By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer’s best of weather,
And Autumn’s best of cheer.
- Helen Hunt Jackson
With weekly posts feeling too frequent, and monthly not nearly enough, I’ve settled upon biweekly newsletters for this academic year. These ‘A Year of Learning’ letters will share how we spend our days as a home educating family, through the seasons. My eldest (A) is 7 years old and the twins (L & Q) are nearly 4.
It’s hard to believe that we’re already three weeks into September. The new academic year is in full swing, conkers line our pockets, and we’ve indulged in what will likely be our last week of truly warm weather.
The Equinox is this weekend and I feel so ready for the change of pace.
I was hoping to get this newsletter to you a week ago, but I accidentally over scheduled our first two weeks - oops! We were exhausted by the end of it, both the girls and I. (I’m blaming that new year / fresh start September energy rush!)
The first fortnight is full of stories though, starting with the first day ‘not back to school’. I love making a fuss of the girls on the first Monday in September - it’s never perfect, but it’s always exciting!
We’ve been enjoying all of September’s ‘tokens’ this year, especially the edible sort. Foraging has become our newest, and my most favourite, pastime - blackberries from the garden (and everywhere else), rose hips, elderberries and we’ve even spotted chicken of the woods a few times. Nothing brings me greater joy at the moment than cooking up a quick jam or syrup from foraged berries. There’s been lots of trial and error, and an incident where I accidentally tipped elderberries into the strewed apples (and discovered hedgerow crumble!) but making our own meals and medicine feels so empowering right now.
I hope that the month of September has been good to your family, too. Home Ed can feel so freeing and so rebellious at this time of year, but also scary and wobbly. If your first weeks have been a bit rocky - don’t worry! Septembers bring up so many feelings and are so full of expectations. Usually things settle into place on their own - just give it a little time.
Not Back to School
Our first week back was very busy, for us anyway. Our clubs didn’t start up until the following week (and some still haven’t started yet) so we had a lot of time to play with.
I’d like to say that I had the house tidy and all of our supplies laid out neatly for Monday - but that would be a huge lie! Instead I had a bunch of vague plans and, after three years, the confidence that everything would turn out just fine.
As per tradition, I left some small ‘not back to school’ gifts on the dining table for the girls to find in the morning. We also did our yearly interviews over breakfast and then took first day photos (which are always some of my favourites). In reality, not much had changed from the week before in terms of our weekly rhythm - we’re not complete unschoolers, but the small amount of ‘table work’ we are doing we started way back in July (I’ll talk about this another day! I’m not as organised as I sound - we just took a really early summer break).
We made and drank bubble tea (as requested), set up our new sea monkeys (a surprise!) and took a walk / scoot down to the local library with our neighbours.
We also started Exploring Nature With Children for the very first time. I originally bought the curriculum when A was a toddler, but decided immediately that it was too detailed. Now, at seven, she knows about as much about nature as I do, so I thought it was time to deepen our (my) knowledge. We enjoyed studying seeds so much for week one that we actually continued with it for the first fortnight. We read seed themed books, and cleared space for a nature shelf, but mostly we collected seeds on walks and talked about them. The seed bombs which the girls made at an allotment exhibition at the end of August joined all of our gathered seeds - and are now sprouting lots of little shoots!
At some point during the summer we got onto the topic of germs, around about the same time as we checked this book on the history of medicine out of the library (which I found fascinating! Three thumbs up from me!). As the girls were really interested, I bought them this book on microbes so that we could delve a little deeper, and their very own mini microscope to try out. Paired with an old Okido magazine on the topic of germs, we had enough reading material and ideas to get things going. We made germ launchers (from paper cups, balloons and pom poms) to show how sneezes spread germs, and a natural hand sanitiser using aloe vera gel and tea tree oil. The twins especially enjoyed doing the surface tension experiment with a tray of water and pepper. I put ‘soap’ (washing up liquid) on their hand which then pushed the ‘germs’ (pepper) away. Amazing when you’re 3!
A has been doing her own self directed project, watching videos online of reptiles and amphibians, fishing and ecosystems. While I don’t know exactly where her research takes her, she has told me all sorts of wonderful facts! She was explaining just the other day about invasive vs native species, and it’s wonderful to see her deep dive into this topic (which really doesn’t interest me at all! So it’s very much hers).
She has continued to care for her mosquito larvae in an old tub in the garden, and even made a ‘fish tank’ indoors which she intentionally grew some algae in (to feed said mosquito ‘babies’, apparently). I was hoping that the sea monkeys might replace the larvae, but to our disappointment few hatched and none survived more than a day. She’d really love a pet (and has asked for both a snake and fish recently) but I don’t think we’re ready to take on the additional responsibility just yet.
After seeing A watch a video on making an ‘axolotl ecosystem’ online, we borrowed a book from the library on the eco system of an oak tree. We both really enjoyed this and A was able to link it to lots of prior knowledge and real life experiences (e.g. finding wasp galls recently). It’s amazing how things link together sometimes! Hopefully we can follow this up soon with something more practical.
L and Q have been enjoying baking recently, thanks to a fairy cookbook that Nanny found. I’ve never seen Q prouder than the day that she came back from her grandparents’ house with a tray of tiny meringues that she had made mostly by herself. L has since insisted that we make several recipes from her Room on the Broom cookbook, and the girls were able to earn their Room on the Broom Pawprint badges (which we’d started working on nearly a year ago but never completed!).
Wednesday saw us meeting with some friends at the park where we hold our regular HE group. The adults tidied up our small outdoor space, and the kids built the new craft trolly (with some help), and we all chatted and played. The following week the group was back on again as normal and the girls caught up with friends, some they hadn’t seen since way back in July. Seeing them run down the path to hug each other - my heart! I wish I could adequately describe the joy that this little group brings us all! It is good to be together again.
On Thursday we took a trip to the Natural History Museum with our friends. The journey into the city is so familiar now, particularly to the museums, that even the journey itself was relaxed and enjoyable. We haven’t been in some time, and I noticed again that A was able to make so many connections to what she was seeing and things we have read about / experienced this time. At 7, I feel like she’s suddenly grown into this ‘big kid’ with a wealth of knowledge to hang new information from, and so many interests that overlap and intertwine. This year is certainly going to be an interesting one, and I can’t wait to see where it takes her.
The twins go to a childminder on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 4 hours, and all three for an hour and a half on Fridays. In my mind, I have named this year ‘the year of childcare’ as we make the most of the funded hours, and we are lucky enough to have a wonderful childminder practically on our door step (so important when you don’t drive!). While it’s not the perfect solution, and the hours both feel like too many and too few at the same time, having regular childcare keeps us afloat.
I can’t remember all that the girls did, but there is usually some baking and often vegetables to pick from the garden. A came home one Friday very pleased, clutching a large glass jar with a leaf inside that was covered in caterpillar eggs. Sadly a glass jar doesn’t make a great home for tiny caterpillars, and many of them died (or at least vanished - I couldn’t find them amongst the cabbage leaves) before we released them into the garden. My eldest has also been nursing a poor moth with a deformed wing, the cocoon of which she rescued from the garden when Daddy was raking. The dear creature also died, despite our best efforts to feed it and make it comfortable, but A is not deterred. She is still constantly finding bugs to love, and I wonder what she’ll do once the weather turns and she can no longer play with her creepy crawly friends outside.
Friday ought to have been quiet, with L’s ballet class not starting back until the following week, but we agreed to join some friends for a swim instead. I was a little worried about taking all three girls into the teaching pool, which is out of L and Q’s depth, but I needn’t have worried. While Q is still more reserved, L took to the water like the little mermaid that she plays dress up as. She swam about with her vest and noodle keeping her afloat, as confident as can be - such a change from the last time! The following Friday L returned to ballet, now the oldest and tallest in the day class.
On the first Saturday, we joined a course at the (fairly) local community allotment. I had no idea it was even there until very recently, a real secret garden. The group were so welcoming, and we got a tour of everything they were growing from the tomatoes in the poly tunnel to the pumpkin patch. They also encouraged us, especially the children, to try lots of the foods - runner beans were picked straight off the plant, snapped in half, and handed to the kids. I could probably talk about that morning for hours, but all I’ll say is that I could have happily stayed forever!
We have big plans to grow more in our garden this coming year, but at the moment Daddy is building some decking outside which is the main focus. A has helped by wheeling gravel in with her tiny child’s wheelbarrow, and Q is Daddy and Grandad’s constant companion while they drill and saw. Hopefully it will all come together before the weather turns chilly!
We spent the following Saturday at a friend’s house for a BBQ which ran on well past bedtime. All of the families in attendance were home edders, and we always have a little laugh when we get together like this - but how will they socialise? Meanwhile the children entertained themselves for hours with climbing, role playing, make overs, eating together in little groups, the mud kitchen, with very little input from us. Even the twins, only three, were left to their own devices all evening. It was mixed age play at its best. Four of them even put on a little play for us! And it’s so lovely to toast marshmallows around the fire with families who also feel at ease with it (as we are all regular campers and / or forest schoolers!).
While enjoying full September days, I’ve also been thinking ahead to how we’ll be spending the upcoming weeks and months. We did some wet on wet painting ready to write out rhythm charts and favourite poems, and we’ve started sharing some fairy and traditional tales taking heaps of inspiration for Waldorf education. We’ve also been doing some academic work! But I’ll have to talk about that next time.