A retrospective exploration of our second year in our home education journey

Progress looks different to every individual, who will also have a personal weakness they need to work on developing.  No individual is ever finished, and will have reached the end of their learning journey. It's the journey of life, to learn, to grow, as long as your heart is beating. We are forever students, as well as teachers, from the minute we are born. We simply focus on different aspects of education at different stages of life. Not everyone will reach the same point, certainly not at the same time. The words 'unique' and 'individual' exist for a reason.   Here was Xander at a year old. His early years education was very focused at this stage. He could not sit up without being strapped into this chair.  He 'should' have been independently sitting, building towers, crawling and perhaps even walking like his sister's at that age. That's what the guidebooks say. This was not his path. He made those milestones but in time for his second birthday....

  We kept busy with several projects during the summer of 2020.  I transformed the living room for the topic of transportation one night whilst the children slept. We had two cars, a boat, a rocket ship and a traffic lights. The childrens' faces were a picture in the morning. My living room stayed like this all over the summer lockdown. The children happily sat in their vehicles for all of their lessons.  It's 50/50 whether I would have done the same if we were actually allowed visitors. Family members peaked through the window agog to see what they may see next.  Kira drew her first person during this time, inspired to draw an astronaut on the inside wall of the rocket ship.  Early years is a perfect time for over the top commitment and crazy projects 😂. The children thought it was absolutely amazing.

 How did your children keep busy?  Sophia gave herself the task to colour in the garden and they spent most of the summer outside.  Grandparents gifted some sports equipment and we had so many picnics!  They really wanted to go camping, so we made a role play fire which lasted well over a year.  We covered their chairs in grey blankets for rocks, and their duvets became sleeping bags.  They had plenty of movie days sat in front of the fire, enjoying marshmallows

There was a scene of tranquility and productivity. Ha!  The girls raided the craft drawers in search of the correct colours and had a tissue paper rainbow dance, singing the colours of the rainbow whilst I made the background. The girls enjoyed a pom pom snowball fight before gluing them down.  The living room looked like a rainbow had exploded. The girls then settled down to create their rainbow versions.  We ended the session with creating a dinner plate set out in rainbow colours and coloured cupcakes. Now confession time. When I have magical ideas like this, they're rarely pre planned. In this case, it was lockdown and the children had just seen a rainbow out of the window.  Thus this afternoon came into being. This is my excuse for using a Z for the N in rainbow.  I made it all up on the fly, using what was available. As a result, there were no blueberries on the plate like a sane, pinterest food rainbow....there was blue mashed potato.  My lessons are...

I've found panicking to be very unhelpful in the pursuit of teaching or facilitating early years education. When I initiated our learning journey, I didn't research or network with experienced home educators. I wanted to experience it without outside influence and carve my own path. Therefore, I made mistakes. I decided in my unexperienced 'wisdom' to shake up a working formula of teaching....during lockdown. In retrospect, the timing was terrible. We were hardly at our most calmest, safest level-headed selves during that period. I panicked. The girls were leaving the safety net of the alphabet and 1-10 and were ready to spread their little wings into hard core reading and writing and the first little addition sums. I immediately lost my head and fell back into the safety net of the school system. I followed term times and holidays. I spent hours micromanaging curriculums and dividing up the hours of the day.  There were glorious moments and wonderful memories. It was a...

Growing up I was unaware.  I sat on my mother's knee learning to read.  Over the years I'd sit statue still for hours reading, nothing short of a fire would have broken through the magical worlds I had entered.  Experience through me, a typical reading session with a toddler with adhd and hyperlexia.  Give yourself forty-five minutes for this activity.  Wait for ten minutes for her to stop performing flips and tricks, bearing in mind she will have asked for this activity. Another five minutes for her to get snuggly in your lap, and have a giggle because she is purposely holding the book upside down. She will then flawlessly read a page of a Peter and Jane book.  Then point out that the next page is pretty much the same as the one before so why does she have to read it?  You refocus her.  She reads the next page flawlessly.  'Oh look I have a bellybutton', poking at it and giggling.  Refocus.  Next page read flawlessly.  'Mummy,...