See how efficient our home education is? A second box ticked already!

Last night Audrey sat down during Country File and drew up a list of things she would like us to make.

See, it’s even got tick boxes! I have to say that I don’t recall any fried tuber or root vegetable slices let alone chocolate chip cookies featuring in either Tales from the Green Valley or Victorian Farm, but I’m going to let that pass

Oh, and yes we ARE going to make beer, it’s very sciencey and granddad will be happy to consume the results, as long as they aren’t dreadful.

Today’s Tales from the Green Valley included butter making, so straight after watching it we were down to the kitchen and out with the pot of cream and an empty honey jar. Audrey took her own photos during production so all I have to offer from my camera is a quick snap of the finished result after some had been tested on toast.

As a break from following all the political goings on and the joys of being doorstepped yesterday by a **** from the local council, today we followed up on the Victorian Farm theme and went to the Rural Life Centre at Tilford

The sun shone and we had the place almost totally to ourselves, not even one school group, it was lovely! Audrey got to spend as long as she wanted on the various hands on activities (bet you always wanted to know what the parts of a harness are called).

Although I did have to finally call time on the period costume dress up

and trying out all the toys in the school house.

AND they had a seed fiddle!

Big news this week is that Naughty, the chick who we had our doubts about, finally proved that he is indeed very much a boy, by trying to crow … at 4:30am.

Luckily there’s an easy way to reduce the problem, you shut the hen house door after they’ve gone to bed and don’t open it in the morning until a more civilised hour when the neighbours can be expected to already be awake.

That said there’s no way we could keep him so I put a post on Freecycle to find him a home. Friday we took some last photos, put him in a cardboard box and drove him off to his new life.

The run is a good deal quieter now but Audrey took the loss with good grace and at least he’s out there alive and strutting his stuff with a new group of hens rather than waiting out a last couple of weeks before death.

If you are a visiting government official - today we worked on ECM Outcome #4, making a positive contribution. We engaged in law-abiding and positive behaviour and supported the community. We also had fun but I can’t find that listed anywhere on the ECM framework document so I suppose it doesn’t count for anything.

If you are a normal person - today along with several other local HE families we took part in the Guildford Fiesta Parade (having previously done a workshop to create our masks). If you saw it you couldn’t have missed us, we were the lions, hear us “ROAR”!

Lots of animal stuff to report, file it all under “Life Processes and Living Things” if you like

Eight weeks old tomorrow and haven’t the girls grown!? Well, we’re still hoping that they’re all girls, the one in doubt is Naughty, the Speckeldy second from the right.

The Painted Ladies are taking a nap. One more is on the bottom of the net thing and we’ve got a 6th one who’s still busy eating in the plastic pot.

Several tadpoles in the nature pond now have four legs, the fish are the same as always, and we’ve been seeing lots of these lovelies.

Audrey helped me clean out the greenhouse. We potted up a cucumber, washed blackfly off the broadbeans, watered stuff in pots and put a new perch up in the chicken run. Then she read Sam Sheep Can’t Sleep and found another stag beetle. As I type this she’s having lunch and then we will be off to her music lesson.

Yes, in the back of my mind the fury and disgust are still there but I am not going to let that miserable, bigoted, evil SOB dominate my life. He wants to destroy the freedom and joy of home education and maybe he will, but not TODAY!

The girls will be 3 weeks old tomorrow. Here they are enjoying some Sweet Woodruff flowers.

So, there you have it, a ‘typical’ week. Of course it’s only typical in that no two days were the same and a lot of it just happened. Sundays are usually a stay at home day, and the beach trip was only because the weather was gorgeous and the tides right, and, well you get the picture.

When I started recording this week I promised myself that I would resist the urge to push for any activities to tick school type boxes, and so looking back we have a whole week with no apparent maths and no more writing than the capitals needed to identify the C Position notes on the grand stave. There’s been reading TO, but no reading BY so we’d probably get a fail on literacy as well as maths. Of course we kicked butt on science, nobody could say we didn’t do science and it wasn’t all dinosaurs either! Music, tick. Modern language, tick. Even some Arts & Crafts and a dash of History.

So why, you might ask, do I seem so blithely unconcerned about maths and literacy, the sacred 3Rs? Why do I nag for piano practice every day but not a spot of writing or a few sums? A few months back Audrey had a passion for workbooks, actually asked to do them, a couple of times even before breakfast! She burned through the Year 1 Maths and English ones in a few weeks, I think we ended up about two thirds of the way through Enjoyable English and just started the Toady Times Tables (Yr2) before the enthusiasm dried up so I figure we’re well ahead of the game. This was the second workbook jag so I’m comfortable that it’ll happen again eventually. To be fair writing practice does happen without workbooks, but it has to have a purpose and we can go weeks at a time without it happening.

Talking to other parents this sort of thing seems to be entirely normal for a child getting a largely autonomous education. Apparently nothing for weeks and then a sudden burst of activity which leaves you wondering where it came from and how on Earth they learnt what magnetic materials are anyway because you’re sure you never discussed it.

And the music? Daily practice = mummy keeps paying for music lessons = Audrey gets the clarinet she wants when her teacher says she’s ready, but she is five and needs to be reminded of this deal on a more or less daily basis which means some nagging.