A Learning Experience to Remember: August 2021-August 2022

Do you ever feel that as adults we can become blinkered sometimes?  We are weighted down with responsibilities.  Some of us are trapped in the past.  Some of us are too focused on the future.  The present day can be at times merely dismissed as hours we are counting down to reach tomorrow.  I feel in the hustle and bustle we can forget to be in the moment, we don't tend to allow ourselves the gift of boredom, of silence, of focusing on ourselves, or learning from our environment.  Children are naturals at living in the present moment, and at exploring and learning from their surroundings. They lose this gift somewhere along the way.  We have set our house up to be a learning environment, to stimulate the children's imagination, natural curiosity and to take advantage of their ability to absorb knowledge like a sponge.  I love seeing this in action.  We have half of the living room set up for the purpose of developing creativity and imaginatio...

The groundwork for the following topics has been laid over the past couple of years. Last year the girls learnt the definition and distinguish between carnivore, herbivore and omnivore, and could place animals into groups, who lived in different environments. However they were not massively interested in the topic and as I could see they were not retaining knowledge beyond the basic facts I shelved the topic. It is so important that children stay interested in a topic, especially if they are autistic. I have observed that forcing a subject will only cause them to completely switch off. So we stepped back and moved on to another topic at the time. Consequently habitats, living things and food chains were on the goal list for this academic year. The girls seem to be full of surprises this year and after unexpectedly having a win with the topic of magnets I let them scroll through their science educational playlist to choose their next topic. They chose habitats! They were really engaged ...

Sophia’s pet project of her herb garden is proving to be a success. She has managed to keep them alive for a couple of weeks now, and takes her responsibility seriously. She spends time with her little charges daily and worries about them when they’re left out in the rain. A parsley plant joined the ranks this last week, donated by Grannie, and it has happily settled in amongst the rosemary, chives, oregano and thyme. It got the tour of the garden by Xander who carried it round proudly, before Sophia gave it some tender loving care, removing its dead heads, giving it a trim and a water. She was clucking over it like a right little mother hen. We had a chat the other morning while she was tending her charges over which herbs compliments which meats and dishes which she found very interesting. She has been providing herbs for varying bbq meals which we have been enjoying during the past fortnight, and takes a taste test daily to see the quality of her stock. Sophia has shown a great inte...

What is charity? It is an act of kindness, thoughtfulness, to help someone in need, to make the world a better place. It does not always have to involve a donation. As you wander down the street you may never know what charitable works are occurring around us. A smile to a stranger may make their day and give them a sense of self worth, even though you may not feel like smiling. Letting someone ahead of us in a queue, could mean they're not late for a shift. My husband used to accept his right to have a meal at work so he could pass it on to one of the many homeless people living on the streets. I visited a park in Sheffield recently with Sophia and was struck by two acts of charity which have enveloped the park. One had occurred over a century ago and was epitomised by a memorial statue. Sophia stood looking up at it and asked me who it was and why there was a statue named Elliot in the park. I must admit to my ignorance here and said merely that he was a poet, which she accepte...

No two days are alike when you home school three children at this amazing age where everything is an adventure and they find joy in any new exploration, whether it is found academically or outside in nature. The subjects may stay the same but the key is to keep the approach spontaneous and in the hands of the children if possible. Over the course of two days, surprising and magical events took place.   In regards to the academic side of things the girls were practicing their mental maths, multiplying by two, five and ten, and adding in tens and ones at breakfast time, and providing alternative additions and subtraction variants to reach the number seven and nine, and then they spent some time on their current maths workbooks. Xander proudly showed his mental maths skills off answering 1+1, 1+2 and 2+2. Multiplying by three has a hit a mental block past the stage of twelve, despite verbal repetition and YouTube songs, so I think I need to get creative and make the three times tabl...

Sophia was keen to practice her handwriting and her chosen content today was a mix of spellings and copying out animals from a book. She was absolutely fascinated to learn that I had a few secrets up my sleeve. She spelt out the word ‘was’, I whispered to her to add the secret letter ‘h’ and her face lit up in wonder as she read the word ‘wash’. She started squealing with joy when I told her to add ‘ing’. She now knows how to spell washing! She is really blossoming with her writing and spelling and is so connected and tuned in. Long may it remain! Xander was sat on the floor reading through Kiras current set of sight words pack of flashcards, words like ‘remember’ and ‘children’ did not faze him at all. Today marked one hundred days since Xander had his Bonemarrow transplant which is a massive milestone. He has survived the most critical part of the transplant and any complications past this stage should be far less dangerous and the risk should now continue to diminish as time passes ...

 I th ought lessons had finished for the day when a late afternoon mystery parcel arrived as I was cooking tea. Inside was a pack of magnets I had impulsively brought from amazon as a last attempt to introduce the topic to the girls. They have been quite resistant to learning this topic when I tried to introduce it via books and YouTube videos, and I was willing to try one last teaching method before shelving the topic and moving on to another for the time being. My girls usually cannot resist a science practical, however today there was no big build up or preparation as I wanted them to simply gravitate towards the magnets themselves. They had wandered down to the kitchen to investigate when tea was going to be ready and to see what had arrived in the post. I waved vaguely in the direction of the mystery box on the table whilst stirring the pot on the oven top. The following half an hour was one of the most impromptu, exciting and fruitful lessons we have ever had. It was an abs...

The girls have had a confusing and scary year, with their little world being turned upside down with the deterioration of their little brother's health. Xander deteriorated rapidly in the last few months leading up to Transplant in June, and was in hospital at least once a week, with a few over night stays. Mummy was all of a sudden very busy and absent and Xander was getting less mobile and needed more care. He would come home having had sometimes eight cannulas in a twelve hour trip away at the hospital. He came home one day with several strange tubes coming out of his chest, and just slept all day after that for a week. Mummy and Xander then disappeared one night and didn’t return for seven weeks. Daddy wasn’t working and was busy looking after them along with Nana and Grannie's help. Xander returned home with no hair, he had changed a great deal, and was still needing regular hospital visits. I noticed one day that Joyful Miss Jo, the Children’s Coach, had posted a lovely...

This has been a great weekend: with lots of family time, hours of garden time, and two nature walks. They loved showing off their woodland spoils to their friend next door. There's been an extraordinary number of bubble baths due to them coming in from the garden absolutely filthy from top to toe, and they filled a washing basket just between them! As our learning journey moves forward constantly and weekends are not traditionally recognised, there was plenty of home educating to counterbalance the outdoor adventures.  We woke up our sleepy brains with a good Spanish session which all three children are loving and picking up fast. This morning we had several renditions of Jack Hartmann musical educational videos on colours and alphabet. We sang 1-100, and looked at days of the week for the first time. I also sang a Spanish song about colours to them which I am sure they will learn quickly, if only to stop mum singing it to them. Breakfast time approached and as they sit round the f...

If you go down to the steps today, you're in for a big surprise.....Around the corner from our house lies a short flight of steps which leads us down to the local canal walk and to the children it's like stepping into a magical world. We step on to the path and there's two choices, shall we travel to the left or the right of the path, as both directions promise different adventures.  Let's initially turn to the left and picture the following scene: a long winding path following the canal which is a beautiful stretch of water, home to a number of ducks. The sides are adorned with an abundance of blackberry bushes, the black fruit gleaming in the sun tempting us for an impromptu snack. The girls can recognise them now , but they always check with us first, it's our first year of foraging with them. We discovered two bushes of what looked like black currants today, one looked unsafe with green pus oozing out of the berry when it was squeezed, and one had familiar red j...

The baffling disappearance of the Internet is annoying to most of us, but to young autistic children it can lead to a meltdown or act as a trigger to them heading towards a bad headspace. It is incomprehensible to them how their shows can be there one minute and gone the next, replaced with the never ending circle of doom, which instills a brief moment of panic in me as I tentatively await the fallout. This morning however I had a welcome reprieve from the above, as I was the first one up and I had busily prepared a morning of online learning for them. I then attempted to connect with YouTube....to be met with a black screen and my lesson plan in tatters. No problem, I threw the remote in the drawer and made a dash to the school room.  The children emerged from their rooms and tumbled down the stairs in quick succession and greeted me with 'What we doing today mum?', 'Can I have free tv mum?', 'A for Adley Mammy!!!'. Once the cacophony had died down I put my cun...

This particular day started at 4.30am, with Xander marching round the bed chanting the alphabet. I stumbled downstairs and my personal educational journey commenced at this ridiculous time in the morning as I quickly realised that Xanders stomach tube had broken, so his morning meds were hitting the floor rather than his stomach. I replaced the peg end for the first time ever by myself whilst half asleep and it worked! Medicines and feeds could once again commence. Where's the coffee!  The English session consisted of Kira finishing of her Farm animal reading book and reading the entire of Shirley Hughes 'Sally's Secrets', aimed at an aged five reader. We finished reading and discussing the horse project book and watched some show jumping on YouTube. Sophia later wrote a few sentences dictated to her, incorporating a mix of common words, basic punctuation, and words from the 'At', 'It', 'Ow', 'In', 'On' and 'En' families. ...

There are times currently when my son has to spend prelonged periods of time in hospital, and my previous post discussed how I continue to teach him through illness and in a different environment than his normal one at home. This second part of the topic will cover how the learning journey continued going forward at home for the girls when I was not with them for days/weeks on end.  There are several reasons why I teach all year round, rather than following more traditional set holiday times throughout the year which falls in line with schools. One important reason however is the anticipation of long spells of illness within our family. It is not just be frequent hospital visits or long hospital stays, which can interrupt our learning journey, but also when my children fall ill even with the simplest cold they are made incredibly poorly and subsequently it can take far longer for them to recover than normal, and the resulting work flow is put on hold until status quo resumed once m...