Last Chatworth visit

Chatsworth house has been a key feature of our Home Educating journey this year.  Providing countless days with friends and on our own exploring the gardens mainly, but also the house and the playground.  We've also clocked up many hours of cuddles with their Guinea Pigs.

It came to the end of our annual pass on Wednesday, so had our final visit on Tuesday, as our dance class blocked up part of Wednesday.  There were a few issues that day so we arrived a little late, and actually ended up missing the playground part of our day as it is usually the first hour of our visit before Guinea Pig cuddles at 11.30.  We only arrive shortly after 11, and since there were still many school children off school, it was super busy, necessitating queuing for our turn with the Guinea Pigs (plus it was one of the deliciously sunny September days, reminding us of our fantastic Summer.  Some people at Chatsworth, however, seem to be oblivious to the concept of fair queuing so we had to wait an extra 10 minutes for the precious time.  However, when they were sat their they had a brilliant and loving time with them.  They even had the opportunity to swap Guinea Pigs, with Autumn ending up with a new recruit called Fluffy, who is a real fuzz ball, and Evan with the amazingly rosetted Fudge.

We followed this by going to the Gardens, but dropped in on the amazing and beautiful toilets in the coach house restaurant with automatic flush, gold doors and beautiful sinks (makes a  nice change from the utilitarian ones in the farmyard!) Once in the gardens we headed to our chosen destination of the Grotto via the Trough waterfall. We had originally decided to eat our lunch there, but hunger won out, and we went and lunched on the money chairs overlooking the rose garden.  This is not far from where we usually have lunch - by the squirrel nutkin tree, so they popped there and explored whilst I read a book.  After about 30-40 minutes of play there we headed on to the Grotto, but we had a kicking and screaming Autumn, flat our refusing to move from the tree.  Insisting that she wanted to just stay there all day. After a while I managed to reason with here and explain that it was a family choice and that we all had to play a part.  That and a smidge of distraction seemed to unlock her legs and get us to move on and enjoy the rest of our day.

On the way to the Grotto we enjoyed the current collection of sculptures around the Canal Pond, I thin they are part of a collection on display on behalf of Sothebys, up for auction.  my favourite of which is featured again, after being on display this time last year.

The trough waterfall was a terrific hit, with lots of boingy prodding into the water with sticks, and there was a great exploration to find the perfect sticks with the right amount of boinginess.

After the waterfall was the perfect pond with its stunning colours surrounding it, and a brilliant tree that Autumn spent a good while sitting in.  I was a little sad later on when Autumn had left her arbourous home that another child with his family requested going in the tree, and was told by his parents that the tree was too precious to be sat on.  I have to say it was probably the sturdiest branch Autumn has ever sat on!  Whilst sitting by the pond Evan enjoyed watching the ducks, I think they were juveniles by their size.  They popped in and out of the water, and both Evan and Autumn commented on the various different ripples that came from the ducks.  Then Evan began exploring how he could make some interesting ripples by throwing pine cones into the water.  As it was a fairly calm day we watched this effect with interest.  Autumn and I sat and had a cuddle, and I took some beautiful photos, including of the Acer trees which are my favourites in the garden.

The Grotto didn't have quite the appeal that it usually had as it was occupied by a number of other visitors (we usually get the whole place to ourselves, which we thoroughly enjoy).  The children asked, as they always do, why there are footmarks on the roof of the grotto (which we view from the bit above it)  We move on and go back the way we came, which is unusual as we normally don't cover the same path twice in a visit, but Autumn had requested going down the other side of the waterfall and stream, which we had never done before, so today seemed a good opportunity to do this.  We spied some sculptures we saw earlier, which we mistakenly took for squirrels when we passed them from a different vantage point, but this time we could clearly see they were faces next to glasses and a bottle of wine!

The next stop was due to be the Kitchen gardens, and time was seriously getting on by this time, so when we stopped at various places, including the rock garden on the way I did have to remind them that they wanted to go further and time was short.  We reached the Kitchen garden for a very short visit, but it was just amazing to see all the amazing produce.  It is impossible not to be inspired by the abundance there, of food and flowers.  It was hard not to pluck an apple or plum from the tree, or not pick a flower to go in my hair, but I resisted the temptation.  Evan ate chives, as usual. We also came across those interesting flowers which look soft and lovely, but area actually hard like they are man made.  It was fun exploring this nuance with Evan. (Autumn had disappeared at this point)

It was time for our last walk out of the gardens, with an everso quick trip to the squirrel tree, but as Evan didn't fancy playing there at this point, Autumn didn't. So that was it.  Our last adventure in the Gardens.  We have decided to explore othere places this year, so have invested in National Trust Membership, and plan on going to Clumber park, and other places more regularly in the coming year, including the Deep, which we are going to on Tuesday, and visiting the Penguins who arrived there earlier this year.  I never dreamed that Chatsworth would provide such a tremendous wealth of fun, excitement and learning on so many occasions for us.  We will certainly take advantage of membership again in future years.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Chatsworth.  To all who work there, to the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, to the Guinea Pigs, and other animals, to all our friends who have come with us, to the beauty, magic and wonder of the place. Also, the biggest Thank you goes to my Mum, who not only introduced us to the place, but gave us our annual membership.

Following are the links to all our other outings at Chatsworth

Relaxed Day
First visits
Autumn's Birthday
Making a river
December & December again
Babies
Paddling

Below are photos from our trip in August with friends

HES FES 2014

There are loads of fantastic camping things to do as a Home Educator with other families, but HES FES is the one we have been to 3 years running.  A number of other local Home Educators have been going there for many years.  It is full of workshops and activities for children and adults ranging from Copper beating, to hula hoop making and circus skills.  I also run a Zumba class there.  It is a whole week, so a real holiday for us.  We manage to go together as a family as it is during the school holidays, and my husband is a school teacher.

This year was the first year our children decided to take part in the cabaret.  I was so proud of them as they opened the show.  They had both practised a lot in the run up to HESFES and it was the thing that they were most excited about.

End of Year Report

I thought it would be fun, and a nice record to do a not-school report for my kids, since they won't get them any time soon.  (To be clear, I'l be writing it in school style with my tongue firmly in my cheek, but the essence of this still stands)

Evan has made huge progress this year in his ability to connect with others.  Ranging from developing new friendships without adult support; relating to known adults in a competent, relevant and fluent way; and willingly show skills to known and unknown people.  This was particularly exemplified in the final term with the excitement he found in performing in his ballet exam, and on stage at HESFES, doing both a dance routine, and a loom band demonstration. His understanding of the needs and feelings of others has taken tremendous steps forward.  He shows this through his need to help Autumn when she is upset, and come up with plausible helpful solutions to the difficulties she has encountered.

Evan is developing his leadership skills, and is able to see the relevance and importance of listening to the ideas of others.  He is able to compromise his intentions and goals in order to gain support from others, and give them an opportunity to play an active part in the game.  Evan's core friendships have also developed and he has become adept at playing different roles with different friends, and also in different environments, according to that which would seem most helpful to him and his friends.  For example, when attending Forest school, he enjoys his time with friend Tom, and doesn't play so much with his other good friend Oscar, who seeks out different playmates at this time.

This year has been the year of new things for Evan.  He began ballet and tap classes along with Autumn and his friends, which he thoroughly enjoys, and is eager to improve his skills.  He practices around the house regularly.  He worked on projects, such as Rivers, Tigers and Guinea pigs.  In which he partook in some formalised learning through worksheets, as well as more concrete learning like in the rivers project, and here, here, and here.  Whilst he enjoyed these projects, much of the learning that goes on is much more fluid (pardon the pun) and unplanned.  Evan also began Forest School which he thoroughly enjoys, along with his friends and sister. This experience is challenging him to develop friendships and demonstrate leadership qualities in less familiar surroundings.

With regards to his academic achievements, Evan continues to be fascinated by science and engineering.  He constantly seeks out opportunities to satisfy his hunger to find out how and why.  His progress reading has been in phases.  There are times when he is really interested in working on Reading Eggs program, but struggled to make the connections between that and reading other things.  He has also worked through the whole of "Teach my monster to read", a phonics based program which built on some of the things he was learning with Reading Eggs.   A new reading set of reading books enticed him to read to his sister, and he enjoyed this.  He found it difficult to read books where he was expecting something in particular to happen, as he liked to make his own version of events rather than connecting the pictures and writing more closely.  This is definitely something to bear in mind with regards to exposure to new reading opportunities.  He has done a number of reading eggs worksheets as well, though I don't feel this added much to his confidence and overall abilities.