Bits and bobs

Surviving a busy week, imposing our ethics on our children, two festivals to learn about this week, a chapter book series, a family card game for Christmas, and a good spelling resource

Situations Vacant

A reader from SW London got in touch. Her family is making the transition to home education, and she is looking for a teacher/tutor or two to come to the family home several mornings a week to teach her daughter aged 11. Possibly a teacher who has recently left the school system. 

They probably want one generalist who can teach a few subjects, plus a specialist or two for some specifics. If you can help, or know someone who might be able to, please get in touch (just reply to this email or leave a comment and I’ll contact you).

And if there are any brilliant home education groups in SW London that you think they should know about, please share!

An ‘essentials only’ week

We have had a tricky time recently (not disastrous, just tricky). I’ve had to spend a lot of time on the phone, and we’ve had a much busier diary than usual, resulting in the children being pretty tired. And because I’ve needed to listen out for phone calls, I’ve had to have my phone on loud all the time, which is horribly disruptive.

When I planned last week, I had to think carefully about what I was going to aim for, what was reasonable, and what was achievable. I didn’t really want to just give up and take the week off, because the children didn’t need a total break. They love their afternoons of playtime, but I often find that an entire day of play leaves them grumpy and bored. As with everything, they need a balance.

So at the top of my weekly plan I wrote ESSENTIALS ONLY THIS WEEK. There was lots of revision of things we’ve covered recently—spellings, maths facts, further reading on history subjects we’ve already covered, language revision instead of introducing new vocab or grammar. Each morning I picked one thing that I wanted them to get through that day.

The beauty of low expectations is that you can exceed them. Instead of spending the week feeling that we were constantly failing to keep up, the children were able to feel confident, pleased with their progress, like they were running a strong race, not falling behind. I felt good too, and the parent feeling good is, I have learnt, a pretty essential part of home education going smoothly. And the revision was really useful. I will definitely be incorporating ‘essentials only’ weeks into the usual schedule more frequently.

A Roman mystery series

For several weeks the children have both been racing through Caroline Lawrence’s Roman Mysteries series. Caroline describes the books as Nancy Drew set in Ancient Rome. She’s a classical scholar who studied at Berkeley and Cambridge, and has won the Classics Association Prize for ‘a significant contribution to the public understanding of Classics’, so the books are great history reading as well as compelling mystery stories. The books are recommended for 7+, but do be aware that they are pretty grisly—one of the characters has had his tongue cut out, and there are vivid depictions of slave markets. Of course for many children this is an integral part of what makes the books so good, but for sensitive readers it might be a bit much. I’ll be adding the series to my Ancient World Reading List post:

Another spelling resource

I recently came across Schonell’s Essential Spelling List, and as it’s available for a few pounds secondhand I decided to have a look. It’s a very simple concept: lists of words, starting with the easiest (man, can, ran), working up to courageous, ceremony, appreciation. The words are arranged in small groups designed to be learnt in a day (three words in the first list, five in the final one), and when a child has worked through the book they’ll be able to spell most of the words they want to write and 80-90% of the words found in the majority of books.

It’s very traditional, and not remotely exciting. But it’s also blissfully comprehensive and steadily graded. It doesn’t teach spelling rules, but does group similar words together (half, calf/heavy, heavier/stopped, dropped etc). It’s designed for children aged 7-12 but of course you can just start at whatever age and level is right for your child. It’s cheaply available online, and I think it’s a valuable addition to the home educator’s collection.

How far should your ethics be your children’s ethics?

For my son’s recent birthday he asked to go to the London Aquarium. My husband and I are strongly opposed to zoos and aquariums (or aquaria, as Caroline Lawrence might say), so this posed something of a quandary.

On the one hand, as parents we are always teaching our children stuff based on what we believe is right. We teach them the importance of sharing and saying please and thank you, of being kind to others and not making personal comments. But all these things are pretty universally accepted as Good Things. Not everyone believes that keeping animals in captivity is wrong, and some people are in favour of it for reasons of conservation and education.

I didn’t really want to give £75 of my money to the London Aquarium (for me and two children! $$$!). But I also felt that the children have to come to their own conclusions on this question, and that my husband and I arrived at our own having had the luxury of visiting similar places ourselves. I explained to the children that although we all have to try to do the right thing as far as possible, nobody is perfect. We’ve talked a lot about how spending your money is a way of communicating to companies what you do and don’t think is acceptable. But I also think this puts enormous responsibility on the individual consumer rather than on the huge multinational organisation, and that sometimes the guilt we feel is disproportionate to the power we actually wield.

So we went to the aquarium. The children loved it. We had talked about how Eugenie Clark began her lifetime of shark research and conservation in the local aquarium, but none of the children I saw on that day looked like budding Eugenie Clarks (brilliant book). Mostly they were all just desperate to see what was in the next tank.

None of the creatures at the London Aquarium receive any natural daylight, including the gentoo penguins. In the wild, gentoos have been seen swimming 16 miles offshore. No matter how big a tank is, it’s nothing compared to the ocean. Green sea turtles, also found at the aquarium, can travel hundreds or even thousands of kilometres in the wild, but not in a tank.

I’m getting off topic. I’m not asking what you think of animals in captivity, but what you think about imposing your ethics on your children. Let me know in the comments!

A card game for Christmas

Dragonwood has nearly 5,000 Amazon reviews, so maybe you don’t need me to tell you about it. My son received it as a birthday gift recently and it has been a huge hit. On the day itself, several adult friends and family joined us, and all plan to buy their own copy. One friend had to be politely asked not to stand on the chairs, such was his excitement. It’s the first thing the children want to do when they wake up in the morning.

It’s a card and dice game, on a fantasy theme (dragons, unicorns, magic potions etc), and easily customisable to make it shorter or longer depending on your stamina. It encourages players to think about strategy and probability, and a bit of counting, but don’t buy it for the educational possibilities, buy it because your family will spend hours (and hours) having fun playing it together. The manufacturer says 8+, but my game-obsessed son is fully capable of playing it at seven and I reckon even keen five year olds would manage it. In the UK it’s currently £15.99 at Steamrocket, which even with postage makes it cheaper than Amazon, and you get the warm glow of supporting a small business.

For further gift ideas, see my post from last year:

Two helpful reminders

If you, like me, only seem to notice these things after they’ve been and gone, allow me to remind you that Diwali is on 31st October this year. I highly recommend the Diwali book from the Celebrations and Festivals series, which is a delightful and informative introduction.

Hot on Diwali’s heels is All Soul’s Day, on 2nd November. In our family we have started a small tradition of baking soul cakes and talking by candlelight about loved ones who are no longer with us. As we have recently welcomed a new family member who is from Mexico, we’d better mention Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations too!

---

Thanks for reading. If you’re not already subscribed, sign up for free and never miss a post.