Doggy visitors, scrapstore visit, and that darn machine again!

Over the past few days we've had a large, but very friendly, lodger staying with us. His name is Arlo.

Arlo is a lurcher crossbreed and one of Jack's friends. He's the one dog we've found that truly puts Jack in his place (usually on his back in 'submissive' pose) and who tolerates his 'puppiness'. No matter what Jack does to annoy, Arlo can bite his ears (quite a large surface area to get hold of there) and literally squash him into submission. It all makes for a fairly good relationship.

Arlo does have the distinct advantage that he can easily outrun Jack. A few gentle strides for Arlo is equivalent to a 100-metre sprint for Jack. Poor chap, no wonder he's been so exhausted since his friend arrived!

Jack 'discovers' Arlo's bone. Nope, not giving that up.

Jack 'discovers' Arlo's food. "Mmm...tripe...yum.

Much better than that dried dog food I get fed."

"Ok, ok, I'll share it. Darn it! Got my ears in it now!"

We took a visit to the local scrapstore on Thursday and I bought 3 carrier bags of material with the intention of making some new cushion covers (cushion covers currently in use are pretty scuzzy, even by my not-very-high standards). Of course, I'm totally ignoring the boxes and boxes of material we already have in the loft and which I also bought under the guise of making cushion covers/curtains/clothes for the kids/bags to sell. As dh says, reassuringly, 'It all makes for very good loft insulation'.

S0, while the kids were quiet and otherwise occupied I thought I'd sneak into the conservatory and start making a cushion cover. Bad idea. Or perhaps a good idea. John Holt says in one of his books (I forget which one) that the best way to encourage kids to learn is by doing the things you love. Not doing these things with the intention of 'teaching' your children, but purely because you enjoy doing them. Holt predicts that if you do this children will see what you are doing and try to emulate it. Or...in my case they will spot that I'm no longer focusing on them, but that I've sneaked off to focus on something that I want to do. They will immediately want to interfere/destroy/ sabotage the activity or - if I'm fortunate - want to do it too!

So, I got as far as measuring and cutting some material and that was it. Then they were begging me to get the hand sewing machine out and I was cursing it, trying to thread the darn thing, untangle the bobbin and master it's stubborn, antiquated personality. The neat pile of material on top of the newly-tidied art cupboard, was pulled down, cupboards opened, and my finally-clear-after-3-weeks table was once more full of stuff. Home education and a tidy house just don't go together.

Ds2 decided he was going to make a sleeping bag for dd1's toy dog. As you can see, it all went fairly smoothly (thank you scrapstore for felt! I don't think I can cope with stubborn sewing machine AND trying to show a short-tempered child how to hem fraying material in one lifetime).

Just had to take a film of it doing what sewing machines are meant to do, cos usually it's angrily chewing up thread and rucking up material.

Dd1 helps

It's ok, I'm calm now (honest)

And so to today...

Well we've been to the Scrapstore again.

Oh dear! As if we don't have enough scrap in the house! The teetering tower of potentially creative materials has reached crisis point and now a hard hat is required just to open the filing cabinet.

<--Filing cabinet, to be opened at your own risk (worryingly this photo actually makes it look tidy in comparison to real life)

I like to think I give my kids free rein to save junk, make mess and be creative. However there there comes a time when enough is enough and my tyrannical minimalist alter ego bursts out and demands that I have a clear dining table so we can actually eat a meal without having to contend with polystyrene packing chips, empty pringle tins and glitter. Admittedly the dog is doing a good job of working his way through the packing chips, but even he struggles to keep up with the influx of stuff.

Anyway back to the scrapstore. As usual the kids were there to do voluntary work, though I wonder if they make more mess and trouble than they actually help solve. This time, the kids were given the job of coming up with some interesting uses for the various items of scrap that were in the scrapstore so they could be displayed for inspiration to passing customers. Ds1 was in his element! So we all joined in, making masks, castles, a star wars light sabre and even a dalek (yes, that was my contribution, not quite finished yet). Unfortunately I'd forgotten to take my camera, but maybe on our visit next week I'll be able to take some photos of their imaginative creations.

This morning (before the scrapstore visit) they'd already warmed up their imaginations by making 'aquariums'. Tying fish-shaped beads onto pieces of cotton and suspending them from the lids of plastic bottles was entirely their own idea and a rather good one I thought. Shell-shaped beads and - yes you've guessed it - split peas were used on the bottom for sand/rocks/shells. Ds2 made a shallower version in an old plastic humous tub.

They might not win any prizes for beauty, but it's a wonderful example of children's imaginations working without - or despite - parental input.

Instruction leaflet for schools: 'How to be Creative'

The children had been asked by a member of staff at our local Scrapstore if they could do an instruction sheet to give to schools. The instruction leaflet was for making stampers out of 'sticky pads'. The idea was received with (mild) enthusiasm, so yesterday I figured I'd start off making some stampers and see if the children were interested enough to join me (a John Holt approach of course...)

Here are some photos of our morning, some of which we used to illustrate the instruction leaflet.

I decided to start with a fish shape (nice easy one I thought, though it took me a few attempts to stop it looking like a shark). Once we had peeled off the backing and stuck it to cardboard it was easy for dd1 to paint. Uh oh! No apron. Just as well the jumper is already stripey!

Success!Though dd1 was a bit disatisfied with the missing patches on the fish and proceded to paint them in. (Groan! Just what I need, another perfectionist in the household)

Dd1 made a 'seaweed' stamper by drawing around her hand with chalk. As expected, she needed a little help with cutting it out, but managed the rest fine.

At this point ds1 and ds2 decided to join in too and added to the picture with stampers of 'rocks' and blue 'bubbles' from the fishes' mouths. The rock shape was made by drawing around ds2's fist, though I think it would also have done well as a shell.

Then this morning we started choosing which photos were best to use on the leaflet and the boys helped to think up some essential points that needed to be on it. We used children's cookbooks as a starter for our research on layout and content and these were surprisingly helpful. Titles such as 'you will need' were applicable to our project and it helped the boys to see a way of making the leaflet simple to follow.


Hopefully tomorrow we'll get a chance to print out a draft copy of our ideas and show the Scrapstore staff to see what improvements could be made. It's sad to think that teachers in school lack so much creativity that they can't work out how to make stampers themselves. Still, I guess when they've got limited time to tick all the curriculum 'boxes', then it doesn't leave alot of time for creative thinking.


Today and yesterday's activities have left me inspired to think up more ways of using the scrap and marketing it for schools and nurseries. Curriculum packs and projects would be a good money-earner for the scrapstore.

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The afternoon was spent at our regular meet up with other home edders at a local adventure playground. Not content with the ample supply of sticks at the playground the boys decided to bring their own from our back garden (cuttings from when our apple tree was pruned). As usual there was lots of play fighting, occasionally getting out of hand, but mostly good humoured.

I discussed with another home educator how well all the children get on with each other when they play fight and how different it is when other children (particularly school children) join in. We concluded that the group have formed their own unwritten 'rules' about what sort of fighting is acceptable or not and that the group appears to educate newcomers and enforce the 'rules'. It's difficult to see how this happens in practice, or exactly what the rules are, but it is very noticeable how the group dynamics change from their usual state, into a slightly disruptive, excited state of having newcomer(s) enter the group and then again return to normal once the newcomers have been integrated and have accepted these group 'rules'.

The fighting can look very violent, but mostly it is staged and choreographed and so looks worse than it really is. Occasionally things don't go to plan and there are a few tears, but it seems, in most cases at least, to arise from misunderstandings between the home ed children rather than malice. For example a childd (often my ds1) will like to be the victim, being repeatedly captured and taken prisoner, or always succumbing to the bottom of the scrum! But there are times when he doesn't want to be this role anymore and it's not easy for him to communicate this to the others. Fortunately these sorts of problems are quickly rectified, sometimes needing the intervention of a parent, but mostly sorted out among the children themselves. The children have remarkable interpersonal skills which, unless you observe them for long periods of time and avoid adult intervention, would probably go unnoticed

And they counted them in...

Today ds1 and ds2 had a chance to work at the local scrapstore. They were given the task of packing boxes with 60 items in each box. The 'scrap' items were pieces of foam (with sticky backs) which apparently make very good 'stampers' and are in demand in local schools (?).

There was a lovely helper there who quickly took them under his wing and helped them find a working method to fill the boxes quickly. ds1 was given the task to count the items into piles of 10 and then ds2' s job was to put 6 of these piles into a box, close it up and take it to where it was being stored. I think there may have been a bit of miscounting, particularly with the distraction of members of the public coming in and out as they were trying to put the items in piles - there may be one or two schools in with a surprise when they open their box! But, generally, it went well, with ds2 slowly learning his 10 times table (er..no 50 doesn't come after 20 when counting in tens) and the boys entertained for several hours.

We talked a little with the helper about home education and he was surprisingly sympathetic (phwew!). It's always a relief not to have to repeatedly explain - or worse still, defend - why your children aren't in school (yes it's legal, no I'm not a teacher, yes they have a great social life..etc..etc).

Anyway, the boys have been invited for more voluntary work next week, so hopefully it will be a regular thing. Maybe I can throw out all those unused maths workbooks then...

So, what about socialisation...?

One of the most frequent questions I am asked about home education (after 'Is that legal?' and 'Are you a teacher?') is 'So, what about socialisation?'

Well you know that's always a tricky one to answer. There are lots of tempting - but cheeky - replies that cross my mind, but I generally resist. After all, what would anyone whose kids are in school understand about socialisation? Is socialisation spending the majority of the day sitting in a classroom with 25 other children the same age as you, not being allowed to talk, make noise or interact as a child would normally do with his peers? Is socialisation the 15 minutes of running around in a restricted environment at 'play time' (or for some running and hiding somewhere so the kids who don't like them can't find them)?

Nah, socialisation is what us home edders and their kids seem to do best.

When I look back on the past 2 weeks it has probably been a good example of how sad and lonely my poor little home educated kids are - NOT! What with ice skating, climbing, wading through flooded fields, playing on scooters out front with the neighbours and having lots of children over to play in between, it has been non-stop socialising!

Thursday last we took a friend to ice skating, then ds1 went back to hers to play and we had another family with 3 children visit us in the afternoon. Friday we had a museum visit with a large group of home educated children - took one friend and came back with 3! All 7 children crammed on the sofa to eat chips and watch a DVD in our lounge (ok, unhealthy I know, but how else was I supposed to feed 7 kids who all liked different things?)

Tuesday this week we spent the morning on the allotment clearing up after winter and then went on to the local Scrapstore to talk to the people who volunteer there and hunt out fascinating treasures. Wednesday we went to a friend's house, ate wonderful pizza and chocolate cake and took 11 children and 2 dogs out for a walk which ended up with most of them wading through a flooded field! And yes, they did all get Very Wet! And then today we took the kids climbing on the local climbing wall. Well there were 6 familes and around 15 children (I've just done a quick count and I figure that's right). The toddlers went into 'Energizers' the toddler gym session, while bigguns just wore themselves out on the climbing wall. Again, the boys invited a friend back to our house for the afternoon.

So, next time someone asks me about socialisation, what am I going to say? Well, you know, it's still a tricky one. I suppose I'll just have to say that we're so busy socialising to stop we really don't have much time to answer daft questions like that!

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p.s. forgot to say. My freecycling and selling going well:
sold the Sindy stuff (£60), freecycled the camping mats, packed up a bundle of stuff to recycle in the clothes bin, passed on some kids toys to a friend's fostered child (plus wellies and hopefully a mac and leggings soon), gave away some david attenborough DVDs, some unused language CDROMS (to go soon) and freecyled the large gym mat and some leftover washable nappies. Also got rid of most of my old camera stuff over the weekend (sad, but it's gotta go). OOOh all this space I'm making...

Unfortunately now got huge bags of scrap from the scrapstore...