wearing fleeces and waterproofs, with good strong hiking boots and flasks, but nay it wasn't to be. When we arrived there was a bunch of men who looked like they were there for community service. I was worried. So were the girls. Sophie tried a few different excuses, "I'm tired, my allergy is starting, can we go another time", even I was thinking of trying to escape, but I didn't, I filled in the forms and drove to the site. When they had all unloaded and had their 'stone-age' tools in hand, I was very scared. One man looked very much like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, and was wielding a small sickle, and the rest just looked like the group from 'One flew over the Cuckoo's nest'. Twas bizarre. We decided to stick to the 2 older gents who looked normal and spent the next 2 hours shovelling shhh..manure. It was boiling hot and hard work, but it was interesting to listen to some tales from the teacher who had built walls with buffalo poo! I smiled at one guy, but he confused me, cause both his eyes were looking at the end of his nose, like, all the time, so I didn't know if he could actually see me or not. We spoke to a lovely very English and very posh lady, who told us lots of interesting things but had no tone or intonnation to her voice at all, which was just strange, and because she kept talking about having new blood on the team, and bats, she worried me. At lunchtime everyone stopped for a cuppa. I tried to be friendly with Jack Nicholson telling him he had done well working in that heat, he told me it was going to snow by the end of the week, then that aliens were going to be landing soon, then that huge amounts of spacecraft debris would be falling to earth really shortly. We left.
Monday 3 October 2011
How's home-schooling going??
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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