How it all began for us

Since a lot of people reading may have younger children, I thought I'd do a post about how we started, and what life was like way back then (grin - we began home ed about 15 yrs ago)

When our oldest son was born I gave up work (I worked in publishing as an editor/author) to stay home to care for him; but I did continue doing quite a bit of freelance work. Then we had another baby or two, and suddenly Alexander was three and everyone was asking where he was going to go to nursery; and what school did I have his name down for.

We were living in an affluent part of North London, near one of the best grammar schools in the country (Henrietta Barnet) and also in the catchment area for (as it was then) one of the best government  primary schools in London.

But we were uncomfortable with the local primary school - I had a friend whose son was attending it, and we didn't feel happy with the multi-faith approach the school had - and the amount of television that was watched (and this was 15 yrs ago!)

Julian had been privately educated, and had a natural disinclination towards government schools; I on the other hand have fond memories of my goverment school primary education.  We briefly considered private education,  but with three children and expecting a fourth, that was never going to be affordable.

We had heard of "home schooling" - Julian had come into contact (before I knew him) with a church group whose children used the ACE curriculum. And while waiting for an antenatal appointment I read a magazine with an article about Education Otherwise, and I made a note of the address, just in case.

(There was no internet and phone calls were expensive in those days :-))

So we made the tentative decision that I would try to teach Alexander to read. After all, if I couldn't teach him to read, I couldn't teach him at all, right?

Part of the reason I was convinced that I probably could teach my children, is that I grew up in a tiny two-teacher school, and was used to seeing one adult dealing with ten or twelve children in several age groups. It seemed natural to me to do "whole class learning" so that everyone joined in according to their ability, not their age.  If I hadn't had that sort of childhood school experience, I might have been more daunted by the prospect of teaching children of different ages.

So I started teaching reading. I bought a couple of Phonics Ladybird Books from a bookshop, and could not make any sense of them. I realise now how phonic works, and that it does work well for some people, but it wasn't the right thing for Alexander aged three.

I tried again, buying the first couple of books in the Ladybird "Look Say" scheme - and suddenly, Alexander was learning to read.  He was bright and easy to teach, reading only took half an hour a day (I split it into two sets of 15 mins), which I could easily fit in round my other responsibilities.

I kept a "lesson diary" then - I must dig it out and read it, I'm sure it will be interesting.

Will write more on this later; but have to go now; we are having a carpet fitted upstairs, so Lucy has been temporarily evicted from her bedroom and is studying in the lounge. The younger five are watching a phonics video (Words and Pictures - it is an excellent series); and I need to find out where the rest are. . . .

First eighteen months

We've been home educating for just 18 months. This seems like a good time to reflect on what has and hasn't worked for us, where the greatest benefits have been and where the challenges lie.

April 2009-we had a three month old baby, my husband had been made redundant two months before and was just starting to set up a free lance business from home, our next child was two and we took our eight year old out of school. We had planned to start home educating at that time but obviously hadn't planned the job changes. My lovely plans about having a school room were thrown-a study for dh was more important as were the plans for long trips and I soon found that my plans for short trips, about once a week, to museums in central London just wouldn't work-too difficult with a baby and toddler.

Our eight year old, R, wasn't sure about Mummy as a teacher and especially about the maths. Mummy thought she knew about maths and science but found that the science curriculum that she liked just didn't appeal to our son.

So what, if anything, worked? Praying-lots of praying. I don't think I've ever had to depend on the Lord as much as in those first few weeks.

Practically, the baby, J, was settling into a routine. He conveniently slept most of the morning. Our two year old, A, loves spending time with Grandma who lives with us so when she got bored with watching her brother work, she would wander off to talk to Grandma. Initially, I needed to supervise R very closely. We were partway through a year so it wasn't always clear which topics, for example, in maths, had been covered.
We used some of the same books as school  to help continuity. Major changes in curriculum didn't help, at that point.

Reading aloud turned out to be a major success of that difficult first term or so. I initially, used a book that was too hard, then one that wasn't especially well written but after this, hit on "Farmer boy" which was a major success. This was followed by all the rest of the series.

To my surprise, hands on activities were a success. I'm a "booky" sort of person and don't remember finding practicals or art activities even vaguely interesting compared with a book so I almost missed making the salt dough map of Australia, in that first term. I had to learn that our son thrives on activities which re-enforce work and learns in a very different way to me.

This is another continent-in cookie dough, this time.

Eighteen months on, what has changed? Well, the sleeping baby is now a very active toddler. He still sleeps in the afternoon but that lovely long morning sleep has gone. The two year old is now four and keen to be involved in some activities. Thankfully, with time has come independence so now once I have explained the maths, R can usually manage to do a practice exercise on his own while I do "preschool" with the little ones. This is a very informal time of singing, reading, making puzzles, counting, art, cooking and lasts about 20-30 minutes.

This is a recent cookery activity.

Our timetable has simplified from a school-style version with each day different to one where the first hour and a half of each day is the same: Bible reading, memory working and singing followed by maths for R and then his English. We are working on having a set time late morning for Latin. We also have a fixed half an hour after lunch for R to read on his own. This is my time with our four year old when we might do simple phonics and play a number game or puzzle of her choice. Today, she wanted to practice writing "c" in a wipe clean workbook then to have a game of number dominoes, followed by a number puzzle. She is beginning to listen while I read aloud  to R and today drew a picture of the world from space which fitted with the book being read.

Challenges-well there are plenty. I always need to fine tune the curriculum. Current work is in the area of French/modern languages and music. We have sent R to various sporting activities but need to ensure that the children have sufficient exercise.
House work-the less said the better.
More important, is the issue of not forgetting why we home educate. I like learning and can easily be distracted into worrying about which Latin curriculum to use and forgetting the more important issues of teaching about the Lord and how He would have us live. We need to live unto Him and pray that we will be good witnesses to our children.