Author: annebieleski

I am an ex primary teacher... ex because of regulations saying that you have be fully registered within 5 years of graduating and I only ever worked part-time due to art school, a science job... life .. so I haven't done the time. I was never going to be a conventional teacher, I wanted to be like my Mum who was a most awesome teacher and had the freedom to teach how she wanted. I am intellectually interested in education. I have spent 20 something years working in early childhood... part time of course! I had nearly 6 years learning alongside Helena at Playcentre. My daughter has refused to go to school so I am fortunate enough to spend time watching her do her stuff and trying some experiments on her.... I think learning is easy and happens all the time for every one which is what I want to show on this blog. It turns out Homeschooling is just fun.

Is what you are teaching preparing children for the climate emergency?

I have been cleaning at a high school, I get paid to do exercise and listen uninterrupted to pod casts. I do it in part because I know what it feels like to walk into a clean classroom room and feel that “today is a new day” feeling however terrible the day before was, and…

the report

as in last years, a bit late due to some apathy on my part that has lasted for the last term of last year and the first term of this year!! and a graph we did just because

Little bits

Our real lives are full of little bits of this and that… The witch and the cherry tree in Lego… all just because…..

A lack of inspiration…

I am suffering from a lack of homeschool inspiration. In part that is due to Helena rejecting a lot of my suggestions that I think are exciting.. I have mostly given up. Having said that I have been doing things that are ‘interesting’ like working with a friend to put solar panels on the roof…

two weeks out

We are so incredibly lucky! We got to spend two weeks totally out of our normal life volunteering for the Department of Conservation at a Lodge at Nydia bay. Only 5 hours of power a day, no cellphone reception… no roads, shops and not even many people! We got dropped there by boat with our…

Grrr

I wrote a whole post on my bossy child and I thought it morphed into an excellent discussion about people working together, group dynamics and the different roles different personalities take and how this is learned in childhood practice… but the computer swallowed it before I illustrated it with photos of my darling and I…

the candidates meeting

I am delighted my child chose to come to our local “meet the candidates” meeting, in fact she didn’t want to miss it! It is our local body elections and Helena knows that her grandfather and I care… we talk about it, tell each other snippets we have read at the dinner table. The School…

testing

There is always something in the press about testing and how the kids are failing. Testing is a thing I associate with science. The importance in science is a fair test and this requires This makes sense right. If, for instance, you grew a plant in two different places but were actually testing the the…

risky play

The kids lit this fire.. they sorted themselves about keeping each other safe – the big ones decided they should light the fire, there was a discussion on the wind. There was some kind of close/ too close circle rule… They went and got sunglasses for the smoke, they also went and got the marshmallows…