Reflections of the Week

Just some of the lovely places and things I have seen and done in the last week. The weather has been good,spring is in the air and I feel like smiling! My daughter and I are walking to raise money for our local National Autistic society.People are fantastic! I received two donations whilst out yesterday to help our wonderful children. If you would like to help you can sponsor us   here Just enter the surname "Frost" and we are numbers  are 7158 and 7159! This is what our local NAS are doing in the Furness area.

Learning doesn't stop on Fridays!

My eldest son turned down a school trip today in order to go to college which according to him is 'awesome'. It is lovely when your child is happy and learning - that's why home education can work so well because you tailor it to your individual child,

Last weekend for example  was full of memorable moments, It started with my daughter going geo caching with scouts on our local common. Her elder brother meanwhile chose to spend an hour in the gym. He has been going since last June and stuck with it without any pressure from us. He is fitter and thinner and well on the way to being ready for his 40 mile sponsored walk to raise money for his  trip to Austria with the Explorer scouts in the summer.

At community choir on Saturday we practised Disney's 'Beaty and the Beast' and 'The Seal Lullaby ' by Howard Whittaker. Afterwards,having been desperate to go and watch the film Les Miserables my daughter and I finally managed to fit it into our schedule.

 "It's three hours long you know' we were informed at reception ' and It's pretty boring'. 

I informed the young man we had sung the music before and wanted to see it - we were so glad we did-The acting and singing were fantastic and we both declared we would definately go back and see the film again. The film played on my mind all evening and the next day it was so well executed. Later in the week my autistic son watched the Oscar nominations and listened to the cast as they sang one of the choruses.Another piece of the 'musical jigsaw' .

Whilst we watched Les Miserables my autistic son was playing with his friend on the computer- Technology plays an important part in enabling him to interact with his peers and prevents him being isolated. The two of them had even taken the dogs out for a walk in the sunshine!

On Sunday my daughter and I went training for our sponsored walk in May. We walked along the beach to North Walney nature reserve. The beach was empty and the scenery spectacular. As we sat on the beach eating our lunch my daughter declared that it was our best walk so far. We didn't come home empty handed either- we collected wood on the beach as my eldest son is making a computer desk from recycled wood for his DT  GCSE and pulled it along the beach in an old fish crate which had been washed up on the shore!

My son and his dad meanwhile worked on my son's car together and my husband commented how his motor engineering skills had come on in the last year.

As a seasoned home educator I can now appreciate just how much all my children learned over the weekend without 'school' or 'lessons'. Learning didn't stop at 3.30pm on a Friday- it continued as long as we all had open minds!

The Right Learning Environment!

I think children learn better when they learn what they want to learn when they want to learn it, and how they want to learn it, learning for their own curiosity and not at somebody else's order. I believe that learning would be greatly improved if we could completely or at least largely abolish the fixed curriculum in its present sense. I do ... ~ John Holt

Coniston Water

It's snowing in Arizona. I thought it didn't snow in deserts but the cacti are covered in snow and the golf has been postponed. Just another example of how one thing leads to another in home education. Now we will have to look up the climate of Arizona and check its position on the globe to see if it is freak weather or whether this is normal at this time of year! Talking of weather my daughter has spent the weekend asking her dad to help her make a weather vane for school. Despite a lot of chuntering about 'having enough to do’ and  children being given homework within their capabilities (can’t you just tell we hate homework), in fact, working together was a great example of home education although we would have preferred to do it in our own time and when it was relevant to the subjects my daughter was interested in!

To give an example it was  my son's parents’ evening last night and he has been creating a website. According to the teacher the website is really good and quite technical and my son who isn't academic has received a high grade for his work. I was shown the website and I smiled- he'd created a website for the motor mechanic business he intends to set up when he leaves school so of course he was interested in the subject- you would think that the government would learn something from this instead of imposing such narrow subject matter on its students!

We have also  had a productive week on the home front .My home educated autistic son seems to have been motivated by the sunshine and has been far more inclined to go out. I'm beginning to think that it's not agoraphobia I'm dealing with but anxiety when going somewhere he doesn't want to go. Whenever my son knows where he is going or wants to do something he has no hesitation in going out to the car and going out!

Take yesterday for example. It was our dentist appointment. I gave my son the choice about whether he was going. Surprisingly he got dressed but then got the wobbles and decided not to go. A few months ago he wouldn't have let me leave the house but I was allowed to take the others and we had our check-ups! When I got back to the house he opted to come up to Coniston with me to return his siblings to school and then had chips and hot chocolate in a local cafe. There were signs initially that it was hard for him in there. He picked up some leaflets and focussed hard on them so as to blank out his surroundings, but once his chips came he relaxed and I got a great big smile! What more can you ask for? Happy  children in the environment that suits them best. In his case it is definitely HOME SWEET HOME!

History and buildings!

Norman Doorway

Well as I mentioned in the blog yesterday I did look up Bardsea church and was surprised to see it was only designed in 1845 - not even two hundred years old compared with Ulverston Parish Church. I googled our village church St Cutherberts in Kirkby and discovered it has a 'fine Norman doorway' so a walk up to the church was the order of the day to investigate further. I think that perhaps we have a project in the offing, certainly something we can dip in and out of and build up our historical and architectural knowledge as we travel round the local villages!


I could see immediately that the doorway was older than the porch that surrounded it and the door was round rather than arched at the top. The windows on the outside looked different though so I have decided I will have to do some more reading to 'get the picture'. One thing I did learn when I googled the church was that the Tower fell down one Sunday when the bells were being rung.Two of the three bells smashed but there is no record of what happened to the bell ringers!Now I'm on to a roll I'll take a picture of the Norman tower in Ulverston too when I'm next there. My son tells me that the Norman period was around 1000-1100 AD. Not bad for a twelve year old! What did intrigue me was that one of the windows in Ulverston was apparently designed by William Morris. I'm not sure if its THE William Morris (I've never really read much about him) so that's another avenue to pursue. It amazes me that a chance comment can lead to so much 'education'!

Open your eyes and see! Don't just look!

As we sat in the Fish and chip shop , eating tea, in between dropping my eldest off at scout camp and my daughter off at scouts, my autistic son was studying the old prints of our market town on the wall. He pointed to the picture of the Parish Church with it's norman tower and we noted that it was built over 1000 years ago - quite mind blowing to think that centuries before I was confirmed there people were worshiping in the same building. My son explained how to recognise Norman Architecture  by the shape of the tower and arched windows and once again I realized how much we learn from things we take for granted in our day to day lives. As a result I have taken pictures of the church at Bardsea today with it's steeple and granite stone with the intention of researching its historical background. Our brains are like a computer which links together information we've already learned with the new things we experience and because they were of interest to us the information is retained.

Similarly having visited Donkey Rock in Broughton this week, with its example of Coniston Grits I realised just how much we have seen on our home education adventure. Limestone pavements at Birkrigg, Erratic boulders in scotland and the opportunity to view geological sites at Humphrey Head and Whitbarrow Scar. We even found fossils on our own beach down the road. Unschooling really is a wonderful way to retain a love of learning and makes you appreciate the fantastic things around us if we just open our eyes!

Half Term Education!

 

It's half term this week. I always look forward to having all the children at home because it's the opportunity to escape routine and  really enjoy life without any constraints. I've always said that it is times like these when my children are truly "educated" and when I look back over the week so far I can see how productive autonomous learning really is.

Yesterday my eldest son invited his friends  round to practice for a gig they are playing  in March. The garage was full of teenage boys laughing and joking as they drummed and strummed and sang. Some of them are doing music as a GCSE, some are self taught musicians but they all shared a real love of music and were swapping ideas and difference experiences. As they chatted in the kitchen munching pizza I  found it heart warming that instead of sitting in front of computers screens all day these lads who were from different schools were doing something they loved and helping each other to learn and progress!

Meanwhile my daughter and I are in training for a twenty three mile sponsored walk in the Lake District . We are raising money for our local NAS. Neither of us has walked that far before but we are determined to complete it. We had planned our route to Broughton, a walk of around 5 miles each way. The weather was kind and it was cold and bright as we set off  across the marshes.Unfortunately the batteries in the camera quickly went flat  so we resorted to my mobile phone and ipod to record our journey. Although less effective than the camera , we managed to capture the two black sheep which stolled ahead of us up the road, and the white sheep which stuck it's head through the fence to say hello.

On our way to Broughton we passed Donkey Park , We discovered it was a geology park which contains Coniston Grits 400 million years old from the Sillurian period. I had passed many times in the car but had never noticed the quarry or indeed heard of it.

On reaching  Broughton we stopped for lunch in The Square Cafe and then set off on our return journey. My daughter's knee was beginning to throb ( an injury suffered following her recent school dance performance) so at Foxfield we checked the train times and discovered that the next train was due so on we jumped and travelled the four minute journey home to Kirkby! Even reading the train timetable was an education for my daughter who rarely has the opportunity to travel on public transport in our rural area.

Yesterday my eldest set off for Explorer camp in lake Windermere. Last time he went the tents were flooded by melted snow. This time he is living in the lap of luxury- a wooden lodge with a kitchen. He is part of the staff for the weekend ! Meanwhile, I have had hordes of young teenage girls sleeping overnight in our garage (not as bad as it sounds!) and , as for my autistic son - well he has enjoyed the company and been content to join in as and when it suited him.

Learn from Experience!

"We learn something from everything we do,and everything that happens to us or is done to us.What we learn may make us more informed or more ignorant, wiser or stupider,stronger or weaker, but we always learn something." Instead of Education by John Holt.

 

My sons' fingers have been rattling over the keyboard this evening. For someone who has trouble putting pen to paper because the effort involved in forming the letters interferes with his ability to concentrate on what he needs to write it's amazing.His writing suddenly becomes eloquent and fluent and in accordance with his intelligence, whereas his hand writing is still immature and unformed. 

I suppose we could have concentrated more on neat handwriting but I can't see the point. My son is capable of filling in forms and signing his name if he needs to, but in this day and age the majority of what he needs to do can be completed by computer. Similarly with maths, it's more important that he understands the procedure required to calculate a problem rather than actually working it out in his head when calculators are freely available.

Technology is moving so fast and that can only be beneficial for Autistic children.Today I read about the Grace app for iphones  which enables non verbal children to communicate what they want by using PECS or pictures. It was designed by a mother of two autistic children to help them. (Mothers can be very creative when they have to be).So many parents I have come across have invented ingenious gadgets to help their children when they have been unable to find  resources on the market.

One mum has started a business making weighted blankets, another trained to do sensory profiling, many parents turn to blogging which opens up new opportunities to educate and learn about autism.In fact some of the most intelligent people I know have autistic children. They have had to learn to 'think outside the box' which can only be good in a society where our education system is no more that the government telling its teachers what it thinks we have to learn. Thank goodness it doesn't bother me one hoot whether the government continue with GCSE's or the new scrapped idea of a Baccalaureat- you can't improve a failing system!