End Of An Era

Yesterday I was finally ready to give up on our home education group that I have been a member of for just over four years but the owner of for the past eighteen months. I handed the group over to another member who regularly organises events and craft activities for the children of the group.

It was a huge decision which was not reached lightly and I have to say that it is like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders and I can breathe in and out without feeling suffocated any longer for the first time in ages.

In our region of Tyne and Wear UK, there were two groups, the one I ran plus another one that was started almost two years after the original one began. In the time I have owned the group there has been nothing but trouble from the other camp who never seemed to get it right in terms of inclusion for everyone no matter what their financial status is or from what walk of life they came from. In our group we included everyone no matter what their social status, colour or creed.

All the back stabbing, bitching and general holier than though attitudes of some people plus the fact that since November attending ever event meant I was laid up in bed for almost two weeks with some sickly virus and on one occasion had to stay in hospital as well, all made for me feeling rather angry about being the owner of the group and I wanted out of the system of group mentality altogether.

This morning whilst clearing my bookmarks I see that the group has in fact been deleted. So it really is an end of an era as the group was just about to turn seven years old. I am not disappointed, I feel a little sorry for the handful of families who did not belong to any other online group or who may not now get support, but on the whole I think it is a good thing and our family will be able to be ourselves and be free which is after all the whole point of home educating in the first place for us. We like the being able to please ourselves lifestyle we have, for the kids to be able to mix well with their real friends, study what and when we like together, no time restraints. Plus all of this means that I will be able to focus more on my number six brain box of the family and hopefully have a stress free bug free pregnancy from now on until the baby is born at the end of June. 23 weeks 4 days and counting!

Bob The Builder - WHO ???

I have been trying to keep Ivan's interest in books of late and failing dismally. That was actually until about forty minutes ago. I had given him some new Bob The Builder books and was showing him the trucks and characters whilst reading out some of the text. He kept looking away from the book and I noticed he was looking at my pile of cookery books. I asked him whether he wanted to go and get one to look at. SUCCESS !!! Books that contain all sorts of yummy cakes and delicious deserts appear to have captured his attention and he is still there looking through the books with great interest. What is great is that he is calling out things with excitement that he can see in the pictures. I think we can safely call that a result :)

All of this has reminded me of a website that I got ages ago CAKE MATHS which I used with Lionel and Angelica a while ago to broach the subject of Fractions with her. I think children relate better to things that appeal to them as opposed to a workbook that looks dull for them to look at.

I am very pleased with Ivan actually enjoying these cookery books I really am. I have tried all sorts of books over the past two years with little success so this is brilliant. Now I feel a Freecycle post coming on for more cookery books !