Monday 14 February 2011

our yearly visit

Well, our home ed co-ordinate has just left the house!

its strange , i will admit i am a person who tends to get a bit stressed, butterflies in my tummy and jibbering wreckness, at the hint of any form of meeting or appointment.But with our home ed meetings for some unknown reason I'm OK!!!!

I know many people are not known to the LEA, and i respect that decision.At the time i decided to home-ed i thought that a letter to the LEA was compulsory,of course 5yrs on i know otherwise but am still happy for her to make her yearly home visit.
We are very lucky to have a lovely lady, she actually home ed her own children and is most helpful.And the kids enjoy her visit too,always shy and quiet at first then they find there feet and are happy to chat away with her about what they have enjoyed doing, anything they don't enjoy doing and what they plan on doing soon.

so, today our visitor was bombarded with the sight and smell of the kids mornings worth of baking.
Valentines shortbread biscuits in 4 different variations, cupcakes and a very yummy scrummy looking chocolate cake.she looked in delight through lap books about,Hannuka, thanksgiving, Christmas,china and the human body,flicked through the children folders and took note of the age range of workbooks they were using.
Jasmine proudly showed off all the photos we had taken in the past 4 or 5 months with reference to our home ed activities.

She told me she had never met anyone else who made such good use of the festivals of the year, which i was surprised about, surely every child needs to know the meaning of the days that they and others her and around the world are celebrating ?

she was impressed with the girls creative abilities, especially their ability to think for themselves about what they want to make and create. She was surprised at there levels of reading. Summer 7 is reading Jacqueline wilson books and jasmine 10, is reading books from the adult section of the library.
no great surprise when you think about how often they are sat at their own free will with their nose in a book, and not a book that they have been told to read but one they have chosen to read...lol.

Gypsie has been a concern as she really doesn't like any kind of sit down learning.but i was fortunately able to talk of her improvement over the past year.when asked if id found techniques in coping with her problems my answer was simply that we only do as much as Gypsie wants to do,( in the past i will admitt ,iv tried many things often leading to a very stressed mummy and a very unhappy child) if that's 20 minutes of reading and a whole morning of colouring in then so be it! my answer was met with nods and smiles!



Before she left the girls told them about the fund raising they had done for children in need and the PDSA (once again all there own idea, from deciding causes to deciding how they would raise funds)
And they chatted excitedly about plans for the coming months including getting our chickens, planting potatoes and raising butterflies.

On a not so nice note, when jasmine was asked about local children, she said that she occasionally gets some nasty comments (which jas had told me about as soon as it happened)..the usually -u don't go to school, ur thick...e.c.t ....i was happily surprised by our visitors reply...she told Jas exactly the same thing as i did " they are just jealous!"


All in all another successful meeting.

i don't need someone to tell me I'm educating my children properly, far from it.I know that i am doing the best i can.but i do enjoy seeing them so happy to talk and share the past year with our visitor.They make me feel very proud indeed.

2 comments:

  1. Made me smile reading that, you are doing a fabulous job lovely mama, and your children are the proof of it :))

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  2. Your doing great - glad the visit went well x

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