I am feed up with having to explain myself!!! I homeschool because i want to, and feel it is the right approch for our children. Not because I couldn't get her into the school we wanted, or bullying etc..just because. And what is so bloody important with reading!!?? "So is she reading yet?" "so she's not reading books yet?" "how manys books is she reading?". I AM SURE it's NOT a problem that my barely six year old is not reading more than say four letter words. I AM SURE she will STILL become a well rounded, well educated adult. I AM SORRY i am not teaching her to read like the 'schools'. I AM SORRY i am not forceing her to attempt or memorise words that are beyond her current teaching. No i do not think it means homeschool is failing. And i am sorry i can not tell you how much of the day is learning. AND MOSTLY i am sorry i want a slower, more relaxed, more playfull childhood for my children BUT

I WILL NOT TRY TO BE THE NORM!

But then...I don't know if i really have the support to be anything but the norm.

Us

For those of you that have wondered what hubby and i look like, here is a photo...

...Yes we are really made of pixels!!

Not alot going on here!! Few dolly orders. Little Ley (who has a stinking cold again!) has got herself moving and is crawling everywere...fast. Vivs reading is coming along well. She is starting to read other stuff as well as her 100 lessons now, which is great, but i am trying not to have her read too much stuff, as i don't want to confuse any lessons yet to be done. I just wish she hadn't had any imput from school, its the only thing still messing up her reading.

Will do a bigger update soon. Just not really in the mood at the moment. Hope you are all well.

We've had a baby!!!

Welcome the new addition to our family....Jimmy!!!

I wanna play with with the pattern ALOT before i offer it on my doll site for sale. So imput from you all pleeeeease. Would YOU buy one, and how much for???

P.S this one is MINE and i will not let him go !!!! TeeHeeHee.

Here is Dad with the new baby!!!!!! Haha ha ha (shh, you've not seen this photo!!)

Happy 2nd Birthday Ryan Rodney

Just a quicky

Just about to pop off to bed, but have a couple of great links i must share.
Firstly, the website to one of the most amazing artists out there. I have known this man all my life, and he is so talented. I have a peace of his work on my lounge wall, and i am VERY proud of it.... www.grahamcollins.co.uk



And, secondly i spent most of last night reading ALL of this site and laughing so much. http://www.threadbared.com/

Illustration Friday

E is for....

It's a doodle today. Viv was drawing pictures from 'the enchanted wood', so i doodled this one for illustration friday.

Thought children were ment to age you?

I have come to the conclusion that i need a new 'grown up' hair do, or perhaps a new 'grown up' wardrobe. I know it's nice to be seen as younger than you actually are, but now it's getting silly, and when i was working before having Viv people thought i was older....Well it all began a few weeks ago, a telewest girl knocked on the door advertising. When i answered the door she asked if my mum or dad were in, i replied 'dunno, lets phone them find out'!! She felt really bad, and i found it really funny, didn't know i looked younger than i am, let alone that young. thought it was a one off. BUT yesterday i had two men knock at door for dog protection money raising blah blah, this time when i answered the door, they asked if i was the lady of the house! i said yes, of which they both looked at each other and grinned!! then asked if i was the home owner lady of the house! when i said yes thats me, they couldn't appologise enough. Only thing is once they took some of my details for dog addopting for Viv, i found out i was the same age as one of the men!! I hope he felt really old looking!!!!!!

Self Portrait Tuesday

Self Portrait Tuesday - Personal History

I have choosen this photo for self portrait tuesday, as it reminds me of a time that i have good memories from. Firstly, it was taken when i lived in my favourite home in Norfolk, with loads and loads of garden, and a forrest behind it. And secondly it's the last memories i really have of before i had to wear glasses or contact lenses all the time due to REALLY bad eye sight. Also, i kinda like the way i am staring off into space...shows what a dreamer i was to become!!!

clarice and terrance

Vivienne is off to spend the day with a little homeschool girlie around the corner. I am so pleased to have found another homeschooler really really close with a little girl Vivs age. I am pleased, they look like they are going to be good friends.
Yesterday I finished off these little peeps for an order.

Once i was finished, as i have no inspiration for fairy tale month of softies I moved on to tie one on . Here is a little seaky peak

Other than our reading lessons, and 'the enchanted wood', not much school stuff done. But we have read through the jan target list together, and Viv seems quite happy with it!

feeling a little crafty

My sinus pian is at last getting better, trying to get back into some sorta routine after xmas now.
I have been playing around with blog slightly tonight, and have started my own book review page, linked on here. I have only just started, so only put couple of books on, but will update as books are finished.
Best go now i have a couple of pixie dolls to finish off.

Note to Esther, lets both try to finish off a fairy tale softie this month!! Have you done tie one on before?

"There is a game known as ‘6 Degrees of Separation’ (from Kevin Bacon - no relation to the best of my knowledge). The way the game works is to try to connect 2 famous people via 6 associations. We have been watching the blogsphere for the last year or so and believe that nearly all blogging homeschoolers will hear about important news items, etc. within 3 days of the first mention in a HS blog.This experiment will work as follows:1- If this is the first blog in which you have seen this post and you would like to contribute to the experiment, copy the entire post and post it in your blog.2- Modify the post to add a link to your blog which displays the appropriate degree you are from the original in the following list:{original, first degree, second degree, third degree, fourth degree, fifth degree, sixth degree}That way, visitors can directly see the chain of communication that ended with this post in your blog.3- Leave a comment in the blog where you first viewed this post indicating that your blog is among the next degree.4- If you are a homeschooler or are interested in/considering homeschooling and either do not have a blog, would prefer not to blog this or the sixth degree is already taken, you can still contribute to this experiment by leaving a comment in the blog where you first read it.5- After 3 days report back how many people read, commented and blogged based on your post to the blog where you first read this. (They only report this blog would receive is from the degree below and this blog will report the total from below and comments here to the degree above.) To illustrate how this would work let’s suppose that in this imaginary example every blog has approximately the same number of readers and that each blog entry for each degree ends up with exactly the same number of comments. Let’s say that each blog would receive 2 comments where the experiment was posted and 2 comments from non-bloggers. This would produce the following:original: 2 + 2 = 4first: ( 2 * 2 ) + 2 = 6second: ( 2 * 4 ) + 2 = 10third: ( 2 * 8 ) + 2 = 18fourth: ( 2 * 16 ) + 2 = 34fifth: ( 2 * 32 ) + 2 = 66sixth: ( 2 * 64 ) + 2 = 130That totals 268. If you change the number of experiment posts to 3, the result is ( 5 + 11 + 29 + 83 + 245 + 731 + 2189 = ) 3293. Consider what the number would be when we average about 60 readers a day. (Welcome to math 101) Let’s allow a week for the reporting to roll back through the earlier degrees."

http://www.parentscentre.gov.uk/discover/index.cfm great site, thanks mim

ouch

I had so much planned for these few days, Vivienne has 5 days away with family, and i have had sinus pain, which has brought on the most monster of migraines, which is traveling down my face. I wanted to do loads of housework and throwing away of gunk while she is gone..i do have 2 more days so hopefully it will clear some.
Ley is crawling....on her back???! she kinda slithers sideways, and rotates about. So no proper crawling, just scooting around on her back, and crawling backwards!! But she sooooooo wants to walk, she loves to be standing, specially with shoes or boots on.

January HE target list

• get to lesson 40 of '100 lessons'
• get her days out book up to date with rainbows party, xmas and birthdays
• finish wizard maths, mental maths and dinosaur maths
• do 20 more chapters of 'the enchanted wood'
• Paint our flower pot, and plant seeds (do blog update photos)
• set up our grass hair head (do blog update photos)
• do more plant projects (wizard science, lapwook, main scrap/work book and experiments)
• what plants need to live projects
• do Viviennes lap book on cats (her request)
• finsh off last years work with a Vivienne lap book and work on what a body needs to live
• write pen pail letter
• begin prep for dinosaur history