Image that you were given a huge new project at work and expected to show outstanding performance in your given field; you’d rightly expect that extra funding would be in place, additional time allocated and perhaps extra staff assigned to the project. In short, you’d expect additional resources to be able to carry out that…
Home Learning- Trying the Montessori approach for a toddler and 4 year old
As regular readers of the blog will know, I am a trained primary teacher with around twenty years of experience but I have found carving out a rhythm for homeschool to be such a challenge. Our 16 month old wakes frequently at night and can be tired and fussy in the mornings, before he naps…
Letting Go-Minimalism during lockdown
One of the advantages to living in a smaller home is that you tend to adopt more minimalist tendencies. In a small house, everything which is additional to our needs really stands out and becomes far more of an obstacle than simply stuffing it in a basement, attic or garage- far more of a temptation…
Why homeschooling can lead to better and deeper learning than formal schooling.
I grew up in the 1970s and early 80s and enjoyed an education free of a set curriculum, targets and the results-based environment schools face today. Most afternoons in primary school I was free to explore and play with the materials which the teacher had deemed suitable for the day/topic/budget/weather. Many happy hours were spent…
When you can’t/won’t buy new; Upcycling- a mud kitchen
‘Necessity is the mother of invention‘ Plato I’ve been on the lookout for a suitable lot of wood for making a mud kitchen for the boys to play with. I had been hoping to come upon a spare pallet or find something fitting in the wood pile. Alas, there really hasn’t been anything which would…
Cooking With Children
I love getting into the kitchen with son number one, it’s something we have done together since he was really small. Cooking with two has needed a ton of patience and a reworking of how we do things, I can’t pretend its getting easier, its often completely chaotic and definitely more messy! It helps if…
Schools are failing us – children’s learning has to begin with developing love for the natural world.
I had a rather strange exchange this week with a lady requesting online education materials to teach her 5 year old about the importance of recycling. Whilst I appreciate what she was trying to do, it got me thinking about how we begin to educate our children to become responsible custodians of our planet. I…
10 ways to inspire independent play
Getting children to play on their own is essential for their deeper cognitive development and the sanity of their adults. Here are ten ways in which we inspire play through ‘Invitations To Play’. Most of these can be set up with resources you already have at home (or sourced second hand). This may give you…
Small Pleasures this week
Paints in the garden – all the fun without the messy clean up! A vintage find transforms our mealtimes from cramped to calm and the old table re-imagined as mud kitchen.( the transformation pics in another post) Lots of sensory play and a dustpan and brush at the ready! The absolutely joy of unschooling –…
Invitations To Play
Invitations to play are little set-ups of materials which tempt children to come and explore. Children have an innate need to discover their world, through play, and are hard-wired to learn, through their play. Everything that a child will become, as a person, has its foundations in play, and through play the child develops every…
The Good Life from a terraced house 