Some Schooly Stuff

When we were away, we visited Barrington House in Somerset and were pleasantly surprised to get to see Antony Gormley's Field for the British Isles.  Later that day the girls drew clay men in their holiday journals.

When we got home we made our own mini field.  They are arranged on our season table right now, funny, slightly creepy, and thought-provoking, even out of context as our few little figures are.



After looking at a lot of Antony Gormley's work online, Morgan did more journalling, and I gave Jenna a few spools of jewellery wire and some pliers.  Jenna loved working with a new material, and made a few sculptures of her own in response to the pictures she saw online.  This one is named, "Life Without Love."

I haven't taken pictures of the girls' journals and lesson books for a while, but honestly it's because they have hardly been used.  We've been mostly reading together and getting out and about, and there hasn't been the same desire to produce written work.

We still get to swimming once a week, and usually sit on the play area nearby for a couple of hours afterwards.  Morgan is swimming widths of the pool now, and surface diving.  Jenna is a strong confident swimmer.  It's wonderful to see them teaching themselves.




What else?  Nothing really huge is happening around here.  No big leaps, just the little daily sparks of "oh, I just realised" and "I never knew that!"  I'm feeling very laid back and confident about their learning.  Kitchen science pretty much came to a standstill for a while, but then Jenna and I made a super-saturated sugar solution and grew sugar crystals.  They took just a few hours to form, too!




Our daily rhythm has changed a little over the summer.  It's just that things seem to flow more naturally, be less home-based, and the children want less input in terms of suggestions and planned activities.

You'd be forgiven for seeing a post like this and thinking I offer masses of educational experiences to the girls.  Really, I offer perhaps one or two suggestions a week, and often not even that as long as we are getting lots of outdoor time and the children are keeping themselves occupied.  Over half of the activities that are really absorbing or successful or look schooly have nothing at all to do with me - I just hover long enough to photograph the results and help with clear up afterwards.

This is an art project we haven't done for ages: rain pictures.  The girls each draw something bright in felt tip on watercolour paper, and I put it out in the rain for a minute til all the colours start to run slightly.  Not one to do in that summer storm last week.


Morgan Pie, not such a little one now, she is only five and has changed so much again this year.  You'd be forgiven for barely recognising her enthusiastic chatty self nowadays. She is a very very beginner reader and writer.  

She can spell very few words and often writes letters in all sorts of random orders.  She struggles to remember that words are read left to right in English.  She likes to draw, endless endless pictures of little girls in dresses.  


Bluebells Farm have baby animals.  Obviously the baby animals were the reason we went, not at all the delicious local ice cream...  Or the play area...  ;)







Apart from all of the invisible stuff going on in their heads, that's what our home-education looks like at the moment. Funny how things work so smoothly for a season, and how easy it is to transition from one thing to another as the need arises, if I only observe and stop trying to make everything fit my notion of how it "should" look!