New School Year

Following on from my last blog post on my thoughts on learning to read and write, I've been thinking more about the different styles of education and why there are so many, which led to these thoughts. When you decide to home educate changing your mindset on what is education and how it can be implemented can be one of the hardest things to do. Once you start looking at home education you are introduced to so many different styles and philosophies, do you do unschooling, unstructered style, or follow a structured time table, do you like the philosophies of Waldorf, Montessori, Charlotte Mason, or a more eclectic style.  Finding the right style/path that suits your child and your family's learning  style and lifestyle can be an education in itself, everyone brings different things to the table and they all affect how we live and learn, there is no rush, learning is not a race, it is something to fall in love with (well hopefully). Some will come to want structure and some will not, go with what works for you, if you and your child are happy, then you are on the right path. For us our path involves some structure and routine but not a set time table of we are doing maths at 9am, art at 10am etc but more we are doing x. y and z today and then time to see what else happens etc.

As I've said before L is happy to dip in out of phonics but is loving working through her Saxon maths book and I had been planning ahead, expecting to have more surgery so wanted something we could do together. Surgery isn't going ahead due to me developing an allergy to part of the treatment and need to wait till my appointment in January to find out what I might of reacted too. Anyway I came across Funschooling with thinking tree books and they seem to fit, what I was after, she is loving the variety and different drawing activities, without the need to write and read. Seeing her older siblings with their text books makes her want to have her own, so she is very pleased and proud of her book. They are kept in her work basket and it is up to her how much and when she does them, this week so far we have 2 pages, one on drawing anything and then she has been telling me about her picture and I have added her words to the page, at her request.

She has just started on the thinking time page and loved colouring all the pictures different ways.

A couple of times a week we get out one of our Eco Kids magazine and have a read through, today we learnt about the chimpanzee and a bit about giraffes along with a picture to colour in, we watched a short you tube video on chimpanzees. The articles raise many points of discussion, opportunities for crafts and documentary watching.

This afternoon we ended up with a walk to the park and round the woods, home to look at the different apples, some from the shop and some from the allotment, we talked about the different colours, their names and

then they drew them. Now I've always liked the idea of a nature journal but at the same time it's only sort of worked with the older two, so now trying it with L, it will be her nature/science/art journal. During the summer holidays, not that we really stop learning, L and I talked about what she wanted to learn about and one of these was about how plants grow, so as we are coming into autumn I thought we would look at trees and their seeds, starting with apples. 

We then cut them up and looked at how the varied inside and how they tasted they all had their favourites.

So for maths we are working our way through Saxon math , usually between 2 and 4 lessons a week, plus board games, its amazing how much maths can be done through games. Add in logic problems and puzzles to supplement this. Reading and writing we are using a mixture of Reading Eggs and Explode the Code books but have a feeling we will be dropping this for a while, though L wants to learn to read, it is a real struggle for her, so maybe concentrate on the speech therapy side and come back to it later, I'm not against hard work but there is hard work and frustration when it doesn't just come together and it is so important to enjoy reading. Add in what ever else we find that takes our fancy and of course lots and lots of story telling. Art and craft, goes without saying there will be plenty of this. Science/nature study we will be following the seasons and anything that grabs Ls attention, so this month we will look at apple trees and oak and horse chestnut trees and see were this leads, add in Eco Kids magazine for some interesting variety. She has also fallen in love with cosmic yoga and we are using this 2 or 3 times a week.

On an organising and sorting front, my bedroom is coming on well, we have a large wardrobe as in the cupboard that goes over the stairs, I swear this holds a room full of stuff in it, as well as clothes, there's books, crafts stuff, paperwork, shoes. So had a sort through and organise and will probably go back through everything in another week or so, it will give me a chance to read through a couple of the books and think about what craft bits to keep etc. Have in the meantime cleaned out all the drawers, behind cupboards and cleaned windows. We've also finally got round to replacing and doing up the bathroom, replacing toilet and bathroom floor is not an easy job when you only have one toilet and little ones around, we had a leak a while ago, so the floor needed to be replaced but the toilet cistern kept on leaking, not major but much to my husbands annoyance one he couldn't fix and a spur of the moment trip to Ikea meant we ended up replacing the basin with a vanity unit, its fantastic having some drawers in the bathroom, have somewhere to store the toilet rolls, cleaning cloths and spare hand towels, all in easy reach.

On a crafting front, have done a small amount of dress making and some knitting, finally finished Granny Favourite and L loves it, there is growing room in it too. Reading, have just finished reading The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, really enjoyed it, the true story of one families life and how it changed after the Taliban came to Afghanistan. The changes in their lives, going from being able to study at university, to not being able to leave the house without wearing a chadri, having a chaperone and not talking to any males that aren't family. How financially they struggled with the loss of income when the women weren't able to work and the ways they overcame this and helped the women of their neighbourhood.  The other is Sane New World by Ruby Wax a lay persons guide to neuro science, mental health and mindfulness, as well as Ruby Wax's battle with depression. Taken from the book that was written in 2013, that mental illness accounts for nearly half the people on incapacity benefit, that in economic terms mental illness costs the UK £70 billion a year, this is in lost hours of work, treatment etc. mental illness affects people early, 50% of cases before the ages of 14. US statistics 1 in 5 children will be affected by mental health only 20% of those will have treatment, some will not want treatment, others can afford it. When mental illness affects so many people, why is their such a stigma about it? Why are budgets being cut? Why are we having an educational system that heaps on the academic pressure , while reducing the creative subjects that might actually give the students a relief from their studies and a chance to think in a different way?

A thought for the month.

Joining Kat for Unraveled Wednesday  and Frontier Dreams for  Crafting On

Feeling Good

We've had a busy couple of weeks, including routine hospital trips, Thai food festival, trip to Ikea, some ruthless decluttering, decorating, crafts and home education going on. So now feeling fairly organised as lots of things on that to do list have been ticked of.

Over the last few months I have been talking to lots of people with preschool children considering home education and interestingly the main concern is how to teach reading, followed by cost. As to cost home education can be as expensive or as cheap as you want it to be, cheaply you can use lots of free online resources, you tube, with some printables and lots of books from the library, to expensive buying in a complete years curriculum including all text books, readers, worksheets etc, or use one of the online schools like interhigh. So here are some resources I've used, this  website has a very good list of home ed resources by age and subject some free and some not, anyway that should give you lots to think about and try out. Ambleside Online is based on Charlotte Mason, lots of reading ideas for each school year. All in One Homeschool which is a free curriculum covering all ages but with lots of printables for learning letters ets,  they also have art, history sections too.  There are the alphablooks videos, plus the alphablooks games, starfall, teach your monster to read. There are loads more resources but I'll start with these. So plenty of resources,  its more a case of finding out what best suits you and your child's learning style, a structured approach or a more just see what happens or unschooling, not only are their lots of different resources, there are lots of different home ed styles too, we are rather eclectic here.

I can really relate to that initial worry about learning to read as that was my main concern when I decided to home educate O, the local experienced home educators all said not to worry it would happen! But how, having at that point a very school based view on learning to read, in which they seem to make it very complicated with lots of resources, resources we didn't have at home, anyway the home educators were right it does happen. Now I am that person and want to say don't worry but that is not enough, so here are my thoughts on the subject, don't rush it,it will happen and that could be anywhere between the ages of 4 years old and 10, maybe even older, reading and sharing stories is fun and the main key to wanting to learn to read. That being a home educated non reader isn't an issue as you adapt the environment to their ability, you can read the maths question to them, watch documentaries, do lots of hands on experiences, read books to them use, use audio books,  lots of discussions, questions to be answered, so actually being a non reader isn't a hindrance as it would be in school. The main thing is they see you reading and enjoying books, sharing stories with them etc. My oldest learnt to read fairly young, would of said a fluent reader by the time he was 6, we listened to stories, read books together, O asking what words meant, using some ladybird books and Bob books for some phonics. With M it was more complicated she has ASD and at 5 her verbal dyspraxia meant most of her speech was hard to decipher let alone the thought of teaching reading! She had intensive speech therapy for many years and alongside that we used Reading Eggs and Explode the Code to support her with her speech and reading, she now speaks clearly and reads fine, both took time and practise and learning to read helped her speech. L has just turned 5 and wanted to learn to read but then decided the basic phonic books weren't that interesting she would much rather listen to a more complicated stories, so we are dipping in and out of reading, if she asks we do some, she is enjoying Reading Eggs, which she has access to when she wants and we will just see what happens, there is no rush and she has an insatiable curiosity about the world. We play listening games, go for a listening walk,  seeing what we can hear, making rhythms and rhymes up, wanting to learn to write her name gave L an interest in letters, drawing letters in the sand pit, playing I-spy helps - listening for the first sound of the word, there are so many things that we do that are all help the early reading skill but we don't actually realise it. Writing happens through early mark making, painting, colouring, play dough, playing in cornflour gloop and making patterns, all develop the skills that are needed for later writing, developing the muscles in the hand, co-ordinations etc.

On a crafting front, I've finally finished the body of L's cardi and started on the sleeve, loving the fact that the only sewing at the end will be the sewing in of the ends and buttons. Joining Kat for Unraveled Wednesday

Then couldn't resist starting another project, Sirdar 4810 making the v-neck jumper, with the ladder pattern, this is another Christmas present. Reading wise, I've just finished reading Wild Designs by Katie Fforde, an enjoyable light read which is what I needed as the rest of my reading has been biology text books and syllabuses, decision has been made, mainly by M deciding which text books she preferred, hopefully she will enjoy them. Biology was one of my favourite subjects when I was at school, so hoping this goes well, fingers are crossed, the IGCSE maths is going well but slowed down on the English at the moment.

The weather is all over the place one minute it feels like autumn and the next a hot sunny day! One very wet Monday we joined friends for a walk in the woods, children in waterproofs and wellies, adults with umbrellas and of course wellies. They had a fantastic time, exploring the stream, puddles and mud etc and yes my 14 year old has as much fun doing this as the younger ones. Then home to dry of and snuggle up under a blanket to watch a film, followed by the next day and a trip to the park with friends where we were trying find shade as it was rather hot. Not sure if my allotment knows what it is doing other than producing a lot of slugs!!! Have had some lovely rhubarb, lots of blackcurrants ripening and enjoyed a couple of windfall apples.

Last week O had his allergy appointment, no change in his allergies but he then mentioned he had had a reaction to banana the other week, so after a discussion and more tests that is now of the menu, along with a warning about the link to latex, so to be careful! L had her allergy appointment on Thursday, her tests showed she might of grown out of pea allergy, so we will be invited in for food challenge but that won't be till February next year. We've been here before with soya and she failed the challenge at the first mouthful, so while hopeful it's tinged with that result. Now if she passes her pea challenge then they might take her in for a peanut challenge as that is one food we have never given her, so only going on skin and blood tests, be nice to have a few less allergies in the house, to say the least.

The cupboard of doom, or the most unorganised, dump everything in there cupboard in the house, aka the cupboard on the landing is now decorated and sorted, lots more space, it's a deep cupboard so takes a bit of thought to what goes where but all children's craft bits are sorted and amazed at how many different containers of coloured rice I have, it's played with regularly but normally it's kept in a couple of different places! Seriously though just how many towels does one family need, even if I add in pets and towels for work. So below is the before photo top shelf is spare throw for the sofa, lace making board, more than one bag of toy stuffing, second shelf towels and behind that there are boxes of soap moulds, candle making and bath bomb ingredients. Next shelf is a mixture of den building and scene creating stuff for childminding, more toy stuffing, various toys and pile of exercise books. Bottom shelf is children' craft bits and anything that didn't fit in elsewhere!

Now a rather organised cupboard and flannels and hand towels in baskets mean they don't topple over every time you try and get one. Also meant I now have room for all the paper that I was given, all A3 size or bigger perfect for painting on etc and the white basket is empty, now that makes me feel good, everything that hasn't gone back into the cupboard has been donated to other people or charities. Next step is my bedroom but that will be next week, hopefully, mind you we need to rip up the old bathroom floor as we will be having new bathroom floor, looking forward to this rather than rather worn tiles!

This weekend was the local Thai food and craft festival, it's now in it's 3rd year locally and hope they keep going, weather was great, I love Thai food and we all enjoy the entertainment.

A selection of Thai desserts and there was an amazing lady selling cakes, I don't think I have ever tasted such delicious, light fluffy cakes as these, must try and find a recipe for Thai coconut cake

Organising

I mentioned my new cleaning schedule last blog post and thought I would write a bit more about it today. Growing up my Mum seemed to spend a lot of her time cleaning or cooking and not enjoying herself, maybe she did enjoy cleaning but I know it's not top of my list of prefered activities!So I have always struggled with this whether I have worked full or part time there are so many distractions in life, wanting to spend time with my children, read a book, work on the various craft projects, the garden, the allotment, see friends and that's before we get to the distraction of blogs, facebook, pinterest to name a couple! Anyway I am digressing, a few years ago I decided I would do upstairs one day and downstairs another but still didn't work, so ended up dividing it into rooms, doing a room a day, this works well, for me, everyone knows what is needed to be done. So I made a list of rooms to be cleaned, the sort of jobs that would be needed to be done in them, so for the girls and their room it looks like this

• sort any clothes that are on the floor
• general room tidy
• dust
• strip and make beds
• hoover

Simple really but breaking it down everyone can see what they have done and needs to be done, yes we have tick chart up covering the week. So I then think of what my working week is like, outside activities the children attend, on the quieter days we tackle the rooms, that take longer e.g. the kitchen, as that involves:-

• general tidy
• clean worktops
• clean door fronts
• clean sink
• hoover floor
• wash kitchen floor
• sort fridge
• menu plan

With my work I tend to hoover most days, this is quick hoover the space and then a more thorough hoover of the room it is that day to clean. O is old enough that he does his own room, he works shifts that vary every week, so leave him to sort out his own rota. For me this works well, doing a small amount each day means we tend to keep on top of things better than doing a once a week blitz, anyway the more I declutter, the easier the whole process is.

So weekly plan looks like this :-

Monday - hallway and landing

Tuesday- sitting/dining room

Wednesday - my bedroom

Thursday - girls' room

Friday - kitchen and back porch

Saturday - bathroom

Another area I like to plan and organise is our main meals, I do a weekly menu plan, I love to try new recipes, so it varies every week. I tend to bulk cook some meals, to make life easier, like tripling the shepherds pie base, so I have 2 in the freezer for another time. Meal planning is interesting as I am vegetarian, 2 of my children have a nut allergy and youngest is allergic to nuts, peanuts, dairy, soya eggs, legumes, sesame seeds and bananas, plus another is on the autistic spectrum with sensory insures which does affect what they will eat, this is improving with age though! So this weekend I made L a batch of her dairy and egg free yorkshires, they freeze and reheat well, ok they don't look like my egg based yorkshires but she loves them and it means I can make real yorkshires for the rest of us!

 Sorting through the freezer found a packet of quorn mince, so thought I would make up some veggie chilli for the freezer, ended up using pinto and kidney beans as I didn't have enough kidney beans!

Saturday we had butternut squash curry and also enough for the freezer.

Butternut Squash Curry

I onion finely chopped

1 butternut squash, peeled and chopped

2 to 3 tbsp mild curry paste

600ml vegetable stock

160g red lentils

400g can tomatoes

1. Heat oil and gently fry onion for 5 minutes until soft
2. Add the butternut squash and fry for for 2 minutes
3. Add the curry paste and mix well
4. Add vegetable stock, tomatoes and lentils, bring to the boil, then simmer for 30 to 40 minutes until squash is soft.

Our menu plan for this week
Saturday - butternut squash curry plus enough to freeze some portions, meat and rice for L
Sunday - roast
Monday - left over meat, fresh pasta sauce and pasta, veggie option from the freezer
Tuesday - meat or veggie chilli
Wednesday - home made fish cakes, veg
Thursday - wraps, chicken or cheese choice of salad
Friday - Lentil and parsnip cottage pie and meat version for those that don't or can't eat lentils, which is in the freezer already.

On a gardening front, our peas are all coming up well, the brussels sprouts and broccoli look like they have been happily transplanted. In the greenhouse we have planted out tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, aubergines and a melon plant, the other 2 melon plants are under a poly tunnel in the garden.

L is doing really well with her planting and can be left to get on with planting with minimal supervision, she loves being independent and then sharing what she has done. She has planted out another rosemary plant, some sage and marigolds around the allotment with hope they will attract some friendly, beneficial insects.

Spotted lots of cherries on our cherry tree, hoping we get some lovely fruit this year.

Plenty of red and white currants too and one blueberry bush has lots of blossom on it, the other hasn't any!

 A small amount of sewing has been done, coat now has pockets and front and back of skirts are sewn together. Hoping tonight to get the outer bodice and skirt pinned and sewed together.

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Reducing and Sewing

Those that know me well, know that over the past few years I have been changing the way I  work, the toys we have etc, well I am still sorting and reorganising the house but it is all finally coming together. It is not always easy to get rid of things which is why it has taken so much time, along with getting sidetracked with the garden and various craft projects. Sometimes I have just boxed things up and put them in the loft and waited to see if we really need them, observing what and how the children play. It's that difficult thing of never knowing what children or what ages I might end up looking after, so trying to reduce the toys feels more complicated than if I was just doing it for my own children. Anyway the sitting room is looking really good and it is working so well with my own children and minded children. We have reduced the toys a lot, so the cupboards only have a couple of toys to a shelf but it means they can easily find what they want and put it back. They have also at times taken every thing off a couple of shelves then used the shelves to make dolls houses with. Really noticing that they are being more creative and playing better now we have less out, rather than quickly flitting from toy to toy. So here are some pictures of our room, ok normally the floor doesn't look this clear.

The bottom of the white bookshelf cupboard, we have some jigsaws, our story basket, geo shape puzzles, bean bags and lots of books.

The other cupboard, has our block tray, bag of tree blocks and baskets of animals. Then I have been lucky enough to be able to slide 2 baskets under the unit, one has our musical instruments in it and the other is baby toys.

The other end of our sitting room, the cupboard has all our crayon, pencils, paper etc as well as more jigsaws and games, still need to sort through this cupboard.

One of the major things I did a few years ago was reducing our dressing up clothes, I still have a small box but it is normally upstairs and only comes out from time to time. I now have a basket of silk squares, scarves and coloured muslin squares

They have sparked so much creative thinking as to what and how they are going to use them for. 

They have been used for 

• Cloaks
• Baby doll slings
• Wrapped to make dresses/skirts
• Bedding for dolls
• Yellow square to make a sandpit
• Blue square to make a paddle pool
• Butterfly wings
• Fairy wings
• Hair
• Scarves

 to name a few and I have used them to create many story scenes. I have found that the children are more creative than they were with a box of dressing up clothes and they love trying to make new things with them. Don't get me wrong I do love dressing up clothes but if you haven't a lots of space you have to make a decision on what works best for you and your home/setting.

On a creative note I have enjoyed some sewing, I have only just come across the Ottobre design magazine, wondering how I have never come across them before and loving the patterns, the one that caught my eye was this one.

M and I went shopping and she helped to pick out this fabric and buttons.

Just love the delicate pleating.

Linked up with Frontier Dreams

More Toys, Less Toys

Having spent 25 years in childcare, 17 of those years as a childminding and a Mum,  I have amassed a lot of resources over the years and a few years ago reached the stage of questioning how I work, what resources I have out etc. So I started on a journey of change and discovery, as I started to home educate, I came across many beautiful blogs and articles on based on different educational philosophies, Montessori, Waldorf, Charlotte Mason to name a couple. The one thing I took from all these homes/classrooms was the beauty and the simplicity of the learning environment. This simplicity and uncluttered feel really appealed to me and I started to reduce the amount of toys we had out but those that know me well will know I am not a naturally tidy person and tend to squirrel stuff away just in case, so it has not been an easy journey to make and one I am still on but I can see the benefits of it everyday and the changes have had a positive effect on everyone here. During this time I have enjoyed reading many books on simplifying life, childcare etc, these include Simplicity Parenting, Under Pressure, Imagine Childhood, enjoyed doing a Montessori course for childminders as well as lots of online articles. This wasn't about recreating an exact replica of X school etc it was about working out what worked well for my setting and the way I work. So we had a major rearrange when I went back to work after having L, knowing I would be childminding from when she was 6 weeks old, home educating M and started to create the environment I dreamed of but like all dreams they evolve and change to meet everyone's needs. For me less is definitely more, the children engage better and deeper with less resources, they become more imaginative and creative in their play, again this might not work for everyone but feels right for us.

So here are some photos of my setting, it is still a work in progress but we are getting there. These are taken when everything has been tidied away not during a normal work day as sometimes there is no floor space left! I am lucky that I have a couple of units that I can fit baskets or trays under, the basket contains musical instruments and the red tray is in theory baby toys but the older ones like to play, explore and fiddle with them too.

Toys in the bookshelf cupboard.

and the cupboard.

The other end, this cupboard still needs sorting, getting there.

I tend to have a basket of books out that are relevant to the theme we are working.

One of the major changes we have had here is reducing our dressing up clothes, actually we completely changed it. I now have a small basket of silk squares/scarves and coloured muslin squares instead of a large basket of dressing up clothes that lives on a shelf and the children can use.

They have sparked so much creative thinking as to what and how they are going to use them for. 

They have been used for 

• Cloaks
• Baby doll slings
• Wrapped to make dresses/skirts
• Bedding for baby dolls
• Yellow square to make a sandpit
• Blue square to make a paddle pool
• Butterfly wings
• Fairy wings
• Hair
• Scarves

 to name a few and I have used them to create many story scenes. I have found that the children are more creative than they were with a box of dressing up clothes and the children love trying to make new things with them. Don't get me wrong I do love dressing up clothes but if you haven't a lots of space you have to make a decision on what works best for you and your home/setting. We still have a couple of dressing up outfits - 2 princess dresses, Chinese traditional costume and a couple of high viz vests that come out from time to time.

I have started to look through my many books and really need to go through all the craft stuff, that is mine and the children's and then it will probably time to go through the toys again.

Questions I asked about my environment was :-

1. Does it work for me
2. Do I feel relaxed and happy in the room
3. Do the children play well, is there enough space for what they want to do
4. Are the children happy and relaxed
5. How well do the children engage with their environment and resources.
6. Where and how do they play
7. What do they like doing
8. How can I easily adapt the environment to meet their needs and interests
9. Do you really need 10 baby doll etc ok the answer might be yes but it has to be right for you.
10. Can the children reach everything they need easily
11. Can we all tidy up easily

Another lovely blog is Playful Learning they also run some online course, I have decided to try their course Playful Learning Spaces, as I feel it is very relevant to what I am trying recreate here.

I have bought my playsilks from Myriad and I have just discovered Arwen Makes and was chatting to the owner about some of her lovely silks, she will custom make them as well, so think I might me adding a couple too my collection.

Crafting and Organising

M and I were busy writing thank you cards, with L happily drawing pictures, L asked me what were were doing and then which was her name, her response was "I can write that" which she did. This is her first attempt at trying any form of "proper" writing. She then spent time alternating between writing more letters and jumping around the lounge with a big smile on her face shouting "I can write!" Feeling rather proud of her and the effort she put into this.

Now rather delayed but I have finally finished the coat I was making for L, this was something that was going to push the skills I already had and wasn't a quick and easy project, delayed by me changing my mind. I fell in love with shape of this McCall's pattern but with some alterations. I liked the shape of the coat shown below but with out the fur trimmed cuffed, so lengthened the sleeves and did away the frill. The original pattern isn't lined, now I had originally planned to pad the coat with wadding but then thought it wouldn't hang right. So decided on lining with fleece, took a while to find the right colour and order. I then cut everything out, had a moments panic that it wouldn't work so packed it away for a couple of weeks, then started again but pottered at it.  I had originally cut the fleece lining identical to the outer but then decided it would add to much bulk to the skirt with the large amount of pleating, so re-cut the fleece skirt to fit the outer skirt once it had all the pleats put in. L is really pleased with and loves the way the skirt swirls when she twirls around.

Now have a couple of new projects on the go, I only originally popped into our local craft shop to pick up a couple of balls of wool for a new baby cardigan for friend. Ended up buying wool and new patterns, this cardi for the baby, I love cardigans that do up with one button and then found this gorgeous gorgeous pattern for L. Love the squirrel hoodie but starting with rabbit cardigan. I'm using Sirdar Snuggly yarn as L as very sensitive skin. So far have done the back and started the front it is long time since I've knitted a picture but I am enjoying it.

Now those that know me know that when it comes to craft and books I am a bit of hoarder and housework isn't top of my list of things to do. When I was pregnant with L I had big sort and a rearrange, spurred on between reading Simplicity Parenting and doing a short Montessori course. I loved the simplicity and uncluttered look, so it is something I am slowly working towards, ok very slowly towards. Before the summer holidays I read Life Changing Magic of Tidying and after googling some images of drawers of folded clothes decided this was something I was going to try and wow, why has it taken me this long to learn about this? These are some of our drawers several months later and we are still folding, yes it takes a bit longer to put the clothes away but it is so easy to find everything you need. Even my youngest can find what she wants and doesn't want and can pull her clothes out without disturbing the other folded clothes unlike when she had to rummage through pile of clothes in the drawer. L and M both love to help fold their washing and put it away too. In the long run this has saved me so much time and have shared with a few friends, some who are now converted to folding, even if our husbands think we are loosing the plot.

 Today M came back from dance with the results of her street dance exams, she passed with honours, this is the first dance exam she has done where she has had to choreograph her own routine, so very proud of her. Also realised when I was filling out the nursery education funding forms for the minded children that if I had followed the norm L would be in her second term of nursery school, instead we are starting her journey of home education.

Joining with Frontier Dreams