Change (and also waiting with no change)

Home education is a patchwork of educational experiences, throughout which the home base remains the constant. Other things change, opportunities come and other experiments cease to work. This time last year the boys were going horse riding every fortnight, but the stables were too far away to continue that. Today our group sessions in the centre have ceased, at least for now. Not all the children were benefiting and it was becoming tiring for the adults, not least for me with all my “are we ever moving” hassles.
We finished today by looking at the life story of Abu ad-Darda (ra), practising using grid references on maps and drawing maps on a grid, and writing conversation poems. When this was done the boys wrote stories freely until the end of the session.
Also today they saw an old friend who has been abroad for a while. Ia went to nursery and brought home another junk model. This afternoon they are playing something complicated that involves having a lot of toys all over the floor and table.
What else? The boys are still reading loads. We picked up more library books on Tuesday. Maths has been resumed and Ia has been doing more cut out crafts. They’ve also been watching Springwatch, which does at least teach them something with no effort from me! I’m pleased they are interested anyway, alhamdulillah.

Trying to give up waiting

09/06/07
After a very stressful week we’ve had a lovely day out at the invitation of a friend, maashAllah. She invited us to come with her to a special reopening day at her local library. I have never seen such rowdy chaos in a library. The story teller could barely make himself heard. The boys took part in a general knowledge quiz, and everyone got a balloon.
After that we had something to eat in the bakery and walked to a park, then we walked all the way back to the forest and had a wander round and an ice-cream. (It is a suburban forest, lots of deforested grassy spaces with wooded pockets.) We all enjoyed it thoroughly, may Allah reward the sister as I certainly needed the break and time to feel normal. I think it is better to just assume we are not moving anywhere and plan for staying.
The home ed timetable has taken a knock from all the disruption and stress. They’ve had a week off maths, but the group day subjects continued. The boys have been reading loads. Ia has been doing more writing, inspired by a trip to Tescos with the nursery and the shopping list she prepared for it. She also enjoyed another session with Teacher S, who showed her how to draw round her hand and decorate it as if it was being decorated with henna.
A report out this week described how children these days are not allowed out to play freely as they were in the past. The report suggested that children are now being deprived of the chance to form strong friendships and socialise with their peers. Presumably the children studied for the report were school going. So school was obviously not seen as a place for forming strong childhood friendships then. So that whole socialisation argument……? Means what? They’ve reported themselves full circle on this one.

10/06/07After my driving lesson I dropped myself off at a park and met up with the rest of the family. The boys enjoyed a football training session organised by a friend and coached by another friend’s husband. H and I played with the girls in the park and watched the boys. The weather was just right, maashAllah. There was hardly anyone else in the park – really relaxing, and even the driving is improving now, alhamdulillah

Holding Our Breaths

This is the opposite of how I feel as we await exchange. InshAllah that house is written for us.

Meanwhile Ia has been doing some writing, copied from a story book. The first couple of words say "five dinosaur". She wanted to write a book because

J has been writing one! This is an example from the 22 pages written so far. It is a cricket story. He wants to get it published.