Freedom!

I can't actually believe it's only been 4 days since we started home schooling!  This has been a long week!

Today S and I had a great day!  We did click'n'kids, reading, spelling and maths (quickly becoming our morning routine) and then headed out!  We both so much appreciated getting out and about and the sunshine added to our moods and the whole excitement! 

We went to Amazonia today in Strathclyde Country Park.  It is meant to be Scotland's largest (or only - I can't remember) indoor rainforest and has a great number of animals/insects to look at.  I found a Tesco Days out token which expires on Monday so decided it would be perfect to tie in on our project on frogs! I took all 4 kids last summer and we had fun there although zoomed round it then. Today we stayed for nearly 2 hours and listened to talks, handled a snake, frog and millipede (well S did - there is absolutely no chance I would!!), took part in an interactive display on the rainforest and looked around all the enclosures.  S was great!  He asked appropriate questions and took an interest in it all.  It was so quiet and reminded me very quickly of one of the major benefits of home schooling.  For a child like S who struggles with big groups and noisy places this was just perfect.  It was quiet and our group for the animal handling was just 4!  Nobody else to feel embarrassed in front, nobody else to compete with, nobody else to feel intimidated by just us and some tourists!  It was such a good day!  Definitely a "high" in the parenting and home school stakes.

After school I was all ready to put my feet up for a little while!  Without going into all the details we ended up having a major craft session, tea and then an ad hoc Halloween party (I HATE Halloween but then that is a whole different topic in itself!!) followed by a movie!  My feet are now up but my eyes are struggling to stay open!

The day was not all highs and we had a good share of lows.  I would share these but to be honest for S's sake I think I will keep these just between us! 

I am glad we have got to the end of the first week of home schooling.  I was worried that by this stage I would have been having major regrets!  I was worried that I would have been losing the plot!  I was intrigued as to how being mum and teacher would work!  I am realising that actually in so many ways informal education is happening all the time!  Tomorrow I am going to Edinburgh on my own for the day.  I am so looking forward to getting away and the trip couldn't have come at a better time!  I am also looking forward to all that next week holds too.  There are definitely things we need to look at.  Socially we really need to try to find ways for S to mix with other people his own age and both S and I agreed that we need to make a bigger effort to getting out and about.  Next week we are going on another trip this time with other home schooled families from the region and we are both really looking forward to that!

For now though our school working week is over and I can be pure mummy for the next couple of days!