Now we've made the decision I'm excitedly gathering thoughts and ideas and getting a feel for how our version of home-schooling will work. I've finally joined Pinterest for this very reason and set up a board there to pin ideas, I've also subscribed to a lot of home-schooling blogs that interest me to get a feel for how it works in different families.
I've always been drawn to unschooling, but I need to bear in mind that the children may well be returning to main-stream education at some point in the future, plus I'm not sure my husband would yet be on-board with that little structure.... that can change though ;) What I'm thinking at the moment is more formal schooling in the mornings and then free unstructured learning in the afternoons.
We have a Forest school nearby called Inwoods that allows home-schooled children to attend one day a week, and I also have one day a week I meet up with my mother, so I'd like to continue that only with the children included. With my mother we could see shows, visit museums, or just shop or go to the park. The other 3 weekdays will take the formal morning, informal afternoon structure I said about earlier, with the odd class, music lesson etc. thrown in. Weekends will be one "Daddy day" to give them some focused time with their father and me a break, and a "Family Day" so we do something together as a foursome.
I've made a vague list of subjects I want to cover; English, Maths, The World (History, Geography, Science, Forest School and a language, probably French), The Arts (Drama, Art, Music, Dance) and Sport, probably swimming to start. I realise though that there will be a great deal of overlap amongst those. I'm even drawing up a vague timetable as I know it helps Papaya to see how her day will be set out.
I'm actually getting quite excited about it! we have a meeting with the school Bursar next week, but I think even if they were able to give us a big bursary we'd still go ahead with this plan. I can just see how it's going to benefit us as a family; The Comedian and my jobs are unstructured and sporadic, so we need that kind of flexibility with schooling too.
I've always been drawn to unschooling, but I need to bear in mind that the children may well be returning to main-stream education at some point in the future, plus I'm not sure my husband would yet be on-board with that little structure.... that can change though ;) What I'm thinking at the moment is more formal schooling in the mornings and then free unstructured learning in the afternoons.
We have a Forest school nearby called Inwoods that allows home-schooled children to attend one day a week, and I also have one day a week I meet up with my mother, so I'd like to continue that only with the children included. With my mother we could see shows, visit museums, or just shop or go to the park. The other 3 weekdays will take the formal morning, informal afternoon structure I said about earlier, with the odd class, music lesson etc. thrown in. Weekends will be one "Daddy day" to give them some focused time with their father and me a break, and a "Family Day" so we do something together as a foursome.
I've made a vague list of subjects I want to cover; English, Maths, The World (History, Geography, Science, Forest School and a language, probably French), The Arts (Drama, Art, Music, Dance) and Sport, probably swimming to start. I realise though that there will be a great deal of overlap amongst those. I'm even drawing up a vague timetable as I know it helps Papaya to see how her day will be set out.
I'm actually getting quite excited about it! we have a meeting with the school Bursar next week, but I think even if they were able to give us a big bursary we'd still go ahead with this plan. I can just see how it's going to benefit us as a family; The Comedian and my jobs are unstructured and sporadic, so we need that kind of flexibility with schooling too.
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