It's been a while...

And this is why... On 5th December 2014 we welcomed this gorgeous little guy, Brogan Jonathan Dale Ray-Jones!  

He was so little, he even got to be baby Jesus in our church nativity!!

Time has flown by and he is 2 months now, and Addie will be 2 in a couple of days!! She has developed so much since October, I have had to add so many more activities to the classroom - pics to follow soon!

Today was our first day back into the classroom, and she loved it!!

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!