Monster & Teeny

Last Monday we arrived at Helmsley Youth Hostel in Yorkshire. I’d hired the whole hostel for four nights and we had a wonderful time with various home educating friends. We had 14 adults and 18 children ranging in age from 2 to 10 including a birthday while we were there of Alex turning five.

The week was a perfect blend of children playing together regardless of age, gender or any other qualifying factor other than being children. There was a mix of boisterous, craziness, quiet communal film watching, play doh play, creative and imaginative role playing, IT based gaming and loads more.

There were apple trees in the grounds of the hostel so some of the children collected apples which we used for apple bobbing for the Halloween themed party on the last day and some more were used to make apple crumble which was enjoyed with ice cream. The children helped to decorate, cater for and come up with the games for the party.

I loved the fact that the various adults present also all did their thing which meant the children got the benefit of being with a wide variety of grown ups who somehow shuffled round each other in a very cohesive, getting pretty much everything which needed to be done to be done sort of fashion. I don’t think I’d ever be up for full time communal living but for snapshot periods I utterly get how it would work.

So no daily round up, nothing ouvertly educational, simply the best possible living examples for me of why we Home Educate - a hostel crammed full of some of the brightest, happiest, cheeriest, getting the most out of life, would be a positive criminal offence to stop them from doing their own individual things for six hours a day to follow some prescribed National Currciculum (OK it was half term ) children I’ve ever met.  Sitting watching those children, which I did a fair bit of last week, and chatting to their parents about their hopes, fears, dreams, thoughts for the future and so on I was struck mostly by how well they all fitted. How well they all knew each other. How much everyone knew what was each child’s ‘thing’, what their special talent, or interest, or hobby or whatever was, how very individual, special and unique each child was. I always said that if I ever had children I would celebrate them as individuals, support and encourage who they were. I adore being part of a group where that common thread runs through.

On the way home we spent a night at The Petits Haricots. The children all got swallowed up in games and fun in their lovely house while the adults had a lovely time chatting. Chris and Helen follow a rather different approach to us educationally but it is clearly working so well for them and for SB that for me it simply further proves how very specific and individual an education every child requires.

You can see some pictures of our week here on flickr. 

Monday Somehow Alison and I managed to get six children up, dressed, breakfasted and in a car within about half an hour. Clearly more her area of expertise than mine but some of it must have rubbed off! We headed off to see Monster House as part of Film Week. This had been the only one film that Monster had actually requested to see so I had arranged for us to see it with the HEMUK lot as it was on in their local cinema but not in ours. 

Layla, Si and C met us there but didn’t stay long as C was scared by the film, which I have to say was not at all what I was expecting and scared Teeny too. If we’d not been with the others I think we may well have not stuck it out either, but she clambered onto my lap, listened to me whispering ‘it’s just a film’ in her ear whenever she tensed up and agreed she was glad she’d stayed as they tidied it all up nicely and made everyone seem misunderstood rather than evil and gave it a nice happy ending, which was what stayed in her memory rather than the scary bits in the middle. Monster sat at the other end of the row to me, engrossed in the film and clearly loving it. Such a cinemagoer that lad .

We had a nice rest of the afternoon with Alison and co and headed home once A arrived to collect us after work.

Tuesday This time we did indeed head off to our local cinema to see Over the Hedge. Really enjoyed this one. We came out to the wonderful news that Layla and Si’s son and C’s baby brother had arrived safely into the world

In the afternoon  Monster X boxes, Teeny played and I did some CV writing work.

Wednesday Cinema again - this time it was Ice Age : The Meltdown. Equally very good and we reckoned better than Ice Age. Lots of chatter about this one in the car afterwards, debating favourite characters and favourite bits of the film, ice ages we have known and loved and mammals generally with me explaining to Teeny that bearing life young and feeding them mothers milk is a pretty good indication of a mammal although not always correct. This led to lots of shouting out names of mammals we could think of pretty much the whole way to Lucy’s house.

We had a nice afternoon with Lucy, R and R and SIL, J & M who were also there.

Thursday - the fourth and final film of the week for us was Polar Express, which was a lovely film - we all really enjoyed it. Left us feeling all festive and fuzzy too. Infact so festive and fuzzy that we popped to the local cheapie factory shop where I picked up a few bits and bobs for Christmas presents. In the afternoon Monster and Teeny played with the geomags and the plastic animals, which are far and away their most played with toys, making me wonder why we have quite so many other piles of plastic really?

Friday  I spent pretty much the whole of Friday in a foul hormone related mood. Our neighbours’ car alarm started going off around lunchtime and didn’t stop all weekend so that was the start of it. Lucy, R and R came round for lunch and playdoh play but it was soon apparent that my children at least needed to get out and run around rather than stay indoors in close proximity to me so we took them out to the park for a while which diffused things rather.

Saturday - a laid back sort of day including a walk into the local town visiting the library where I will start working a day and a half a week in December and enjoying being out and about just the four of us in the Autumnal feeling air. I did a load of baking and packed up our stuff ready to get going in the morning. I read some stories to Teeny and we generally just enjoyed a lazy day.

Sunday Off to Barbara’s house where we joined Kirsty and co aswell to celebrate Ben’s fifth birthday. A really nice start to what was a lovely week, I got to see Kirsty’s house, the children all just ran around together being loud and lunatic and we had lots of laughs and lots of fun.