Little Star Homeschool

Yesterday Robert and I went to our first Muddle Puddle Group over in Sheffield. After initially sitting on the sidelines with his coat firmly on, Robert soon joined in. Its the most relaxing afternoon I've had in ages too. When we got home he was quiet and reflective, he gave Daddy a rundown of the main happenings such as who cried and such. He wants to go again. Yay!

Its worth commenting on the difference I noticed in home-ed kids when compared to school-ed kids, John's first two children (now 20 and 21) were school educated and they and their peers were very different in their treatment of adults and class-mates. Yesterday I was watching mixed age kids play without conflict and talking to adults in a completely confident and relaxed manner. There were no 'crowd-control' issues that overwhelm the classroom and children used their initiative to develop games. Older children naturally shepherded the little ones, this wasn't just a group of kids but a team of like-minded individuals working together. Now that's something you will be hard-pressed to find in the adult world.

Home-ed kids do not learn the adversarial attitudes bred in schools, there's no 'them and us' divide between kids and adults, yet they understand who is in authority should they need help or a child is getting into danger. Now then, if they do not need to defy authority because it is not eroding their self-esteem then these potential teens will not need to rebel against authority in order to build the false ego and will grow to become well-rounded adults comfortable within themselves and their place in society.

We bathe under the midnight starry sky
and sweep careless drops of mik from our hair
We sigh and marvel at creation every day
and in our wonderings create so much more
Are we godesses woven from aphrodites loom
More than that we are daughters and mothers
This silent sorority who sit with our cheeks pressed
staring listlessly at the rain watching the window cry
And chase away the shadows with a song
We share our dreams and delights for the days ahead
Whilst innocently dabbling in water, earth and ink
Wiping away the heavy dew pressing us down into slumber
we are fond of this life with all its passing drone of hectic noise
We are pleased with who we are.

Robert created this on Ulead PhotoImpact after watching me use it countless times. He built the image up from set shapes coloured with bucket fill and multivision and defraction filters added last. I think its stylish and shows he has a a good eye for colour.

This afternoon Robert and I tidied the master bedroom, well...I tidied while he bounced on the bed. Later I attempted some Soduko - I've only been doing them for about a week so I am a bit slow and I get stuck. On commenting that I was indeed clueless Robert came out with the broad statement, "6 is just a 9 upside down." "yes it is" I replied adding the ubiquitous "very clever." Not to be outdone he continued, "they are both actually curly numbers. Thats all." He wandered off, I went back to my puzzle.

What can I say, http://earth.google.com/ is fantastic, totally addictive. Spent the morning taking a virtual cruise of the Norfolk Broads. Chesterfield is a bit blurry though but they are working on it apparently. We can't see our house : (

John is a great fan of hypnosis and spotted this rather garish book with its red and yellow cover while shopping in WHSmith. It was a rare impulse purchase and one which has changed his life. He was a 20 - 30 a day smoker who had made many attempts over 30 years to give up the habit. He tried patches, gum, willpower, herbal cigarettes, Skoll Bandits (remember them), snuff and even Fishermans Friends (throat lozenges).

The book is 123 pages long and divided into two parts with a hypnosis CD. The idea is you read the first part of the book, listen to the hypnosis CD then read the rest of the book. The first part makes sobering reading, it is full of facts and figures of what smoking does to the body and the mind. Statistics abound on the number of people who die horribly from the dreaded weed and also for good measure includes a nice statistic on the number of people who need to have limbs amputated as well. Pretty shocking and the old smokers addage "it won't happen to me" is exploded once and for all. Susan Hepburn does insist that you really must want to give up smoking. This is the most important point of the book. Without this commitment you will not stop smoking. The CD follows a pattern which is common to many hypnosis CDs that is the "talk down induction" where the subject is put into a deep state of relaxation which calms the conscious mind thus allowing the hypnotic commands to be delivered straight to the subconscious where they will be acted upon without question. After this the induction is reversed to bring the subject back to full awareness. I should mention that whilst under hypnosis one is still aware of what is going on around them and should an emergency arise one can wake up instantly. This is mentioned on the CD and is one of the things one must look for when purchasing, although it is fair to say that any professionally created hypnosis CD will have these instructions.Suprisingly on first using the CD John wasn't impressed, it seemed to simple. He had previously given up smoking for two years using Paul McKenna's method but obviously lapsed. Pretty soon however he began to realise that the beauty of this CD lies in its simplicity. No jargon or age regression which in effect takes you back to before you smoked, just the author telling you that you will not smoke again. He used the CD late at night and read the rest of the book before going to bed. He woke next morning with no desire to smoke and hasn't smoked since. After two days he picked up a cigarette put it in his mouth then put the cigarette back in the packet and said "what is the point of that, I don't know why I ever smoked in the first place." Its been 4 weeks now since he quit and he is quite happy to sit with smokers, never feeling the urge to ask for a cigarette and has no desire to 'borrow' cigarettes if they are left lying around. He has not compensated by snacking, munching on mints or any other habit replacement 'therapy.' The second part of the book reinforces the first, continuing in a similar vein. It is now two weeks on and he has not had a single craving for a cigarette, cigar, pipe, nicotine gum or patch.

He says that he has forgotten how to smoke. I guess its my turn next.

'Sis' has come to visit...this is Roberts step-sister by John's previous marriage. Robert waited for "one hundred hours" and now she's here and he's happy as a sandboy. Since sis moved to Wales to live with her boyfriend she has been sorely missed by her brother. Its been a good year since he saw her last and has had to make do with brief chats on the phone. All is well.

I actually remembered to get some meat out of the freezer for tomorrow's dinner. We had to make do with pasta tonight. I get so tired with the extra shifts at work, we are short-staffed as it is and because I am the reliable one who never goes off sick I work when the others are off.

Will do baking with Robert tomorrow, he's took to liking carrot cake. I am a sneaky devious person when it comes to getting him to eat his veg. You'd be suprised what I can hide in a muffin!

I really don't do winter all that well, all i want to do is hibernate with a good book and then I get loads of extra shifts at work. Its been an absolute nightmare since I got back off holiday in October and this blog has really suffered as I have tried to maintain my other e-interests. I am back, I think.

Well, to catch up...Robert's reading has come on in leaps and bounds. I picked up 5 Dr. Seuss books in my local remainder bookshop, the cat in the hat, the cat in the hat comes back, fox in socks, hop on pop and green eggs and ham. His reading age is now about 7 years 3 months. Reading words like sometimes and phrases such as upside down with ease. I can recommend Dr. Seuss wholeheartedly.

Now we are 4 we are seriously into Charlie and Lola and have added the word 'ablsolutely' onto the end of every sentence *sighs*

We have 'fessed up to being home schoolers among some of our friends who have asked if Robert is 'in school yet' reactions are varied to say the least from pure joy to downright sarcasm. Some people seem incapable of greeting the unknown with positive feedback.

I've also been working my socks off for some cash to fund our next holiday on the Norfolk Broads doing consumer reviews on Ciao and surveys. Ipoints have funded some more Dr. Seuss books from Amazon and a new DVD player. We've had a horrendous couple of months for electrical breakdowns, first the washer/dryer and thats essential equipment, then the DVD player followed by the printer.

If you are interested in joining Ciao and earning a few bob reviewing consumer goods click the banner plus if you sign up and get going I earn a bit more cash for books!

I will upload some holiday pics later because blogger is having an off day today.

Debs

I've booked our annual hols, boating on the norfolk broads here we come....Robert of course asks every morning if we are going today. He has also told me a shortlist of things we will need to take, books, deck shoes, lifejacket, milk and a picnic. We have printed out a calendar and pinned it up so we can cross of the days until we go. I am particularly looking forward to getting away because they have given me extra shifts at work again, someone's off sick and another on holiday...again, and because I was standing there when the sicky was rung in it seemed obvious to my boss to ask me, he's a simple fellow *sighs* still the money is always useful.

Next door but one going down the road was dashing (as this hyper-manic 20 something does) along the right of way at the back of our house followed by his 3 year old daughter when disaster struck. She fell. She grazed a knee. She cried. He exploded in a rage. She had fell on something or nothing as 3 year olds do (Robert spends plenty of time on the floor but is stoical about it) so John duly dashed out to apologise and try to calm this man a little but thats not good enough for his little princess. We are now in the process of removing the old obviously defective concrete from the path and renewing it with a ton of sand and lots of paving. And of course just when the work gets underway it rains for two days. The skip we've hired is daylight robbery, its little more than a bucket and its nearly full and I have some stuff in the house I need to put in it.

After that I thought the week could only get better, silly me. We are still at war with British Gas after 8 cards and 3 meters....with no sign of a solution.

You are a Tigger Homeschooler. Tiggers jump into
homeschooling with both feet, as a grand
adventure. Everything is about learning, and
their days (and houses) show it.


What kind of Hundred Acre Wood Homeschooler Are You?
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The gladioli Robert helped plant earlier in the year are stunning! Later this year we will put in some spring bulbs for next year, daffodils, tulips, etc.

Not the embarrasing 'I've put my foot in it' kind of clangers, but the pink knitted variety. Bought a DVD whilst out shopping featuring some of my fave characters from childhood, remember the soup dragon? Robert watched it all twice, he was entranced so its been a peaceful evening.

More work tomorrow and John has to wait in for the man to fix the gas meter, we had it changed and its not working properly. Its a card meter and it won't accept the new card, or should I say *cards*. In the space of a week we've had 5 completely useless cards and the credit on the meter is ebbing away. Good job its summer and we don't need the heating on otherwise I would be blowing a fuse. John is more laid back than me and is sure it will be ok. I am preparing for battle with British Gas. Grrrrr.

I haven't blogged for a few days due to extra shifts at work (still doing holiday cover) and picking up the pace with my ebaying so we have enough money to get away on holiday later this year. So I'm catching up while listening to sleezy Kipper music from the website. Robert read Kipper's beach ball to me again last night and can read more words, such as kipper, plasticky, and elsewhere he is picking up more words still.

Robert can write his name, he uses the whole of an A4 sheet of paper tho! And he is working hard learning to write numbers. We used some print outs from Scholastic which helped him get the shapes of the numbers and he was off and running!

This was all happening while John was shouting at the printer as it mangled paper, smudged ink and made some very strange noises which Robert found very funny. I'm starting to think that cheap ink cartridges aren't so cheap after all if they wreck the printer!