Deciding to home educate your children is exciting and wildly terrifying at the same time. There’s been soul-searching and sleepless nights. Worry and fear about what could go wrong if you leave school and if you don’t. You’ve spent a long time thinking about home education and now you’ve made the decision, you just want to get on with it. Here are my top five steps to get you started. Deregistration letter. If your child is registered at a school then you need to get their name removed from the school register. It’s important you do this in writing. For a useful template with the appropriate legal wording, visit this page and…
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Reminders to be kinder : 7 fun ways to help you exercise those kindness muscles every single day (and be calmer and more patient too )
Kindness is a gift. And like all the best gifts, it doesn’t matter if you’re giving or receiving, that warm fuzzy glow feels great. The benefits of kindness are huge. Yet some days, life just happens. We get busy, side-tracked and overwhelmed. And then we forget. On those days we could all use a reminder to be kinder. And today, just for you, I’ve got 7 of them. Some are physical reminders while others are habits we can build into our daily routines. All of them help to sew kindness right into the fabric of our day and help pull us back from the brink when we feel those…
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Supporting natural learning : A step by step guide.
Natural learning happens, well… naturally! As humans we’re meant to learn. It’s a lifelong process; an evolutionary design to give us the best chance of survival. We see this clearly in babies as they learn to walk and talk – they learn incredibly complex actions with no need for formal instruction, through a process that is highly efficient. But this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There are many ways that we can support our children with natural learning and much that can get in its way. In the eight years that our family has been home educating I’ve seen many times how these positive and negative forces can play out.…
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Why I never tell my children off (or at least, I try not to…)
It’s rude and disrespectful. It’s not a nice way to speak to anyone. It won’t help them learn how to communicate well with others. It’s not an effective way to influence their behaviour. Most importantly though, I value my relationship with my children and I want them to feel safe and secure in their relationship with me. If they make a mistake I want them to talk to me. I want to support them when they need it and for them to feel confident that I’ll help them look for ways to make things better… from clearing up spilt milk to supporting them as adults. If we see our children, or…
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The power of five – A simple mind trick to get you started.
Some days even the simplest tasks seem impossible. Our to-do lists are spiraling out of control and we just don’t know where to start. The feeling of overwhelm begins to engulf us and we feel a rising sense of panic. There is just too much to do and not enough time to get it done. Baby steps, or the art of breaking activities down into smaller, more manageable chunks is a brilliant way to simplify even the most daunting of jobs. But even this baby stepping lark can feel too complicated sometimes. And what about those times when the demon deed that torments you is so straightforward, but you’re lacking…
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Thinking of home educating?
Once upon a time… we found ourselves contemplating the idea of home education. For our family it was the first step of an amazing journey. With the benefit of hindsight, there really was no turning back for us. Home education had presented itself as an actual, real-life, legal and practical possibility and life would never be quite the same again. At the time, of course things felt less clear. We began searching in earnest for anything we could find out about the subject and pondered long and hard about whether this ‘home ed’ lark really was such a great idea. There are lots of fantastic resources out there with huge…
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The worst parenting advice ever? You can’t be their friend.
I love reading parenting books and blogs and spend a lot of time thinking about how I can get better at this parenting lark. Over the years I’ve heard and read loads of great advice that I’m sure has encouraged and supported me to be a better parent, and has certainly helped me traversing some pretty tricky waters. But so too have I heard some shockingly bad advice about caring for children, often masquerading as good old common-sense. While pondering the good and bad that’s helped or hindered me over the years, I came up with a pretty long list of ideas that have been unhelpful and potentially damaging. But there was one…
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Helpful tips to drink more water, and just how much of it do we need?
Water is the essential fuel for life and without it we won’t last long. Yet so many of us don’t drink enough, putting a strain on our bodies, our minds and even our spirits. When we’re evenly mildly dehydrated our body cannot work efficiently, we get tired more easily, find it difficult to concentrate and are more likely to get ill. In the UK we’re told to drink 6 to 8 glasses a day, while in the US the recommendation is for eight 8 ounce glasses a day. A recent article suggested that men need around 3.7 litres or 125 ounces of water daily and women around 2.7 litres or…
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Joy lists : A Home Education Essential (what they are, why you should have one and how to get started).
What is a joy list? A place to record everything that brings you joy. Think of it as an inventory of enjoyment, a collection of all that comforts and that cheers. Literally a note to self of all you love, big and small. Anything that sends you squealing with excitement and dancing with delight can make it on to your joy list. Why are joy lists so important for home education? Creating joy lists with your children sets the tone for home education. Acknowledging and respecting from the outset the importance of joy for effective learning. When we enjoy what we’re doing, learning follows effortlessly. Joy lists…
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14 reasons we should all be drinking more water.
Drinking more water has been something I’ve been working on for some time. Although I’m definitely getting better at it, a little reminder of why it’s such an important habit won’t go amiss. Water is essential for our survival and we can’t last long without it. At best we might manage a week but severe dehydration from extreme overheating can kill a person in just a few hours. We lose water all the time through breathing, sweating and of course, going for a wee. Our bodies are made up of around two thirds water and we need to keep that store well and truly stocked up. While…