Earthquakes, Dinosaurs and Impressionism

On tuesday, after Connors session at Dyslexia Action we all went to The Mational Museum of Wales in Cardiff centre http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/cardiff/
We'd visited the week before on Home Learners day but Connor had found the afternoon workshop stressful so we decided we'd return when we had an opportunity since Sophie had enjoyed it and wanted to see it when she had more time. A rare day off for Darren meant we could all go and enjoy a day out.
They both really enjoy the hands on Glanelly Gallery which they had all to themselves and made the most of the opportunity to explore undisturbed!


They visited the Evolution of Wales exhibition and Connor was especially interested in how and why earthquakes and volcanoes happen and how they shaped the landscape and seeing the dinosaur skeletons and fossils.

During the afternoon they collected 'bags of fun' backpacks containing activities connected to the 'from industry to impressionism' exhibition containing works of art by many famous artists,including Van Goch,Degas,Monet and Renoir which were donated by the Davies sisters.The Sisters the grandaughters and beneficiaries of the fortune made by David Davies- founder of Barry Docks and the collection also contains journals and atifacts from their lives and works in the community in Wales and in WW1 in france. The backpacks were a great success and the children spent more than 2 hours completing the activities.







SUCCESS!


The jigsaws were a real hit! Even if they did take an age to complete!






The children also attracted attention from an art appreciation society who were really interested, much to the annoyance of their tour guide, a very learned academic who was less than impressed that Connor had taken up residence on the floor in front of one of the pieces he wanted to talk about and found the ladies he was lecturing to were far more interested in the fact connor was home educated and his lovely jigsaw than the masterpiece on the wall!
Its really lovely to see them enjoying activities and really getting involved in hands on learning,improving their social skills and knowledge, independent learning and questioning what they encounter on days like this.

Oh well here goes!

First time for everything and all that!
I've never done this before but have been reading various blogs for years.
Decided to start writing this to keep my own diary of what we get up to,thoughts and reflections on life's journey.
I know Ive been tremendously helped and inspired by reading the things that other people blog and maybe others will get something from me sharing mine!

We decided to home educate our youngest, Connor this spring after realising how distressing he was finding school.
Chloe our eldest attends a wonderful specialist school for Dyslexic children and weekly boards but we had to fight a long, costly battle with our LEA to get her there. She suffered hugely during her primary years, misunderstood and isolated in a mainstream state primary which didn't meet her needs.

We didn't want Connor to suffer similarly and so when we realised he was, meetings with school and the LEA made no difference and that there was another option rather than persevering with banging our heads against a brick wall trying to get help for him we decided to give home education a try, figuring if it didn't work out then September brought a whole new school year and we could enroll him in our local village school.
A month after we withdraw Connor, our middle child Sophie decided she too wanted to be home educated and so we thought, why not?

So we've been home educating now for almost 6 months, do the children miss school? I don't believe they do.Sure they talk about events that happened in school but they have stayed in touch with their special friends and have made so many new ones since. I truly believe their quality of life is now vastly improved. They certainly dont ever mention going back!

They are now far more happy, confident and relaxed.Of course they still face challenges with reading, spelling,writing etc but they are starting to be ready to give these skills a try again, now they aren't constantly forced upon them every day and are starting to rediscover a real enthusiasm for learning!