Tag: Unschooling

Home Education · Travel

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

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I’ve been a bit quiet here for a few days but rest assured that we are still here. A lot of our time and energy has been taken up acquiring our new bus that we are going to convert into our home. Our little puppy, Doughal, is blogging about it all over at TheLittlestHobo. We have two sleeps left until we pick the bus up and bring her home.

Other than the bus, we have been really busy with the run up to Christmas. We’ve attended Anna’s nativity play twice – she loves being on stage and her performance was hilarious. She lapped up every second of attention and generally enjoyed herself to the max. Elsa and Olaf have been busy making Christmas decorations and writing endless piles of Christmas cards. We took part in a Home Ed card exchange with nearly fifty other families, it has been an epic experience and the kids have thoroughly enjoyed receiving their huge pile of cards. Hopefully they’ll be enough wall space to hang them all!

The Man has only three working days left until his Christmas break, and I can’t wait. I love having him by my side, and we’ve got lots to do in the run up to Christmas Day. We’re still short of a few gifts for a couple of people, we’ve got tickets to see the Christmas Pantomime, there’s a local village to visit where all the houses decorate with lights and Christmas scenes for charity, and there is epic amounts of gift wrap to acquire and adorn the gifts with.

We decided not to have a tree this year due to the risk of mayhem that would be present due to the puppy and the cat. I can’t say that I’m not missing it, it seems odd not to have that shiny, twinkling symbol of festivity in the corner of the room. Maybe I’ll take the risk for a couple of days and put it up next week. I really do miss it. We helped my mum decorate her tree earlier today which really got us all in the right mood for the season. I’ve promised the kids that we’ll spend next Christmas in a place that gets snow!

Home Education

Some Of The Perks

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Not being tied to school all day means that we get to take advantage of places when they are quiet, and the kids get to experience things that they would otherwise miss out on.

Today, for example, we popped out for breakfast at 9am and they made the most of the empty softplay area at the restaurant. Buffet breakfast and free play? It doesn’t get much better than that for an eight year old and a six year old.

Tomorrow we are going to see a local nativity play in a nearby village. I can’t quite understand why they are putting it on during the day but they are, and we can attend. We’re very much looking forward to it as the kids are really feeling in the Christmas spirit. Did you know, there’s only two Mondays left until Santa comes?! We haven’t even started gift shopping yet!!

Another local attraction is the temporary ice rink that appears in town for the Christmas season. It is heaving on a Saturday and Sunday, but thanks to our flexibility we are able to skate while most kids are at school.

Of course there are plenty of other perks, but these seemed very appropriate given the time of year.

x

Home Education · Travel

Where Did November Go?

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We’ve had such a busy month, we’ve hardly noticed it passing by. Anna started school, and with that came the inevitable bugs and resulting illness. We have all battled through a nasty cold and a vomiting bug. That was the best part of two weeks gone, with not much to show for it. Anna was a trooper though, and never even suggested that she should stay home from school. I know myself, and I would have kept her home in a heartbeat if she’d asked.

On a positive note, we have also become regulars at the cinema (we’ve been three times this month!), and we’ve enjoyed some unseasonably good weather over the last few days. This means we have been able to stroll around the park, feed the ducks, and explore nature.

The plans for the bus are also coming along. We’ve picked out the carpet we want, and the oven/hob that will suit our needs. The kitchen will be bought, as opposed to custom made due to budget constraints, but we are more than happy with the options available to us. The savings for the bus purchase are on target, and we should be ready to purchase by the beginning of March at the latest. The Man has been designing the bunk beds because he will be the one responsible to making them. I’ve spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos and reading blogs about other families that live fulltime on buses. It’s good to see what mistakes they made at the beginning, that we will now hopefully not make because we are aware of them. I’ve even learnt how to get the coach out of mud, thanks to the Us In A Bus blog!

School-wise we have learnt a lot about autumn and the changing seasons, and we have been studying up on all the places we want to visit. The kids are getting more and more excited about the bus and the traveling life that comes with it.

Christmas is just around the corner and we haven’t even started buying gifts yet. December is going to be another busy month! The kids have given us lists longer than their arms, but with the loss of space we will be encountering, we are struggling to gleam suitable ideas from their lists. We want to be throwing away things, rather than acquiring more, but how do you do that without ruining Christmas?!

December will also bring (hopefully) my intensive driving course which will give me the right category on my licence to drive the bus. I can’t say I’m not a little nervous about this part of it, it’s been a long time since I took a driving test. If I don’t get it done in December, it will definitely be in January. I’ve found a local company that offer the intensive course over four days, with the test at the end. The price seems competitive against other companies and the reviews are positive. You can’t get much better than that.

 

Home Education · Travel

Coach Conversion Costs

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The only thing stopping us from hitting the road right now is money. We’ve spent a few days figuring out what we’ll need to achieve the conversion we want.

  • Driver training/test/licence – £2000
  • Purchase of a coach – £4000-6000
  • Solar panels and leisure batteries – £700
  • Kitchen appliances (gas, not new) – £250
  • Internal fixtures and fittings -£2000
  • Gas bottles and water tanks -£300
  • Misc – £500

We plan to do the conversion ourselves, so there will be no labour costs to pay.

The above list is also the order of purchase, as it seems to be the most logical way to us. It goes without saying that I will need my driving licence before I can buy the coach.

We also need to build an emergency fund of at least £1000, given that a new tyre alone will cost us about £500 should we need one. In an ideal world this fund will be as large as possible and not touched unless we absolutely need it.

Home Education · Travel

Another Crazy Idea, or Two

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This time it wasn’t from me! The Man has really jumped onboard with my travel idea – he rarely does excitement and enthusiasm, and at the moment he is experiencing both. I’m so glad that I took the plunge to suggest we up sticks and travel. He really wants to get back to basics and enjoy life for itself, rather than it passing by while we’re busy doing the mundane things that “need” to be done.

In line with this want, he has suggested that we go without hot running water in our coach conversion and perhaps even install a wood burner as our only form of heating. The Man wants to spend time getting back to nature, gathering firewood, and prepping meals as a family. I’m a little hesitant but I have to admit that it sounds like a nice lifestyle.

Rather uncharacteristically, The Man also came out with the fact that he would be happy to do away with the TV. I am over the moon about this, as I hate it, and I thought it would take months of persuasion from me for him to admit we wouldn’t actually need it. Not to mention the amount of electricity it would use!

 

Home Education

The Week Ahead

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Anna absolutely loved her taster day at school last week, and couldn’t wait to start attending full-time. She skipped in this morning as happy as could be, immediately finding her new friends and disappearing to share the details of their weekends. We officially have one child in school and two in home education.

Elsa and Olaf decided that they want to pretend to be at school this week. Neither of them have any desire to return to an actual school, but they want to pretend at home. We have drawn up a timetable of subjects they want to learn, and I have printed a Twinkl visual timetable and corresponding cards for them. I’m not sure how long their enthusiasm for structured learning will last, but I’m happy to play along.

To take all the stress out of actually planning what to teach the kids, I have opted to use Twinkl’s PlanIt section. For those of you that haven’t heard of this, it is a whole heap of resources provided by Twinkl. Each lesson is planned for you, all the corresponding worksheets are there already done for you, and the activities are planned and detailed. Each lesson even includes learning objectives and aims. I am amazed by how little I have to do – simply print and deliver the lesson, there are even corresponding PowerPoint presentations for most lessons. We have done Maths, English, and Geography this morning. We will be rounding off with French after lunch. To be honest, I’m rather enjoying this game myself!

Home Education

The Day That Never Ends

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Yesterday was that day. It was long, exhausting, and relentless. The kids were nothing short of vile. Even the puppy had it in for me.

It started off ok. We dropped The Man off at work, and I’d even remembered to put the puppy in his extra large crate, as we weren’t returning straight home. We set off on the five mile practice run to the school that Anna is trialling today. That went well, and the timings worked out perfectly.

And then it all went pear shaped.

Elsa became evil. There is no other word for it. The foul language that was emitted from her mouth throughout the day would even have made Roy Chubby Brown blush. Where does an eight year old learn that? Besides the language, her whole attitude stunk. Nothing was good enough, everything was boring, and it was all my fault. Doors were slammed (repeatedly) and feet were (literally) stomped. All bloody day.

Onto Olaf, who can be the sweetest, kindest, gentlest of souls. He has another side though. And guess which side reared its ugly head yesterday! He spent his day flying round the house playing the loudest games he could invent. He teased his sisters until they lashed out, and then shouted and screeched some more. He wound the puppy up, who then decided my arm made a good chew toy.

Anna did ok today, except for the constant nasally whines about her feral siblings. Oh, and the never ending demands for food (without ever making a decision about what she wanted to eat).

The highlights of the day included Olaf eating his way through The Man’s entire box of birthday chocolates, my brand new bottle of vanilla extract somehow evaporating without anybody knowing where it had gone, and the complete destruction of my sanity.

The absolute last straw was when the puppy got into the bathroom bin and kindly shredded three used sanitary towels all over the landing. You couldn’t make this shit up.

To add insult to injury, the underwire came out of my favourite bra.

Seriously, FML.

Travel

A Shrinking World

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hitler-donald-trumpThe presidential election results in the US certainly seem to be a cause for concern, particularly if you belong to a racial, religious, or in fact any type of group, that the new President Elect does not like. He has not been quiet about the fact he wants to block the roads from Mexico with a giant wall, and don’t even get me started on his “suggestion” to ban Muslims from the US. One has to wonder if the United States of America is going to become a complete no-go zone for anybody that does not tow the Trump line. I am in no way suggesting that Trump is going to exterminate millions of people, but you have got to agree that the similarities at this stage are very frightening.

There is also no ignoring the fact that the UK is in the complicated throngs of Brexit. How the UK’s borders will end up is anybody’s guess at this point in time. Will the European loving UK citizens sudden find they no longer have free access to the EU? I know, personally, that I count myself as a European and a member of the EU. It is not a label I would have willingly given up. It’s amazing how many Brits don’t realise that we are not actually part of the Schengen area, and so we have very little protection when it comes to retaining our current access to the EU. It is very possible that we may soon find ourselves with the same 90 day limit as the rest of the world.

As a family we are very open to the free movement of people. You can not choose the country you are born in, or the colour of your skin. We are all citizens of the world, so why should we be restricted from exploring that world?

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Home Education

Giving Children Autonomy

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I try to let my children live their lives as autonomously as possible. Sometimes we have to step in for their health or safety but generally they choose their own way forward.

What happens when they choose something you don’t want?

Anna is adamant that she wants to go to school, as I mentioned in a previous post. She does not want to accept substitutes. She wants school.

It goes against everything I believe to tell her no. But, there’s always a but, there is no quicker way for a child to lose their autonomy than to be enrolled at school. The dilemma here is huge!

We are going along with what she wants. We have to let her go to school. If it turns out to be not what she expected, then she’s free to come back to home education. There is no final decision, nothing is forever.

She has chosen a school and is going along for a taster day on Friday. If she wants to, she’ll then start full time on Monday morning. She is so excited by it all, she wearing the school uniform today just for the hell of it.

I’ll let you know how it all pans out!

Home Education · Travel

Creating An Income

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By George, I think I’ve done it!

The Man is a very talented amateur photographer, he has taken some beautiful pictures. He enjoys concentrating on close ups of nature and super close ups of architecture. His passion and focus is on capturing texture and the beauty hidden within it.

So, I am going to start to market his photographs. That is my big plan. I have found a website that deals with all the ordering, printing, and delivery. This is an added bonus as it means that having an unreliable internet connection will not be a problem for processing sales.

Obviously I haven’t spoke to The Man about this yet. Surely you’ve figured out my style by now?! I will speak to him over dinner tonight, after all, he does own the copyright. I’m positive he won’t say no. Shh, don’t tell him that I’ve already got two buyers lined up.

Now all I have to do is think of more ways to make money. We definitely don’t want all our eggs in one basket!!