Monster & Teeny

There has been a lot of rounding up and forward planning happening round the blogring with regard to Home Education. I have been reading with interest as one of the things I love most about the HE wider community is the sharing of resources, ideas and successes that happens across blogs and email lists.

Last year Monster, Teeny and I had a chat about things we’d like to do in 2008. It led to a ‘Things to do, places to go, people to see’ type page on my other blog, which we achieved pretty much all of. It was fairly vague with things like ‘go horseriding’ ‘do more swimming’ ‘have lots of camping trips’ but also included some places we’d been meaning to get to and was helpful to have all in one place to refer to.

This year, both buoyed up on the success of that and in reaction to differing interests of Monster and Teeny, as well as a quickly filling calendar we’ve been a bit more planny about it. We’re not working to a timetable or schedule but in being a bit more organised about our time and where we spend our (fairly limited) financial resources hopefully we can manage to pack plenty in and follow a few more passions.

Monster and Teeny have previously shared most interests but are starting to diversify a little in their passions. It won’t always be possible to keep things seperate or indeed to meet every individual need or whim but as far as possible we should manage to have a go at most of their requests. I’m going to note some of the things we have been chatting about and thinking of so I can document both how we go about making things happen and what sparks interests, ignites passions and leads to learning around here.

Monster has requested to find out more about fossils, minerals, rocks, precious metals and archaeology generally. This has been sparked by a very interesting talk at a local museum about fluorescence, trips to places like Butser Ancient Farm, Paradise Park, a long-time interest in dinosaurs and chats about bronze, silver and gold medals during the Olympics!

We have raided the library (and our own bookshelves) for books on rocks and minerals which have been interesting but not fully met his need to touch and see real specimens. A google search for exhibits has turned up a few museums that may be worth a visit (Sedgewick, Lapworth and of course the Natural History Museum in London). When finances allow we will get an annual membership to Paradise Park again as that has plenty to see and explore too.

A mention from Petits Haricots led me to find out more about the Young Archaeologists Club and having made contact with the local branch Monster is very excited to be starting attending that from February. They meet monthly for really interesting sounding archaeology based activities and events. He will also join the national club too which has good membership extras.

Monster’s other passions include film and animation. I have got details about a local company that offer workshops to children. A group of older local HEors have had a very good session with them and there is enough local interest for a younger group to be arranged which I will try and coordinate later in the year. Hopefully it will have enough attendees to make it affordable per head. 

Both Monster and Teeny have joined Magic Lantern, a  really good monthly group which offer a film screening and a pre film discussion session. This is great for him learning more about film genres, styles, techniques and effects etc. And in getting a different perspective from different adults.

Another grand passion of Monster’s is art. In order to further facilitate this we have bought him various art materials including oil and watercolour paints with appropriate papers and canvasses, oil pastels and chalks, felt pens, crayons and pencils. Aswell as materials to use at home Monster also now has a really good quality pocket watercolour set and small postcard sized papers. Hopefully we can take some trips to places that will inspire him to do some out and about artwork too.

Recently Monster has taken a huge step in the way he approaches thinking. He has previously, like most children and infact many adults accepted what he has been told as facts and been black and white about what he does know and what he doesn’t know. Considering things he doesn’t know as stuff that he only needs to ask or investigate and then he’ll know that too. Lately though he has been wanting answers to the sorts of questions that there simply are no definite answers to - religious beliefs, how life began, what happens after we die and so on. Philosophy, I guess. This is both interesting - I love talking about these things myself and exploring ideas so it’s made for great conversations and new ideas for both of us, but also challenging to not either be able to answer a question or assist him in finding out the answers. 

This is going to require critical thinking, a new ability to evaluate evidence or gut instinct and either form his own firm opinion, or accept that constant background pondering and uncertainty. I have ordered some books on the subject which I hope will go some way to helping us explore this new skill and concept further and I’m hoping that some of our friends, with their wide variety of beliefs and ideas might be up for interesting conversations at some point where we all get to share our ideas and learn a bit more about how other people form opinions on these thorny issues. We often chat about moral and ethical dilemmas, how we decide what is right and wrong and areas such as crime and punishment, feminism, politics and wars which is how I guess this has arisen. Monster has always been fairly deep and this is probably a logical extension of his frequent pondering and internalising of stuff.

Teeny

Teeny’s grand passion, for as long as she has been able to express it, has been animals. We meet this, and indeed she meets it herself by watching endless TV documentaries and films about animals, soaking up animal facts, looking through books or listening to stories, drawing pictures of animals and a large number of animal subject DS games.

We managed to make one of her dreams come true for her birthday by arranging a Keeper for the Day experience at the local small zoo. She has already requested this for her birthday again this year . I have also been exploring other ways of making her wish to spend more time with real animals come true. We have a cat and chickens and don’t really want any more pets as they are incompatible with our lifestyle but I am looking into local animal charities for possibilities of volunteer placements and foster caring.

We visisted the British Wildlife Centre last year and they have a very good educational visit programme which I am going to explore organising a group trip to which should also offer more chances for Teeny to get close to and learn more about animals.

Teeny has also done plenty of pony riding last year which was one of her big requests. More is planned for this year and hopefully some big progress for her in more daring and exciting moves .

She has expressed a wish to ’see a real dolphin’ so I have been exploring places that this might be possible in the UK. We have holidays already planned in a couple of the locations so hopefully this wish will come true.

Teeny enjoys her Rainbows meetings each week and has a full year of that still ahead before she turns 7 at the end of this year and would go up to Brownies. She is pretty athletic and has always been very fast at running and good at climbing and jumping. Gymnastics doesn’t really appeal to her and I don’t think she would have the required discipline (or indeed the desire to develop it ) to do well in that anyway but I think she has a natural aptitude for athletics that I am keen to give her an outlet for and help her develop if she enjoys it. This is something I will look into for her this year.

Groups Both Monster and Teeny attend Badgers which is the St Johns Ambulance junior division for 5-10 year olds. They both get a lot out of it in terms of socialising with a group of mixed age children, attending events associated with it (such as carol concert, Remembrance Day parade). Monster has been attending for over 2 years now and has covered all sorts of new skills and learning including things like first aid. I really rate Badgers and certainly based on our own experience of local Guide and Scout association groups it is far superior to either.

They also both go to a monthly RSPB meeting - Wildlife Explorers held at the local RSPB nature reserve. This is a well run meeting with craft activities, nature exploring and guided walks round the reserve. We attend a monthly Home Ed meeting at the reserve too aswell as holding family membership of the RSPB which gives both children regular magazines through the post. Last year they both completed the Climate Action Awards and this year we are going to work through the Wildlife Action Awards.

Nature and outdoors is a bit of a theme with us and to get the most out of both simply enjoying being outdoors and maximising learning while we do so we have also joined the Woodland Trust Nature Detectives Club too.  I imagine there will be a level of crossover with all these but it’s a great way of all learning together and giving some focus to our regular seasonal walks. It is also of course supporting these charities with our membership which is another important lesson in itself.

I am aiming to organise one Home Ed event a month and open it out to local HEors. We don’t attend a HE group currently although we have dabbled with both attending and running them in the past and may well come back to doing so again in the future. I am on local lists for arranging meetups and events though. I keep abreast of local events at museums, theatres etc and wider area things such as free events in London.

I don’t really consider myself a Home Educator, more a facilitator for Monster and Teeny’s all round growth, development and education. I guess the ultimate goal is happy, healthy, fulfilled adults who are able to identify their wants and needs and find ways to make them happen for themselves. My role at this stage is to give them a safe and secure loving environment from which to take those steps towards independance, get to know them as individuals and help introduce and expose them to as many different ideas and experiences as possible.

Most of their passions and interests are sparked by tiny things, chance encounters, day trips to places, something in a book we’ve shared or a TV show we’ve watched. Our chief educational starting block is day to day life - breathing, eating, drinking, seeing friends, looking at the world around us and trying to answer all the questions that just naturally come up from gazing out of the window, walking through the woods or striving to understand why the toast falls butter side down when it slips off your plate.