Educating Tyrants

The clock strikes 9:00 for lesson time, but our home is the class-room and my younger siblings the students. This wasn't in my job prescription, but teaching is all about resourcefulness, so I stepped in today for Mum. She's away collecting an old hay cart from Herefordshire. As you do. 

Perhaps one of the hardest bits of home-schooling is balancing the different needs of each child when one's a teen, the other a wee tot. Having lots of room, we can split teach. Eight year old Missy was based with me in the drawing room reading, whilst thirteen year old Pip got on with his work in the class-room. 

Reading with younger kids can be pretty tricky and takes lots of patience. Remember 'Little Grey Rabbit' ? That cutesy book full of delightful little animals, where it's a big deal when the little rowing boat capsizes. But I have to confess, sometimes I even feel like strangling Grey Rabbit and co., especially when she's called 'Green Rabbit' for the umpteenth time. 

Missy reads aloud, and writes down any words she doesn't understand or can't read. At the end, we test her on the words from the previous morning, and then work out the spelling of her new words phonetically. This makes the spelling much more memorable, especially for longer words like 'persuade', or weird ones like 'busy'. We do this every morning for between 30 - 60 minutes, and she's coming on leaps and bounds. Boys can be much slower. I remember we would get my brother John to read to us whenever we couldn't get to sleep. He only had to take a few deep breaths and we'd all be out.

Meanwhile Pip was busy reading and then writing a condensed version in his own words. Cambridge supervisors would be happy! After going through the spellings, he was then 'teacher' for the rest of the morning, writing it up on the board for Missy. 

Missy having a 'moment' when she sees how much copying out she has. 

What's that saying  - no rest for the wicked?! Armed with a packed lunch, my camera and phone, we then marched to a nearby bird sanctuary for a nature and photography lesson. This is the dream child of a local farmer, and consists of a cute wooden bird hide, packed with bird posters, and looking onto a small lake. Late autumn isn't the best time to bird-watch , but being near the sea we had the usual seagulls, as well as coots and ducks. The kids were grilled on the bird posters, and had a go at making mini documentaries. Missy's were a scream! (cue Cockney accent) 'There aren't many  birds today because it's windy...(pause) ...and they've all been migrated you see'. 

Then it was our time to leave that migrating wind. The return journey was much faster than outward, mostly because my pupils had had enough of autocracy by then, turned republican and chased me all the way home, brandishing javelins. 

On 6/7th December we're having an Open House Exhibition here at Wykes Manor, and so the kiddies spent the afternoon making things to sell. Missy's product is Dolls House accessories out of that Plasticine-like stuff that you harden in the oven. We use 'Sculpi', a cheaper form of the 'Phimo' brand that does the same thing. 

Now I'm off to make the curry with Missy.