The purpose of my blog

I have been thinking recently what the value of me blogging is, to others. There are so many amazing blogs out there that are written for other people. By that I mean, for example in Montessori and other methods of education/homeschooling there are excellent bloggers who blog to help others to do what they are doing. They publish printables, how to videos, a post on a new topic or subject they teach every day. 

This blog is different at the moment I think. I am writing my experiences, and I suppose I am writing them for an audience. I can see from the stats that a few people have my blog on a feedly list, so when I publish a new post, they get notified. Great! I am writing, not with any plan or schedule (which is what a 'good' blogger would possibly do maybe) but with things that come into my head on a particular day, so it is a bit random. It is, however, a little spotlight into our lives as home educators, some of our struggles, some of our triumphs, some of how we are doing things and what it looks like in practice. In the future, there may be printables, but to be honest there are so many amazing people out there offering printables, I use them rather than making my own - it takes less time! And time is something I don't seem to be able to have much of at all (I have no idea how they have more time than I do in the day!)... 

Anyway, thanks for following, thanks for reading.. I will continue to do what I am doing when I can. March has been a good month for blogging! 59 posts ever done on this blog, and 21 of them in March so far! I am enjoying it and long may it continue. 

A tiny ray of hope!

Those of you who have been following my blog (and my facebook ramblings!) will know that having a 15-month old around while I am trying to present to Addie has been quite a challenge! Bear wants to be involved in everything, touch everything, do everything that Addie is doing. She can be really in to doing something (rarely on her own, but there are moments of individual work), and he will just come in like a tornado and leave devastation in his wake... !

Some times, Daddy will take Bear to work with him, so we can really get in to some work, but he can't do that every day, and the struggles I have been having have really made me question whether or not I can do this home education thing...

However, today there was a tiny ray of hope.

I sat down with Addie to present Open Ended Distance Matching with the Knobbed Cylinders, which she absolutely loved, and along comes Bear... And he absolutely loved it too! Neither of them did the activity 100% as it is written in the album, but there was so much sensorial learning going on! Actually, Bear really surprised me once again with these. Although it is really a work for a 3-year old, he is really good at matching the cylinders to their holes (except the one where it is only the height of the cylinders that changes). He puts them back with no hesitation and very little error. And actually, it was not a disruption this time, it was great to see them working together. OK, so Bear did not get the cylinder that was requested, he went and got another one (and placed it, first time in the correct hole regardless of which cylinder it was), but Addie was really good at selecting the correct cylinders too, and we went through all of the cylinders, doing both the Open-Ended and Closed-Ended presentations because they loved this game! I was pleasantly surprised and the tiniest ray of hope started to come through... I managed to capture some of this on camera, but I have realised as I added the photos that I actually don't have any of the main work they did, just that difficult 4th block and also the last block we did when we started to lose interest...!

Bear is really good at realising when he has made a mistake - he recognised that the cylinder he did put in was in the wrong hole, and corrected himself - something I have only noticed from looking at these pictures as I write this post!

Addie did some more work on her lifecycles today... Here she is getting her Insect Lore Life Cycle Stages Frog to kiss 'his picture' on the Tadpole to Frog (Lifecycles) book (I wasn't going to correct her that the frog is a lady frog!)... 

And then Bear and I did some more work together - Rolling a Work Mat and putting it away! So cute! (and after that we got it out again and looked at the Children Around the World pictures together!)

Today was a good day. Tomorrow will be different. Actually we are going to watch the solar eclipse, hopefully at the beach! Onwards and upwards with a tiny ray of hope...

Build it, and it will come

I couldn't really think of a great title for this post, but I think this sums up a little of what I wanted to get across.

One of the main downfalls, in my opinion, of Montessori home education or homeschooling is the lack of other children in the learning community. This is a big thing in Montessori, where children learn in multi-age communities, and often learn skills from observing or being taught by their classmates. At home, this is a lot less possible, and while I have toyed with the idea of opening a co-op in my home (but found that it would probably be too overwhelming as I would possibly become the 'teacher' rather than just another co-op parent) this lack of community has been something that I have been quite sad about at times.

For Addie, in particular, I have felt this could be an issue. As the oldest, she has no older children to observe and learn from. And she is a great observer. One thing that struck me today was that she will probably have to learn from me and what I do. So perhaps I need to be doing a lot more work with the materials myself, as my own work, when she is working. Even the much later stuff, to entice her and show her what the future holds.

Bear, on the other hand, I am not so concerned about... Today, he started doing this, copying his sister!

So, perhaps all is not lost, but the relationship between siblings is going to be a very important one, and one we need to make sure we build on. I know some siblings that never get on and are never close. Luckily, Addie is a natural teacher to Bear, and she loves helping him (far too much quite often!)... so even with presentations I might be tempted to adapt or even skip, I need to make sure I don't and that I do things properly, so that if she has the opportunity to teach, she can do it in the 'right' way. 

So, as the adults, and the main adults affecting our children's education, we must build a solid Montessori environment, in order to best facilitate this as a family of learners, each teaching each other. This reminded me of one of our scriptures: "Organise yourselves; prepare every needful thing, and establish a house, even a house of prayer, ...a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God." 

Build it, and it will come...

Long term homeschool plans

This morning, for some reason, I felt that I had to consider our long-term home education plans. I have no idea why, and obviously things may change, life and our experiences may change the plans, as they so often do. So far, my ideas have not changed in the last couple of years, but what it looks like in reality at the moment is not what I expected.

Here is what I want to do in our home education journey.

Age 0-2
Lots of experiences, movement, language rich environment, starting to do some practical life exercises.

Age 2-2.5
Lots more practical life activities, language, experiences of the world.

Age 2.5-6
Montessori primary programme, using the Keys of the World albums, spending 1000 hours a year outside (influenced by Charlotte Mason). A major learning phase based on developing practical life skills, handwork skills, developing the senses, having a rich language programme, based on phonetics and within which by the age of 4, approximately, they should be 'writing' using the moveable alphabet or writing on paper, mathematics developing to being able to, by the age of 6, undertake basic mathematical operations. Through language and sensorial learning, comes a good foundation in the natural sciences, botany, zoology, physical sciences, geography, arts, music and a sense of history.

Age 6-12
Montessori elementary programme, using a combination of the Keys of the Universe albums and other Montessori elementary albums. This will include a study of the Great Lessons, which open up learning across all subjects - language arts, including modern foreign languages, mathematics, sciences - biology, botany, zoology, physical science, matter, astronomy, ecology, chemistry, geography, history, the arts, health sciences, peace and citizenship, design and technology. A focus on creativity, action and service, learning the arts, serving the community, being active and participating in sports. The aim, through the Montessori approach to develop learners who are enquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, risk-takers, balanced and reflective.

During this stage, and in the first part of the next stage, I am planning for us to travel the world. At the moment, I do not think that is possible in one chunk, so possibly over 3 years, 3 months at a time.

Age 12-16
Combining the approach of the Montessori adolescent programme, entrepreneurship and business, and the structure of the International Baccalaureate's Middle Years Programme - learning in the 8 areas of Language and Literature, Language Acquisition, Individuals and Societies (geography, history, politics, social sciences, economics, civics, business studies, psychology, sociology, anthropology), Sciences (environmental sciences, life sciences, physical sciences, sport sciences, health sciences, earth sciences), Mathematics, Arts (visual arts, media, dance, drama, music), Physical and Health Education, Design (digital and product design, coding, etc). Within these areas, there is a large opportunity for personal choice and autonomous learning. In addition, there will be goals in creativity, action and service, and a personal project to be undertaken each year (similar to the personal project undertaken at the end of the MYP5). It is my intention to encourage my children to pursue a GCSE or iGCSE or whatever the qualification is a the time in each of the 8 areas as a minimum. We will also start looking at the theory of knowledge which is part of the IB Diploma Programme.

Age 16-18
We will continue to follow a Montessori approach to learning, with academics falling within the IB Diploma Programme structure of 6 subjects - Language and Literature, Language Acquisition, Individuals and Societies, Sciences, Mathematics and the Arts, creativity, action and service and continuing the study of the theory of knowledge. Either this or something more career-related.

Creativity, Action and Service
This is another influence from the International Baccalaureate, and is quite loose in its structure. Creativity is defined as "arts and any other experiences that involve creative thinking", Action is defined as "physical exertion contributing to a healthy lifestyle, complementing academic work" and Service is defined as "an unpaid, voluntary exchange that has a learning benefit for the student". The CAS programme is part of the Diploma, but is something I would like to put aims on from the age of 6, to an extent. In the Diploma programme, it used to be a requirement that students had to complete a minimum of 50 hours of each across the programme (150 hours minimum), and many students completed hundreds of hours over the two years. I have no idea if I will put hourly requirements on the children, but I think it is important for a balanced education to cover these.

Obviously, all of my plans will probably change, and we will be child-led, so some areas may blur, some may be omitted or added to. I do want to have a form of structure to our learning, because I feel this is what will work best, but within a Montessori approach, so they have to have a well-rounded education, and there will be minimum requirements, but there will be a lot of room for maneouvre for personal study and following individual pursuits.

I felt that I had to do this, for whatever reason I felt prompted to. I know it might seem a little too 'planned out', but hey, I am a planner! I actually think that, given the Montessori elementary curriculum is, in places, akin to GCSE level, we may have to look at the 12+ curriculum when we get there!

I also know that many people follow a less structured approach, following the interests of the child. Although I seem to have everything planned out until 2032 (!), I am definitely not saying that it is set in stone. I would like to have what I feel is structure. We will not be sat at desks for hours every day, but I will follow the approach to learning that is established in the Montessori elementary years.

Watch this video for an idea of how that happens:

Elementary Meetings and Conferences from Montessori Guide on Vimeo.

Pink Tower - not quite there yet!

Addie loves the Pink Tower, and we have done the basic presentation and the aligned one. When I am presenting, she is very good at telling me which cube goes next. When she practises however...

HT2: March and April - What will it look like?

I have to plan... I have to plan otherwise I feel overwhelmed and unable to function. No idea why, I am just a very big planner. So, when it comes to home educating using Montessori it is nothing different.

I have mentioned before that we are using the Keys of the World albums, and on Montessori Nuggets there is a basic outline/suggestion broken down into 6-month intervals as to what presentations could be given within those 6 months. As always, you need to follow the child, so the intervals is just a suggestion, but I have found it very useful to me trying to plan everything. (Note: If you purchase the albums and online support, you get a more comprehensive list of all the exercises for each interval) (Another note: I used to love receiving the regular Montessori Nuggets to my inbox every week. I loved the insights contained within it, they really are little Montessori Nuggets of treasure... and I found out towards the end of last year that Jessica from the Keys (of the World & Universe) albums is the author of the nuggets too!).

I have planned the first half of 2015 based on Intervals 1 & 2. My reason for doing this is that Interval 1 should really have started when Addie was 2.5 years old, and Interval 2 when she is 3. She turned 3 in early February, plus quite a lot of the Interval 1 & 2 Practical Life work she has already done, as well as some of the Sensorial work, so I decided to combine the two intervals for Jan-June this year.

I have broken the 6 months into 3 chunks, so it is easier for planning and organising our work load, and adjusting our plans as need be is a lot easier. Each 'chunk' I have called a 'term' which is 2 months long, again, this is just so much easier than what I was doing before (7 weeks learning, one week off, or into another term of 7 weeks learning etc...) and I can actually remember when each term starts and ends, and it is just more logical to me.

HT2 is the name for our second term of the year (HT = Homeschool Term - I called it that once and it stuck) and is for March and April. What will this term hold for us? Well, for Bear who is nearly 15-months, it is more movement, starting to do a little bit of practical life work, nothing too tricky, and getting out in nature, learning language, etc.






With Addie, it is getting more exciting I think. We are moving into more Sensorial and Language work and I just know she is going to love it! What I have done is taken the number of new presentations listed in Interval 2 (bearing in mind we did some Interval 2 work last term), and worked out from that how many Practical Life, Language and Sensorial presentations we need to do each week. It works out as 1 or 2 new presentations a day over the whole week, covering things such as:

• poems
• living and non-living story and other biological classification
• lifecycles
• how to care for plants
• how to wash hands
• how to observe
• dressing frame work
• carrying on with the knobbed cylinders and pink tower
• introducing the brown stair and red rods
• starting the geometric cabinet work
• land, water and the continents work
• touch boards, tablets and fabrics
• baric tablets
• tasting bottles 
• and the binomial cube

I am excited for her, because I love all this work! I love the sensorial and language materials in this Interval particularly, and love how they are all laying the foundations for work a lot later on!

We are also going to be continuing our look at March and April in nature around the world with our books, getting outside lots to work on our 1000 Hours challenge, and of course, the sound games with Alphatales and as per the album, and being creative wherever we can...

Welcome to HT2...

Our most productive day yet!

In our new classroom, we spent 2.5 hours this morning (just under our planned goal of 3 hours a day). Wow! So much work was done, and a large variety of things, more than with our old way of doing things.

A cool extension I made loosely based on the geometric cards that go with the geometric cabinet!

Looking out the window for the horses, Addie says "Where neigh gone?"

Our new classroom!

Yes, we haven't been home educating for long... Actually, I broke my toe and a part of my foot, so had to rest up, and basically all home edding stopped. It had pretty much already ground to a halt anyway, because I was finding it exhausting to run around after Addie with all the different parts of the curriculum in different rooms. Initially it seemed like a great idea, but after a while I started to not like it, and when Daddy was cooking, Addie always wrecked the classroom area of the kitchen. Not a good start, and not a good way to instill order! So, we took some drastic steps!

We have converted our small office into a single bedroom for when Nanny or Jay comes to stay. We have converted our dedicated classroom downstairs into a family room (well, both these rooms are works in progress). The major thing we have done is turned our big double guestroom into the classroom upstairs! I love it! It means we can be up there without distractions, and also without distracting Daddy from working, and also, we can make a slight furniture move and accommodate a blow-up double bed for guests (or we might get a sofa bed for the family room, who knows!)

So, here is our new classroom - I am starting again basically, and so some shelves don't have stuff on them, but they will be coming soon! This room is also so lovely because it gets a huge amount of light, even on a dull and dreary day, and has good lighting for when we need a bit extra. I also have a storage cupboard.

This is the view from the door of our lovely huge window and the field opposite where there are normally horses! The tour will start from the right hand side!

This is where I am currently storing the map cabinet (turned around so little fingers cannot get to the puzzle pieces yet), the continent boxes, a desk for an older child (nowhere else to put it!) and on it I will have a CD player and musical stuff. You can also see our calendar which will be kept there for the time being!

This is the reading corner where Addie can choose a comfy seat or a chair to sit on. She loves it here.

This is where I will put all things cultural. There is also a floor mirror, mainly for the new baby, but Addie really loves looking at her floor work in the mirror too!

This is the Practical Life area for non-wet stuff. Again, this is still being built up, and on the top I will have reading books etc when Addie is older. She also has a little table and chair against the wall (I will put some calming images on this wall). This is currently doubling up as the snack table until I can think of a better place for it! The 'wet' practical life activities will stay downstairs.

This is what we have in the corner behind the door! We have from right to left what will be language shelves, maths and sensorial (which will become more maths shelves in the 'elementary' (primary in UK) years if we stay here that long!). I have all my non-fiction books categorised on the top shelves, the next 2 shelves down are currently for storage of materials, with the bottom 3 being used for actual work. Eventually, it is the plan that all shelves will be used for work. On top of these shelves I have my albums and other materials stored. You can also see at the top right of this picture a glimpse of the other small window I have in the room. It is long, but not very high, but great for storing a few additional plus-size books and also my supplies.

 

Downstairs we have our dining room which will be for cooking, art, messy botany stuff like planting things and most wet practical life activities. As you can see there is a great blank board for our Autumn display I am making, and there are a couple of things Jay has made for his learning (based around the IB's learner profile/characteristics of learners). This is also the room I teach him in.

We love it. Hope you do too...

Homeschool early days...

We started school 'officially' on Monday. I have to say it is proving to be much more tiring than I expected, but then my pregnancy this week has started taking more of a toll anyway. Up more times in the night, and also started having Braxton Hicks contractions, so it isn't too ideal for starting homeschooling!

Anyway, Monday was a little different too, as my nephew JJ had a teacher training day, so he joined us for school at the last minute which I was not prepared for! He got on with the workplan we had set out for his homework while I tried to present some things to Addie.

                        

 



After a couple of days of homeschooling, I feel very overwhelmed actually, and very inadequate as a home teacher. I am a little out of depth with working with a toddler, to be honest. Not as a Mum, of course, but as a teacher. I am going to be studying a 0-3 course soon, so hopefully that will help me. For now, what I have realised after observing Addie, is that there are quite a few things she is reluctant to do, so at the moment it is all about giving her new experiences in preparation for homeschooling, so right now she is playing with soapy water and getting wet! She is wiping the floor though to dry it when she spills some, so that is a good thing in itself! 

Sensitive periods
Between the age of 0-6, Montessori discovered that the child went through sensitive periods when they are more psychologically predispositioned to learn certain skills. From birth these are movement, language and a sense of order. All of these are characteristics that Addie is displaying, including putting back the towel in its right place after drying the floor! I will be writing a lot more about these in the coming weeks, but it is good to see these characteristics emerging in my own child.

In my element: The First Great Lesson

I am now part time schooling my 9-year old nephew, who I will call JJ. He attends state school Monday to Friday, but he is coming to me for 'extra' lessons on a Thursday after school and Saturday mornings to help him get where his teachers feel he should be. He is already above the average, but he has potential and should be further ahead.

I have been thinking what I would do to get him to where he should be in Maths and English without him feeling bored or overwhelmed with work, so I have decided to take the approach I know best - the Montessori way! I was just going to get him to do worksheets etc because that is what he is used to, but what does that teach him? Why would he want to learn if all he does is do the same thing over and over again, which gives him no fun or joy in learning. Isn't he much more likely to learn if he is doing something different?

So, I have told my sister I have a long term plan, and that it might not be completely obvious what direction I am taking with this. 

JJ would be in upper elementary in a Montessori school. However, I am having to adapt what I am doing to take into account that he has not had the first 3 years of Montessori elementary (primary in the UK), where a lot of groundwork is laid. He cannot, for example, do independent research to the level that is needed, and would struggle to do self-directed work. I am therefore using an approach which gives him choices, but within limits, and I will see how that goes.

Today I taught him the first Great Lesson - the Coming of the Earth. This introduces one version of how the world came to be - the Big Bang theory. There are several experiments that are done within it, and the concepts of atoms, different states of matter, land, air and water, volcanoes, the planets and the weather are introduced in this story. JJ picked up most on atoms and volcanoes, and didn't even pick up on the weather link, which is fine, because these lessons can be taught over when enthusiasm for learning wanes, and then they can pick up on the new ideas. What I love about this lesson is that it is introduced as the scientific theory, and follow up work is on creation myths, and can include the Biblical account of the creation also. 

JJ loved the experiments and is very keen to find out more about atoms. The next great lesson (the Coming of Life) will be taught next week, and he was hoping I would cover it today too, but no, he has to wait (the anticipation is a great way to build enthusiasm!).

Because I do not have JJ all week (although I would love to homeschool him!) I have set him some additional work to do. I have set it around three different areas - Personal, Research and Personal Finance. I am hoping that by approaching English and Maths from a different perspective, he won't feel like he is doing Maths or English, but doing something that is more fun. I took the idea of how to do this from a Montessori teacher who uses this method with students who have trouble deciding what work they will do, and I think it will work well, but we shall see. 

What I have given JJ is a table of choices of things he can do to earn different points, either 1, 2 or 3 points. By next Saturday he has to have done enough activities to have earned 12 points or more, and he has to do at least one activity from each of the areas. The activities for 1 point are simple, the ones for 3 points are more in-depth and the 2-pointers are somewhere in the middle. Each is designed to test and see how well he can do doing different things he needs to achieve, such as reading different types of text, summarising, writing a factsheet/bullet points, researching and understanding, describing characters and plots of fiction (note that 'describing' covers the grammar he is meant to know), making up his own writing and using different styles and lengths of sentences etc. This week his tasks revolve around the following areas:

Personal - goals and describing what it means to be a good friend

Research - reading his fiction book and describing characters/plot; reading non-fiction books (volcanoes or the solar system/a planet) and interpreting, understanding or summarising the facts and applying them; reading creation myths and making his own (with some illustrations included)

Personal finance - I want to make maths personal, and money is the way to go, so this revolves around his pocket money, and also budgeting 'Imagine you have £200 to redesign your bedroom - what would you have in there?'... I want to see how he applies maths, so I am hoping this will go well, although he already wants a big TV for his room (I think that blows the budget already!)

  

This is what the task list looks like, and each week I will give him a new one. He currently wants to do all the activities for 3 points, so we shall see how much he does. 

We also discussed what we need for learning to work, and we had a great discussion on what was important, which we will add to. This will become our ethos of his time with me on these days, and as he wants to learn more about atoms, then Martin will cover that one on Thursday with him.

I am in my 'element' (puns intended) because I love teaching 6-12 Montessori and now I get to! Woohoo! Keep reading for more Montessori adventures!

Paint and pasta!

Addie does not seem to want to wait to start school... so why should school wait for her? We aren't quite ready to start to be honest, the house needs sorting out which is this weekend's goal. But one thing is sure is that my little girl is bored of her toys and although she loves her books, she has been very demanding and tearful recently. 

She is breaking her last 2 teeth, so that might be contributing, and last night we went out for our anniversary and my sister babysat. Just after midnight she came in to me with her blanket, and wouldn't go back to sleep for ages, she just cried. For about an hour and a half! But I think she definitely is ready to start 'Tot School', so today we did a couple of things - some art and some practical life.

Art
I am aiming to introduce Addie to the primary colours week by week, but this work is not ready, so I decided that today she could paint with the colour red only. She has previously seemed a bit reluctant to get her hands dirty, literally, so I tried her with finger painting and hand prints, which she did do, but asked for her hands to be wiped and then used the brush. Afterwards, we looked at a red flower she picked yesterday too, so a gentle introduction to the colour red and art activities.

Practical LifeSo the other activity we did is Transferring with a Spoon, which Addie has done before, but this time we did it at the table, and she really enjoyed doing this. She started to transfer the pasta well from one bowl to the other, and then started using her hands. Any that fell on the floor she picked up, and she also poured the pasta out of the bowl into the large, deep tray the bowls are in. A lot of touching and exploring the pasta, which she calls 'patia'. She also experimented by putting the other bowl on the chair and started transferring with her left hand. She did this activity for about 40 minutes which was amazing and when she had finished, she put the tray back on the table and put the table away (it's normally kept in the corner of the room and was meant to be the nature table, but it is the only one we have that is exactly the right height for practical life work!).