1 December 2017.

Oops, December has snuck up on me!  

Currently, I am having a big shift around and clutter sort...and not quite finished, plus busy preparing for a few Christmas Markets for BytheCrookofmyHook,  so no Yule tree to decorate, nor have I yet sat down to sort out our Yule countdown activities.  

So, sorry, no fun Yuletide activity to report today... 

I can leave you with a couple of photos, yarn club and other yarn I bought that I will turn into amazing things soon:

And a few photos I took of the climate change shawl, around the mannequin - which should have arrived at the Gallery today...but oh.my.god. the ends!

  I remember now why I decided to leave the ends as a part of the shawl, though it does look more polished with them sewn in.  TWO days I've been sewing them in.   Well when I say days, I do mean evenings, after I've finished doing other things that need doing too...I really ought to stop leaving everything to the very last minute.  I'm 42 though..not sure that's really gonna ever change!

Anyway - better go.. more ends to sew in (seriously the "wrong" side looked furry there was so many!) the shawl absolutely must be posted tomorrow!

Warmth of Denial.

If you follow me on social media, you will have seen the photos I've been sharing of the shawl I hooked specifically for an Exhibition in January by Ecocreate.  It's all submitted now, so now I wait to find out if it gets selected.

If you haven't seen the shawl - here are photos showing it's progression.  I do still have the ends to sew in, and finish the edging off.  This shawl is also the largest freeform project I've hooked to date... and I loved doing it.  So, I now have lots of ideas swirling around my head for new shawls.  I'm also happy to consider commissions, as always :D

I really like the idea of a Cerwiden Shawl, made in time for Samhain.  I shall be sketching later some ideas :D

Anyway here's Warmth of Denial - hooked in response to the brief "Time or Tide waits for no man", submissions are to be related to climate change, and use materials/techniques that are in keeping with Ecocreate's ethos.

The shawl is largely made from indie dyed animal based yarns, a little hand spun, some left over yarns I've bought from charity shops and also used some novelty yarn I have in my stash.  I've also incorporated the lids from plastic bottles, beer bottles and tetra packs into the piece.

I make functional art, hence the shawl.  We wrap ourselves in shawls to keep warm, in this case we are wrapping ourselves in denial about climate change, the melting icecaps, the abundance of our seas, which we plunder at an unsustainable rate, which, if left unchecked will lead to our seas being barren...

The shawl is so big, I had to work in our communal living room because it didn't fit in my work area in my rooms.

Shawl hanging in our Events Room.

FREE YARN!

What more perfect title could you ever wish for?

Argylesheep have a competition on to win 52 balls of yarn.

So go enter, here's a link: Argylesheep competition

Good luck!

Dudes.........

In my quest to keep Rye engaged and enjoying learning, I've purchased some math manipulatives.  They are also useful for demonstrating carrying over into the tens column.

On top of that I discovered a game on Amazon called Dudes.  Its a dice game with 3 small plastic trolls.  There is a operand die and two number dice.  The operand die has subtract, addition and multiply, and "arrhhhhhh".  The games improves mental arithmetic and helps to learn the times table.   Each player takes turn in rolling the dice, working out the sum, and then remembering the score.  Whomever has the higher score wins a troll.  The winner is the either the player to have all 3 trolls and reach 250+, or whomever reaches 250 first.   It's a fun game.

 After that Rye worked on his singapore maths books.  It was  a review section - fortuitous considering we've not cracked open the text books during the summer break.


Rye's anxiety reared it's ugly head at one point and he started to get very disruptive and silly.  I am really proud though because he managed to rein it in somewhat, and began to enjoy the number bonds and number patterns review he was doing.

Next challenge is to encourage him to write faster.  He writes at turtle speed, a decrepit, almost dead turtle, which is frustrating for us both.

Bless him tho, eh, look at the concentration on that face :D

Fancy Cooperative Living?

Hello, quick post.  The housing co-op I live in has some vacancies coming up, so if anyone is interested in exploring community living, let me know, the details can be found here:

http://www.diggersanddreamers.org.uk/communities/existing/rose-howey-housing-co-operative

We have space for a small family, and we have a few single spaces available/coming available.

We are looking for enthusiastic, energetic persons, with a passion for radical social change and a smattering of diy skills wouldn't go amiss either.

 This is our "Events Room", a multifunctional room.  It's our living room, dinning room, and the room where we have parties, in the photo here we are getting the room ready for an exhibition.  Home Ed and other groups meet in this room during the week too.

View of part of our garden from my window.  This was last summer with the home ed group, doing yoga, and then on an evening, we'd set up a fire and have a bbq.

And this is the other side of our garden; this side is reserved for growing veg and housing some of the animals we have taken in.

July 1, 2, 3

Hello!  Busy bees here at Rose Howey.
I've started up a science club again, and an outisde organisation is coming into the house to do creative writing with the kids and other home ed kids.  Its great!

Rose Howey has also started a new venture:  The Rose Howey Cooperative Gallery, in conjunction with the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool.  We are hosting our first exhibition on Friday - July 1, 2, 3 :D  It's all about the artists' political desires, expressions and inspirations.  I'm creating a piece to display too, using freeform crochet as my medium.  If you're in Liverpool and would like to come along to the exhibition, leave me a comment and I'll let you know the address.

Tuesday.

Fourth week of the new studying structure.  Wow.

Today we started a wee bit later than normal, so his studies continued after lunch:

Taken the rubbish bags down to the bins.

Completed 2 pages of his handwriting book.

Collected wood for the fire.

Read "Dragon Danger" to me and answered the comprehension questions correctly.

Copy work based on "Dragon Danger" and drawn a picture to accompany his writing.

Completed a math lesson on comparing and ordering numbers.

Lunch

Completed 3 pages from his maths practise book, based on today's lesson.

15 minutes break, playing with his zoobs, having a drink.

Finish last 2 pages of his maths practise. (I wrote the answers for him, as his handwriting was deteriorating rapidly)

Read the next part of the chapter on Egyptians from Story of the World, Vol 1.  Rye answers the comprehension questions on the chapter, and narrates the main facts, which I write down for him. 

While Rye colours in Orsis, I read a chapter from The Awesome Egyptians (he attempted to read some himself)

Read together Children's Ancient World Together.  He is particularly interested in the various Gods and Goddesses.  So will explore that more next time we study History.

 

Study time over, Rye continued to look at the book, seems to have captured his imagination.  Eventually I suggest he go play with friends, he's not fussed and instead asks if he could spend some time on the Ipad as it's raining and really cold, so he doesn't fancy going outside.

Fair enough. 

Tuesdays the co-op has a house meeting, so while I'm engaged there, Rye has the choice of playing on the computer or I'll set up the projector and he can watch whatever he wants from Netflix's Kids.

A Surprising Change of Pace.

Aye, the boy had a bit of a shock at our recent visit to see friends in Folkestone.  Ipad was left home, and for the duration he and his friends were informed there would be no screens.  Surprisingly, there wasn't as much whinging as we expected.   Rye was also told he would be joining in M's morning routine; breakfast, get dressed, washed and then chores, afterwards study time.

I had a nosey at the workbooks that M's kids use; Schofield and Sims, and I was really impressed.  Especially because the books explain what is required, give clear examples, and the handwriting work book, was the best I've seen so far.  However, for the duration of our visit, I picked up a couple of Vorderman's workbooks; not very good, but fine for getting Rye into the routine.

Oh, the first few days were torture.  We decided to help Rye improve his penmanship we would require some daily colouring from him, and insist it was neat and within the lines, as he's taken to being very messy and just scribbling over everything in one colour.  So I insisted on different colours, neatness and insisting on more colouring if he ignored instruction.  Very quickly, his colouring improved, he was using different colours and Rye was beginning to take pride in his work and loved showing us both pages he's completed and seeing our delight in his use of colour etc.

M and I decided that Rye should do daily colouring, handwriting practise, copywork, maths and reading.  Yeah, a lot for a child not use to writing, indeed can barely write.  Basically, we crash coursed him, and I have to say the improvement within those 10 days or so was meteoric.

when we began 

after about 4-5 days

After only a few days, he was producing writing on right, although he still needed us to sit with him, and remind him how to write the letters correctly.  M then hit on the idea of colouring the handwriting lines, orange at the top, blue on the bottom, and leaving the middle line white.  Astonishing how quickly that visual cue helped him.  I suspect all the lines were getting a little squiggly in his head, and colouring them really helped him.

Copy work has improved wonderfully too, where as I was writing on the page and he wrote beneath, I can now write on a piece of paper and he copies it into his copy book.  So, the other day he produced this piece of work, which will actually go in his history folder:

He dictated what he wanted to write to me, I wrote it on a separate piece of paper, and Rye then went off and copied it - all without me sitting next to him to remind him how to write the letters etc.  Oh my gosh, the pride and joy I felt when I saw this piece of writing.  

(The drawing is of a royal stool, which looked like a cat with a table on its back - Rye has drawn it from top looking down perspective, and the symbol is a Mayan hieroglyph.)

Rye drawing the royal stool at the World Museum

Mathematically, Rye is pretty much where he should be, and while he may initially seem to struggle with a concept, the next day, pretty much without fail, he's figured it out.  The main problem was his writing of numbers was illegible.  We saw improvement quickly, although strangely math facts he had down pat seem to evade him - I suspect foul play to be honest.  How a child can add, subtract, and multiply large numbers in his head, and then suddenly can't tell me what 17 +1 is, is just a bit too unbelievable.

Rye's reading is coming along beautifully too.  I convinced him to start at the beginning of the Oxford Tree reading series.  He's half way through it now, and his reading confidence has improved beautifully, he's attempting to read just about everything he's come across.  I've also introduced restful reading hour after dinner, I read to him, and then he goes and reads/looks at books.  Seeing my boy sleeping with a pile of books next to him, makes my heart soar!

The study time does seem to set the tone for the day too; he's calmer, less erratic, less silly, and chores being daily, means he is much more helpful over all.  Plus, the arguments over doing chores is now null and void, they are daily, and that's that (also prevents his room from being utterly trashed and then the battle to get him to tidy it back up).  We are spending more time together, our relationship is improving, and the Ipad is no longer a daily battle.  My gawd, I was beginning to really hate screens and was on the verge of banning the ipad totally.  Bedtimes are generally easier too - there's none of the wheedling for longer on a screen, or moaning he's hungry.

It's by no means perfect.  There are days when Rye drags his feet and study time, instead of taking 2-3 hours max, takes 5 hours +, there's days when the chores which shouldn't take more than an hour and he drags them out for 3 hours +.   Those days are very frustrating.  I have pointed out that all he's doing is reducing his free time - and slowly I think that is starting to sink in.

On the whole, I am very happy with Rye's progress.

Mayan Codex workshop

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Delmere Forest

Fantastic day spent at Delamere Forest on the Stone Age day.
I spent most of the day sat in the cafe crocheting and drinking coffee, while Rye went off with the ranger and the rest of the children to meet the stone age people.  They had a great time making shelters, learning about traps, cooking food and making clay pots.  The day has really enthused Rye, and he's keen to learn more about the stone age people!

Yay, love it when he gets inspired, makes filling that head with knowledge so much easier!

Handy really because the next history topic is the Early peoples and Nomads.

Winter Festivals.

I love the festivities at this time of the year, when its dark, gloomy and the nights draw in far too quickly.  The crafting, the lights, candles, decorations, preparations for feasting, wonderful!  It brings light to a dark period of winter, and fills the heart with hope for the days that will soon begin to slowly get longer.

This year my son requested we stay home rather than visit friends for Yule.  I miss them terribly, staying home, however,  has allowed us to be part of a wider winter festival here at Rose Howey.  One family in the house is Jewish, and so we have joined in the Hanukkah celebrations, culminating in tonight, when we lit all the candles, listened to the blessing and ate J's wonderful latkes, apple sauce and vegan sour cream.  The children played the traditional game of dreidel, and the shape gave me an idea for a crafting session, which we enjoyed before the candle lighting.

The kids picked up the game really quickly, and minus the odd bit of squabbling, had great time playing.

I cut strips of paper into the dreidel shape, provided the children with tissue squares, glue and glitter and left the to decorate to their hearts content.  The children were a little heavy handed with the glue, (and glitter) so I'll need to wait till tomorrow before stringing the driels up and adding them to our Winter Festival Branch in the events room.  

They also made a few more snowflakes.  Again using the strips of cardboard, I simply anchor them in the middle with a split pin, and they decorate them.  Very pretty, and a nice change from paper snowflakes.

Rye and me put up our Yule tree today too; a wonderful eclectic mixture of traditional christmas iconography; stars, santas, snowmen, reindeer, colourful baubles, along with decorations Rye has made and ones I've crocheted, including a couple new wire decorations I made yesterday, and  bought pagan decorations of fairy doors, Goddess and hares.  I've left the top of the tree free for now; I plan to make a wire and crochet sun tree topper.  The children in the house also found a very large evergreen branch that was blown off a tree in the recent wild winds, it now adorns one of the walls in the events room, and we will add decorations to it, and pop our hand made gifts to each other under it.

Plans for Yule celebrations, include more crafting and decorating of the events room with greenery, paper chains, popcorn garlands, decorating the yule log to burn, including adding wee notes of wishes of things we want to leave behind us.  We watched the Hog Father last night, and have lots more seasonal dvds to watch together.  We are also planning a wonderful feast, including sun bread, and wassailing.

Eye of God using copper wire and glass beads

Rye is visiting with his dad after Yule until the morning of his birthday, normally I would become very much like a hermit; but this year I've been persuaded to join in Mexican Christmas (vegan mexican meal), which will mostly be adults - so I imagine that will be fun and raucous.

These are the times when I'm reminded of the beauty and joy of co-op living.  The coming together of different family's traditions to create a wholly new tradition that is the spirit of Rose Howey.  The sharing of histories, traditions, knowledge, each individual adding their personal touches.  I have dreamed of living co-operatively all my life, and sure, in my dreams the co-op is deep in the countryside - Rose Howey is the perfect compromise, the advantages of a city on our doorstep yet surrounded by green spaces and trees.

We are very fortunate.

MaMa Appeal & Slouchy Hat Pattern.

So, the group that meets weekly in Rose Howey asked me to create a hat pattern that they could then follow to make and sell to raise funds for MaMa (Migrant Artists Mutual Aid), and in particular for one of the women who attends with her 2yr old daughter.  Mum, is threatened with being returned to India, the daughter was born in the UK, but if she is sent back with her mum, both will almost certainly be killed.

Mum's husband beat  her while she was pregnant, she fled to the UK to seek sanctuary, her daughter was born here, and has brain damage as a result of the beatings, which requires medical supervision. Mum is currently fighting to stay, if sent back she will be brought in front of her tribal council, which is all male, her husband will lie, and the council will sentence her and her daughter, (because girls are not valued, and certainly not with medical conditions) to death.


Please, please help us to raise funds to help this small family stay here and be safe.
I have written the slouchy hat pattern, which is suitable for beginners (and includes links to tutorials and videos for special stitches).  I'm asking folks to make a donation for the pattern - I suggest £5, but honestly, anything you can afford is gratefully received.  The pattern is for personal use, although if you wish to make hats and sell them for MaMa that would be wonderful.

This is the Slouchy Hat Pattern  Please use the Donate button on the side bar.  Thank you so much!

The hats in the photographs above are also available for sale, check out my facebook page By Hook or Crook

All proceeds from sale of hats and donations for the pattern will go to MaMa.

Samhain 2015

Samhain Blessings!

One of my favourite festivals.
Welcoming the dead, honouring the ancestors, bonfires, pumpkin carving, spooky music, meditation, divination, offerings to the dead; it is a wonderful festival.

I particularly like this festival because it removes some of the taboo and fear around the dead.  In a society that likes to keep it's distance from death, Samhain brings home that death is simply a part of life.  With my son, I mix the commercial fun elements of Halloween with the spiritual of Samhain.

My alter, after my boy was born, was transmuted into a season table.  It serves the same function; brings nature indoors, provides a sacred space, a focus point for meditation, spell work and offerings. Additionally, its a fun way to include the boy in my traditions and festival celebrations.  Those glass pumpkin jars, he made those when he was three years old.  There's two large horse chestnut leaves we soaked in glycerine to preserve and season swap gifts from other mamas.  Our season table represents both the spiritual, magical and the family and community we surround ourselves with.

This year I helped my lad make his own costume.  Part traditional Yorkshire thriftiness, part dislike of commercial costumes and part a enthusiasm for making and "upcycling".

He decided he'd like to be Herne the Hunter, who according to pagan legend rides again on Samhain, leading the hunt.  He is often linked to Cerrunos and Pan; although Herne is a spirit not a god; his association with hunting and forests though means he is often lumped in the same category.  Herne has another association, which made me choke back laughter on the mental images I had when my boy suggested dressing up as Herne.  Most statues of Herne feature an enormous phallus; he is considered to be a potent fertility and sex symbol.

I curbed my sense of mischief, and maneouvered my boy towards a  "Green Man" type representation of Herne.  Oh my goodness, what a success, he loved making the mask, he was thrilled by the reaction of his friends to his costume and he was enthralled by the story of Herne and King Richard.



Later he designed a face for his pumpkin, then we took it downstairs and he carved it alongside the other children carving theirs.  Then it was time for him to go trick or treating, and for me to go and sit by the bonfire outside, and stare into the flames, drink cider, eat cake and roasted chestnuts while the now lit pumpkins kept evil spirits at bay.

Eventually the children returned laden with sweets.  Some were ritually burned, (they really did come back with a LOT!), they played in the dark, and we stayed by the fire.
Near midnight, the flames had died away until there were only the dancing embers.  We watched them for a while before ambling upstairs.  My boy had brought his pumpkin back up and relit it in front of the season table, including all the other candles.  He was awed.
Soon afterwards, I sent him to bed, spent some time with my passed family and then off to bed I went myself.


A truly magical Samhain.

Thoughts on Classical Education and Paganism.

I am a pagan.
My son is not, though he sometimes identifies as such.  I share my knowledge and traditions with him as and when he's interested.  We revere nature, I teach the planet is sacred and to be tread upon as lightly as we can.   Classical Education(CE) is a pedagogy unfamiliar with paganism; it is mostly used by Christian home educators.  The coupling of CE and paganism works beautifully. Specifically, I employ "The Well Trained Mind" route.  CE emphasises classical literature, and exploration of myths and folktales.  The path I tread and which my son skips alongside; is sat upon a bedrock of myth, folk tales and traditions, alchemy, magic and a thirst for knowledge.

The reading and grammar lessons draw upon good literature; supplementing is encouraged, for us this means folktales, myths and legends and yes some bible stories; after all, much of our literature is based on biblical themes.  I include how these stories shape my path and my personal gnosis and in doing so my son develops his own gnosis.  There is room for the ridiculous and imaginative fancifulness; a childhood magic, different, to be sure, from the magic I weave, magic nonetheless.

An oft heard complaint is that CE is christian based.  Categorically, it is not.
Just as I can weave a pagan thread through the curriculum, so can a christian.  The CE curriculum is comprehensive and laid out for the home educator.  Albeit, it can be a little dry, employ a little imagination and flexibility and the curriculum comes alive.  Nor does one need to adhere to the suggestions regarding the amount of time spent each day on lessons, the reading hour and so forth.   All the blogs I've found where the home education is CE based, appear to be school like.  This does not appeal to me, or my son.  I am his facilitator not his teacher.   I used the CE curriculum to set a direction for our learning. We are somewhere in the middle of formal home education and autonomous home education.

How does this work practically?
My son is currently improving his reading ability.  I believe he is dyslexic; he exhibits virtually all the classical cues.   Memory difficulties means he often "forgets" sight words he's learned, and he needs constant reminding to try sounding out the letter sounds.   "The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading" provides the structure, along with useful revision reminders.  Each lesson is short with suggested additional activities.  This is the method I employ:

"Table Time:  we will look at the lesson together, usually taking no more than 10-15 minutes.

Additional Activities:  these often employ magnetic boards, letters, words and flash cards.  I use dyslexic technique of incorporating my son's different senses when learning new words and digraphs. For example, one of the activities is using words written on cards to make up sentences - which can be as silly and ridiculous as he likes.  I may add perhaps lego or plasticine to the activity, and ask him to "illustrate" his sentence with models.  I've found this helps to keep him engaged in the activity, so he's focused on the words.  I encourage my son to complete one activity during our Table Time there's no time limit here, he can spend as long as he likes on the task.

My son likes to sing, those silly sentences make funny songs.  Added benefit, he is also playing his ukulele while singing (reading the words off the index cards); or he's dancing/acting out the sentences.  This allows him to expand that fidgety energy and turns what use to be a trigger for my annoyance, into a positive learning tool.

CE advocates repeating thrice words/poems etc throughout the day.  This works well with an energetic child.  He blasts into the flat, hopping and chatting ten to a dozen.
"Sing your silly song to me," and he'll dance around singing it.
"Your Quest is to read these words to win a magical reward"  If he fails, no worries he can try again, next time he bounces in.
"Read the sentence to gain entry"

Initially, I employed "reading hour" too, which is where the child spends an hour in their room, or quiet space, looking at books, or listening to audio books.  Playing with anything else is not allowed.  The idea being to create a habit of reading.    Sadly, reading hour became a bit of a battle.  CE tutors staying firm, I prefer to be sensitive to my son's feelings and find "Sofa Time" much more fun and productive.  Sofa Time tends to happen on an evening, we snuggle up on the sofa and I read a book of my choosing and I'll read my son's choice(s) too.  I particularly love sofa time in the autumn, light candles, make hot chocolate - becomes a wonderful treat and a magical time to read folk stories and myths.

I had planned for 3 lessons a day - perhaps maths, handwriting practise and reading, another day the space project, history, science and so forth.  I've found reserving 2-3 days for reading only lessons works best.  Reading expends so much mental energy that asking my son to then do other concentrated learning activities is a recipe for disaster.  Those days we play board games, craft, my mobility allowing, we go for a wander in the park noticing the changing seasons, talking about trees, dryads, plant correspondences, whatever tickles our fancy.

For each area of learning I follow the basic structure of providing instruction or information, then cementing that knowledge through activities and crafts and repetition.  Reading is hard work for my son, consequently, so is handwriting, happily CE supports and encourages narration.  I believe this to be very important for my son, his memory is actually very good; his struggle with remembering some words is less a memory retention issue, and more his memory gets scrambled as he becomes stressed/tired/frustrated. My hope is by continually working his memory, and demonstrating his using his memory; memory paths in his mind will be further developed and my son's confidence and self esteem will increase, impacting on his self belief.

I use CE learning strategies when sharing information regarding my path.  My son is about to learn the tarot, specifically the Wild Wood tarot deck.  A beautifully visual pack.  Each card has a myriad of symbolism, and as we learn together, we will use keywords on cards, creating our own decks, exploring our feelings, dreams.  A wonderful way to delve into mythology, symbolism, nature, imagination, psyche and archetypes.

Employ CE as a learning tool with a sprinkle of imagination and its a wonderful curriculum that is suitable for any home educator who desires a literacy based curriculum.  Pinterest contains lots of ideas on how supplement the basic lessons with fun activities; and  to be fully CE led; many blogs and websites are available to show how to implement the CE curriculum.  We choose to cherry pick the parts of the pedagogy that suit us and with some trial and error (see "Pushing"), we are settling into a routine that is working.

CE is not just the purview of christian home educators.  The curriculum itself is secular; there are reading lists which incorporate a christian worldview, read them, or not, there is choice.   The main thing, in my opinion, about  the Well Trained Mind brand of CE is it's written by American mother and daughter duo, so the reading lists favour american literacy, and most of the Pinterest content is also american.   Bear this bias in mind and it's not an issue.  Supplement some of the american literacy with British literature, adapt activities based on american geography/history etc to British and all is good.

















 

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?

Lazy Sunday Baking.

Yoghurt lemon drizzle cake.  Oh, yes please.  I adore this cake, now, I live in a vegan co-op, so I needed a vegan recipe - I used this one.  I also read the comments, and noticed one lady mentioning adding lemon oil extract; well okay, I have that too.  Notice this recipe doesn't mention drizzling lemon syrup over the top - me I like my lemon cake drizzled and sticky; so I took a lemon, squeezed it and added a heaped tsp of icing sugar and mixed together until the sugar dissolved.

Then take the cake from the oven, pop a few cocktail stick holes in it and pour over the lemon syrup.  Leave it in the pan for 20 minutes or so; then turn it out onto a wire wrack and leave to cool.  Of course you could eat now; but it will be very soft; leave it to cool and the cake will slice much easier...so hard I know...but mmm worth it.  This cake is moist, soft and oh, so lemony - honestly, vegan cake - baked well is as good as normal dairy & egg made cakes.

Now, in Rose Howey, we share our evening meal together - Mon-Thurs, and Fridays, those of us who are in, tend to order take out together; and the weekends occasionally someone will cook; I though, like to cook in my flat just for Rye and myself.  Communal meals are loud and chaotic, so I really enjoy our weekend evening meals together, where we can talk in peace, and I can hear Rye properly and he's not distracted by the chaos around us.

Yesterday I made colcannon and vegan sausages for tea, yum.

Today I've put on corn chowder in the slow cooker, and after noticing an American friend on facebook mention her biscuits, (This is the recipe she used) I decided to have a go - basically its drop scones baked - they look fabulous and I hope, will go beautifully with our chowder.

These are so tender and crumbly; thinking on, its basically a short crust pastry recipe but with baking powder added.  I always follow the recipe properly once, after that I tend to tinker.  I did wonder about the amount of salt; and I was right, too much for Rye's and mine palates.  Although, I did find crumbled into the chowder the saltiness wasn't as profound.  However, wee bit less salt and these will make future quick and easy, delicious biscuits for soup.   

(Yup, that's the cake up there too... we had two large slabs each, beautiful!)

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 :-)