Education

Getting Started with French

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This week, over supper, my eldest daughter was describing the building opposite our house. When it came to talking about the tiles on the roof, she called it the “toit” not roof.  She surprised herself.  The French word had come out first.  Isn’t it wonderful when language becomes part of you?!

I love languages and have done since I was small. I am by no means bilingual (if only!) but I was exposed to lots of French and Russian as a child. This went on to influence my subject choices at both school and university and is where one of my passions still lies. To be able to visit another country and Continue reading →

Exploring Pond Life

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I’ll be honest – I know next to nothing about pond life, its creatures or plants – but that hasn’t prevented me from exploring our local pond. A whole unknown world exists that the children and I love investigating.  We like to go with each changing season so we can enjoy the transformation that occurs and observe the aquatic life as the year passes.

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Listening to Audiobooks

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Audiobooks – don’t you love them?!

I remember listening to them as a teenager for what I thought was a quick way to read set literature texts. I have a clear image of travelling around Thailand and listening to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov on a walkman – that was called revising! On reflection it was irresponsible and doing neither the country nor the novel justice.

I now love audiobooks for different reasons.  Of course they are no substitute for actually all curling up on the sofa reading a story but I can only read so many stories to the children with my own voice, and so they are a wonderful way to supplement our daily read aloud times. Continue reading →

Embracing Autumn

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The morns are meeker than they were –
The nuts are getting brown –
The berry’s cheek is plumper –
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf –
The field a scarlet gown –
Lest I sh’d be old-fashioned
I’ll put a trinket on.
— Emily Dickinson

No sooner had we returned from our summer holiday, than we felt the autumn chill in the air. The blustery wind has been tossing the crunchy leaves around our garden. It really feels like autumn has arrived, although unlike Dickinson’s description our roses are still blooming. To cherish the turn in the weather, we drew our first ever chalk pastel pictures of ‘An Autumn Walk in the Woods’ with help from  www.chalkpastel.com. We loved using a new medium for our artwork.

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Living History

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Today the great excitement was Hadrian’s Wall and Vindolanda!

Our older two children have been learning Latin this year with Ed and in the same way my French text books were always set in La Rochelle when I was little, their Latin ones are set in the imagined life of this historical Roman site, Vindolanda. We have also been studying the Romans this last term, so it was thrilling to see history come alive for all of us. The latrines and the sponge sticks were of particular interest, as well as discovering all the places you could stand and shoot the enemy from! We were not there for long as I always find short and sweet is best with little ones in tow!

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Humble beginnings

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“Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire.”     W. B. Yeats

Well here I am finally starting a blog!

My head is swamped with ideas about education, life and learning and so I hope to use this space as somewhere to share some of these things I have been pondering.

Our family made the big decision to start homeschooling our children over a year ago.  This involved taking our eldest two out of the school they were attending and so inevitably we have had thousands of questions since from everyone around us.

“Why would you do that?”

“I could never do that!”

“How did you make that decision?”

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