Lost Blogs and Busy Weeks.

It seems to have been a hell of a week, what with all the dashing around for auditions, HE groups, ballet classes, swimming, piano & drama and the film crew visiting our house twice this week. Re registering for spotlight and giving puppet making workshops. I have barely had time to chill and i sit here now with my brain boggled as i type, why? I cannot find my old blog. I can read it but i can't access it therefore i can't transfer it to my new blog. HRUMPH!!!
Don't let anyone tell you HE kids are unsocialised, far from it. Never will i worry about Erin taking her steps into the big wide world she is more than able to tackle it and full on.
As for friends, she has lots. Some mean more to her than others, just like in real life. Isn't this what it's about equipping them for real life.

This week alone she has tackled some reading head on of her own accord and has been working away at the whiteboard telling me what it is that she is writing as she copies from a book at 8am. This has NOT been instigated by me. I'm far too half asleep and in need of tea to be thinking about lessons and writing at that time in the morning.
Now we go into the half term holidays and as usual many of her activities have stopped. Normally i am antsy about this having holidays enforced upon us but i have to say this time round i am relishing the break. The chance to just chill......except as i say this a list pops into my head of things i have to do, phone calls i have to make.

Also now i have sold the trailer i want to start on our cabin. Something that will replace the garage and basically become our 'conservatory' the vision is that it will open onto a veranda and lead out onto decking in our ever so lopsided garden. This will give our long awaited for bbq, chill area without constantly sitting at a 45 degree angle not great when there is a glass of wine that was in front of you but has now gone over the edge straight into the grass.
I'm hoping we will fit in electric, heating, fridge, microwave, sofa and lots of HE stuff enabling us to use the garden space almost year round.
My intention over time is to run puppet workshops from this space and enjoy some serious forest skills along the lines of building a firepit getting a dutch oven and several other items that will really help us enjoy our outside in and our inside out.
That is of course if can get kev to not attempt to build one from scratch thus having a cabin when I'm about 102 (yes it would take him that long) instead i must convince him that we buy one ready made and just decide on whether or not to put it up ourselves or get someone to do it.
Watch this space...........

This is how we do it.

So this is our resources room where Erin does her learning, arts & crafts and general play/mess making it seems to have taken an age to get this how i envisioned it in my head but at last we are here. We also have space downstairs where there are treasure baskets, wooden blocks, silk scarves and all manner of interesting bit's and bob's. We also have another laptop and printer for learning downstairs. Map of the UK on the wall so Erin can see where all her family and penpals are and not make the mistake of thinking Wales was in Scotland. We also have a Globe so we can see how the world is shaped and where the various countries and continents are. I really think we live HE now as all of these things have crept into our everyday lives and rather than pack everything away each time (I'm far too lay for that) it is left out for easy access at any time of the day or night. In our rather small kitchen we have put up an huge magnetic white board to encourage our reluctant reader to write, spell, read and draw and scribble. So far this has been working well. We use coloured pens of different thickness as well as magnetic printed words and colourful magnetic wooden letters. Along with this we have magnetic numbers should we get a fit of mathematics. next to this i have a chart for doing times tables that Erin is able to fill in herself whenever she finds an answer. This is something that inspired me from John Holt's How Children Learn. I also use a book called Let's Read another suggestion by this inspiring author. I have even started to think is it this simple? can learning truly be this simple and it seems it can. I just need to shake off my negative experiences with school that made it all seem such a chore and embrace the fact that learning can be positive, fun and all encompassing, which is one of the main reasons i set out on this sometimes rocky and scary road. The rewards far outweigh those moments when i question if what i am doing is right, fulfilling; for Erin not me and giving her a well rounded unbiased education. Of course this can be a struggle to achieve as i have to enlighten and re learn myself.
So i struggle with my reluctant reader. Me who was an avid reader 5 years ahead of my peers at primary school. They did not know what to do with me except leave me alone. That in itself was a struggle as i remember my dad  re teaching me to read after a stupid experiment set by the school to learn only phonetically. I recall feeling prickles of heat and sweat and embarrassment at not being able to do it, dreading those moments when i would be told ' you can do it you're just not trying hard enough' and then the tears. How i ended up with a love of books i will never know.
So......here lies the problem. I believe  in leaving her until she is at least 7. Something i know, have read about in practice in Scandinavia. and something practiced by Steiner's philosophy. But.....deep down i feel i should be pushing her a bit more. If only she would read then the whole world would open up to her and then i truly feel she would be voracious in both her reading and her thirst for knowledge and that this would truly allow her access to all the information that she requires. I look at reading programs but for some reason no one picks up the phone. She works on sites such as Starfall, Educationcity and Time4Learning all of which she enjoys and works to a high level. Particularly  Educationcity and Time4Learning. While she works on that i have taken her right back to the beginning with her reading. I use Let's Read for ideas and write them in colourful ink on the whiteboard for her to read, we make up Limericks about beans and farting and peeing and it often has us in fits of laughter. And now i see progress....it has been long and sometimes painful. I have to stop myself when i want to say ' you know it you're just not trying hard enough' and we take one step at a time. It is about encouragement and the realisation on Erin's part that the whole world is around her reading, has information waiting to be soaked up. Huge leaps have been made in just the past couple of days. I feel this has something to do with studying for LAMDA her drama exam. She had to tell her tutor that she doesn't read well and had to have her monologue read out to her. So maybe in her own way she is starting to realise that she needs to read if she wants to get ahead and if i know my girl she WANTS to get ahead.

Blogger it's your last chance!

This is the last time i do this. Blogger has lost my last lot of blogs so i have had to start afresh. I am NOT impressed.

Anyway a busy day today as students from The London Film School came to do sound recording with Erin for their project. Next week they come back to do images.
There was lots of tip toeing around.....you try keeping a toddler quiet hahaha! so that made for an interesting afternoon. To top it off Kiki was not her usual self (teeth again i think)

Now my brain is boggled with stuff. Tomorrow we have piano, Saturday is ballet then in the afternoon we are off to Heathrow for Erin's second entry into Spotlight. This is how she gets work acting. Sunday she then has Drama where she is now studying for LAMDA. She has a poem to learn which i have to say she is doing rather well with, that girl has the memory of an elephant.
Well that's me done for the first post, i promise the next one will be more interesting.