So often when I ask Helena to do things I just want them done… from “get your shoes we need to go” to the slightly terse “pick your stuff up off the floor”. Mostly easy things in my head, a bit of working out the most efficient way and I’d have it done in minutes….
Tag: real life
choosing a teacher
We belong to a community gardening group. It was Helena’s idea to join years ago and it is now so integral to our life. We go every Thursday morning. Most of the people are retired, bar us and the ex rocket scientist who is in his early 30s. It is community. Mostly H just does…
being responsive
This week we chucked all that. H has volunteered to be a scientific Guinea pig. She has enrolled in an asthma study. It turns out this IS really interesting. Now we are doing science and producing something for the up coming science fair on asthma. I have got us cow lungs to dissect. So far…
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…
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…..
history
What we ended up learning in our isolated spot was what our isolated ancestors would have known and always factored into their lives. Life without a supermarket/dairy etc. down the road… There were no roads, it was a days walk to get out and the only fast way in was by boat and it turned…
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…
homeschoolery 