Pushing.

I am right now kicking myself, hard!
Rye has had that break through,and it's exciting him enough that he's trying to read on his own - albeit with books far too advanced for him at the moment.  I'm taking his newfound enthusiasm and running with it...

Yeah, that's the problem.
Push, push, push...meltdown!

This morning, we began with handwriting practise.  He quickly developed, what I call "duck lips", give him his dues, he did persevere and finish the set pages.  I was careful to point out the improvements he's making and encourage him to look at the whole page of his writing, rather than concentrate on the letters that were screwy.  He is so quick to criticise himself.

We went onto maths - and I kicked myself that I hadn't checked the lesson in the Singapore Maths book.  Recapping 10s, 100's and 1000, and the exercises asked for the answers to be written in both number and letter form.   Oh dear.  Still, he did really well, and by the end of the page his writing of the word "hundred" had improved dramatically, which again I focused on!  Had I checked today's maths lesson first, I would have be happy with it counting as handwriting practise too.  Rewarded his hard work with a YoYo Bear thingy - it's fruit leather swirls and comes with cards that Rye wants to collect.  So yay, completed those tasks on a high!

I should have stopped there!

I got carried away and suggested reading practise.  First we looked at the lesson in the Classical Education learn to read text book.  Excellent work.  Then I suggested having a go at reading Fox in Socks.  Started off brilliantly, read 4 or so pages really well, he was visibly tiring at this point.  Did I stop.. no push a little more... push, push, push.  Gah!
"Just read this, and we'll stop", I said.  Rye had reached saturation point, he was yawning, stretching, fidgeting more than ever, what did I do?
I got annoyed - boom, a morning of excellent work ruined.

Clearly, I have a bit of a "thing" about finishing what is started, so to combat that, from now on I shall start using the stopwatch on the Iphone, and set 10 minutes chunks.  As Rye progresses the length of time he'll be able to concentrate, without brain scramble, will increase.

We are also still trying to find the right balance of free play time and activities while also living in a co-op where Rye has friends on tap.   Perhaps I need to embrace more learning activities where his friends can join in.  The other day I was babysitting my housemate's daughters while she went away for a couple of days; the children played games, and much to my surprise they all really enjoy playing Fiddlesticks (reading game) - the luck element of the game, meant one of the younger children who isn't reading yet won several times too, so it is suitable for all levels.

Kids playing King of New York

 I think meshing the "strewing" principle of unschooling, with the Classical Education pedagogy will, I think, make it more Rye friendly, and ensuring textbook based activities are well mixed with practical hands on activities, of which some activities can be "group" friendly.

I do like to be "solution focused", which sounds terribly pouncy, in reality it means I learn from the day's lesson(s).  This morning I failed Rye, I could beat the crap out of myself, doubt myself - and initially yes, of course, I felt a failure, I briefly wondered if home education was the right option for us.  Shake it off.
Home Education IS the best for Rye, he loves being home educated.  Today I made mistakes, learn from those mistake, set strategies in place to prevent, well hopefully, a repeat of those mistakes.

Surely, the epitome of learning?

Weekend Catch Up.

Those pesky tubes that run around my eyes and connect to my ears, are experiencing congestion and ickiness.  Friday was the day of copious painkillers until sweet relief descended, followed later by the sweet relief of cider and smokey whiskey.

Life in the co-op does make down days much easier.  There's plenty of other adults who can ensure Rye is fed and looked after, and of course, there's 8 other children he can play with - tho that does mean when his friends are away he mooches around and seems to think lack of play mates means 24/7 access to a screen... er no!

Screen time is pretty relaxed; mornings Rye can use a screen for learning time, and I usually reward him with leisure screen time afterwards, and he usually has the option of screen time on an evening after dinner - though he does often choose to play with his friends.  Screen time is a tad weather dependent - after all this is the British Isles!  So when the sun out, the rule is "no screens" - well, at least not until after dinnertime.  We also have movie / favourite shows screenings on the projector several times a week - a movie, Saturday it was Jurassic Park, and through the week a documentary, Dr Who and in his leisure time, Rye often watches Clone Wars on the Ipad; the current favourite.

Learning time is relaxed at the weekend, Saturday I showed Rye Nessy - after finally managing to log in - seriously don't ask, I'm feel a bit dim at the moment - it's taken me weeks to get in!  Anyhoos, Rye loves Nessy and finds it hilarious.  And I think the boy has finally cracked single phonemes.  He had a spelling test, and the phonic three letter words he spelled correctly, and had he remembered which letters made up "ch" he would have spelled "lunch" correctly too (he forgot the "c").  Really proud of him - he's working really hard.

Rye spent a good hour on Nessy, really proud of his progress.  Definitely need to work on diagraphs, it will improve his phonological fluency massively; and also rhyming words - he still struggles with this a lot.  Perhaps I'll dig out some old nursery rhyming books - ooh and Dr Suess and read those with him for a bit.  By the way, check out PopArt Home Education facebook page for fantastic discounts on Nessy, Maths Whizz, Literacy Planet, and much more. (UK only)

Sunday, is lazy-bum day.
It's one of those days when the "sun shines no screen" rules is relaxed.  Rye woke me to ask if he could go on the laptop and play Nessy.  One hand chuffed to bits he's enjoying it so much, on the other very grumpy he woke me at an ungodly hour on a SUNDAY!    Kids!
He also watched Dinotrucks.

Once screen was away, the moochiness started - I'm bored was mouthed, primarily because the other kids in the house  are away.  I am rather proud that phrase did not pass his lips until he was about 6 years old - it was a concept he had no idea about.

Naturally, when there are friends on tap, he can quite often be found playing on his own in his room!

Anyway, he decided he wanted to do experiments; so teabag rocket it is then.  Oddly, when I set fire to the tea bag it worked, but not when Rye did, and we had a panic when the bag fell over burning, so he blew it...argh!  Thankfully, tea bags burn out very quickly, so there's just a wee mark on my rug.  Then bugger me, he tried again, and blew the match out, blowing the tea bag on the floor again!  At that point I filled up the long necked lighter with butane and let him use that instead.  He wasn't setting light to the tea bag right at the top, so it burned unevenly and didn't woosh.

 How it works?
Well, its because the hot air raises and as the tea bag burns it creates a thermal, or convention current under the bag, and once the bag has burned to ashes, it wooshes up into the air (if burned evenly).

Afterwards, crafting.  Rye decided he wanted to make spirals.  Why? I wondered and he said because spirals are "awesome".  Very true.

 

  After the spiral has dried, we'll cut it out and he can hang it as a mobile in his room.  Oh, and the other day he drew a portrait of us both.  I love my colourful dreads!

I'm joining in This Homeschooling Life, its where Home Educators/Schoolers share what they have been up to for the past month.  Why not join in too :-)

Scholarly Thursday.

One of the joys of home educating - doing it in one's dressing gown and a cup of coffee in one hand!

The morning began with me coaxing Rye to use the pencil grip aid - it's a simple enough wee gadget, elastic that goes over his wrist with a short loop that goes over the end of his pencil, so it encourages him to hold the pencil at the correct angle; and then there's a wee football charm that he holds in his fist with his middle, index and little fingers, the pencil itself he pincer grips between his forefinger and thumb. This alongside with reminding him to angle the paper so it was comfortable for him to write, made a massive difference to his writing.

He wrote a page of numbers, then made up his own sums and wrote those down too, followed by writing a page from the Science Encyclopedia on the Sun.

After a rewarding mouthful of chocolate, we went on to review the past lesson on Proper Nouns, and then I read a fable to Rye and he answered questions that checked his comprehension, along with many reminders to answer in a complete sentence.

The Classical Education books, are fabulous and save me a large chunk of time I would otherwise need to spend researching activities and books for literacy and language.
Anyway, that brought us nicely to break time; juice and toast for Rye and coffee and toast for me - I'd gotten dressed while he was doing his handwriting practice.

Once refreshed, Rye read about half of Thor to me.  I think though it's time to move onto some other books for a while - apparently another common dyslexic trait, is using the pictures as a visual reminder of the story; so while he can seemingly read words like "hammer", "beasts", "monsters" seen out of the context of this story, he wouldn't know what those words are.

Still he did do well, showed that he was considering the context of the sentence, and using the pictures appropriately to help him work out words, and trying to sound out words.  Mind, at one perplexing point, he started reading "had" as "did", I kept saying "try again, it begins with a "h""  but he still kept saying "did".  Rye tends to see the shape of word, again a dyslexic thing, so while it seems daft to me that he's mixing up "had" and "did" in terms of  word shape, they are similar.  So, as he had read quite a bit up to that point, I suspected reading fatigue was scrambling his brain.  We stopped at that point.  We had another chat too, about remembering to look properly at the word and the letters that make up the word - not just the shape.  Next was history.

Looking through the History Encyclopedia.

Funny isn't it, we began the Space Project because I had this idea we could incorporate, science, math, handwriting, reading, history, geography, natural studies etc all into one super project, and have lots of interrelated strands.  Rye doesn't want to work just on a space project, even when we are covering lots of different things and he has a lot of autonomy - he is a boy who does enjoy mixing the freedom a project allows with more traditional learning methods.  So, I've dug out our Story of the World Book 1, and read to him the introductory chapter that explains what an historian is and how they learn about people's pasts.








One of the activities in the history work book was to create a family tree.  I'm out of ink for my printer at the moment, so I'll have to photocopy the sheets for building up the family tree later, so instead I suggested he draw a picture of his family.

So cute, see me, with my colourful dreads.  Rye drew his Great Granddad George, Granddad Graham, Rosemary, his dad and me, oh, and of course himself.  Took him a while to get his head around the task, but once he got past being harsh about his drawing skills, he really enjoyed the task.

He worked hard, and he knows he accomplished a lot today, and felt really good about himself.
I had planned to do some maths, but as it was already lunch time, I decided that was enough for now, and he did kinda set himself sums during his handwriting practice.

The afternoon was spent on lego, a video game, and playing with his house friends.  During dinner I read the next chapter of the "Goblet of Fire".  Thursdays is also house meeting night, so after settling him with a screen, to the meeting I went.

This coming weekend is a work weekend for the Co-op, working on the windows to ensure they have a long life, and maintaining the access ramp to the garden.  It does mean I need to do some preparatory work tomorrow.  This is the beauty of home ed, and sometimes the difficultly, juggling various life needs and commitments.   The vague plan I have in my head at the moment is for some math work in the morning for 30mins to an hour, depending on how Rye responds to the tasks, then he can help me with the work I need to do in preparation for the work weekend.  And if not too shattered from that, maybe a game of fiddlesticks - it's a reading game, I'll explain more tomorrow.

Now, its bedtime!

Tuesday.

A gentle day enjoying the Autumn sunshine, soaking up vitamin D.  I am still very weak from the flu and tire easily.

Literacy Planet continues to be popular, I've popped Rye back a level so he is practicing listening to letter sounds in words- his progress in this area is wonderful and exciting because this is a skill that will enable real progress towards reading fluently.

We socialised with friends, and Rye spotted the large brown fungus that is so prevalent at this time of the year, and tend to grown in clusters on grass, and hedges.  So we are going to go out with our mushroom guidebooks and see if we can identify what we find.

The Singapore math books almost arrived.  I say "almost" because the envelope was split and only the 3B books were in there.  Maths No Problem said that Parcel Force is investigating - I'm not happy, because without the 3A books, I only have half a math curriculum - and it wasn't cheap either! "Investigating" to me sounds like stonewalling.

Pre dinner - Rye spent ages making rockets and space ships to play in from various boxes; it was wonderful to watch him being so creative, and problem solving.  He was so sweet with the 3yr old, and included her in the play, let her be the pilot and consulted her on design improvements.

After dinner Rye read to me, and then I read another chapter of the Goblet of Fire to him.  I will be very glad when we've finished that book, really want to read the Frost Giants, Wild Fang and other stories to him.

An upside of the Autumn nights is my boy comes back to the flat earlier and we can enjoy lots of snuggles, reading  books to each other and chatting.

Revamp.

Why "Freely Educated"?
As an home educator I am constantly aware that our way of life is often under attack, that scrutiny is often blinkered and those who are not on the inside simply do not have the knowledge, faith, heart, or understanding to know home education is a wonderful gift that encompasses more than academic study, and is not comparable to school.  It is about life, and the world is our classroom.

So I've reclaimed this blog; and will once again begin recording our home ed life, so should negative forces attempt to impede our journey, this blog will be the beacon and provide the light back to hearth, joy, learning and love.

So, here goes:

Rye is continuing to work on his Space project, currently he's exploring the sun, which has included facts about the sun, watching documentaries on the solar system, he's also explored myths and legends of gods and goddess associated with the sun, and looked at art influenced by the sun in some way.

We have also been camping at the Welsh Environmental Home Education Camp.   Rye spent a fair bit of time in the craft and science tents; he made hover crafts, rockets, he drew dragons, and joined in huge collages with his new friends.  He had a go at fire poi, circus skills, computer animation, raft building, sports day fun, went on bat walks etc.

Rye took these photos

After WEHEC flu hit, and we had to take a week or so out.  Rye was self directed; he watched documentaries on space, dinosaurs, the oceans, he played minecraft, played with his friends, asked me how to spell words so he could type them into the search bar and look for new videos and games.  He painted, he cooked, cleaned.  Hardly a wasted time.

Life is returning to normal.  I run a Science Club for local Home Ed children, and our topic this month is Electricity.  In preparation for the club, Rye and me watched videos on electricity, and we also used the excellent resources from "The Children's University Of Manchester"  We read about different type of fuels used to create electricity, we looked at how a Wind Turbine works, and Rye then had to reassemble it, (which he did successfully), and Rye learned how electricity travels along high voltage wires, and transformers at different stages to reduce the voltage to make it safe to use in our homes.  I sense a trip the Science Museum in Manchester may be on the cards.

I've bought Rye a subscription to  Literacy Planet and he's flying with it.  His confidence is high and he's enjoying the games, receiving trophies and collecting credits to spend on other games.
I've bought a subscription to Nessy.   Once a couple of issues with the log in have been resolved, Rye can also start using Nessy, which is designed specifically for children with dyslexia and improves reading and spelling.  I found reading eggs was too easily circumvented.  Rye would click, click, click until he got the answer correct, without trying to work the answer out.  Both Nessy and Literacy Planet have limited chances to choose the correct word/sentence/sound and some exercises are timed.  I find this provides a far more accurate record of progress.

I'll probably also buy the Nessy typing programme, the reviews are excellent, and honestly, while I'll continue to work with Rye on his handwriting, it's unlikely he'll develop beautiful handwriting and have a passion for writing by hand; learning to type, particularly in our technological world, is much more useful to him.

He's at his father's for a few days now, so opportunity to plan some more activities for the space project and think about the coming months when our learning naturally becomes more bookish, when documentaries and visits to museums and galleries increase, and being outdoors, nature, and sports take a back seat.