Friday 4 November 2011

Storytime - Imagination

Thursday. No French today as our teacher is on holiday. So, 'Wednesday is clean the house day' didn't really apply this week. Ah well, we cleaned up after the party, that will do until next Wednesday. In place of French, Astra decided to start a craft project, making a house out of a tea bag box. I now have a messy pile of tea bags in my cupboard, but her house is looking great!

We had Storytime today, an activity I started organising around a year ago. I now have three other mums who take turns at providing books and crafts, today it was my turn. The theme I had chosen was 'Imagination'. We read some books together, 'The Horse in Harry's Room', about a boy with an imaginary horse, 'What Pet to Get', about a boy imagining different possible pets, Dr. Seuss's, 'Oh, The Thinks You Can Think', and a beautifully illustrated book, 'Imagine'. I had chosen a very simple craft for today. I gave everyone a piece of paper and gave them 2 minutes to draw something before passing the paper on to the person on their left, who then had two minutes to add something to the picture, and so on. For the older children this worked very well, but for some of the younger children it was just too much to let someone else draw on their picture - or to draw on someone else's picture!

I'd expected that might happen, and it didn't really matter. I was happy that for a change, instead of creating something directed by *my* imagination, the children were just creating whatever popped into their heads. One child had never drawn a proper picture before, only scribbles, yet drew and coloured a wonderful picture for the first time today. It is so lovely when something like that happens. It sometimes seems awkward to engage the range of ages (from 2 to 11) but they all take different things from whatever is provided. The idea of passing pictures round came from something that Astra and I have done together many times - it's our usual 'waiting room' game. If I were to do this craft again, I would pair the children up, rather than passing the pictures around the whole group. You live and learn!

After the library we went to the park with our Storytime friends and had some fun kicking leaves. I noticed there was a little maths going on today. The children always take their snacks and go and sit under the slide, to swap and share. Astra told me how she'd had two cakes and had broken each one into thirds so that everyone could have an equal amount. Fractions AND sharing! On the way home from the park I took Astra to get some winter clothing. It has turned really cold here and she is still in her summer pumps. So now she has some lovely furry winter boots, trousers that actually reach her ankles, and a new jumper. She is suddenly wanting to wear 'grown up' clothes, so I also bought her some lace up boots and a plain black top. She says she suits black (she does). She no longer wants pictures of butterflies or peacocks - are our pink days over?! It is so lovely to see her wanting to be grown up, and having an opinion about clothes, after all these years of only wanting to be naked!

We bought poppies today, because there was a lady set up with a stall in the supermarket. I stopped buying poppies a long time ago, for my own reasons, but Astra was fascinated by the lady's display, and it felt churlish to not buy one. So of course we then talked about war, another one of Astra's favourite subjects, this time explaining the significance of 11th November. And talking about the possible injuries that might lead people to need support. As I've said before, she loves the gory details....

After the party

Well, the Halloween party has been and gone. So much sewing, baking, decoration making, game planning, and then finally the pleasure of a house full of children having fun. I just LOVE parties!

We are now getting back to normal. It's been a quiet week, by design, because I have learned that after organising a party we all need some recovery time! We did very little the day after the party. Astra made a bunch of Christmas cards - because it's never too soon to start preparing for Christmas! She came up with some wonderful designs, my favourite was just a tree covered in snow, blowing in the wind. Very simple, very effective. We made some hand puppets, sewing pieces of felt together to make a monkey and a cat. We ate leftover party food and explored the trick or treat bag. A lovely cosy day at home.

On Wednesday we went to our trampoline class. The coaches have introduced a scheme for the children to work towards certificates. Astra said she wasn't interested in certificates, it's just fun to bounce! After trampoline we spent the afternoon in the park with friends, eating our lunch there. Many questions today, about the tooth fairy, and father christmas, and the easter bunny. Are they real?....no. Okay. Well, I think you're wrong about father christmas. I think he IS real. Okay! Questions about the moon. Why is it bright when we can't see the sun? I explained by waving my arms around and pointing at the moon and the horizon. Back home Andy explained again with suitably sized balls.

Questions about Christianity. Some of our friends are Christian so this is always a fascinating topic for Astra. Why would God have let her grandma die? Why doesn't daddy believe we have spirits? Questions about Capital Punishment. She said, 'but if killing is wrong, then the person that killed the murderer would also have to be killed, and then you'd have to kill THAT person, and then the person that killed them, and then before you know it there'd be no humans left on the planet'. What a girl. I told her how Gandhi had said the same thing, 'An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind'. We talked about some of the various punishments that are still used in other parts of the world. She always loves the gory details!

Then we talked about the difference between us debating something, and a government debating something. This is how our conversations go, we leap from one topic to the next, there are no distinctions between subjects. In a child's mind, it is all connected, all one. It is all 'the world'.

Saturday 29 October 2011

Slow Day

Yesterday was what I'm going to call a 'slow day'. Slow days are my favourite type of days. They are the days where every idea is indulged, fleeting thoughts are explored, and enjoyment of each other is the top priority.
We had a few things to achieve, and these things took us into the nearest town, and into the city centre. Quite a novelty for us both!
On slow days with Astra, every single railing or low wall must be walked upon. Every pigeon must be chased. Every leaf in our path must be trodden on, as though our lives depended on it. Under bridges we must stop, and clap our hands sharply, and shout 'Bop!'. We must copy each other's silly walks, getting ever more preposterous and impossible as we move along. And as we walk, we talk, endless conversations follow meandering trains of thought.

So many shop windows, some with halloween decorations. We stopped to look at them, went into a few of the shops to see if they lived up to their window displays. Astra was disappointed by the locksmith's shop, such an impressive skull in the window but only keys inside?!

In the library, we browsed leisurely. I looked for books for next week's Storytime and Astra brought me books to read to her. 'That's not my rabbit', and some early reader books, and then a 'Jokes about the School Canteen' book. She had watched and listened as an older boy had been reading it to his father - as soon as he left she swooped and brought the book over to me. She is very interested in jokes; how they work, what is funny, and what is not. She experiments with jokes a lot. So many jokes are wordplay. She is beginning to get it.
The ladies in the library were all dressed in pink today, in support of Macmillan Cancer Support. They were very fancy, wearing pink hats with feathers, one of them gave us a twirl and her face beamed like a small child's! It was lovely to be in the library today.

And then the haberdashery, they were selling net curtain offcuts, perfect for ghostly decorations. We had a lot of fun in this shop....and thanks to a little persuasion from Astra, and a genuinely measured and thought out, 'I think you should be okay' from the shopkeeper, I purchased two yards of fake black fur and a pattern for a jumpsuit/cat costume. I have no sewing machine, and I have not followed a sewing pattern since I was eleven and got thrown out of sewing classes....but the shopkeeper was so helpful! She found the pattern for me, worked out how much material I'd need, how much velcro, and all the while interacting with Astra in such a natural way. I fell in love with this shop, of course!

In the town centre, several bronze sculptures. We stopped, touched, sat on (where appropriate!), discussed. What was wrong about the face on that one, why didn't we like it? Is the pose that girl is holding actually possible? Why is the giant book/bench sculpture attached to a ball and chain? And the trees.....the palm tree that is about to smash through the roof, why haven't they pruned it as they have the other palms? How did such huge tropical trees come to be growing in our shopping centre? Ohh, and the clock, the wonderfully elaborate musical frog clock. We arrived just as the half hour struck, and on top of the usual spectacular, the frog started to blow bubbles - what luck to arrive at that time - we spent a good while watching and 'figuring out' the clock. Lovely new artwork on the opposite windows too, Astra was very impressed with these paintings.

The toyshop was the reason we were in the city centre, to look for some prizes for our halloween party games. What a time we had in this shop, trying out all the toys and novelties, watching as the staff demonstrated things to us, trying to choose between the animals with roll up tongues and the tubes of 'stuff' that you couldn't hold onto no matter how hard you tried. Lots of laughter in this shop.

We were exhausted when we finally got home. It was a slow day, and a tiring day. A connecting day, a 'nothing is unimportant' day. My favourite kind of day.

Wednesday 26 October 2011

Busy doing nothing

So, I finally started a blog about home educating my daughter. How ironic that I chose a day that was one of those nothing days. One of those, 'oh no, I'm not doing any educating' days. But the inspiration took me, and so here I am.

That's one of the joys of home education, now I come to think of it - and one of the responsibilities. When Astra says, hey, I am interested in this, I am inspired by this, I can go and explore that interest with her, right now. There is no need to say, ohh, but we are studying THIS right now, that will have to wait (and be forgotten). We can follow her interests as they arise.

But still, life has it's routines, and for us Wednesdays are 'clean the house' days. We have a horde of people arriving for a French class on Thursday mornings, so we must dust and change the beds, clean the floors and clean the bathroom. It isn't supposed to take all day, but it nearly always does. I wish I could tell you about yesterday, when we went to the woods with our friends, learned some history about the trees and about the future plans for the area, and looked at maps, and made some beautiful woodland art. Or the day before yesterday, a different woods and a different group of friends, where most of the learning was of the social kind. On Monday we baked a sourdough cake, our first experience with sourdough.

But I digress. Today, because that's when the inspiration to start a blog grabbed me. So, we got the house clean. Okay, *I* got the house clean. Astra 'kept me company'. Some of the time. The rest of the time she was.....figuring out a halloween costume for her teddy bear (he is currently sporting a pink bikini), patiently cutting out strips of paper to make halloween paper chains, finishing off the halloween decorations from the comic I'd bought for her, cuddling her guinea pigs and giving one of them a bath, playing princesses and other far noisier games with Daddy, watching some Moomin cartoons, playing the keyboards with me, playing at her being the guinea pig that baby fly and I have just bought from the shop. Ohh, and here's the educational bit, she delivered a parcel to me with some gifts inside and a handwritten note that said, thank you very much for my card. It was written in cursive writing! She showed me what she had copied, a little note from her great aunt. I'm stunned that she managed to copy cursive writing, and it was completely legibile. Such a surprise! What else...oh yes, we also drew a halloween picture together on her whiteboard. I have to say that her witch was MUCH better than mine. I wish I could draw. Thank goodness my lack of ability doesn't seem to be catching.

So, a 'nothing' day, educationally. We just cleaned the house really.