We can mosey out of bed at any time we fancy and eat breakfast discussing the brain or talking French or doing maths with the cheerios, taking our time and not having to worry about being somewhere, we can negotiate our day and take time to discuss the previous nights dreams.
Getting dressed is never a chore and often pyjamas stay on until lunchtime until we decide to venture down to the park or have a home ed meet to go to, or some other planned event.
I look out of the window on cold wet mornings and see the poor kids being drenched by the rain running to get to school and think to myself, thank goodness we don't have to go out in that and then sit in wet clothes for hours on end..
I'm not a fan of wet weather, although the kids love nothing better than to get their wellies on and splash through a few puddles, which we do on regular occasions.
Our life is spent in a relaxed manner, using most moments in the day to learn something new, it may be a word or a phrase that the kids question, which leads to a you tube video for an explanation or a worksheet or a day trip out, the day is our own to do with what we please.
Life tends to just flow in this house, learning opportunities crop up all the time, the kids had a fight and Oliver whacked Louby right in the head with a toy causing her some discomfort, so we ended up watching a video all about the brain, and doing a small project on how to keep it healthy.
A great resource I found for this was some old but effective videos.
Being at home most of the time means their learning day is much longer than it would be if they went to school, if they decide they want computer time they choose how long they are on there for, some days it can be for 15 minutes and they lose interest quickly, but when they are grasping something they can be on there for up to 4 hours at a time constantly working through their maths or English computer programmes and I have to literally drag them off for a food break.
Education at home means that whatever is interesting them at the time I can grab onto and go with that, if they are in a mood for reading they can read, which becomes something they just love doing rather than being forced to do it at a time that does not suit them, if they feel in the mood for some art we do some art, if they feel like just playing together they play together acting out and role playing their new learned skill in whatever it is that has taken their attention.
Opportunities for learning at a time and a subject that is interesting to them makes learning effortless in this house, we have time to discuss the things they are learning and they surprise me quite often with things I had no idea they had learnt, they question all the time about different things.
They are very much conditioned to direct their own learning and I just ensure that is facilitated, they take great pride in learning new things in a way that suits them and being at home most of the time gives them the opportunity to follow their own learning pattern.
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