A Plea

I know my blogging has been dismal, but I come with a request.

Thanks to the brochure inside a board game advertising Memoir 44, Dr John has been asking me about WWII (and WWI). So far the questions have been along the lines of "How many people were killed" (thanks Wikipedia!), but I'm aware that if the questions move on much more than that I will be completely unable to answer as my 20th century history is non-existant, due to absolutely detesting history at school (thank you Mrs Benns).

So, does anyone have any good recommendation for (primarily, but not exclusively) books on the world wars that would be suitable for a 5 year old? Fiction or non-fiction would suffice.

Thank you.

And I promise, normal blogging will be resumed shortly.

Interplanetary Travel

Please can someone advise me on how to retrieve Dr John from the planet he is on?
I don't mean this in a flippant way, I am very serious as he is driving me insane.

He doesn't just seem to daydream, he just seems unable to focus on things. Not just educational ones either. Today he sauntered into the kitchen wanting a drink, so got the carton of juice from the fridge and wandered off with it. When I called him back to pour it into a glass, he almost seemed unaware that he had it in his hands!

He has been saying every now and then that he is bored, but I just need to suggest something and he is okay again.

Any thoughts? Is this something that is characteristic of 5 year old boys? Do I have to grin and bear it (I'm trying very hard not to get cross, but it is annoying me somewhat!)?

What do YOU want to do?

Inspired by a blog post by Jax, I asked Dr John what he wanted to learn about. I phrased it a few ways, and he came up with the following:

What do you want to learn about?

• England - what people do there (?!), especially Gran
  
• North America - the Native Americans and just America
• Egypt (I suspect he means the Ancient Egyptians than anything else)

What do you want to know about?

• Planets, the sun, cows, ducks and dinosaurs

What questions do you want to know the answer to?

• Why does snow melt and why doesn't the sun melt?

Where would you like to visit?

• Bees making honey

A varied collection of things there!

So, of course that has led to one of my favourite pastimes - looking for books!

I'm going to order a couple of books about America in the hope that we can refine the subject a bit more:


We already have a few books on native Americans, Brother Eagle, Sister Sky: A Message from Chief Seattle (Picture Puffin) and More Than Moccasins: A Kid's Activity Guide to Traditional North American Indian Life amongst them.

Ancient Egypt is fairly well covered too, with a fairly good section in Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Ancient Times: 1
Egypt (See Inside) and Egyptians (Usborne Beginners)

I don't have much on cows or ducks, but have a lot of info on planets, the sun and dinosaurs including a solar system model that needs to be finished.

We plan on going to the bee museum too. I find this a strange one as Dr John is quite vehement in his reluctance to even try honey. I don't think that me explaining that the nectar is turned into honey in the bees stomach and then is regurgitated helped very much!

I did also ask if he wanted to learn to read, to which the reply was "of course!".

At least now, when he wants to do anything on these things I may be able to cover them!

Although it may be a while. At the moment, he is watching The Magic Roundabout for the second time this morning, as this time he is doing the quiz that goes with it. He seems to like quizzes, particularly associated with a film or programme. He discovered the quiz that goes with the Magic School Bus dvds yesterday and enjoyed them. Of course, if I asked him questions about the film, I probably wouldn't get a response!

Yesterday, at Dr John's request, we made some gingerbread men. They were yummy and it was good to see Dr John being a little more interested in food and cooking.

Later we go to the doctors for hopefully a referral to a dermatologist for Dr John's eczema. I get the feeling his paed is more a cure-it doctor rather than a preventative type, so hopefully I won't have to fight too much.

Tomorrow, another home ed get together. Its a shame we'll have to leave early to go to yoga, but its great that people are keen on these meetings. I desparately want them to become regular events. I guess I should think about what we can do in the winter.

Meeting Up

At the risk of sounding like a broken record (or should that now refer to an mp3, or are they obsolete already?) I need to blog more. I have posts in my head, but they just don't make it onto the screen, and they should do, as I'm on the puter enough!

Anyway, we have been meeting up with other home educators! Yes, its true!

We had found a family that we originally met a couple of years ago when S gave up being an Usborne organiser and I bought her stock from her, but we didn't contact each other for a while. Since we met again earlier this year, we have seen each other roughly once every couple of weeks. It is great to have someone to chew the fat with, who 'gets' our HE choice. She has two sons, Thomas and Curly (not their real names, but I feel that I need to start using more than initials!). Thomas is 5, and Curly is 3.5. The three boys get on great together, and as Carrie (blog name for S!) and I can chat for England, its a great relationship.

Carrie organised a home ed get together at her house, which was extremely brave of her, particularly as Thomas is on the autistic spectrum and doesn't cope too well with lots of people. I can't recall how many came, but I just remember that the kids spent all their time outside and the mums (and one dad!) hogged the kitchen. It was great. I had met several families before at the Not Back to School Picnic last Sept, but met a couple of new faces too.
Conversation revolved quite a lot around the standard introductory questions: "why do you it?", "what regulations do you have to follow?", "do you have permission?" etc. Hopefully the more we meet up, the more we can move away from these and get into the nitty gritty of life!

Inspired by this, I organised a meetup down by the lake. I'm aware that Bildung zu Hause, the Swiss Homeschooling organisation is very Swiss German, so invited several French/Swiss Romande families that I had heard about.
We ended up being at least 9 families, 3 of whom were French speaking. We had to leave at 4.30pm to get the van ready for Chris Evans (my blog name for dh!) to take Dr John (used to be M!) away for the night and they were still going strong.

I feel positive. These people do exist, and they seem keen to get together on a regular basis. I had thrown out the idea of a coop, a bit like latinetc (see elsewhere on the blog ring) a few weeks ago and I had a couple of replies, but I think now that it may have been a bit early. I do tend to run away with myself a bit!

Conversation of the Day

M: Mummy, I'm going to learn about life......

M: Mummy, which came first, the romans or the egyptians?

Me: The egyptians.

M: I don't believe what I'm hearing.

Accountability and Knowledge

So, I'm sitting here, translating the curriculum for years CIN, CYP1 and CYP2 into English, and its strikes me how little parents of schooled kids know about their education. I wonder how many of them have even considered looking at the curriculum, or the education departments website, or know what is expected of their children to progress to the following year. How many parents turn up at parents evening, listen to all the positive words that the teachers has to use and go home again glowing at the report, and happy in the knowledge that the school is doing everything it should be for their child, even if they have no clue what that is.

Maybe I'm doing a disservice to other parents, and everyone is sitting there, as I am, reading or translating this wonderful 100 page document (but I doubt it!).

This may be a thought that is obvious to seasoned home educators, but really didn't occur to me until I was trying to work out what
"By language activities, the competence to communicate already acquired by the child's family environment is developed. This skill is essential to develop the best in authentic communication situations where the child is the receiver, or the issuer."
actually means!

Big Update

I keep making notes of what we've been doing over the last 3 weeks, but it never seems to make it into a blog post, so I'm condensing everything into one.

Melrose
We had a fab time. It was great to see people again that we haven't seen since the last Kessingland, and also meet new people. For one thing, it means that I don't feel so much of a stalker going round the blog ring now!
I got moulded to one of the kitchen chairs, M spent the whole time off playing, particularly with S, and A was happy. If I'm honest I was more worried about A than any of us, because his laptop is surgically attached to him, but he was happy playing with the kids, doing some washing up (wonders will never cease!) and playing board games (we now own Carcassone).

Atelier
M has continued going to atelier twice a week. He does really enjoy it. I will be sad when he has to stop going in the summer, although he may be able to join on a Wednesday with the kids from ecole enfantine (first two school years) although we will have to think about that, as lots of other activities happen on a Wednesday (school half day).
I've set him a challenge each time to come home with a new French word. Obviously he always forgets until he sees me at the end, and hurriedly asks the monitrice what the first thing he sees in French is. Although last week she was confused she told me as she didn't know what 'poo' was. Just hope that he didn't see one of them lying around!

French
M and I had a meeting with a language school last week, about getting lessons for him. All seemed to be very positive and exciting - until we got the price. I imagine that there are some private schools that would cost less for 6 months, than it would cost us for M to have a 90 minutes lesson once a week for 6 months!
Still, we have another lead for a teacher who got a friends eldest child up to speed for entering school that I am going to contact.

'Educashun'
Amongst other things:
We checked the life of a load of batteries and sorted them into dead and alive.
We went to the supermarket and used their hand held scanners to do the shopping. I also showed M how to weigh all the fruit and veg (making sure he wasn't leaning on the scales whilst doing so!)
We planted some seeds in troughs for the windowsill (lavender, asters, mixed herbs and mixed salad leaves). The salad leaves led into a discussion about doing things for others, as M doesn't like lettuce so wanted to know why he had to plant some!
We read through the Usborne book See Inside Your Body, as a result of a bony cuddle (me having the bony arms, apparently!).

Health
On the evening we arrived back from the UK, M had just gone to bed when we heard a shout. He had managed to get his plastic kaleidoscope stuck on his finger! In the end we had to cut it off (the kaleidoscope, obviously!), but managed to salvage the 'mirrors' and the end of it, so at some point we'll get round to putting it back together again.
Over the winter M's eczema has got worse again, so we've tried him on lactose free milk and yogurts. A definite improvement. It hasn't solved it (the summer will be the true test) but its a start.
Both M and I have had a cough almost all the time since coming back. Its beginning to annoy me somewhat, although M seems to be unfazed by it.
We've all been to the dentist for a checkup and clean. M's teeth were fine, as were A's, but I've had to have a wisdom tooth out and a filling. Hopefully that will be it for me for a while!

Craft
We made some fimo aliens (pics maybe, when I get them off the camera) from a kit from Merry.
We drew a scene for some animal stickers to go into, finding out that we could smudge the felt tip on the photo paper to give different effects.
We also made a stained glass type picture of a bird, adding feathers for a tail to dramatic effect.
Conquistadors are one of M's fascinations (he wants to be one when he grows up!) so we made a Spanish flag for his ship. (Note to self, Christopher Colombus)
I bought M a small hardback book with blank pages, to take with us on the train etc. He has been drawing in it, and then likes to write the name of what he has drawn. We have also done some writing on the whiteboard, either him asking me how to spell something, or I ask him. I think that he has a good idea in his head how things are written and how to split up words, but cannot translate a written word into speech (ie reading). I find the whole thing fascinating.

TV
M has investigated a few more of the Daily Mail DVDs that MIL sent us a while ago, including Black Arrow and Westward Ho. He was interested to know that the same author, Robert Louis Stevenson, had written a couple of them. Maybe I can follow that up by finding out more about the guy.
Tintin is still watched, over and over again.
We also have French TV on in the mornings. There are several English favourites dubbed into French, and M doesn't sit down so much to watch it, but I'm working on an idea of osmosis!

Books
We went to the English storytime session at the local English bookshop. M was definitely more attentive than the others (schooled, you see ;P ) although I was slightly concerned that when we got home he insisted that we could only speak if we raised our hand.
We bought a couple more Magic Tree House books when we were in England. It hadn't occurred to me that there would be an American and British version, so the two new books have a different cover style to the ones we already own, which seems to offend my sense of completeness! Anyway, I have read Night of the Ninjas to him setting off lots of sneaking around play, and also Lions on the Loose (I know, I realise that they are probably best read in order!).
His English and French magazines arrived and they've made good bedtime stories.
Lots of other book reading going on, and I am slowly suggesting that he spell out one word in the story, although he normally does that once and refuses to read the same word in the rest of the story. I guess reading will be another thing that he comes to in his own way.

Discussions
Obviously plenty of these have happened, but a few have stood out for one reason or another.
We talked about charity, what it means and the idea of doing something without expecting anything in return. I tried not to focus too much on the 'starving children in Africa' side of things, partly because M is very sensitive about anyone being hurt (although this doesn't translate to his playmobil games!) and can start wailing at the most surprising things (Nanny McPhee was an example yesterday) and partly because I would like him to get hold of the global idea of charity. Obviously this concept will take a while!

'Socialisation'
Aside from the usual playdates and playing at atelier, and being with other kids at football and yoga (am I allowed to say that the yoga teacher thinks he is attentive and responsive and really a great kid? ;) ) we had a sleepover (M and me) and we also went to visit a homeschool family in another canton that we had met about 2 years ago. I expected to stay a couple of hours, but after 8 hours I decided it was probably time to go! S and I chatted about anything and everything, I admired and coveted her vast array of books and resources and M, A and L played with very few hiccups. I think that S enjoyed it, as A is autistic and as a result they find it difficult to go anywhere and meet new people.
We also met up with some friends to go to a time exhibition in the same building as M's atelier, also with a exhibition by Niki de Saint Phalle. Unfortunately, M wasn't feeling very well, and spent most of the time on my lap, but as it is so close, we can go back again.

Other Stuff
M has had a haircut :( We have always left it his choice, but ask him every now and then if he would like one. However, in this case I think that he was influenced by certain members of my family when we visited them. Grrrrr!
There has, as usual, been lots of playmobil playing going on. We really need to have a sort out, although I've been saying that for weeks now, but the amount we have is really ridiculous.
The base ten blocks and pattern blocks have come out and structures made. One day, we might get round to using them for the purpose for which they were made!


Phew! Of course, I've now taken so long to write this that another few days have stacked up, but they will have to come in another post.

Catch Up

I keep writing notes to help me remember what we have been doing and then not blogging them, so I'm making the effort today!

Over the past week, and by no means exclusively we have:

• discussed the healthiness of apples, if they are classed as sweet things and what type of sugar they have in them.
• played shops. Chose items to sell, decided what price to sell them for, wrote the price stickers, then sold some items and we worked out what change was needed
• read M some Faraway Tree, most specifically the part where Connie gets ink on her dress
• more being read to.
• played with the pattern blocks, making pictures leading to a discussion about the differences between squares, rectangles and diamonds, introducing the idea of right angles (which I found extremely difficult to explain for some reason)
• lots of den and dungeon making, including making me an accessory to an escape attempt
• card sewing (you know, the cards that have pictures and pre-punched holes in them)
• had a film afternoon - watched Madagascar in the blacked out living room with popcorn
• discussed what camels eat. I wish I was a bit more confident in my answers. I felt the need to check my reply, whereas M had the confidence of youth, and was right anyway.
• gone to football. I love watching M playing football. He isn't that skilled in it, but he concentrates so hard. I just wish some of the others were a little less aggressive and more friendly. A lot of them go to the same school and so know each other pretty well. They can be quite mean to kids that they don't know. It makes me sad. I was impressed by M helping the coach to put the bibs, balls and goal posts away without being asked. It was only him and another child doing it, all the rest buggered off home.
• watched quite a lot of tv as usual. The Peter Pan obssession has calmed down a little, which I am grateful for, as I find that film disturbing in so many ways. Even though the dvds that MIL got from the Daily Mail are poorly produced, they cover some good stories, and this week he has watched The Odyssey, Hiawatha and Tom Sawyer again.
• more story dictation has occurred. When we are in the UK next week, I am going to see if I can get hold of a dictaphone for M so that he can record stories in his own time. Maybe we'll try to develop them a little and draw pictures to accompany them.
• learnt some French. We've done a little more with Léo and Lulu the puppets from La Jolie Ronde and I challenged M to learn a new French word at atelier on Tuesday. I said that if he did, he could have a small treat (which ended up being half a piece of chewing gum Lol!). When I went to collect him, he turned to his teacher and said, "Ima, whats twin in French?" and then ran outside to tell me the answer and demand his treat. Not quite what I was wanting, but he did fulfill the terms of the agreement!
• Today we are going to see if he can do a taster session of yoga. All his friends do it, but in the past he hasn't wanted to go. He has now changed his mind, partly I think because he will be able to see his friends regularly.

In other news, I have enrolled myself on an intermediate French course. I feel that my French is of a reasonable standard, but I'm not really progressing much, so I need a helping hand.

Tomorrow we are going to look at some camper vans. We had planned to do another Big Trip this year to Canada, but A has a contract until at least July, and the flights alone were a lot of money so we thought it would be better to buy a camper and then we can just take off more easily at weekends etc.

And then on Sunday we fly to the UK to go to Melrose for the week and then visit rellies for a week. I always get apprehensive attending these type of events, partly because a lot of people know each other pretty well, including the children, and also I can find them fairly intense.
So go easy on me! Please.