Monday Mornings seem to be a bit of a struggle in the Goldston Academy for the Insane. We don’t seem to get started very early.

Amidst much face pulling, we started with Maths. Stephanie was working with equations and Jacqueline was doing some probability.

For Jacqueline I had found some games amongst the teaching notes on the CIMT, University of Plymouth Maths project for Year 7 (11/12 year olds). First she cut out some events, such as “Snow tomorrow”, “Going to school tomorrow”, “Family winning the lottery next week” and ” getting a total of 13 with two dice”. She had to put them in the columns from Impossible to Likely.

She had some interesting answers to say the least!

Not everyone enjoys lessons!

George, the Rottweiler, always wants to be part of the lessons and insists on making himself comfortable in the “classroom”, otherwise known as my office.

Maybe the Maths was beyond him today!

Or perhaps I bored him to sleep!

Are you talking to me?

Gardening

A few days ago Stephanie decided she would start to clear away all the overgrown grass on the path. The further up the garden she got, the wider the path seemed to get. I think it is going to need replacing shortly!

Both girls spent the afternoon clearing the path and doing handstands and cartwheels in the garden. When I see them playing like that, it makes me so glad that we have left it as grass and have not got around to beautifully landscaping it.

Drama

The Drama teacher came today and the girls are now working towards their Mime and Devised Performance pieces. I could hear a lot of noise going on in the other room, and I established that was during MIME!

The teacher was crying with laughter when I went in because Jacqueline had done a mime of “High School Musical” and the teacher thought it was Goldilocks and the Three Bears!

Never a dull moment.
With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

Tags: home education by Amanda
Comments Off

The girls have both been out today.

Stephanie went to help at the stables where they ride as part of her Duke of Edinburgh Award. She is currently working on her bronze award and this was for the “Service” section. She helps around the stables doing all sorts of jobs, ranging from tacking up for lessons, mucking out, painting and whatever else needs doing.

It is a long day and she was shattered when she came home.

Jacqueline went out with a friend. They went to see “Kung Fu Panda”, which is supposed to be a very funny film and then went swimming.

They had great fun swimming because there was a huge climbing inflatable in the pool, which covers virtually all of it.

I spent the day sorting out the blog and repointing links. It was Challenging to say the least. We had a bit of a techincally challenged day!!! It is all sorted now.

This evening I had a chat with a few of the home-educating mums I have met on the Home Ed forum.

With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

Tags: home education by Amanda
1 Comment »

Hi all,

Drama, in my opinion, has been one of the things that has made the biggest difference to my girls.

They had a very long school day, from 8.30 am until 5.30pm, and then homework on the top, so we did not do very much outside of school.

They both did Drama as part of the Curriculum and they had done a couple of years of Speech and Drama as an extra activity. The drama teacher has continued to teach them privately and I am so glad we did that.

Drama and Skills.

I have been amazed at the subjects and skills covered in Speech and Drama, especially in working with LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts) exams. There are seven disciplines for each subject, including Mime, Acting, Reading for Performance, Verse and Prose, Devised Performance (where they write and perform their own pieces) and Spoken English (which then becomes Public Speaking.)

All these things are real confidence builders and some of the other skills include breathing, posture and use of voice. I think these will all be very valuable in later life.

It has been very useful for them because they have had to learn pieces for performance, as well as do background reading on the authors and write and deliver their own speeches.

We had an exam a couple of weeks ago and we were chatting to a lady who teaches in a school and she was telling us about the huge numbers of newly qualified teachers who have laryngitis or throat problems in the first few months of teaching because…… they have no training in how to use their voice!!!

Posture and Breathing.

We had a really fun day a few weeks ago. The Drama teacher has a passion for costume and she brought some corsets and underskirts from different periods in history for the girls to try on.

What a difference it makes to posture and breathing being strapped up in a corset. Although Stephanie said she really liked the corset and it was really comfortable!

Sitting up straight is not as easy as it looks.

Hmm, how wide is the door?

Getting slighter narrower around the hips!

Very lady-like in sitting down, with back straight.

By Victorian times, it was now all at the back.

All I can say is I am really glad we don’t wear clothes like that any more. And I was very glad I was taking the photographs and not taking part.

Stagecoach.

The girls also joined the local Stagecoach group, (highly recommended) for Singing, Dancing and Drama and have done really well with that. The local group is fantastic. They have now appeared in performances of Joseph, Cry Wolf (Fairy Tale with a Twist), The Willow Tree ( a variation on the story of Guy Fawkes), Decades (an energetic productions from the 20s to the present day) and they are now preparing for Honk (the Ugly Duckling).

The more drama they have done, the more they have loved it. They are both doing summer workshops, so I will have the first few days to myself in over a year.

Other Productions.

As their interest has increased , we have tried to give them as many opportunities as we can to experience drama in action.

Earlier this week we went to see an outdoor theatre production of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by HeartBreak Productions. These are highly recommended because they really bring Shakespeare to life in a way that is really understandable and very entertaining.

We went armed with our chairs and our picnic. Fortunately the rain held off, although it tried a few times to start spitting.

Before we went, we found and read a summary of the play, so we had a reasonable idea what it was about.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to see “The Merry Wives of Windsor” by a group called Ilyria and that was also really good. That play, however, was a bit too “adult” in places for Jacqueline who is 12.

For her birthday, Stephanie plagued me to take her to see the musical “Wicked” in London. She absolutely loved it and has since learnt all the songs off by heart and is now learning the guitar chords to the songs.

It is interesting how learning about one thing crosses over into so many other areas and sparks off interests in so many other areas.

The girls’ s confidence has grown enormously over the last year and we are now doing so many things that we would never have had the time to do before.

Drama and badges.

Jacqueline has used her love of Stagecoach and performing to get her “Performing arts” and her “Hobbies” badge for Guides. She also did a powerpoint presentation about Stagecoach for part of her “Communicator” badge, where she had to present a hobby in an interesting way.

Stoke’s got talent.

Jacqueline has put herself forward for the “Stoke’s (on Trent) got talent” competition and has got an audition to appear in their show in a couple of weeks. If she gets accepted, she could also appear in the Christmas pantomime.

Drama IGCSE.

With the passion for Drama, the next step was to find how we could do the subject at GCSE or IGCSE. The challenge we came up against was that we needed at least three people. Then I came across a wonderful forum for parents looking at GCSEs, further education and/or alternatives.

I met a lady in Oxford who is running a Drama IGCSE group for home educated children, with a view to taking the exam next Summer. Thank you Universe! Just what we are looking for!

They did a couple of trial sessions and the tutor set them a short essay to do, in order to find out about their experiences of Drama and what they would like to do in going forward.

It was quite funny to see this group of teenagers rather awkwardly clutching their essays, several of whom had probably not written an essay since they left school. There was certainly no shortage of blunt opinions on the question he had set so it will be very interesting to see what the tutor thinks of them.

Stephanie had told the tutor that she found Shakespeare boring, and it would be great if he could make that subject more interesting.

This is one thing I loved about home-educated children. They think for themselves, form their own opinions and seem to be able to eloquently express them, without feeling the need to mince their words.

In case you haven’t guessed, I am a huge fan of Drama. It has had a huge impact on our lives and I would highly recommend it.

With abundant blessings.

Amanda Goldston

Tags: drama, home education by Amanda
Comments Off

Hi all,
Thursdays always seem to be really busy in our house, and this week was even busier.

Ice Skating

Stephanie went ice-skating this morning with the local home-education group and Jacqueline watched. I attempted to take some photographs. I think I need some lessons from my photographer husband! You can certainly tell which photographs I have taken and which he has taken!

Stephanie then did some Sudoko on her Nintendo DS and Jacqueline wrote letters to her penpals from Education Otherwise. Jacqueline has been selected to be the editor for the October edition of the Education Otherwise Children’s magazine, so we are really proud of her.

Horse Riding

Thursday afternoon is Riding Lesson time. Both girls are coming on incredibly well. They have been going since February and have made terrific progress.

Yes, I know, photos rather spoil the effect. I am working on them!

I was particularly pleased that the riding school is offering the BHS (British Horse Society) Stage 1 Exam in Horse Management and Care. Stephanie is old enough to do it, but Jacqueline isn’t yet.

As she progresses up the level, this can lead to internationally recognised qualifications. Stage 3 is very close to a teaching certificate. It is also considered to be the equivalent of an A-Level and attracts quite a few points on the UCAS scoring system for University Entrance.

I think it is really excellent that we can get GCSE/A-Level equivalents through things we are doing already. As I see it, that is going to mean less reliance on traditional exams.

I also think that the more opportunities children have to do different things, the more it broadens their horizons and helps them with life skills in general. They meet a variety of different people. It well and truly blows the arguments out the window about home-educated children and lack of socialization.

We are busier now that now have ever been and I am coming across so many interesting opportunities, that we would have completely missed if they had still been in school.

We had sort of planned the route of a good clutch of GCSE’s, followed by a batch of A-Levels and then onto University, but my eyes are being opened on a daily basis to alternative routes, options and ideas.

Speech and Drama

The next thing is Speech and Drama Lessons. This was something we continued from school and I am so glad we did! The teacher is brilliant and has a huge passion for her subject, as well as for costume and design.

The girls are progressing up through the LAMDA exams. Stephanie has just finished the subjects for Grade 4 and has just done Grade 5 Acting. Jacqueline has just finished Grade 3.

The day progresses on with Jacqueline going to Guides. She has done a lot of the interest badges, and at the moment we are working towards “Music Zone”, “Science” and “Finding Your Way”.

It’s just a shame they don’t do a Maths badge! She might have a bit more interest in the subject then.

Mum’s taxi is in full flow on a Thursday.
Friday is a bit quieter, although not much! The days seems to whizz by so fast.
More soon.
With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

Tags: drama, home education, sport by Amanda
1 Comment »

Hi all,

A few weeks ago, we started looking into the subject of GCSEs or some sort of formal qualifications for Stephanie at 16. She wants to go on to Drama school and the places we have selected require between 4 and 6 GCSE’s (or equivalent), including Maths and English.

Although they have said they require basic education to that level in Maths and English, they have also said that the biggest part of their selection is the Student themself and the impression they makes at the interview, their levels of confidence in themself and knowing what they want to do.

I suppose we always knew from the start that we would go down that route.

We have spoken to several home-educating families who have assured us that formal qualifications are not really necessary and have cited several stories where young people have got into colleges and even Universities to study their chosen subject without the afore-mentioned pieces of paper.

Having decided to go down that route, I have also met quite a few families who are starting on the same journey. I found an incredibly useful forum, where all the people are looking at GCSEs, IGCSEs, Open University and other alternatives.

That forum has been extremely useful to me.

My biggest challenge was and to some extent still is:-

Where do I start?

Before we started home-educating last year, I had spoken to one parent whose daughter was taking 5 GCSEs and she had some this via a distance learning course. She was taking the exams at a local school.

Our first point was Stephanie herself and what she would like to do, so we could see what she would like to study for her own interest and what might be useful to have.

As she wants to do Drama, we concluded that the following would be a good starting point: Drama, English Language, English Literature and Maths. She is interested in the Sciences, so we added on Chemistry, Physics, Biology as well as German, ICT and Geography.

When we first started Home Education, we had bought books to work towards Business Studies and ICT GCSE and found them to be dull, dry, boring and thorougly un-inspiring.

My husband works in IT and even he found the ICT material to be really hard going.

OK, having got the initial list of subjects, the next step was to find how we could study these, where we could take the exams and how much they would cost.

GCSEs and Coursework!

The first challenge we came up against was the coursework element to most of these subjects. At the moment, the course has to be authenticated by a teacher or a tutor or a recognised organisation.

Of the people I have spoken to about this, most seem to have gone down the route of buying a course from a distance -learning provider and then submitting the coursework to them for them to authenticate.

I have to say there are some very good courses out there from organisations such as Oxford Home Schooling and the National Extension College. I have heard mixed reports about both. It seems that both course materials are very good. The learning experience seems to be determined by the tutor you get allocated. If you decide to go this route, the advice from other parents seems to be to take the tutor option, so you can get the coursework authenticated and you can also submit work for assessment as you are going along.

The biggest factor for us with this route was cost. The course cost between £200 and £400 depending on what you are doing. You still have to find an exam centre and pay any exam fees. For 8-10 subjects, that was going to be a lot of money.

Our concern was also that we would get started with these materials and then find that we did not get on with them or that Stephanie decided it was a subject she really was not that interested in or the materials would end up not getting used or completed and we would have wasted a lot of money- and that was nothing to do with the quality of the teaching materials or the support from the organisation. That was about us!

There are other providers offering this option and the cheapest we found was £150.

Interesting turn of events.

The government is proposing that all coursework for GCSEs should be done in school, under the supervision of the teacher. This is a brave attempt to stamp out cheating and the practice of students buying essays over the Internet, however it does not help home educating families.

We will see if this rather ill-thought out idea makes it into education policy.

Other options:

as I have spoken to other parents, some people have had success with approaching a local Further Education College. Although their rules generally say they do not take anyone under 16 for GCSEs, it seems that some are more flexible for subjects outside of Maths and English (which would normally be taken in school).

Others have suggested waiting until your child is 16 and then enrolling into Further Education college and taking the GCSEs over a year, before going on to do other things. Then it is all free and your child would probably get the £30 a week allowance from the government for 16-18 year olds to stay in further education.

How bizarre is that? Kids get paid to go to school!

This is turning into quite a lengthy post, so I think I will continue with my findings and my musings in another post.

I hope this is useful to you.
With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

Tags: exams by Amanda
1 Comment »

Hi all,

This week is the Market Bosworth Arts Festival. As part of this, there is the annual Lark in the Park, where several local bands ‘strut their stuff’ during a whole day from 10 am until 8pm.

This was on Sunday 22nd June 2008. Both girls were involved in a couple of the songs and my husband, Greg, was taking the photographs for the event.

Stephanie was playing the electric guitar and Jacqueline was on the drums.

I am so proud of them. Jacqueline started before Christmas and Stephanie only started in March.

Doubling -up.

As well as being a fun thing for them to do, music lessons also serves several other purposes. Stephanie is using her guitar lessons for the “Skills” section in her Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award.

A couple of weeks ago, the music school owner wrote a comment in her book about the progress she has made with her D of E Award. he noted that she was well on her way to becoming a lead guitar player!

That was a real PROUD Mummy moment!

Jacqueline has used her Drumming lessons to pass her “Music Group” badge through Guides, and it has also sparked off enough interest for her to do her “Music Zone” badge, which involves listening to different types of music, making a musical instrument and exploring other aspects of music.

The only thing Guide badges seem to lack is the “Needlewoman” badge, which I am sure was part of the syllabus when I was a guide. So guess who gets the job of sewing on her badges!

She is under strict instructions that her arms are not to grow any more and she is not to fill the jacket out to the point of not being able to zip it up because I really do not fancy taking all those badges off and sewing them on again!

Music, UCAS and University.

If you are considering University, then all applications in the UK are made through the UCAS system. Universities allocate points to their courses and each course is worth a certain number of points.

Qualifications are also allocated points. If someone takes, for example, English Language A-Level passed with an ‘A’ would be worth 120 points.

Points allocated depend on the subject and also the grade obtained.

Points can be acquired through the traditional academic route of A-Levels, or they can be obtained by a number of other non-academic or complementary routes.

If you are considering helping your child(ren) go to University, then Music is one of those subjects that is brilliant to have on the CV for a couple of reasons.

1) Anyone who has studied Music, and especially into the higher Music Grades, is considered to possess some very useful life skills.

Some of these include, discipline, patience, persistence, ability to focus on something and to complete it, ability to work with others in a team, creative ability as well as ability to work within a framework or an existing structure.

2) From Grade 6 upwards (theory and practical) you can get UCAS points for exam passes of Pass, Merit and Distinction from certain Music boards. Here is a list of the Points you can get towards your UCAS score

We are also working towards the LAMDA qualifications for Speech and Drama. There was a girl at the children’s last school who passed all 7 LAMDA disciplines at gold medal level and she would have had enough UCAS points to get into University without any A-Levels!

This can be a very useful route to take if you would your child to go to University and prefer a less academic route.

With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

Tags: home education, music by Amanda
1 Comment »

Hi all,
There was a very interesting feature in Today’s Financial Times Weekend Paper about the growing numbers of children that are educated at home. The reporter spent a week with members of one of the home educating groups.

You can read the full article here.

On the whole the article was quite well balanced, although it let itself down a bit at the end with the remarks from the spokesperson of the teaching union. These essentially had the underlying implication that only qualified teachers are really capable of educating children!

Hmm, something to think about.

I also found a terrific article on the following:
“We believe the best place to educate a child is actually in school.”

This quote came in the BBC News article on Friday 23rd February 2007, when a spokesman for the Department for Education and Skills (now the Department for Children, Schools and Families) summed up the Department’s policy.

We beg to differ!

There is a terrific response to this on the Freedom for Children to Grow Website.
You can read the full article by following the link.

For me, it was a timely reminder of why we have taken this huge step to educate our children at home. As I went down over the list, there were so many things that I could relate to and so many things that I am very glad to have left behind us.

And now the latest brainchild of those valiant people in government education departments is to attempt to cut out cheating where pupils plaigarize essays from others or get them written by someone else for a few pounds.

A lofty goal, you might think. How are they proposing to do this?
Their plan is simple. They intend to make it compulsory for students to do coursework in schools, under the supervision of a teacher!

Quite how Home educated children are supposed to comply with this glorious piece of well-thought-out, all-inclusive legislation is not yet clear.

The marvellous folks at Education -Otherwise are busy campaigning on our behalf about it.

I suppose, IMHO, it will simply push more parents away from GCSEs and towards alternatives such as IGCSE’s or Open University or other such well thought-of options. Perhaps they are doing us a favour after all.

Hmm, food for thought!
With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

Tags: home education by Amanda
2 Comments »

Hi all,

Most of the time we seem to have an atmosphere of relative calm in our house; the girls get on reasonably well with each other and the dog lies quietly in the middle of our “school-room”.

However, when something kicks off between the girls or the dog starts barking frantically at the fresh air outside, our house descends rapidly into complete chaos and I end up shouting at all and sundry like a mad-woman.

I have noticed on these occasions, the girls observe me very carefully to see if there really is steam coming out of my ears, or whether it is a figment of their imagination!

I have noticed a pattern to this and I have come to the conclusion that there a four things that are likely to trigger off :

a) Out and out war between Stephanie and Jacqueline
b) One or the other or both yelling at the tops of their voices or crying their eyes out and
c) The dog having a barking frenzy.

These are listed in no particular order, however they seem to be directly proportional to the difficulty of stopping what I am doing in that moment to deal with it. These are:

1) Sitting comfortably on the toilet, with a good book, in the middle of something that really cannot be rushed or interrupted.
2) Standing under the shower with a head full of shampoo. (The more shampoo you have in your hair at this moment, the greater the war, wailing or barking!)
3)Talking on the phone in the middle of a very important conversation.(WWB factor increase with the length of time you have been trying to speak to this person or the importance of the call)
4) Closing my eyes to have a quiet meditation. (WWB volume is greatest as you get to the most relaxing part of the meditation.

Or maybe it is just me that has experienced this.

On Monday, I made the mistake of engaging in one of the above activities, just prior to Stephanie trying to help Jacqueline get her electronic drum kit up and running properly.

Well, I heard it kick off. I could not interrupt what I was doing.

The voices were getting louder and the tones getting angrier and I thought that very soon one would hit the other and then there really would be tears.

I hear them phone their dad to ask for his help with the machine, but he was working, so the instructions were patchy. I could hear the instructions being relayed from one to the other and then the angry voices over the lack of clear instructions.

Then the inevitable, “I hate you, you never listen to what you’re told to do”, followed by a stomp up the stairs and a bedroom door slammed so hard that the house shook.

By the time I was available, it had all calmed down. The drum kit was working, Jacqueline was playing it and Stephanie was in another room with her guitar.

I just wish I could find the War, Wail and Bark Buttons, so I could turn them OFF! Or I could have a remote control, so I could at least turn them DOWN while I am in the middle of an important activity.

Or is it just me that experiences this……?

With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

Tags: home education by Amanda
Comments Off

Hi all,

We had a great day out today. We went to Snibston Discovery Park at Coalville in Leicestershire. We have been there a couple of times and I always enjoy it.

It is a former colliery, which has been made into an interactive science centre. And, yes, you really can play with most of the exhibits.

Unfortunately we picked a day when dozens of primary schools had decided they would do their summer term school trip, so the place was heaving!

There are loads of things you can do, from picking up a car with a magnet (and dropping it from a great height), experiments with electricity and magnetism, a section on energy creation, a toy museum, a history of fashion section, a museum of transport, chance to crawl through reproduction collieries and a tour of part of the old colliery.

It is a great day out. There is also a large nature reserve there, where you can walk in parkland.

Here are some of the pictures of our day.

Playing Connect4 in the toy museum

Electricity and Earthing

Building a Tudor Croft House

Human Body Puzzle

You swing, I’ll just sit here – and go up!

When we got back, we did a bit more Maths on re-arranging equations and did the “Mental Maths train” from the Sunday paper fun section. Then we brainstormed some ideas for the device to measure 500m for Jacqueline’s Science badge for Guides.

I was quite surprised at what we came up with, as I had expected it would have a wheel in it, but it doesn’t. I will report on its progress over the next couple of days.

With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston
www.AngelsofAbundance.com

Tags: home education, science by Amanda
Comments Off

Hi all,

It seems to me that since we have been home-educating our girls that time has whizzed by. It is hard to believe that we have been home-educating for more than a year now!

It is only just recently that Stephanie and Jacqueline began to be interested in mixing with other home-educated children.

I have to say, it had been a source of concern to me because I thought it would really help them. I don’t know whether they thought these children would have two heads or be really scary or what the problem was.

It was only only when we found a drama group, where all of the children are working towards IGCSE’s, GCSE’s or some kind of formal qualifications that the girls seemed to feel comfortable and suddenly wanted to start meeting other children locally.

And no, they don’t bite!

Today, 16th June 2008, was a reasonably quiet day. We went for a walk with the dog in the woods this morning, which was really lovely. It was very overgrown and it was quite funny to hear this big dog bounding through the woods and not be able to see him!

Then, after breakfast, we did some Maths. Both girls were working on re-arranging equations, using worksheets we found on the University of Plymouth site.

This is an excellent resource and has detailed lessons plans from reception to A-Level and loads of exercises you can print off. There are also other resources including quizzes and games.

After that, Jacqueline wanted to go to WHSmith to buy an “ostrich pen” which she had seen. We bought the last one, only later to find that the writing part was missing, so we had to take it back.

While we were out, we got her some bits for her costume in the next Stagecoach drama, singing and dance production in a few weeks.

They are doing a production of “Honk” which is a funny version of the Ugly Duckling. Part of her role is a “flying goose” and they are dressed in army camouflage and BIG goggles.

Fortunately camouflage seems to be in fashion, although it would not have been my first choice for a summer fashion colour!

We found her some trousers and a t-shirt and then got beeped at and stopped coming out of Sainsbury’s because they had not taken the tag off.

This was also a great Art and Creativity project because we made some of the props for the show, including the microphones for the reporters and the net that is going to be used as a the shell for Honk to hatch out of.

Jacqueline also used her participation at Stagecoach for her Girl Guide badge of Performing Arts. I think this is terrific when one project has multiple uses and can be “recycled” for other things.

The Girl Guiding Badge programme is really terrific for ideas and it is not just for girls. My daughter is in the guides, so she has done a lot of things with guides.

However, it is a terrific programme for home-educators to use a resource for ideas and activities.

Some of the badges Jacqueline has done include sports, hobbies, confectioner, film lover, animal active, chocolate (obviously!) and several others.

The next ones we are doing is Finding your Way (map reading and directions), Music Zone (appreciating different types of music) and Science (brilliant for practical science with materials, foods and creativity).

Our first project with that is to design and make a device that will measure a distance of 500m. We are planning to start work on that tomorrow.

After planning our next guide badges, both Stephanie and Jacqueline did some music practice. They are part of a fantastic music school called “Clive’s Easy Learn Pop Music Schools“. Jacqueline is learning the drums and Stephanie is learning the guitar.

Stephanie is learning both acoustic and electric guitar, and the instructor thinks she could be playing lead guitar before very long. Today, she was working on finger-picking and creating her own simple riffs and tunes this afternoon, as well as practising her pieces.

A couple of weeks ago, they both played in a music festival and they have another one coming up at the weekend. They are playing with the school as part of the Market Bosworth Arts festival.

For Stephanie, learning to play the guitar also covers the “Skills” section for her Duke of Edinburgh Award, which we are doing through the open centre in Warwickshire.

Part of me sort of thinks, well we don’t really do very much, but then I look at all the things we do pack into a week and it is no wonder I feel tired at the end of the week!

We were supposed to be going on a day out with the local home-ed group tomorrow, but it looks as if it has been cancelled- unfortunately!

Life is never dull in this house!

More soon.
With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston.
www.AngelsofAbundance.com

Tags: home education by Amanda
1 Comment »