beach

Well, this was supposed to be the day of starting some more structured work again like maths and English workbooks. When we got up this morning there were clear blue skies and somehow the world was saying “come to the beach!”. So we did. Started off at New Aberdour where there was a veritable sandstorm raging – saw some very sweet baby sandmartins – so cute how they stick their tails out of the nest to poo! Everyone impressed.

We then moved on to Cullykhan Bay and Fort Fiddes which has been the site of various fortifications throughout the iron age, bronze age and then later a Medieval castle stood there. Archaeologists have found beads which suggest trading with mainland Europe was taking place there as long ago as 700BC. These people must have been so brave to live right out there on the cliffs like that. Goes along very well with the Iron Age website someone sent through the Scottish home ed. yahoo group yesterday (update – site moved but here’s the beebs current kids history section which is very good). Weve had good fun on that. So sunshine and history (natural and otherwise) ruled the day. We listened to the 1812 overture in the car – had to stop to hear the full force of the cannons. That car has a better sound system than the house! Also discussed Napoleon’s antics in Russia and how the winter beat him in the end. Then we called in on my Mum and Dad and have been given a very old scrapbook to look at. It was the children’s great, great, great Grandmother’s and dates to 1881 at the beginning. Fascinating looking at all the scraps, pressed leaves, poems etc. included in it. Interesting bit about ‘womens rights’ too – ‘the right to bake while others sleep’… I think, on the whole, more actual learning has taken place today than structure would have provided. Makes me question myself a bit – am I just making them do the writing to satisfy myself that they’ve done something? Or to have stuff to show LEA? Charlotte is now finishing off a spellaway book so she can get started on a new one tomorrow and Daniel is inspecting some new ‘magical’ maths books we bought in Glasgow prior to starting them. They do look quite fun and should ‘consolidate’ skills!!!

Talking of maths, I learned a great deal about numerical teaching methods while working in schools. In state school it was very much the same as I had learned myself 20-30 years ago. Lots of sitting down, writing and not understanding – as long as you finish the work everyone’s pleased. At the Waldorf things were very different. At first all the singing and dancing around with numbers seemed rather whimsical or airy-fairy. But wow, after a couple of terms the childrens mathematical abilities far exceeded anything I saw at this age in state school. The teacher explained to me that if a child is made to write down a concept before fully feeling it in their body they can become ’stuck’ and not learn it properly ever. I’m sure that’s what happens to many kids, mine included. My own numeracy improved greatly while working in the Steiner methods. Cost a lots less than all those workbooks and computers… think the state curriculum makers could learn a lot by looking at Waldorf.

What a great book about numbers. I used to watch Johnny Ball’s series and wonder why maths there was so interesting but so boring at school. It starts off like early years Waldorf numeracy, looking at the history of counting but moves on to amazing things like the Fibonacci sequence and phi, Pi, magic tricks, mazes, laws of chance and chaos – Daniel is fascinated by this book – what a change from the maths hating child he was. I, who passed arithmatic ‘O’ Grade but have the numeracy skills of a baked bean, am also learning from this!

Buy UK

Been watching the news about hurricane Katrina – how terrifying to leave your home and not know if it will still be there later. BBC has a good animated guide which explains hurricanes well.