Latest / The BIG Home Ed Conversations | Home Education / Home Ed Secrets: Planning, Flexibility and Fitting it all in!

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Home Ed Secrets: Planning, Flexibility and Fitting it all in! · The BIG Home Ed Conversations | Home Education

0:30
Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the big Home
0:33
Ed conversations. You were here with myself, Kelly
0:36
Rig. I'm a home Ed mum of two,
0:38
founder of Off Roading Motherhood and a qualified
0:40
mindset coach. I am ridiculously passionate
0:42
about supporting parents and neurodivergent families as they
0:45
navigate the transition from mainstream schooling or whatever
0:49
they're doing before into home education and really embracing
0:52
the lifestyle. I'm here together with my Co
0:55
host Ashley Venario. She's a fellow home Ed mum of
0:57
three and a former primary teacher.
0:59
We essentially created the Big Home Ed Conversations podcast
1:03
with what began as honest, heartfelt talks around the
1:05
coffee table, US holding each other accountable, and it's now
1:09
grown into a space where hundreds of listeners now tune
1:12
in for real, unfiltered conversations about mindset,
1:15
behaviour, challenges, educational philosophies and the
1:18
emotional journey of alternative education.
1:20
We do our best to cut through the noise and focus on what
1:23
really matters to home, educating families, offering
1:25
clarity, confidence and community in every episode.
1:30
So as you guys know, we start our episodes with a little bit
1:34
of gratitude and we are actually both feeling really grateful for
1:38
an opportunity that has been afforded us by out school.
1:41
They reached out to us a little while ago, offering us a
1:44
sponsored opportunity to offer our honest reviews, just
1:47
participating in their platform, giving it a really good once
1:50
over. And me and Ashley have been
1:52
really enjoying digging in and doing some fun stuff with our
1:54
kids. And we kind of wanted to give
1:56
you an opportunity over the next few weeks to let you know a
1:58
little bit more about what it might be able to offer you as a
2:02
home educating parent. You haven't heard about school
2:05
before. It's an online platform that's
2:08
been around since 2015 and was built for home educators
2:12
offering live classes, self-paced courses and tutoring
2:16
that really match your kids interests and learning style.
2:19
We've started using out school in COVID actually and loved the
2:23
music and dance courses we took and more recently this summer we
2:27
are taking French coding and are even about to start a horse
2:31
medicine course. It's so random, isn't it?
2:34
I mean, I was genuinely shocked when I started looking through
2:37
it and seeing just how niche some of these classes actually
2:40
are. My kids are both neurodivergent,
2:41
as those of you who listen will know, and actually group
2:44
settings can be really intimidating for them and can
2:46
actually lock them down. They don't interact with the
2:49
learning in the way that I really would love them to.
2:51
Whereas if I take some of the stuff from those classes home,
2:53
usually I can do it with them at home later, but they, they just
2:55
can't access it there in person. So online classes have been a
2:59
winner for us in the past. My son really enjoys the act of
3:01
kind of putting his hand up and getting into interject and chat
3:03
to the teacher. And he doesn't feel that
3:06
intimidation of the group of people who are there, which is
3:08
really, really exciting. So when we started having a
3:11
quick look, it's, it's really so very funny.
3:13
So we were looking through the platform and initially saw that
3:17
they were massively into Send. 55% of their users all have Send
3:21
Kids, which is just incredible. It really demonstrates how
3:23
neuroaffirming the platform is actually and how useful this is
3:26
for Send families, which was reassuring for me and definitely
3:29
made me want to go further and actually really dig into the
3:31
platform and see what they had. But I was really looking for
3:35
something very niche and I really was not expecting it to
3:37
provide. But my son is massively into
3:39
elemental magic and Dragons and all kinds of random stuff.
3:43
And no kidding, put in those things into the search bar and
3:47
it came up with this incredible series of four self-paced
3:50
courses to build your own polymer clay elemental Dragons
3:54
and like 4 different poses, loads of different kind of
3:56
styling kind of tips for each one.
3:58
And we've, we've done the first one together.
4:00
We need to do some more now. But when the summer kind of
4:03
tails off and all of your clubs and groups and stuff stop, as a
4:05
home educator, it can be really hard to keep them busy and to
4:08
come up with ideas. And we're still like as parents,
4:10
like we've got stuff to do too, right?
4:13
So these sorts of opportunities are really great for them to
4:15
just dig in when you need it. So you can just let the
4:18
self-paced ones are fantastic because you can just sit them
4:20
down, put it on. I mean, I did sit and do this
4:23
one with them because I was having fun too.
4:24
But the, the ultimate kind of goal here is that they can
4:27
definitely sit and follow the next one by themselves and have
4:29
a go on their own. But I think we just have to be
4:31
really mindful that these opportunities are out there.
4:33
And if we're struggling as home educating parents to actually
4:36
offer some kind of subjects that we just have no clue about or
4:40
that ultimately we don't really have the time or energy to do a
4:43
whole curriculum for or whatever it might be that unschooled
4:47
project based, fully scheduled, whatever your kids experience of
4:51
home beds looks like, it's a great way to harness their
4:54
unique interests and to offer them something really exciting
4:57
and unique. And yeah, I just think it's
5:00
going to be really exciting seeing what else we kind of end
5:03
up trying over the summer. So I hope that you guys like the
5:05
sound of it so far. We're going to tell you a little
5:07
bit more about it each week and some other stats and information
5:09
about it so that you can get to know it a bit more.
5:11
But if you are keen to give this a go and to actually try it out
5:16
for yourselves, we have got a special code for you right now.
5:20
So you can get $35 off of your family's first month for a
5:25
limited time when you use the link outschool.com/home Ed,
5:29
which is all in capitals. So home Ed is all in capitals
5:33
and then use the code home Ed 35 S.
5:37
As long as you go through that link and you use that code, you
5:39
will get that credit. And that will allow you to
5:41
obviously get in there and to try some stuff out and to see
5:44
what you think. So go and enjoy it and see what
5:47
you get on with. But we'll tell you a bit more
5:49
about it next week. So we found ourselves getting
5:53
into a conversation as we went to start recording this today,
5:57
trying to decide what we're going to talk to you all about.
5:59
And the conversation just got so good that we're just like, stop,
6:02
stop, stop, stop, stop. Let's just have this
6:03
conversation live because actually this is a great episode
6:06
in and of itself. Every now and then we get a bit
6:08
stuck, don't we, Ashley? And we're thinking, I don't know
6:09
what we're going to talk about this week.
6:11
This is where my heads at. This is all I can think about.
6:13
And ultimately both of. Us change our Yeah, we just
6:15
change our like we have a plan, but we change our mind.
6:19
Yeah, we do change our minds. Just sometimes we have an idea
6:21
of what we want to say and then it's just like, no, I'm not
6:23
really feeling that or that's not really something I feel like
6:25
I could talk easily about this week.
6:27
But ultimately we're both saying that right now our heads are
6:30
very much in planning mode. And I know that it's really
6:32
interesting because whether you kind of follow things quite
6:34
seasonally. So a lot of people love to do
6:36
their planning in the spring when it you have that lovely go
6:39
energy and you're ready for like a new refresh, etcetera.
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And I mean, what I tend to do is just plan kind of as a subject
6:47
wanes. So we've been doing oceans up
6:49
until recently, I've noticed that they'd stopped talking
6:52
about it. They weren't really asking any
6:53
more questions about it. We'd kind of both naturally
6:56
moved on and ultimately it's LED us to need to do small planning
7:02
because we've got to actually get on to the next subject.
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And as someone with ADHD, I've noticed that if I don't do any
7:08
planning and I just allow life to just bumble along and just
7:11
try and come up with something on the fly, then actually what
7:14
that does is that kind of decision fatigue for me becomes
7:18
such a real problem. I lose my creativity, I lose my
7:21
interest and actually then I really struggle to engage with
7:24
them in their learning because they're bored.
7:27
I don't know what to do, they don't know what to do.
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And we're all just stuck. And it's just like, well, this
7:32
is like the blind leading the blind right now, like getting
7:36
nowhere. And so for me, if I can just
7:39
allow myself to get into like almost like work mode and I go
7:42
into like the zone for a few hours and I just really Bosch
7:46
out some planning, then actually that allows me to then spark.
7:48
It gets my creative juices flowing and then I'm able to
7:51
kind of get loads of ideas written out and done.
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And I have used AIA lot this time as well to really help me.
7:57
But ultimately it's just something which then allows me
8:00
to feel like I've got some ideas that sticks.
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I've got this amazing sheet sticks on my fridge.
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It's just one, a four sheet with loads of ideas so that when I am
8:08
bored, I have got so many things that I can pull from.
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I can just scroll my eyes to that like amazing sheet of
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ideas, pick something and like whatever we have got the spoons
8:18
for in that moment, we will do that.
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And I don't care what order any of those things get done.
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And obviously aside from anything that has a logical
8:23
progression, most things are individual one off.
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We could just do it in a fun 1520 minutes space of time.
8:30
So yeah, it just helps me to feel more relaxed.
8:32
So we, yeah, I'm very much in planning mode myself, but we
8:35
were kind of talking about how you even get to the point of
8:39
having a plan because like again, typically teachers in a
8:45
school are dealing with one year group.
8:46
They've got a defined curriculum, they've got defined
8:49
learning goals. And as home educators, that's
8:51
not really how it works, is it? We tend to have our own.
8:55
We've got, well, however many different kids you've got of
8:57
however many different ages, all of which are colour being
9:01
dragged along for the ride on whatever you're teaching.
9:03
Whichever one of them, they're all going to be kind of there to
9:05
witness it and be a part of it anyway.
9:07
So you kind of, yeah, it's, it's really complicated sometimes,
9:11
but also I think it's quite fun because you get to have, you get
9:16
to choose, you get to decide where you want to go with
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something. But I know that Ashley was was
9:21
telling me about her fun planning this week because I
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think you are like fully immersed this week, aren't you?
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It's. Just sort of happened.
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So I mean, you touched on a couple of good points around
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like needing to plan or it's either too much in the moment
9:36
and nothing gets done or the stress of like having to figure
9:40
it out on a Sunday night. All of that definitely comes
9:43
into play. And I feel like it was fine in
9:45
the earlier years, but now that my kids are going to get a bit
9:49
older, we're trying to do things that maybe require more of an
9:54
ongoing process that I'm I need. This year has got to have a
10:01
different approach. Like it has to be a little more
10:03
in depth for me or a little more structured, while I'm sure still
10:07
being wildly unstructured, but mostly structured.
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So more this past week on Instagram, a lot of the American
10:15
home educators that I follow, they were doing a series where
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each day they talked about the subjects they're planning for
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the fall. So a lot of American schools are
10:25
actually starting quite soon. So that kind of mid August
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timeframe into early September. So everything on socials right
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now for the US is planning what are we doing, how is it starting
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off for the new school year. And I feel like even if you
10:44
school year round, which I would say we do, although this year we
10:47
had kind of a more lengthy break and then we typically would
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have, it still is sort of a reset in that September time
10:55
frame. You're, you're maybe starting a
10:56
new curriculum or moving to the next grade level, what whatever
10:58
that looks like. So I feel like I was bombarded
11:02
with curriculum choices. What are people using for the
11:06
different subjects? And I've already sort of been on
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this planning mode journey and now I'm really trying to
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personal out like, what are we using?
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And I love to pull from things and sort of create my own, which
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is obviously tailored to what the girls need and feel like is
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important, but it also is a lot of legwork.
11:28
So I definitely wouldn't recommend that for your first
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year of home educating. I would probably just pick
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something straightforward, stick with one source, whatever that
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looks like, just to not make it more complicated than it needs
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to be. But I was saying we were
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chatting earlier that right now I'm really into language arts,
11:46
which I think it's different. So when you hear like language
11:50
arts in England, like, what is what is that?
11:53
Yeah. So we, I think we just call it
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English. So you do tend to learn
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languages. So you tend to maybe have like
11:58
German or French or you do something kind of on the side of
12:00
it. But in the UK typically it's
12:02
just referred to as English or Literacy.
12:05
OK as well. And so for us it's like would we
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say language arts, which actually more recently is
12:12
English language arts. I hear a lot of ELA now.
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It's reading, so obviously all the phonics and everything
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within that it's writing, it's literature, it's a grammar.
12:24
Maybe something else that I'm missing, but I typically think,
12:28
think of it as 5 prongs. So I'm think I'm lacking
12:30
something. But you.
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Oh, spelling. Spelling.
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There we go. There it is.
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There it is. OK.
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So those are the things that I'm looking at.
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And you can absolutely get a curriculum that has it all in
12:45
one. So I think if you look at like
12:47
the good and the beautiful, which is a popular homeschool
12:49
program, because it is free to use if you buy that or just
12:53
download the online version and print it yourself.
12:56
And it's very comprehensive. Lots of families really love it.
12:59
We've used it in the past. And I still even kind of look at
13:03
them to see what they cover from a, a SOAP scope and sequence
13:07
perspective each year. And can you can pull some things
13:11
out of out of theirs programs. But anyway, so very heavy into
13:16
language works right now. And I feel like it's just like,
13:19
OK, let me plan out my read alouds.
13:21
What books are we looking at? Where are we pulling this from?
13:24
How are we going to approach spelling?
13:25
Are we going to do it as a group?
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Because I feel like we really could do it as a group, even
13:31
though my, my girls are like separate in age because, you
13:36
know, start at the beginning. We've, we've not really done a
13:38
ton of formal spelling. It's just sort of been naturally
13:41
through reading and writing. Yeah, my 2 seem to be developing
13:45
spelling really naturally. Actually it's something which I
13:47
wasn't really expecting to happen.
13:49
My son's like cognitive understanding of spelling
13:51
recently seems to have just clicked.
13:53
Like he can almost spell whatever he shocked at him now,
13:57
which I just find really fascinating.
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Obviously like really obscure what he still struggles with,
14:01
but for the most part he is. Yeah.
14:03
It just amazes me their their brains do seem to just link it
14:06
all together quite naturally. But yeah, we tend to do spelling
14:09
together as a game, so it tends to be more as a fun.
14:12
They both get different words chucked at them for sure at
14:14
their level, but we just tend to do it as a as a group fun game
14:17
as opposed to any kind of like real practice, Practice.
14:20
They don't. They don't realize it's
14:22
practice. Yeah, well, that's a good thing
14:24
too, because the out loud portion, we don't spell out loud
14:29
unless they say how do you spell this?
14:30
And then I'll obviously. But I've I've noticed that this
14:33
is something that feels more unique to English speakers
14:38
because, for example, obviously a lot of what we compare to is
14:42
Italian, and that language is so phonetic that they don't know
14:47
spelling. So it's really funny if I ask an
14:50
Italian to spell something, they end up, they sound it out.
14:53
And I was like, OK, yeah, OK, that's not helpful.
14:55
Tell me the letters. Even I can slow down and say all
14:57
the sounds of the word. I still, I still don't know.
15:01
And I was talking to my American friend when I was there this
15:04
summer and she was saying that she's fantastic at the language.
15:08
She's lived there like over 20 years.
15:10
Her daughters have been in school there.
15:11
They were born there. So she's helped with homework
15:14
and stuff throughout the years. And she was saying that even her
15:17
girls will say to her, like, what do you mean you don't hear
15:20
the double L or the double whatever the the letter is
15:24
because it's not our language. So it's one of those things
15:27
where I still like, is it, is it a double L?
15:30
Is it not a double L? Is it, you know, those are the
15:33
little things that even if you relatively can spell in that
15:36
language, there are still sometimes where you might not be
15:39
sure what letters are doubled double R, you know, And her
15:43
daughters were like, you can't hear it.
15:44
And it's they'll slow it down. And she's like, even if you slow
15:47
it down, I don't understand. That's the thing, like, my son
15:50
really loves Duolingo and he uses that on and off.
15:52
He's quite sporadic with it, but every now and then he'll get in
15:54
the mood to do it. And he recently wanted to go
15:56
back to learning German and he kept saying things like wetter
16:00
instead of wetter. And I'm just like, no, no, in
16:03
German, EU is AV sound. And he's like, why?
16:06
And I'm just like, oh, don't ask.
16:08
I don't know. But this is just the problem
16:10
with languages is that it looks like a word to ask.
16:13
But actually that's not how it's said.
16:15
And that's why it's so important to to be practicing it out loud
16:18
and to to write it down and to see what it looks like both
16:22
ways. And I think this is, yeah, it's
16:23
so complicated when it's like coming back around to this kind
16:26
of conversation that we're getting on to is that this
16:28
concept of like planning and like how linear you make it.
16:32
And actually, I know that in schools, obviously they have a
16:35
set developmental curriculum for each stage.
16:39
And we talk about children falling behind, which I think in
16:42
the schooling sense does to some degree need to be used because
16:48
actually the truth is that the curriculum carries on, moving
16:50
on. And if a child hasn't grasped a
16:53
concept, eventually like, yes, OK, not immediately, a teacher
16:57
will continue to support them to try and get them up to that
16:59
level, but eventually they've got to move on because everybody
17:02
else needs to move on to the next stage.
17:03
And that child will obviously hopefully get some additional
17:05
support, but we obviously know doesn't always do so.
17:08
So the the concepts of linear and progressive learning in a
17:12
really natural form is, is really quite tricky to achieve
17:15
when you've got like you've still got stuff you get need to
17:18
cover. We need to move on to the next
17:19
stage. And one of the things I love
17:22
about home education and for us as well, because we often think
17:25
do things quite naturally and let them just meet progressive
17:28
stages when they meet them. But actually it, it becomes
17:32
quite, I don't know when I'm started planning and I'm trying
17:36
to think like, what stage are they actually at?
17:39
What are they understanding? What don't they understand?
17:42
I actually do use the national curriculum to then just do a
17:45
quick reflection. So I'm not necessarily looking
17:48
at it to want to follow it verbatim to achieve it by a
17:51
certain year group, whatever. But I do look at it and say, OK,
17:56
so in year 1, they would typically be expected to be able
18:00
to, I don't know, add up to 20 like whatever.
18:05
So, OK, are they at that stage, yes or no?
18:10
Like what level are they at? Do I think they'll have achieved
18:13
that naturally by the end of this term?
18:15
How can I then offer them opportunities to progress on
18:18
that scale? So this is one example, and this
18:21
can sometimes for super overwhelming.
18:23
So for those of you listening who are thinking, Oh my
18:25
goodness, if I've really got to be that granular, no, you don't.
18:28
And an awful lot of things will naturally get there without you
18:31
doing that. But what I've found is that
18:34
sometimes you might look at that and I read through the
18:37
developmental goals and I think, oh gosh, have we talked about 3D
18:41
shapes at all? No, not really.
18:44
And then I think to myself, OK, well, where's the relevance?
18:47
Like how does this apply to them?
18:50
Like where could they actually be thinking about using 3D
18:52
shapes without me even thinking about it?
18:54
Like actually, let's, let's try and notice for a couple of days.
18:57
Like let's see if 3D shapes are coming up.
18:59
And obviously they've got things like Minecraft and they build
19:02
with physical shapes and they create things out of Lego and
19:07
they draw and all the things, right?
19:09
So there are lots of different like obviously as well you can
19:11
talk about in the sense of architecture or cars or spotting
19:15
things when you're out on fun walks.
19:16
Just we do love, my kids love a shape walk.
19:18
I don't understand it at all. They love pointing out all the
19:20
fun shapes they can see if you start that game, then they just
19:23
love it and they point them out everywhere.
19:26
But ultimately, if you think that there's a weak point
19:28
somewhere, like something which you haven't touched on that
19:31
suddenly you get that dread in the pit of your story.
19:33
Like, Oh my goodness, if we ever covered shapes, I don't think we
19:35
have. I did this.
19:36
What's my son? I think he was must have been
19:38
about year one age, reception age somewhere around there.
19:40
But I was reading through it and I realized that we hadn't ever
19:43
done anything formally on patterns.
19:46
And I suddenly panicked because obviously patterns are superbly
19:48
important for coding and computing and like for language
19:52
and for maths like that actually kind of it's very well
19:54
integrated into all subjects. Patterns of behavior, patterns
19:57
in history. Like there's patterns are very
19:59
important. There's a very fundamental
20:01
concept in human nature and nature as a whole.
20:05
And so I was like, Oh my goodness, like.
20:08
I don't think I've ever even talked to him about these like
20:11
patterns in the sense of like a mathematics sit there and do it
20:13
properly. And so I literally, I poured a
20:15
load of random cereal on the table, different shapes and some
20:20
colours, et cetera, like hoops and squares and stuff.
20:22
And I made a pattern. I just sat there just playing,
20:24
just making a pattern with the cereal.
20:27
And he interjected and he finished the pattern off and he
20:29
carried it on along the table. And I was like, what are you
20:33
doing? And he was like, I'm making a
20:34
pattern with you. And I'm just like, oh, you know
20:36
what a pattern is? And he goes, yeah.
20:38
And I was like, can you make one?
20:39
And he made me one. And then he made a more
20:41
complicated one. And then he had fun doing
20:43
another one. And I was like, OK, so we know
20:45
this like, I don't exactly know how we have formally understood
20:49
the concept of a pattern, but we know it.
20:50
So actually, OK, good tick, fine.
20:53
Like we can just carry on. And so a lot of my planning
20:57
isn't actually as fine grain as that because I don't always
21:02
think it's necessary. Like as I said earlier, spelling
21:04
is naturally just seemingly just falling into place.
21:06
And of course, some children who might be dyslexic or have
21:09
special needs or they might just not be prioritizing it in their
21:12
own learning journey. They might be really interested
21:14
in maths, or they might be really interested in science or
21:16
certain sort of tactile skills or whatever.
21:19
They might have other kind of priorities themselves.
21:21
So they may not develop these skills quite naturally.
21:23
My son is massively into reading at the minute because he's
21:25
gotten into a series of books that he really likes, Percy
21:27
Jackson series and the How to Train Your Dragon series is
21:29
loving those at the minute. So he is reading a lot more.
21:33
So his vocabulary is building, which means that his concept of
21:35
spelling is building and his sight words are building.
21:38
So all of these things are becoming more natural and
21:41
meaning that if I give him a random spelling, he's seen that
21:43
word dozens of times. And so his brain now has a
21:47
recollection of how it's spelled.
21:48
And I think that as a child there is so much anxiety around
21:52
spelling and reading and writing that actually I can see and love
21:57
for it building and I, I don't want to ruin it.
22:00
So a lot of my planning doesn't involve necessarily a
22:03
curriculum. It does keep the UK national
22:05
curriculum in mind just for my own sanity, so I don't feel like
22:09
I'm missing massive gaps of chunks in their learning.
22:11
But ultimately I actually do a lot of my planning myself, but
22:15
that's because I enjoy it. So like, there's a lot of us out
22:18
there who home educate, who would actually find the planning
22:21
so ridiculously stressful. And there are some really
22:23
fantastically built stuff out there that you can just grab and
22:25
use. So if that's not your bag and
22:28
you actually that makes you want to cry into your hat, then then,
22:31
yeah, just just find something that you align well with.
22:34
Read it through, make sure that you are happy with the content.
22:37
Don't feel like you've got to be teaching something that you
22:39
don't agree with or you don't believe is right for them.
22:41
But you can ultimately, yeah, there's, there's lots of
22:43
different ways about of going about this.
22:46
Well, it provides a good structure, right?
22:47
It, it gives you a framework. And I think that's, that's
22:51
really important because I, it's easy to say like I don't want to
22:56
even look because I don't like the education system or I don't
23:01
agree with a certain aspect of it.
23:03
But but it is something to to come back to.
23:06
There is good in there. A recent example of this is we
23:11
were looking for some read alouds to do.
23:15
And I always go back to American lists and books that the schools
23:21
are recommending because there are some good books in there.
23:23
Like not all of them, but a lot of them are great.
23:26
And they're ones like we, we have this whole conversation and
23:29
this other American about the bridge to Terabithia.
23:32
And I don't know if that's a book that was read over here,
23:35
but man, is it like a heavy topic.
23:38
Go read about it. It, it has some like it pulls at
23:42
your heart strings. It's a bit of a tearjerker.
23:45
And I was like, I can't, I can't expose my girls to that yet.
23:48
But like they're books that you remember, right?
23:51
They had a big impact on you as a kid.
23:52
And so there, there are good things in there.
23:56
So we used looked at the UK list and it had books I'd never heard
24:01
of and some of them looked amazing.
24:04
So I was like, OK, this is great.
24:06
Like I absolutely, I'm going to be reading some of these.
24:09
They look fantastic. And I think the other the
24:13
difference that I struggle with personally is the key stages.
24:16
So in the states it's all broken down by grade level.
24:21
So first grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, right all the way up
24:23
through 12th grade and the key stages go a lot I feel like by.
24:28
Age, yeah, and over a chunk of years and like.
24:32
Yeah, it's a couple years, Yeah. So it's sort of for me, it's
24:36
harder to just because I'm just not familiar with it.
24:38
I didn't teach that way. I didn't grow up that way
24:41
personally. So I still stick to, and I
24:44
actually have this book right here, which of the these books
24:46
about like what your 4th grader needs to know, what your first
24:49
grader needs to know, what your kindergarten needs to know.
24:52
And they kind of take that approach where it's really big.
24:57
The reason why is because it has all the information in it.
25:01
So it doesn't just give you the topics.
25:04
I say. It tells you everything from
25:08
with literature, math, history, science, and the arts.
25:12
And it's really cool because if you want to grab a couple of
25:17
things from this, you can if you have your own resource for it.
25:24
Like you don't have to, but sometimes there's a really good
25:28
map in here or sometimes it really explains something well.
25:32
So as an example, I am one of the short stories that we're
25:37
going to be reading as part of our language arts and is about
25:42
the Revolutionary War. And I was like, OK, I want to
25:46
build like a tiny unit study around this because we've not
25:50
studied that. And my daughter is not going to
25:53
understand the context of the story, right?
25:55
Because she she won't know what the Revolutionary War was about,
25:59
why it took place. We haven't done that.
26:00
So I said, OK, when we read this, I just want a very short,
26:07
like I want to spend, I don't know, 20-30 minutes on this and
26:11
then move on to the actual literature portion, but we will
26:15
have a little bit of history. And so I just was like, OK, what
26:19
do I already have on hand? So obviously the first thing I
26:22
did was go into AI and say explain this word to me briefly
26:28
to give some context to an 11 year old.
26:32
And then it spit out some stuff and I said, OK, now I want to
26:35
involve slavery because the literature touches on that.
26:42
Who supported it? Who was against it?
26:46
How did it start? What countries participated in,
26:51
you know, an owned person like a slavery type of concept?
26:55
And again, briefly for an 11 year old to give some context.
26:59
So did that and I said, OK, this is really helpful.
27:03
That's going to be something we're going to read.
27:04
It recommended a video. We're going to watch this video.
27:06
I looked it on YouTube. It was great.
27:08
And then I went into this book because it's in the What Your
27:15
4th Grader Needs to notebook, which I just found, obviously by
27:17
looking at the index. And then it has a really brief
27:21
introduction to the American Revolutionary War and it has a
27:24
couple of pictures. It talks about general thought
27:27
representation, right? So I'm going through this.
27:28
So I'm like, great, this is interesting and this is
27:31
something we could quickly read as well, maybe the second day,
27:34
just as a reminder. So I'm thinking about, OK, how
27:36
am I breaking this up? How are we incorporating it?
27:39
And sometimes these little books are really good for that because
27:42
they do have the kind of like a textbook feel, but they're also
27:45
written in a. Way that they will enjoy
27:47
listening to it, yeah. Like most more accessible I'll
27:51
summarize a bit, but. Yeah, I think that's the thing.
27:54
I think learning like really needs to be intentional
27:58
sometimes and I think not all the time.
28:01
And it can be 100% like lots of people follow very loose and
28:04
relaxed kind of structure. But actually sometimes we know
28:09
that offering a bit more insight and depth into a subject can
28:12
really help. But sometimes actually don't
28:14
want to do that in the moment. Because there's a very good
28:16
chance as you started reading that book that she may have
28:18
developed some concept of understanding by listening to
28:20
the book. But then she would also then
28:22
maybe start to have questions. And if you're not feeling very
28:24
prepared, yes, OK, you could have done that in the moment.
28:27
You could have stopped, you could have asked the question on
28:30
AI, you could have had a chat with her about it in the moment.
28:32
You can absolutely do it that way.
28:33
There's absolutely nothing wrong with it.
28:34
But sometimes if we are thinking to ourselves, OK, this is a
28:37
subject we're going to cover. I don't know an awful lot.
28:39
Or I actually need a little bit more context so that when they
28:41
ask the questions, I've got some answers and I can help them have
28:45
that like back and forth conversation quickly and
28:47
efficiently so we don't get off topic or get distracted or it
28:49
takes too long. Because that's the other thing
28:52
that can happen sometimes as we get into a subject and Mighty
28:54
will start asking questions, which is fantastic, but then I
28:57
don't know the answer. So then we're on AI and then
28:59
we're looking up a video and then we're watching something on
29:01
YouTube. And then before I know it, an
29:02
hour's gone by. We haven't finished the subject
29:04
that I wanted to talk to them about.
29:05
And now they've done and they need to move on something else.
29:10
And ultimately they will just disappear off and be like,
29:13
great, OK, try and bookmark. Where were we at in this
29:15
conversation? We'll try and pick it up again
29:17
another time. And it can get really quite
29:19
stressful, I think to then know if you've actually finished
29:21
something or if you've covered it enough to have really
29:24
actually drilled home the points that you were trying to make.
29:26
And we, my kids this term have decided they wanted to do how
29:29
things are made, which is obviously such a fantastic broad
29:31
headline because it could be anything.
29:33
And listen about this kind of like this linear progression of
29:36
learning that this kind of the kind of core of this
29:38
conversation to some degree. It was just quite funny because
29:40
we started talking about this as well, which is like, actually,
29:43
we want to start talking about this.
29:45
Like where does it actually begin?
29:47
Like if I want to talk about how things are made, then you can't
29:51
help but talk about the fact that, OK, so this is like
29:53
natural things, how they're made.
29:54
And then you've got obviously a man made things, how those
29:58
things are made. And it's it sparks off some
30:00
initial really great talking points.
30:02
Like, for example, I said to my, my kids, I said, do you, can you
30:06
look around this house and find anything that didn't require
30:12
some natural resources to bring it about to make it exist?
30:18
And they were really like hunting around being like this,
30:21
like holding up some plastic. It's like a great answer.
30:24
And just like, no. So plastic is made of and like
30:28
listed the kind of the elements and the things that go into it.
30:31
And obviously it's mostly made from fossil fuels, which
30:33
obviously, you know, fossil fuels are made of literally
30:35
fossils, dead creatures from long ago.
30:37
It's actually no, they are literally being made from
30:41
natural resources that are just being processed in a certain way
30:44
to make them like very non biodegradable, et cetera.
30:47
So no, actually plastic is still a natural based like resource.
30:52
And it was really, really funny because it, the composition went
30:54
on for ages and they're really struggling.
30:56
They're like, I don't know nothing.
30:58
I'm just like, correct answer. Like literally every single
31:01
thing you can see has some root in natural resource that we have
31:05
mined or created or processed in some way to create something
31:09
else combined different things. But it obviously then it got us
31:13
onto the molecular structure of things and like what things look
31:16
like at a molecular level, like a logo brick, a logo brick, a
31:19
Lego brick, and all kinds of really cool stuff.
31:22
And you can get AI to produce you these amazing like
31:25
imageries. And if you if you talk to it
31:27
about kind of like what does a Lego brick look like at its
31:31
molecular level, they can show you a graphic of what that looks
31:35
like, which is just really fun. I mean, the kids got really into
31:39
these like again, we did some great stories, started doing
31:41
bedtime stories about how different random things are made
31:43
and just getting AI to come up with a fun story, which is just
31:47
really interesting. And I think it sparked a lot of
31:51
initial inspiration, but it has gradually LED us to be like,
31:56
well, if we're talking molecular level, then we need to talk
31:58
atomic structure. And if we're going to talk
32:00
atoms, then they need to know what an atom is.
32:03
And actually to know what an atom is, you need to know about
32:05
quarks and they need to know about The Big Bang theory.
32:07
Then you need to know about I was.
32:10
Just like, well this is this is the thing.
32:12
Does it actually begin? Exactly.
32:15
And we were talking about this with like history because I was
32:19
saying about how one of the things that we're looking at is
32:21
history. And I was like, OK, do we want
32:22
to do American history or do we which is, I think grade level
32:26
appropriate for one of my kids, if not both actually, if we were
32:30
in the American system. And then but we're here in
32:32
England. So then there's we want to do
32:33
like a British history so we can go and explore places where
32:36
these things happened. And I was like, well, maybe.
32:39
But do we want to continue with like this sort of foundation of
32:43
history, which is like, where do we come from?
32:45
Would it like how did we get to be in the countries that we're
32:49
in, etcetera? Because we did a lot last year
32:52
on like the Bronze Age and, and things like that.
32:55
And then I was like, well, or do we want to just, we've never
32:57
really gone back to like before ancient civilization, like the
33:01
Earth's history. So do we want to do that or is
33:04
that just like an adult's mind of let's do things in a linear
33:08
order? Whereas like the kids are more
33:11
than happy to hop around like they kind of gain that linear
33:15
framework later in like the middle and and high school
33:19
levels. And like it's OK to kind of do
33:22
things in bits and pieces. But then at the same time, I'm
33:24
like, well, gosh, it's really interesting for me because of
33:27
the way that I learned. Like I didn't put together some
33:30
of the historical events that actually happened at the same
33:33
time. Like you have a different
33:35
concept of time and you're like, oh, wait, when did Anne Frank
33:39
live? Oh, wait, when did Martin Luther
33:40
King Junior live? Like, wait, when what was going
33:44
on at the same time as like Jewish persecution and, and
33:48
Nazis and all this. Like actually there are things
33:51
that overlap that you don't realized because of the way that
33:55
they were taught in school for us.
33:57
So we kind of have compartmentalized these things
34:00
that actually all happened simultaneously.
34:03
So I think that timelines are really important, especially
34:06
when we're looking at at history, obviously.
34:08
And so I'm like, OK, maybe we are going to go back and talk
34:12
about The Big Bang. Like maybe we are going to start
34:14
at least briefly. I'm not saying we're we're going
34:17
to have like a college degree on this, but just like a yeah,
34:21
conversational piece. And then that does kind of blow
34:25
into other things. So how are we going to tie
34:27
science in or it's interesting. So This is why the planning is
34:30
important. And I'm not saying I'm planning
34:32
for the next 12 months, but let's just talk about between
34:35
now and Christmas, like what are we trying to accomplish?
34:39
Yeah. And because I was also, I think
34:42
we talked about this earlier about like the crucial like that
34:45
six week period of like getting into the flow and how it's
34:49
actually really hard to find six weeks without any kind of
34:52
interruption. Because there's so much that
34:54
happens, especially in the fall with like the holidays that come
35:00
up, at least least for Americans, right?
35:02
Because then you've got you got back to school in September,
35:05
then you have Halloween, then in November you've got
35:07
Thanksgiving, then you've got Christmas.
35:09
So there's so much with that that we want to naturally do.
35:15
It does take a bit of planning, at least a little bit so.
35:18
Yeah, and I think what we also have to be mindful of, and I, I
35:21
literally am so guilty of this. So last night I ended up having
35:23
a lot of mini tantrum because I was trying to explain something
35:26
to the kids. I often use mealtimes as an
35:28
opportunity to have discussions and to go deeper on subjects
35:31
we've talked about that day or to get them to like recap a
35:34
little bit and to tell their dad a bit about what we've been
35:36
doing that day to demonstrate learning.
35:39
And obviously, on the line of inventions, my son had picked
35:41
out a book from the library about Leonardo da Vinci, and we
35:46
started to recap what we'd learned about him that day.
35:49
And I am really trying to drill home the concept that human
35:53
beings make things to solve problems, but that when we make
35:57
something to solve a problem, we quite often create another
36:00
problem. And that we have to be really
36:02
mindful. Like, so when we're actually
36:04
creating solutions, we have to really think about the possible
36:06
detrimental impact that these things might have.
36:09
So like we might have created something for a good purpose,
36:13
but we have to think about the fact that that could also be
36:15
used for a bad one and equally we'll.
36:18
Have to interject it really quickly because there is just
36:20
side note for anyone who's into like reading, there is a
36:24
fabulous book that talks about this.
36:25
It's called, I think it's called either all are wrong today's or
36:28
all are wrong tomorrow's. I always get that confused but
36:30
go look, it's so good. I will definitely try and find
36:32
that. It talks about how when you
36:34
create something, you create a problem.
36:36
So the best example is you create the car, what's the
36:39
problem? The car accident, right?
36:42
So like. Or the lack of walking and the,
36:44
the reduction in fitness and like, yeah, so many things,
36:48
yeah. But this book specifically, like
36:50
it's so good. Oh my gosh, it's so good.
36:52
So go, go read that if that's just for parents, but it's such
36:56
a highlights that concept in such a way anyway.
37:01
Yeah, fascinating. So, yeah.
37:03
So I was trying to have this conversation and try to get him
37:05
to remember. Like, we talked about it earlier
37:07
in the day about why people invent things.
37:10
And he was just like, he's just doing his usual kind of wasn't
37:13
really engaged, didn't really want to actually try and
37:15
remember. And so he was just defining it
37:17
very difficult to access the memories because when I'd
37:20
mentioned Leonardo da Vinci, he was suddenly remembering all the
37:23
stuff he'd learned from the book.
37:24
Now we basically really enjoyed the fact that he found it really
37:27
instantly fascinating that Leonardo da Vinci was
37:31
essentially he was left-handed, but he taught himself to use his
37:35
right hand so that he could write well with both hands.
37:38
And he used to like writing words backwards.
37:41
So he would form a word because he was left-handed, obviously
37:44
they reckon that's why that he would write a word backwards.
37:47
So he'd write from right to left across the page so that he
37:50
wouldn't smudge it. So stuff like these are like
37:52
really random. And then like mirror writing
37:54
that he used to do memory writing and some of his work as
37:55
well. And so he was really enjoying
37:58
holding up that had some text in the book to hold up to the
38:00
mirror that he could then read it because it's now the right
38:03
way around. So he was like, he found a piece
38:05
of paper where you can see the text through the other side of
38:07
it. So he was holding out to the
38:08
mirror and he was like, look, I can read it now because it's in
38:10
the mirror because I'm reading it through the back of the piece
38:12
of paper and all the rest of it. And he'd gotten so totally
38:15
distracted and sidetracked by it.
38:17
And at the time I was trying to talk to him about something and
38:19
I was getting annoyed that he was going off on a tandem.
38:23
And he was like really interested.
38:24
And he was like, basically he went and got a piece of paper
38:26
and he wrote his name with one hand and then he wrote it with
38:28
the other hand. And then my other one had a go.
38:30
And then my husband had a go and I had a go.
38:32
And it just, it completely derailed the conversation.
38:35
And it was only later, like, because just in the moment, I
38:38
was just tired and grumpy and clearly had no patience left in
38:41
my day, but it annoyed me. But I was looking at those and
38:44
just like, honestly, why can't you see in the moment how
38:49
incredible this is? Like, actually, you were asking
38:51
him to reflect on his day. And sure, OK, you hadn't
38:53
remembered the abstract conversation that you'd had with
38:55
him about how problems create problems and like, solutions
38:58
create problems, sorry, all the rest of it.
38:59
And you wanted to try and make sure he'd really, like,
39:01
understood that. And he would.
39:02
It's a core theme of what we're trying to learn about as we're
39:04
trying to do this. Because I just think it's really
39:06
important for us to understand as humans that not everything we
39:08
do is actually a good thing. We should sometimes stop and
39:11
pause before we'd like break something else.
39:13
But the ultimately I was getting annoyed, that conversation, that
39:16
thread of planning wasn't going the way I wanted it to, because
39:21
he'd got really enthusiastic and engaged about writing, for
39:26
crying out loud. The wrong thing I.
39:29
Was like, why am I finding it annoying that he's trying to now
39:32
practice writing with his other hand?
39:34
For goodness sake, it's all good practice.
39:38
I'm just like he can I never get him to write.
39:39
He's never interested in writing.
39:41
But now he's got a reason to be interested in writing because he
39:44
can practice trying to write it backwards and trying to write it
39:47
with his other hand, which just totally could lead to more
39:49
problems on the line. But we can just, we'll see how
39:51
it goes. But the fun in that for him, the
39:54
relevance that he'd then found in writing was super, super
39:57
important. And actually this morning I
40:00
found myself apologizing to him for getting irritated at the
40:04
other table and just said I was really, really tired.
40:06
And I definitely did not. Appreciate how enthusiastic
40:09
you're being and I'm really like excited for you that you're
40:12
finding this fun. And no, I'm not necessarily
40:14
going to set him any challenges with it.
40:15
I am going to allow him to just enjoy that and play with it and
40:18
be silly with it and just like have fun with it.
40:20
Because sometimes you can ruin it by planning and putting ideas
40:23
on it. And so I think that's the other
40:24
thing to kind of factor in here is that not everything needs to
40:27
be planned. Not everything needs to be
40:29
perfect. If your plan goes out the window
40:31
a little bit on a subject because actually you plan
40:34
something, but then it's really not taking and they're not
40:36
interested in it, then it's it's being conscious for like, so
40:39
we're talking as to relatively seasoned home educators at this
40:42
point. Like we have been educating our
40:43
kids at home for several years at this point.
40:48
It has become quite natural to know the kind of learning they
40:52
enjoy, the kind of thing they respond to, the kind of places
40:55
they will engage with the subjects they are likely to
40:58
really dive in and be enjoying, the visual, the tactile, the
41:03
crafts, the whatever the science experiments.
41:05
We know at this point the kinds of things they're going to
41:07
actually enjoy and engage with. And often, like my kids are
41:11
sitting like, oh, I've done loads of school today and
41:13
they'll be like when like we didn't do any school today and
41:16
they just won't even realize because it's the stuff we've
41:17
been doing. There's lots of stuff they
41:18
consider to be fun and I think ultimately that's not every day.
41:22
Don't be wrong, I'm not superhuman, but but we do have
41:24
lots of days like that where they don't realise.
41:26
But I and I have witnessed an awful lot of learning going on.
41:29
And so I think it's really important to both do.
41:32
My light level planning is literally it's 1A4 page.
41:34
It's got loads of really short, easy grab, like a few minutes
41:38
here, 15 minutes there. Tasks and ideas of things that
41:41
we can do to help pick up bits of the national curriculum and
41:45
maybe that we have been lacking in a little bit that we maybe
41:47
could do with a bit more in. Or just ideas for fun activities
41:51
to do or stuff that will help them to develop more in the
41:53
concept and understand how like obviously and inventions and
41:59
making stuff applies to every element of history.
42:01
So it's really fantastic. It's science, it's maths, it's
42:04
it's marketing, it's writing, it's imagery, it's crafting,
42:07
it's creating, it's all kinds of amazing things.
42:08
It covers it you pretty much every single skill out there,
42:11
which is why I think so many of us get drawn to coming up with
42:14
our own ideas and making something.
42:15
But ultimately they the planning will not be the only stuff we
42:19
do, and it certainly will not be something which I will live and
42:23
die by. If we don't do it all, we won't
42:25
do it all. I will file that thing away and
42:27
anything we haven't done is fodder for future terms.
42:31
When I can then put it back out again in a couple of years time
42:34
when they're interested in this sort of thing again.
42:35
And I can say, oh, actually we did a topic on this a little
42:37
while ago. Let me just go back and see what
42:38
we didn't do and there might be some great ideas in there.
42:40
And ultimately it just gives us inspiration and ideas.
42:43
And as I say you, you're following them.
42:47
So you are seeing where they're at and you're observing them and
42:50
you're noticing where they're at.
42:51
And so I, I don't massively stress planning.
42:54
I see it as quite a fun process because I'm quite a creative
42:56
person. I quite enjoy it.
42:57
But if that's not you and you actually find it quite
43:00
stressful, then you don't even need to do planning.
43:03
This is literally just something which I've found has helped me
43:05
to stay a little bit saner. But for a lot of a lot of
43:08
families, feeling your way through it is also fine.
43:11
And you might just find as they get older that it just helps you
43:13
to feel a little bit more relaxed.
43:15
If you know that they are kind of like if they're working
43:18
towards a goal, so say for example, they have decided they
43:20
want to sit certain GCCS or something, you're, you're
43:23
probably going to need to have some element of planning to
43:26
cover the topics that will come up on those papers to make sure
43:30
that they are able to actually tick the box and get the
43:32
qualification that it's not always going to be able to be
43:36
completely free flow. But I suspect that like when I
43:39
kind of reflect on my GCSE level biology and the stuff that I
43:42
understood at that level, there's an awful lot that we're
43:45
talking about already. Because these things naturally
43:48
come up if you are following a more meandery path through a
43:51
subject at younger ages too. And so the foundations are being
43:55
laid with every random conversation and activity you
43:57
do, which I think is really exciting.
43:59
But I don't, I don't massively stress it.
44:01
I do kind of feel like actually they will reach those points of
44:04
wanting to get qualifications in something and actually they will
44:07
have a really good grasping of it.
44:09
And I think like, yeah, the whole like history jumping
44:12
around all over the place. I know that I had absolutely no
44:15
concept of the linear timeline of history.
44:17
Like it was very recent that I actually found myself feeling
44:22
like I understood that and grasping how long ago things
44:26
actually happened. Like when I think about the fact
44:27
that when I was born, the Second World War had only ended like
44:31
what, 45 years before, which is just crazy when I think about it
44:37
now, when it's like coming up to like my, my 40th in a few years
44:40
time. Like that's to think that in
44:42
just my lifetime, that's all it had been.
44:44
Like that's all it had been. Like that's, that's crazy to me
44:48
that we kind of look at history sometimes and see it as being
44:50
1,000,000 miles away. But actually the relevance is
44:53
still very much current. And I think it's very difficult
44:57
in the world that our kids live in as well.
44:58
If you think about what they see when they look out into the
45:01
world and the technology they see and the experiences they
45:04
have, that actually the world looks so very different to how
45:09
it would have looked 50 years ago, 100 years ago.
45:12
And so it can look really abstract, can't it?
45:14
It can look really confusing for them.
45:18
Exactly. And it's not necessarily all
45:19
like stuff that we're learning, like, for example, obviously
45:23
what happened in World War 2, that that situation is happening
45:29
in other countries and cultures as well.
45:32
So it's not even that like we've, yeah, we can get a hold
45:34
of another conversation here about what we have learned and
45:37
have not learned from history. But yeah, so it's also just
45:39
relative to like what you've read and learned and and heard
45:43
about. So all of that is important.
45:46
But then even thinking about like, I don't know, I felt like
45:49
when you learn about like Cleopatra, for example, and in
45:51
Egypt, in ancient Egypt, I always thought like pyramids
45:54
were made and Cleopatra lived in them.
45:57
That is not how it happened. They were made a really long
46:01
time ago. Yeah, yeah.
46:04
So it's really interesting like to look at things in that way.
46:09
And I think that's where I'm hoping my kids will find a
46:12
little bit of interest in that this year as well.
46:15
And obviously they don't have, they don't know all of the
46:18
things to know that is interesting yet.
46:20
But hopefully when we look at them, it'll feel that way
46:23
because it is, it is frustrating.
46:26
I guess it gives you an opportunity really as you're
46:28
doing some of this planning, to reflect on your education and
46:33
where there might have been some misses or some opportunities to
46:36
do things a little bit differently or in a way that
46:39
would have made more sense to you.
46:40
And then you can apply that to your children.
46:44
I think the other thing that I'm looking at as I'm planning,
46:47
which has nothing to do with the actual learning and academics is
46:51
more of like what other assets do we want in our day?
46:54
Like do we want to have like a particular tone for the
46:58
mornings? Are we planning a like I've been
47:02
trying to maybe make a few more breakfasts versus just have
47:06
cereal, like let's take turns making muffins and kind of have
47:10
that routine as part of it. So it doesn't necessarily have
47:14
to be academic planning that you're doing.
47:16
It could be more of like, what do we want our days to feel
47:20
like? Do we want to come together at
47:21
5:00 PM for a board game every day or read aloud every day and
47:26
kind of wind our days down like that?
47:28
Do we want to start our days off with some exercise?
47:31
What is that going to look like? I found some really to talk
47:34
about rabbit trails. I, I found some really
47:37
interesting like balance work and coordination and like left
47:43
brain, right brain exercises, crossing the, the central plane
47:46
of our bodies, things like that. And I'm like, you know, gosh,
47:49
these are really easy and quick and they're fun.
47:53
They're like little games. We might start our day with
47:57
something like that. Like there was this one where
47:59
this woman took like masking tape and made a big square on
48:02
the floor for each of her kids and blindfolded them and had
48:06
them March in place and see if you could stay in the in the
48:09
box. And then you know, after like 30
48:11
seconds, you take your blindfolds off.
48:13
And the kids were like miles away from their box, but they
48:15
thought they were marching in place.
48:17
They're just things like that. It's really interesting, right?
48:19
And ways to to wake up our senses and have a little
48:23
physical activity, a little bit of fun.
48:24
So even components like that, I always mean to do it, I feel
48:29
like it doesn't happen. So trying to be a little more
48:31
intentional about that kind of stuff this year.
48:34
And again, like you were saying, you can always find a time to to
48:37
reset your year. So if it's not now, maybe you're
48:39
looking at it at the new year, right?
48:41
Making new intentions come late December, early January, or
48:45
maybe it's springtime when you're refreshing for the new
48:48
season and things are waking up and you're feeling more
48:50
energized. There's always a time that you
48:53
can do this. I think right now just because
48:56
of socials, it feels more academic, but maybe take some
49:00
time to pull in things that aren't academic that are a
49:03
little bit more just your family's feelings.
49:06
And yeah, your ethos, goals, values.
49:08
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a really.
49:10
Good point. And I think trying to actually
49:12
remember that we are whole humans as well, and we're not
49:15
just educating brains. We're we're educating whole
49:19
bodies and teaching them how to regulate and how to be kind and
49:23
how to socialize and how to like all the various different
49:26
challenges they might face as adults as well.
49:28
Like all the different kind of relationship problems or
49:30
practical problems or things that they might have to engage
49:32
with later that. Yeah, I think that we can get
49:36
very academic focused or at the very least kind of like, yeah.
49:39
But what we kind of consider to be important for their childhood
49:42
in terms of what school considers to be important for
49:44
their childhood. But someone said to me once
49:46
about school and the national curriculum is not the bar.
49:49
That's not what we're aiming for.
49:52
And what we're aiming for is a well-rounded, enthusiastic, like
49:57
loves learning Cuban. And if you're planning and your
50:00
structuring that you are doing is coming from a place of fear
50:04
or anxiety or stress, there's a very good chance that that
50:07
planning is going to then therefore be pushed back on.
50:10
Because a lot of it is probably going to be pushing down
50:13
journeys and directions that on actually particularly relevant
50:17
to them, or they're not feeling particularly engaged with it or
50:20
they're going to be picking up on your reasons.
50:23
And so I think definitely kind of taking a pause to think, why
50:27
am I planning? What are my reasons?
50:29
What is the actual goal? Like what do I want to achieve
50:32
with this? Like is it that actually you're
50:35
just really struggling to think of ideas like I do and you could
50:37
just do with having a Bank of ideas to pull from?
50:39
Or is it actually they're getting older and they've got a
50:42
qualification coming up and so there really are some tick boxes
50:45
that you've got to cover? Or is it that actually you're
50:49
feeling like maybe they're they're not doing so great or
50:53
that you're worried about a certain element of their
50:55
learning? There's the thing that planning
50:56
doesn't have to encompass everything.
50:58
It might just be that you've noticed that they're kind of
51:00
getting to like 8-9 ten years old and they're struggling still
51:03
with their reading. And maybe you're thinking maybe
51:04
they could be dyslexic and you want to offer them a bit more
51:06
support. So try and just get to the
51:08
reason behind the planning and if it really is coming from a
51:11
place of you just feel like they spend too much time playing and
51:15
doing their own thing and you want to try and get them
51:16
wrangled and focused and all the rest of it and actually
51:19
thinking, OK, is that a good reason?
51:22
It's like, what are they actually learning when they're
51:24
doing all of that playing? How can I naturally feed some of
51:27
this stuff in that does feel important to me, does feel
51:30
important to society or whatever, but also remembering
51:33
that the societal expectations and conditioning that we had
51:36
about those subjects isn't necessarily the reality of the
51:40
truth that we should be living. And I know that a lot of the
51:42
time we segment out subjects in school, but actually you can
51:46
cover off all the subjects with one topic usually.
51:51
Like 1 project can literally cover 5 or 6 different learning
51:54
goals all at once without them even realizing it.
51:57
Like baking a recipe from another country is geography,
52:00
it's history. You can talk about where the
52:02
ingredients come from. Why do they use that ingredient
52:04
so much? Oh well, it grows really well
52:05
there. Why?
52:06
Because the climate's really good and it's got mountainous
52:08
regions which it grows really well and all whatever, right?
52:12
That it just, it gives you opportunities to just have a bit
52:14
of a chat and to keep it really light and fun.
52:16
And much like the Leonardo da Vinci thing, when they're just
52:20
like randomly getting inspired by something is to remember that
52:24
those random sparks of inspiration could be something
52:26
which lead to the most incredible career or opportunity
52:30
in their future. And so it's fine that you're
52:33
inspiring them, putting random stuff in front of them and
52:35
giving them stuff to learn new, new things about all the time.
52:38
But ultimately, if they're not engaged with it and they are
52:41
pushing back on it, they're not enjoying it.
52:43
And you're finding yourself just putting your hair out or getting
52:45
angry or stressed and wanting to stomp away from the dining room
52:47
table like I did last night. It's too too that reflection to
52:51
take a pause and to look back at it and go, why?
52:53
Why wasn't he interested in that conversation right then?
52:56
Well, because he was engaged in something else and he was
52:58
enjoying that. And actually that was possibly
53:01
even more relevant in that moment and therefore the Super,
53:06
super great that he was doing it.
53:07
So don't discount the gems of their own planning and their own
53:11
ideas and their own progress that they are creating for
53:14
themselves. Their opinion matters in a much
53:16
bigger way than ours on a mostly daily basis to be honest.
53:20
And I think integrating what they want to learn about and
53:25
offering little nudges into things which you think will be
53:28
really useful to know alongside it is just as important as you
53:32
sitting and having a good think by yourself and coming up with
53:34
ideas. But yeah, do do try and actually
53:37
over time and, and if this is your first year and you're just
53:39
starting out, then maybe all of this is like ridiculously
53:43
stressful to think about. And just literally, if that is
53:45
the case, just spend some time observing them.
53:47
Just do some fun stuff with them.
53:49
See how your days tend to pan out and slowly, gradually get
53:54
more intentional, whether that is intentionally allowing
53:57
childhood education to take the lead, or whether that is
54:00
intentionally putting together some curriculums and ideas for
54:03
them down the line. But don't feel like you have to
54:05
have this all figured out. Don't feel like you have to get
54:07
it right first time. I know that I have been through
54:09
at least 5 or 6 different iterations of what our home Ed
54:11
looks like. At least that probably changes
54:14
on an almost daily basis. But it's fine for it to change
54:16
and evolve. And you are going to learn and
54:18
grow alongside them and get inspired by things alongside
54:22
them. And if you allow it to be, it
54:24
can actually become an incredibly beautiful, fun, an
54:28
exhilarating at times process of really fascinatingly finding out
54:32
about loads of really interesting things.
54:36
So allow it to be that. Allow it to be a bit meandery
54:39
sometimes, because that's where the beauty is a lot of the time
54:41
is in the random subjects you find yourself covering because
54:44
they've come up with it or you're a random question.
54:48
I get at least one good question almost every day that makes me
54:51
go. You know, I've never, never
54:53
thought about that. Or I read something or I see
54:56
something on a documentary or something that makes me go,
54:58
that's really cool. I like that.
55:00
So yeah, look for those moments. Those are fun little glimmers
55:03
and they all add up to amazing things down the line.
55:06
Anyway, I hope you guys have enjoyed this chat today.
55:08
This was definitely just been one of our, this is what me and
55:10
Ashley truly sound like when we were just sat chatting, having a
55:13
coffee and hours and hours go by and we go, oh, maybe we should
55:18
go do something else now, find the kids spend so much time
55:23
working on our philosophy, she spends a new time delivering it.
55:26
Ha ha, ha. But anyway, hope you guys are
55:29
having a wonderful week and have a lovely Sunday.
55:31
If you are listening to it first thing on a Sunday morning, which
55:34
so many of you do now, which is always very lovely to see.
55:37
And yeah, TuneIn again next week to find out what we're going to
55:42
be talking about then, because I don't think either of us know
55:44
you just yet, do we? We don't, no.
55:47
Yeah, think about it. Send us a message.
55:49
If you get to us quick enough, you can you can direct where it
55:51
goes. All right guys.
55:53
Have a great week. Take care you've been listening
56:03
to the Big Home Ed Conversations podcast.
56:06
Thanks for tuning in. Don't forget to subscribe, leave
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56:25
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