A GRAND DAY OUT

Good evening peoples.

We had an unexpected, unplanned day out today!  Callum's dad, Phil, is off work all week and although we have work to do, it was such lovely weather I asked if we could go out for the day.  As he had nothing planned it was a yes!  So upstairs I went to wake Callum and ask if he fancied going out.  Choices were Legoland, Hever Castle or a runabout at Romney Marsh or if he didn't fancy any of those, he could come up with something else.  I was convinced he'd say Legoland, but no, Hever Castle won the day.

So after a quick trip up the town to get some money and something for lunch, we drove off to Hever.  We have been before but not for ages.  Callum decided he wanted to go around the grounds and into the house, which he's never done before.

So after getting our tickets (I remembered to take his DLA letter, so got one adult in for free) we decided to do an anticlockwise walk around the grounds including a walk around the whole lake (something I've never done before either).  So a visual description of our day goes as follows:

1st Fountain

We have another photo like this when he was small

Off for the 'around the lake walk'

Ducks hiding

Red dragonfly

The Waterfall

The Weir

Phil and Callum on a jetty

The Water Maze

Callum in the Maze

Callum at the top

After our walk around the lake and a rest stop at the Water Maze for lunch and Callum to investigate and have a play around, we headed to The Loggia and had an ice cream.

The Loggia Fountain

The Yew Maze

Anne Boleyn's House

After doing a complete circle of the grounds we went into the house above.  Lots of rooms to explore and Callum had a good look round everything and even remembered who some of the people in the paintings were from the Horrible Histories show that we saw earlier in the year about The Tudors.

Topiary Pig

One of the friendly ducks after our cakes

After a cuppa and cake; they even did gluten free for me, we went into the shop and dolls house exhibition before making our way back to the car ready for the journey home.

Callum's favourite bits of the day were the water maze and the walk around the lake which doesn't surprise me as he loves water and he learn't "that I'm very good at mazes".

Bearing in mind that today was unplanned, Callum did fantastically well.  No kick offs, no grumps, but then we did allow him to lead us where he wanted to go (with a bit of persuasion occasionally) so there was nothing that he didn't want to do.

Hope you enjoy the photos.  Tomorrow we'll be writing it up and doing a bit of extra stuff on Anne Boleyn.

Cya
  

ART, COMPUTERS AND......IT'S BEYOND ME!

Hiya, don't think I'm doing too bad this week.  Seem to be doing an update every other day.  Could have something to do with me now having a laptop so I'm not fighting over computer time with Callum and, of course, I can do it from the comfort of my own sofa.  However, I also think it may have something to do with the new timetable as I'm now organised with work and Callum knows what needs to be done, so we are doing more.

I don't really notice the difference when we don't have a timetable until I actually have one.  I've mentioned before that total autonomous education doesn't work for us, but every now and again, either because we are too busy or I'm too knackered, we end up practising that style of home ed.  But I know that it doesn't really work and having this new timetable has proved it.  It isn't that we don't do any work at all when its autonomous, but I find that I can't suddenly spring to action when Callum wants to do something (I need to be mentally and physically prepared and that means organising) and I find Callum's motivation lapses very quickly and he just ends up doing the same thing all day every day and that's Roblox or now a game on Facebook.  Callum's Asperger means that he does need a certain amount of routine although as he has got older he is more able to cope with sudden changes that may happen in the day.  However, having a visual timetable and a breakdown of what he's expected to do on a daily basis written up has seen him motivated and self organising which is a vast improvement.  His concentration is better and he is more willing to try.  I know this form of education doesn't work for everyone and I know that having a full day's timetable would not work for us, but this semi structured (mornings), semi autonomous (afternoons) approach definitely works for us.  I just need to ensure that I stick to it plus it helps me as well as I know what I need to plan for.

So what have we done over the past few days.  Well, Wednesday was scheduled for Science and Art and Terri was visiting as she usually does on a Wednesday.  I sort of delegated to her for some of the work and they ended up doing a combination of Science and Art using some experiments which looked at colour and light.  This time we/they looked at reflected colour and light; shining a torch covered in coloured cellophane (red, blue and yellow) onto various toy vehicles of various colours (red, yellow, blue, green and white).  It was quite interesting how the vehicles changed colour when different coloured light was shone onto them.  Non of us totally understood it, but a collective conclusion was that the colour reflected was the strongest colour that was left on the spectrum after you removed the colour of the vehicle and the colour of the light.  Unfortunately the cellophane we were using was from sweetie wrappers and the red one was rather strong in comparison to the rest, so we aren't entirely sure if our results were totally as they should be, but it was fun and we kind of got the idea.

They then attempted to make blue sky by using a glass of water and dropping various amounts of milk into the water.  The torch was then shone from the side of the glass and behind the glass.  As the water became more milky, the light from the side shone through the milk in a bluish tinge and shone from behind in a reddish tinge.  Rather interesting. Will try and post some pictures later.

Then they 'played' on Photoshop on the computer to change a photograph of Draco, the dog, into various degrees of blue tones.  I'm hoping to get Callum to do the same using red and yellow tones.

The afternoon was spent with us all together watching Journey 2: Mysterious Island.

Today was Maths and Computer Studies.  Callum spent most of the morning on www.khanacademy.org continuing to look at areas and perimeters and www.codeacademy.com where he begun to learn to write some proper computer code.  Then it was a single maths sheet on areas and perimeters of triangles to finish off.

After lunch we watched the latest edition of Turn Back Time - The Family, which is a BBC programme about the life of families through history.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01kwlrr/Turn_Back_Time_The_Family_1940/

Callum enjoys this programme as do I as it isn't all about facts and figures, but more about the everyday life of families and how they lived, worked and played.

For the rest of the day, he has played on the Wii and has now started playing playing one of the games online with other people.  Not something that I would want to do or probably could even suss out how to do, but Callum, as do many others, just gets it.  I used to be pretty good using computers, but I think a lot of it is now beyond me.  But good for C, glad he can keep up as he'll need to.

Anyway, last ice skating meet before the holidays tomorrow and then a bit of a clean up of the house.

Cya folks

OOOOO ORGANISING WORKED TODAY

Hiya

Today was the first day of the new timetable which I'm supposed to be putting into action proper in September, but thought I'd use it from now to organise finishing work off ready for end of year.  There are only two subjects a day and regular social meetings are scheduled in, so no surprises.  It's a 2 week timetable as we do some things fortnightly, but it now shows Callum exactly what to expect and when.

So today he was up early surprisingly and remembered to shower.  Can't believe he remembered to shower as he normally needs reminding, so that was a good start.  We then sat having our first cuppa in the living room and started on a discussion which was another of those wonderful subject to subject to subject ones that never cease to amaze me and makes me thankful for my decision to home educate in the first place.  I can't exactly remember how it started, but I know we ended up going from currency to strength of the pound to affiliation with Europe and the Channel Tunnel to tectonic plates (Callum wanted to know if eventually the tunnel would collapse due to the movement of plates) to the moon moving away from us to world destruction to space travel and ideal planets to colonise and then onto orbits, lengths of days vs lengths of years and finally finishing on fact that a lot of what you see in the night sky actually probably doesn't even exist anymore.  We got out books; talked about programmes we'd seen and news items we'd read and obviously his own theories.  Surprising how you can cover geography, politics, economics and science in just over an hour without even trying.

Then off to sign up for khanacademy and codeacademy for computer studies session.  He ended up watching all the videos on how to work out areas and perimeters and after the initial grump about having to do it, found he thoroughly enjoyed it.  Didn't try any of the challenges, but that's for next time.  And as for codeacademy; I had trouble getting him off it.  Think that one was the clear winner and he'll probably be back on that one whenever the mood takes him rather than when he's told to.

Science next, had one failed experiment where we were supposed to create rainbows using water and light reflecting through, but didn't manage to create any rainbows at all.  Oh well, beauty of science; some work, some don't.  We then went onto refraction and used submerged coins and immersed thumbs to demonstrate Snell's Law.

The submerged coin.  Top one real, bottom one refracted image

The fat thumb

This afternoon was round at a friends for a belated birthday lunch and social time.  Didn't see Callum all afternoon.  Friend's house was lovely (had moved some months ago and we just hadn't managed to get round to visiting).  Was nice to catch up and have a good natter with lots of cups of tea, pizza, nibbles, cake and strawberries.  Left later than we were intending, but even then, Callum was reluctant.  Promised we wouldn't leave it so long for next visit. Got home just in time for his dinner which he wasn't really up for eating, so has eaten that a little later on this evening.

All in all a good day and all ran pretty much to plan.  Callum happy and has had a good day.  Hopefully tomorrow's meeting at Faversham will be as enjoyable (usually is).

Cya

WE HAVE NO MOTIVATION

Hi all, yes I know it's been ages!  We don't seem to have any motivation at the moment.  Everyday is a struggle to get anything done or planned.  I know that this is just a lull, but it's beginning to worry me.

Callum has definitely turned into a teen or at least a preteen.  He's reading every night (which isn't a bad thing) until about 11pm, but that means he isn't getting up until 9am, sometimes 10am.  Again, this isn't a real problem as we aren't having to get ready for school, but it does mean that by the time we are up and ready it's verging on lunchtime!  The weather hasn't helped either as it's been so miserable that that affects my moods and I've been having more headaches and having a general feeling of blurgh!

So what have we done?  Well, we've still been going to ice skating and the Faversham meetings and Callum has still be doing trampolining.  He's now somersaulting!  Did six this week, with 4 of those in a row!  Go Callum!

Last weekend we held a charity tea party in aid of the Blue Cross (animals) and managed to raise just over £100.  Callum helped make a few of the cakes and posted invites to the neighbours.  He also helped clean up the house in readiness for our guests.  So I suppose we could class that as life skills, haha.

Sunday we went off to the local Flower Festival at Cozenton and bought some veg and fruit plants for the garden and some alpines for Callum's little sink garden.  It needs digging out and redoing, so that is something I'd like to get done before the weekend if the weather stays dry.

Monday this week we went off to London with his sister, Terri, to visit an art exhibition in Somerset House.  We are supposed to be looking at colour and light and The Courtauld Gallery had a Mondrian/Nicholson exhibition on, so I thought that would be a good one to visit as Mondrian (and Nicholson) used blocks of colour.  Callum really enjoyed it, in fact he also enjoyed having a look at the other exhibitions that were on, "I liked seeing the different ways of painting" he told me on Wednesday when we were doing a write up to go in our folder.  In fact, he even said he would like to go and visit some other galleries!

Callum's own version of Mondrian

Afterwards we then walked back towards Waterloo East and went off to the Imperial War Museum for a couple of hours.  Had totally forgotten how much of it there was and we have decided another visit is necessary.  We only managed one floor and the main hall.

Callum with his sister, Terri

Just about reach!

As I've already said we had trampolining on Tuesday and yesterday Terri visited us again and they had a little art lesson on creating pictures in the style of Mondrian or Nicholson (see Callum's above).

Today, it's overcast again, I have a headache and Callum is in his pjs on the Wii.  Tomorrow is the ice skating meet and we have Mini Beast Hunting and Tree Identification Walk at the weekend.

Hopefully we will feel more motivated next week.  Not so out and about which means we might be able to get some experiments done and some more maths.

Cya

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

Hi all

Been a quiet couple of days to be honest. Were supposed to be going to a home ed meet in Maidstone on Monday, but both myself and Callum woke up a bit snuffly and didn't feel like going out. Instead we decided to plan Christmas. Callum helps me with the cooking preparations and we got down our box of presents and cards to see what we needed to get. I tend to buy bits and pieces throughout the year if something grabs me and its in a sale and they all go into a big box for birthday and Christmas presents.

We discovered that we didn't need any cards as we'd got them all in the January sales, so Callum has decided to try and write out a card a day as he hates doing them. He needs to make a list first though, so we'll do that by the end of the week.

We finished packing and cataloging the Halloween stuff and that went upstairs to the attic.

We then did pop up the town as its Draco's (our black labrador) birthday next Monday and the pet market stall is on Mondays. We bought a couple of treats and looked at a new bed for him as his is getting a bit tatty and flat!

Today we cleared out the under stairs cupboard. It is supposed to be the overflow kitchen cupboard with all the seasonal/birthday crockery, trays, etc, but it does tend to get used as a dumping cupboard. So, it was pull everything out, clear out the rubbish, tidy up the posters and papers and repack the boxes. Took off and on most of the day, but we now have lots of room and everything is pretty easy to get at. Callum got easily distracted by the posters and the art stuff and all the bits and pieces, which probably accounted for most of the time, but it got done!

Then off to trampolining where he was definitely put through his paces for 1/2 hr. He worked extremely hard and has nearly nailed another thing off his list which he's really pleased about. Oh, on the subject of achieving things, we heard yesterday that he has passed his Bronze Arts Award! Yay! I have written about this during previous posts and although relatively easy, making sure it was written up how they wanted it and covering everything they asked was pretty hard, plus doing or attending workshops is a big issue for Callum, so the fact that he managed it at all means I'm really pleased for him.

Whilst out we popped to the library to see if they had the next book from the one he has just finished, but sadly they didn't. Then off to charity shop to drop off some bits found in the cupboard and, of course, we couldn't resist having a look round. I managed to pick up a skirt and a jacket that came to the grand total of £3 and Callum took a liking to a Christmas mug for 20p! Then card shop for birthday cards and paper, then home, we also have his Uncle's birthday and a friend's daughter's birthday this weekend.

Since then, he's been back on his game, but he is now doing some maths and some word puzzles while I'm on here. Going to start limiting his time on computer otherwise he is and has been on it all day!

So that's it; busy, but at home and its been rather enjoyable. Tomorrow we need to check ingredients for mincemeat as want to make that on Thursday. He loves making the mincemeat as its really easy and a case of chucking everything into a big pan. Then, of course, we get the first smell of Christmas with all the dried fruit, spices and a touch of Brandy.....yum!

Cya

Blinking heck! Can't believe last post was in November!!!!!

Some people may be wondering if we've given up home edding. We haven't, I've just not been doing blogs! Partly due to last computer playing up and having to find my way around a new one and partly because we've been a bit autonomous and partly because we've been 'hibernating'.

December was full of Christmassy things. Card making and writing; present buying and wrapping; cake and biscuit making and generally doing all the things that come along with the festive season.

January we were both ill. First me, then Callum, so we pretty much wrote off formal ed and stuck to watching docs on TV and looking at books.

February brought Phil into DIY mode and as our house is already practically a building site and none of the rooms have 'sealed' ceilings, we ended up not being able to use the 'school' room/dining room as he was ripping the bedroom above it to bits and everything was falling down through the gaps around the edge of the room. Needless to say there were dust sheets everywhere and this meant that home ed resources, equipment and the computer were out of bounds for about 3 weeks!!!

Now we are in March and trying to get back into some sort of routine, but it isn't working as Phil has taken another week off to do the bathroom, so chaos is reigning again! Plus Callum has had a rotten cold again and is a bit hit and miss on the concentration levels. But we have started going out and about again and he is still reading loads AND the other day he came up to me and said he wanted to do Maths! Yes, WANTED to do MATHS! Apparently he is concerned that his mental arithmatic isn't fast enough so he wants to go back and do some basic adding and subtracting and build up some speed! Turns out that instead of mentally rounding up or down to 10, he's rounding up or down to 5!! Eh? Means everything is taking twice as long, so am glad he raised the issue.

He's also stopped his group trampolining and is just doing a fortnightly private lesson instead. He says it's because he is doing more complicated stuff and wanted more time to practise which made a lot of sense to be honest. Attempting to do somersaults and flips in a 1-2min section is a bit rushed. Now he has 1/2hr to practise as much as he can and he's a lot happier!

We also might be signing up to do an Arts Award, but have got to have an interview next weekend before signing up/making a decision, so will see how that goes!

As to projects; we have 4 to complete before the end of July, which sounds a reasonable amount of work, but not too pressured. Am hoping that we can complete 1 a month from April. Will be happy with that.

It does appear that we are pretty autonomous at the moment, but that is fine. We seem to have done a year semi-structured, a year autonomous and then back to a year semi, so this year, being our 4th year, being autonomous is probably about right! hehe

Anyway, update done!

Cya