Our Diary

3rd I started putting together a proposed timetable for when I start to home educate Jacob properly. I am actually looking forward to him leaving nursery so we can get on with it. His home education is going to be mostly play based with a bit of time set aside for doing workbooks, which he loves. I am using a picture timetable so he can see what we are planning for the day. As is usual for our home education, any timetable we use is just a guide and not set in stone.

4th We went to a local home educators meeting today. It is held in a library. Jessica had an accident while we were there, she cut her head on the corner of a book shelf and had to go to hospital to have the cut glued as it was still bleeding an hour later. She was very good, as was Jacob. We later went for a long walk down Southend pier and we are considering doing a history and geography project based on the pier as it has quite a history and many stories to tell.

5th Jacob achieved his grade one ice skating badge today. Not bad for his first proper lesson. He was very pleased with himself.

19th Jacob passed grade 2 ice skating today. We attended a local home education meeting and made kites out of toilet roll tubes, crepe paper and carrier bags.

27th The LEA have now agreed to giving Jessica a statutory assessment. This decision was made as a result of the Eduational Psychologists report, which I haven't seen yet. So next months tribunal has now been cancelled. Jessica still wants to be home educated but if I ever had to return her to school at least the transition would be less painful with a statement in place.

We are caring for 6 kittens at the moment. A neighbours cat moved into our house about 6 weeks ago after deciding she preferred it here! Her kittens were born 18 days ago. They have conjunctivitis at the moment and I am putting ointment in their eyes twice a day. The smallest of the litter is also being fed kitten milk formula as it is not growing at the same rate as the others. They are very cute, but are beginning to walk a few steps so no doubt my home will become a giant kitten playground within the next week! I shall put a few photos of the kittens on the site soon.

Jessica was using the computer this afternoon and decided to recreate the Solar System using Microsoft Paint. Here is the finished result.

29th The kittens will be 3 weeks old tomorrow and I have managed to get a few nice photos of them today. One of the kittens was hiding so there are only 5 kittens in the photos. Spot the one that is yawning (looks a bit menacing - but it was only a yawn, not a roar!)

I haven't written much during May as we have had a busy month with various appointments. Jessica was seen by an educational psychologist and we are still waiting for his report to arrive. She was also seen at the Ear, Nose and Throat clinic where she was prescribed nose drops and nasal spray as she has asthma in her upper airways aswell as her lower airways. We saw a paediatrician a couple of weeks ago who, after 20 minutes, said that there was not much wrong with Jessica apart from elective mutism. We received a letter from her psychiatrist a few days later stating that Jessica is a very complex girl with quite severe Asperger's Syndrome. So not feeling very confident about the NHS at the moment, they do not communicate with each other at all. The Local Education Authority have been annoying me aswell. A few months ago I thought I would try to get Jessica a statement of special educational needs as I thought a couple of days a week at the local special needs school might be good for her. Needless to say the LEA have refused and have been very underhanded in a lot of their dealings with her case. They are also saying that they are not prepared to spend the money on a statutory assessment as she is home educated. We are due to go to tribunal in July but I have lost the heart for it and now know that home education is definately the way for us. I have now decided that Jacob will definately be home educated aswell. He has made friends at the local home ed groups and the freedom to go, and do, what we like, when we like is too good to give up.

Jessica spent 5 days at Brownie Camp this month and she really enjoyed it. She took part in canoeing, abseiling and archery while she was there. She did very well. Jacob was pleased to have the computer to himself for a few days.

We attended 2 local home education groups this month. At one they made necklaces out of a huge assortment of beads provided by one of the other mums. The other meeting was all about things that spin and Jessica made a spinner out of thread and card.

This month Jessica also achieved her 15 metres swimming award. So some good stuff happening to balance out the rubbish we have been subjected to via the NHS and LEA!

7th We enjoyed a lovely tour of the Palace Theatre, Southend, with other local home educators. It was very interesting and informative. Jessica and Jacob both had fun exploring the theatre and Jessica especially liked having a little dance on the stage.

11th - 19th On holiday in the Netherlands. We stayed at a lovely holiday park called Duinrell which is near The Hague. It is built into the sand dunes and has beautiful woodland areas for exploring. We go to the Netherlands at this time of year in order to visit the Keukenhof Gardens at Lisse. Keukenhof is only open for 2 months of the year and displays the most fantastic colours and varieties of spring flowers. It also exhibits some rather brilliant and bizarre sculptures. The flowers were a bit late to bloom this year so the gardens were not as colourful as they had been this time last year but were impressive none the less. Jessica and Jacob both chose their favourite flowers out of the thousands of varietys on display. Jacob chose a mix of pink and yellow flowers called Pink Giant and Tete a Tete. Jessica chose some pink hyacinths called Lady Derby. We had a lovely week though Jessica became unwell towards the end and we had to make use of the Netherlands health service.

Pink Giant and Tete a Tete

25th We enjoyed a trip to the science museum in London today. Jacob enjoyed making bubbles and both Jessica and Jacob loved making a shadow video which we could email to ourselves to watch at home. We met up with some other home educating families and Jacob especially liked meeting some new children. After the science museum we made a beeline for the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, always a favourite with Jacob. As the Tube was running so badly, we ended up taking a detour home via the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. I took the opportunity to discuss our recent history project about the Tudor period.

30th We had a lovely meeting with a local home educators group at Southend Library today. Jessica and Jacob learned about making electric circuits and they made a working lamp. It was interesting to see how Jacob payed a lot of attention to what we were doing and took great interest in it. Jessica did well but found it hard to concentrate for any length of time. We later headed off for the Sealife Centre and had a look at their favourite fish, the angel fish and the ray fish. They had a nice long play in the soft play area which was practically empty (another good thing about home educating is that we get to go to places like this when it is quiet and all the other children are at school!). Jessica's tooth was very loose today and was hurting her, which she says is why she could not concentrate at the library, it has now fallen out!

MARCH

7th. I found out this evening how badly Jessica is affected by tannoy's and fire alarms. We were at the ice rink for her skating club and the fire alarm was being tested over and over again as the system had failed earlier in the day. The Tannoy kept repeating the words 'Attention please, Mr Frost to ground floor concourse' over and over again. Jessica got very distressed. It stopped for about half an hour. When it started up again Jessica fled from the ice in tears and demanded to be removed from the building immediately. The alarm stopped straight away and I took Jessica (who was clinging to me, crying) down to the reception desk to ask if they were going to set it off again. They said no and would Jessica like to watch and listen while they announced on the tannoy that there would be no more alarm testing. They showed Jessica where the sound was coming from and where the tannoy announcements were made and she watched while the lady spoke into the microphone. This was really nice of them. She managed to calm down and finish her club session, though she was a bit 'potty' like she often is after a meltdown.

It was hard to see her get so distressed about something that everyone else was taking in their stride. I can only imagine that the noise of the tannoy and the alarm is in someway painful for her due to her sensory problems. Today was a learing curve and I shall be more prepared for her reaction if it happens again.

12th We finished the KS2 science curriculum last year but I didn't want to move Jessica onto KS3 so I bought a set of 6 CGP science workbooks for year 3. There are 6 books covering all science topics for each of years 3, 4, 5, and 6, and very nicely done. Jessica can use them on her own or with me. They will help to refresh everything she has learned in the past couple of years. Jessica loves learning about science so she will no doubt get through the year 3 set by the end of the month and be wanting the year 4 set. It costs £18 for the set of 6 books.

24th There are so many craft activities to be done over the Easter period. We made easter baskets for the neighbours, cards, colouring pictures of bunnies, flowers and designed and decorated eggs, both real and paper ones. We even did a science experiment where I boiled some sugar and water and turned it into syrup, to show Jacob what will happen to his insides if he eats too many chocolate eggs! He liked doing the experiment but it didn't stop him scoffing too much chocolate. I also read the Good Friday and Easter Story to the children to make sure they remembered the real reason for celebrating this time of year.

Today the children got to hold some one week old chicks and ducklings. They also met some baby bunnies and piglets. Jessica liked the chicks best but Jacob loved the ducklings. They were part of an Easter activity organised by one of the towns shopping centres.

25th We visited Tropical Wings today. www.tropicalwings.co.uk Both Jessica and Jacob loved seeing the butterflys. We fed Wallabies (or wobblys as Jessica calls them). A lot of them had Joeys in their pouches, really cute. Jessica also liked seeing the meercats which are a favourite of hers. Unfortunately the otters were not being friendly and did not make an appearance. Jessica has decided she wants to adopt an meercat, so we shall look into that.

29th We went to see Thomas The Tank Engine and Friends at the Hammersmith Apollo today. Both children enjoyed the show, especially Jacob. Jessica did very well, she behaved brilliantly on the underground (she usually struggles on the tube as she hates automatic doors opening and closing). I was very proud of her.

30th Jessica's 8th Birthday. Fairies, fairies and more fairies! She loves fairies.

31st Jacob and Jessica are currently engrossed in the web site www.clubpenguin.com. It is a good site and a lot of fun. Not particularly educational but helpful in learning social skills (even if only a virtual world), pet care, design, money management, observational skills etc. I have been playing more on the computer with Jacob, looking at english and maths skills cdroms. He proudly told a friend today that he had started his 'Mummy school' learning.