Home Education Blog Carnival, call for posts.

Home education – why and how? Call for posts



By Jax Blunt



In the past I've read some really inspiring posts on various ppl's blogs on the why and how of how they came to home education and how it works for them as a family.

I'd love to read some more of those posts, either updates from ppl who've written them before, or a first think about it from ppl just thinking about it now, particularly inspired perhaps by other stories, especially those that have come to light during the battles against the Badman review. For me I'll do an update on how it particularly suits us at this point and what we've learnt from it along the way, and I'll dig out the old posts and cross link them.

I'd also love to link to other ppl's posts on the topic, so please feel free to leave links in comments on my blog :http://liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup/so that I can gather them together in a carnival style post in a few days time. Send the links to me by Tues evening and I'll publish a roundup on Weds?

Looking forward to reading all about you all.

If you all put the words home education in your blogpost title and in any tag fields you've got, that will help them to be more findable via search engines. This is the time of year when some ppl may be having second thoughts about a new school year, so a great time to get some extra publicity and information out there to the rest of the world too.
There is now a twitter account specifically for this here http://twitter.com/HECarnival

Going Girly

For some time Beth has been against everything and anything girly and the colour pink has been to her like garlic to a vampire. But a transformation has been – very slowly – happening, starting funnily enough with cutting her hair very short. This seems to have been cathartic and released her from the desire to hide behind boyish clothes. This was I think partly a reaction to the bullying she experienced at school and I delight to see it go. I also delight in the actuality and the prospect of girly clothes, not too girly of course though.

So to Tesco we went, taking our voucher to keep the cost low, and a new wardrobe was acquired, full of lovely colours and flowing skirt like things. And – biggest shock of all as my kids duck when they see a camera, rather like the cats – a photo session was requested.

Here are the results:

But she is please to find that she can still climb the trees.

Talking about it to big sis.

A New Blog

A new blog, somehow couldn't bring myself to put the real life stuff amongst the political at the moment.

This blog is to record our life and learning, which was why I was blogging in the first place and now I had better do it. I'm not really doing it for the dear LA, I have always tried to have a record, photographic and written of the important parts of our life. It is something I would have loved to be able to look at when I had my children, so I do it for them.

It will probably go backwards and forwards for some time as I am way behind but have lots of photos.

I will try to make it interesting but it is really just a record.
Welcome to anyone who makes the journey here to read my scribblings.

Bottling the Elderflower Cordial

More sticky fun in the sun.

















Followed by another lovely lunch.

And as well.

We saw all the lovely animals they have.




The ginger cat was one of our last litter of kittens.



Here he is within minutes of birth.





And at a few weeks old.



This is his sister, she lives here to but was hiding.





And here is his mum who still lives with us.



And there were chickens and fantastic eggs to take home. They taste so different.




And this one is called Pipin, can you guess why?




A very sweet little mouse to be kept away from the cats.







And something we had never seen before, a dragonfly lava.





Good fresh organic ingredients were collected from the allotment,




amongst the sunlit grasses and poppies.




And still time for fun in the garden.

Making Elderflower Cordial

Finally blogging a wonderful day at a day making Elderflower cordial and Champagne earlier in the summer.  We did this with a good friend who has access to lots of elderflowers and has the organisational skill to make the process incredibly successful.  Both were absolutely delicious, well worth the effort which was actually much more like play, sticky and messy.  Next year we will be making much more.  The elderberries are ready now and I had wanted to make elderberry wine so lets hope I can walk when I come out of these plaster.

 

A little gaming break was required.

And a lovely lunch was our reward

.

A Family Affair

A new haircut, first in a long time, and at that price it will be a long time before I get another one.


Scary face but I like the cut.

The occasion is my nephews 21st, a nice excuse to get together and catch up.