Audrey has reached the age where lots of people we meet ask us whether she's in nursery. We get quite mixed reactions when we say we're home educating - mostly people are curious. Are we allowed to do that? What qualifications do we have to have? Do we have to follow a curriculum? Do standardised testing? Get permission, be evaluated? Some people say they wish they could do it, or that they aren't brave or clever enough.
Really, home ed is whatever you want it to be. You don't have to be especially clever or brave, you don't have to have it all worked out. There is tremendous freedom and what most home educators will tell you is that no two days are alike.
Socialising is the thing most people are concerned about, and that one is possibly the most easy to sort out. We meet up with a group of other home educating families with small children once a week, Audrey also goes to a music class on Mondays and a dance class on Thursdays, and we meet up with friends a lot on the in-between days as well. She has plenty of contact with other children her age - and, importantly, other people as well! Children who are older, or younger, teenagers, adults, people of all ages. She has friends who are parents and friends who are babies. This is one of the things I treasure about home education.
So what does a typical home ed day look like? Well, as I said, each day is different. Many days we go out on adventures to all sorts of places. Some days we stay in and play. Let's look at this morning.
This morning we woke up rather early (about 5am - Audrey has a cough and is sleeping badly, poor thing). We watched some videos and had breakfast. When Ian left for work we made sure he had two cupcakes that Audrey and I made yesterday, one for him and one for his friend and work colleague David, who Audrey especially likes.
We went out onto the balcony to check on our seedlings. They are growing bigger every day! Audrey wants to check on them constantly. She talks to them to help them grow.
We cut up some vegetables to go feed the animals. We have three rabbits, two guinea pigs, five rats, two hamsters, a gerbil and two cats. A lot of work! We usually clean out at least a couple of cages a day. Audrey helped me feed carrots, cabbage and peppers to our little friends, and top up their hay and water.
We read a book called Is That You Wolf? seven times in a row. I get very bored of this repetition, but I know that there are developmental reasons that children this age love things done over and over. We play with her toy Iguanadon and toy wolf, making them talk to each other. I take a bath while Audrey reads another book to her toys.
We go for a walk and collect interesting sticks. We take Audrey's pink scooter. She shows everyone we pass her scraped knees from scooting about yesterday at the park. We take a toy caterpillar and pretend it can talk. We see two bumble bees, and talk a lot about butterflies. We flap our flappy wings, and buy flowers at the supermarket that have been discounted. We get home just as it starts to rain. We make an indoor picnic - cheese sandwiches and cherry tomatoes. Audrey arranges the flowers in a vase. We paint our nails - mine are blue, hers are red.
We get out coffee filter papers and draw on them with felt tip pens, then drop water from a pipette on them to make patterns. When they dry we cut them into butterfly shapes and glue our sticks to them. When they dry we will hang them from the ceiling.
We read the wolf story again, and pretend the wolf has hurt his tooth and has to see the dentist. We pretend that a plastic dinosaur is the dentist, and Audrey is the nurse. We feed the wolf a dandelion and tell him to brush his teeth every night before bed.
Audrey watches a video while I set up a sensory tray - glass beads, marbles, sea shells, buttons, ice cube fish from the freezer. She admires the sea shells most of all, showing me each one and describing the shape and colour. She feeds the ice fish to the wolf - "how about a wee fish for lunch?"
Later, Ian will be home from work. He and Audrey will play Scribblenauts and read Mr Magnolia and I will knit from a ball of wool Audrey helped me to wind. We will clean the wolf's teeth before bed.
So that's a typical home ed day for us at 3 years old, for anyone who perhaps wondered. I feel so amazingly lucky to be able to live this life. What fun we have.
