It's been a rather hectic time for us these last few days, we had to squeeze in a lot alongside superschool especially yesterday as my daughter had two hours of tests and uniform fitting to endure in order to enter her new state mainstream school, not sure if I explained in previous times so a quick clearing for those who may misunderstand, there are reasons I still support the idea of mainstream schooling, I believe it is vital that children are able to meet with, socialise with, and study with others of their own age, they learn a lot through interaction with their age group and it is essential to gaining good communication skills, this world suffers needlessly through miscommunication or lack of communication, also my children have to not only be educated they also have to live and work within the social structure that exists here in their direct and very real day- to- day world, although it is brilliant they get to learn a lot more than they ordinarily would with just mainstream school in super school, what they also need is a healthy dose of realism, so I have to think of how best I can help my children live within this society and remain strong enough to employ critical thinking and acceptance of new or rediscovered old information, my ideal would be to have equal time for both main stream school and superschool, if the education system would allow an option for three days mainstream school working alongside two days of homeschool/superschool which ever the guardian of the child prefers, to my mind for those of us who wish to give our children more than what is available this is a good solution well that's my dream for this life we are living at the moment, which is unfortunately restricted by the usual reason-lack of money
My favorite day dream is being able to be with those I love, living far away from here on some sunny island somewhere growing all my own food and live simply off grid and in peace, love and harmony, a girl can dream you know
Back to super school my daughter was amazing, finished all the tests the school set her in less than half the time they had allotted to her and she was ready with new uniform in hand before the morning was even half done which left us plenty of time for the fibonacci field trip, we all love field trips I especially believe that any person of any age learns best when the repetition is repeated with the practical and physical, so I began teaching them last week of the basics of fibonacci and followed it with homework which included them both having real independent physical tasks to do and the field trip not only gets us using the sequence again but combining it with physical exercise- we chose a local beauty spot which has very steep slopes being coastal and quite a lot of hills,
There was a lot of walking, climbing, taking pictures, collecting samples, discussing the sequence, applying it to nature and this also had a good effect of making them take in their surroundings instead of just walking through, I have developed quite a thing for ambling, meandering, over the years I have lost count of the times friends or family would chide me, insult me, berate me, for such, yet they would rush here, there, everywhere, never taking in any of their journey or surroundings, they miss so much, unless your appointment is vital, and for me I always set off early if it is vital, then there is no need to zombify yourself with mindless rush, walk a little slower,
I make the children listen too, I make them try to identify how many different birds they can hear or other sounds, what wild flora is trying to grow through the cracks in the crumbled brick walls, those decaying buildings~ look to the side walls and see the remnants of older buldings, once real, now only a shadow of where a wall or door was, I love looking at how old buildings often still leave a scar on the existing ones, sometimes you have to wait until so called improvements are done and then one day you see an exposed wall and it is criss-crossed with outlines of old rooms or if you're lucky there will be an outline of a fireplace and you get a little glimpse into the past, and yes I spend a lot of time if I can just wandering round old ruins seeing the memories of the past play out in the moss covered fallen stones, I love it, England is quite prolific in some areas with it's ruins however for a lot of us the towns we live are being destroyed, their past bulldozed and replaced with ugly square boxes all looking the same, it's heartbreaking, we are quite lucky in that some towns in this area have managed to value at least the victorian buildings and it's wonderful how some will fight to preserve and adapt in some cases so the building is still used, I am very much a conservationist, a lover of history, and I wallow in light melancholy when I find an old run down area where there are many half fallen decaying buildings showing patterns of what has been before, I like to ponder almost detective -like trying to work out what had been attached to that building, who lived there, what life was like for them
I think I may have made it clear that I insisted we take a slow and often side-tracked walk through our chosen place of adventure, the one thing I cannot show you but it is so much an intrinsic part of this place is the smell, everywhere in these woods garlic grows natural and rather enthusiastically, when it grows this way the smell is overpowering at first but after a short while as you wander through the trees and you approach the sea the smell gradually fades into a more salty biting smell and you wish for the pungent thickness of the garlic, it seems peaceful and cleansing in a more gentle way than the harsh abrasive tang of the salt and rotting fish smell of the sea
The woods were beautiful, obviously dressed in their finest greenery due to our weather in these parts being the perfect combination of lots of rain and bouts of glorious sunshine, to look up and see perfect beautiful blue sky is wonderful, it uplifts the soul, and yesterday was literally endless blue skies, glorious sunshine, the weather isn't normally this glorious, we have been lucky lately, normally we are pleased if it stops raining, this is the north east, we know about rain, we know about wind, we can discuss at length about how bleak it looks on any given day, so the recent glorious weather has been wonderful and everyone is sporting varying shades of sunburn
I cannot tell you we took loads of notes, we did take a notepad and pen, it remains quite empty of words, I cannot tell you we collected loads of samples, we have a bag with two very droopy sad looking plants we collected, I think we have perhaps ten photos, which I have used throughout this post, please bear in mind I am not a photographer, I have an old iphone 3 yes that said 3, I have my reasons for refusing to use a new phone, every phone I get I make sure it is an old one, it serves me well enough though is a little cranky at times and it is not known for superb photographs, however all we needed was a record of our adventure so I am more than happy
I can tell you we had a fabulous day, we wandered up hill and down valley, we talked, we laughed, we had fun, we found swings and played on them, we found slides and slid down them, we found sunny spots we sat in, we found shady spots we had ice cream in, we found beautiful streams we had pebble throwing fun in, we found arcades we lost money in, and we staggered home late, happy, and fell fast asleep, I consider our first field trip a resounding success and we all loved every minute, today I have meetings and family time with all my children so the day is devoted to many loved ones filling the house, bringing with them pets and games and fun, yesterday was good, today will be good too, we hope you have a good day as well
