Discovering Our Past

Discovering Our Past

How Should We Help Our Children Learn History? History is a vitally important subject for us all. We need to know where we’ve come from and discover the struggles and incredible achievements of the past. History can be taught well, and badly. Taught badly, it is a dry...
How To… Support Your Child With Spelling

How To… Support Your Child With Spelling

Does anyone remember struggling to remember how to spell a word? The frustration as the fog descends and you feel it evade your grip, in the end settling on guessing, knowing it doesn’t look right. For some people this never really goes away; try as they might,...
Learning Through Literature: The First World War

Learning Through Literature: The First World War

Learning Through Literature: The First World War “Mummy, why are there poppies everywhere?” It is inevitable that our children will have questions at this time of year, about poppies, remembrance and war, about the purpose of remembering and the historical events...
Beginning our Home Education Journey

Beginning our Home Education Journey

Beginning Our Home Education Journey This week, many of my fellow mums are busy getting ready for their little ones to take their first steps into the world and head off to school, buying their first uniform and shiny new shoes, wondering how their baby got so big and...
Review: The Spielgaben

Review: The Spielgaben

REVIEW: Spielgaben The first of our weekly reviews, where we explore some of the learning resources and materials available to home educators and review them for your benefit. This week, the Spielgaben. What Is It? A Spielgaben is essentially a comprehensive...
On Attachment

On Attachment

The first few months of motherhood are, for many of us, a bewildering time. You think you know what it’s going to be like, but you don’t, however well prepared you are. You may not feel that you know very much at all. I felt absolutely clueless. One thing I did know...

Home Education: FAQs!

This week the small person and I have been learning about how our democracy works as we found ourselves volunteering to represent local home educators in petitioning our local MP to ensure that any changes to the current guidance for local authorities happen...
How to Help Your Child Love English: Top Tips

How to Help Your Child Love English: Top Tips

I did my teacher training through the notorious Literacy Hour, which meant that we couldn’t write a poem about the snow when it was snowing, we had to do Greek Myths because that was what the NLS said we had to do in Year 5 Term 2.  In the independent system, we could...
How to Write a Good Story

How to Write a Good Story

How to Write A Good Story We are natural storytellers.  Yet writing a story is a surprisingly complex process and can be overwhelming. Here are some tips for getting past that overwhelm. What Makes a Good Story? A short story should be a snapshot of a moment in time...
Human

Human

Emotions “I’m only 12. I don’t really have emotions.” This bewildering statement was once delivered calmly in the middle of a poetry lesson. The child said someone had said to him once, “You’re twelve. What can you possibly have to worry about?” I asked him if he’d...