Blog moved

Hi
This blog has now moved to its new home-
The Goldston Academy for the Insane- most appropriate methinks!

http://www.GoldstonAcademyForTheInsane.com

Hope you enjoy it.
With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

Socialising and Growth Spurt

Hi,
One of the comments often leveled at home-schooled families is the socialisation aspect. Actually, in my experience home-schooled children seem to have a far broader range of social skills and a greater ability to communicate with all everyone than many of their peers of the same age.

Networking
I was really delighted a few weeks ago. I took my girls to hear Brad Sugars speak. He is an Australian self-made multi-millionaire businessman and entrepreneur.

He was keen to have young people at the event, as he wants to encourage the next generation of entrepreneurs. Of approx 400 in the room, there were only a handful of teens or "almost teens".

I knew quite a few people and my girls were quite happy to chat to these people. Jacqueline marched up to Brad Sugars, introduced herself and gave him her business card.

Personal and Business Development.
A good friend of mine, Tony Burgess of www.aha-success.com, runs business and personal development training. I was invited and took my girls along.

I was delighted at how well they interacted with people of all ages.

In my opinion, by introducing children to as many different people of all ages, backgrounds and experiences, they grow in confidence much more than they seemed to do in school.

I have had so many comments of how MATURE they seem to be for their ages.

I have also noticed how much more mature emotionally they seem to be. They seem to take it far less personally when someone is nasty or rude to them on MSN or online. They now have friends all over the world.

Growth Spurt.
Has anyone else noticed a huge growth spurt in their children since they came out of school?

Since March, Stephanie has released over 2 stone (28 pounds) in weight, as she is no longer the "emotional pillow" for all her friends. Stephanie is now taller than me.

Jacqueline has shot up in height and is now only 4cm shorter than me! At 11 years old!

Yes, I have heard all the jokes from the kids about being the "short one" in the family!

This was really brought home to me when Jacqueline's friend came to play. This girl is not very tall anyway, but the difference was really marked. I was stunned!

Here are my musings for today.
With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

Back on Track

Hi all.

I must apologise for the lack of any posts over the last few months. It has been a strange time.

From May, when I last posted, schooling has been somewhat bitty- to say the least.
In May, we had the whole house decorated as we are planning on selling it and moving to Devon. It was complete chaos as every room was in disarray.

We went on into June and then it was "summer holidays." My girls seemed to have very little inclination to do very much "schooling" while their friends were off school.

They did a summer workshop with Stagecoach (singing, dancing and drama), which was excellent. The group put on an entire hour long production, starting from nothing, in a week.





We were so proud of them.

Over the course of the summer, we have got a first BUSINESS up and running for both girls.

Jacqueline's business is www.PawingPhotographs.com

She is selling her photographs as prints and also for printing on mugs, t-shirts, mouse mats and we will have calenders shortly.

Stephanie's is www.MathsbySteph.com where she is offering Maths tutoring in person or by email for 11-14 year olds.

We had let things slip a bit, with starting a bit later each day, finishing a bit earlier and having longer breaks.

I came to realise that our family needs a bit of discipline for this homeshooling to work. We ahve designed a timetable with the subjects we are going to be covering.

We have got Maths, English, German, Spanish, History, Geography, Art, ICT, Business, Speech and Drama, Science and Cookery at the moment, with some flexibility.

We are currently working on a film project that we found via www.saftas.org.uk (Staffordshire schools). Unfortunately, as a home school we are not eligible to enter the competition, although the ICT officer is going to assess it for us.

Having got ourselves back on track, we are not much more organised.
We can continue to make this the rewarding experience we started out with.

With abundant blessings.
Amanda Goldston

Chocolate Rules OK!

Thursday 3rd May

This afternoon Stephanie set up a simple EXCEL (ICT) spreadsheet for chocolate analysis. She created all the sections for calories, fat, sugar, price, packaging, company etc and we got started with the experiment.

This is Science at its very best!

When we laid all the chocolate out, I realised I had actually bought rather a lot!



As the bars also came in different sizes, we had to use all of our Maths skills to work out a comparable price per 100g.

We started with White chocolate and dark chocolate. All bars had to be touched, smelt and then we did a blind taste test. When they had finished they entered all their data from their paper sheets into the Excel programme.

When we have done Milk chocolate next week, we will have a fairly definitive guide to which chocolate is best for you.



The kids decided that they did not like dark chocolate. That is a real shame because it means Greg and I have to eat it! What a hard life being a home-educator!!

Friday 4th May

Stephanie made gorgeous CHOCOLATE cookies this afternoon in Home Economics. Yes, there is a theme to this! Good job someone can cook because it is not one of my natural gifts!

Jacqueline has made good progress with her website for her business on Dreamweaver. She has done most of the content. We have got to edit the video content yet for the tutorials. Greg created a beautiful pawprint background for her, which we will be using on the pages.

A brand new week starting 30th April

Monday 30th April

We did not do a great deal today because I had a Tarot course in the morning, Jacqueline had a dentist appointment to have a filling done and then we had an appointment with the bank to open some savings accounts.

This is part of the financial and money management curriculum.

In Languages Stephanie has been working through the Spanish CD and book we have and has been finding basic vocabulary in all 3 languages. For various reasons we have not done much language work with Jacqueline as yet. This seems to be mostly because she is finishing off English stories.

Both did some more work from the Maths workbooks. Stephanie did some more of the English exercises from the SATS book and Jacqueline continued with story writing for English.

She saw an item on the BBC Newsround site about a new planet that has been found, apparently in the Goldilocks Galaxy and scientists are asking for a name for it. She thought of Porridgeopia because Goldilocks ate the bears’ porridge.

She was absolutely delighted that her suggestion was printed on the website.


Tuesday 1st May

Today Jacqueline spent some time on the BBC Bitesize revision site for her age group for Maths. This is a really useful gauge to see what she should have covered and where the gaps are.

She also played on the Aladin Maths Quest DVD, which is really excellent for developing Maths skills.

Jacqueline also came up with some fantastic ideas for stories for English, which she can write over the next few weeks. We finally got her writing competition entries correctly formatted and sent off to “Writing Magazine”.

In the afternoon we decided to have a go at making cocoa pods and beans out of papier mache as part of our chocolate theme. This has got to be ART at its finest- pure creativity and no worry about the mess!

It probably would have helped if we had checked in the craft book to see exactly how we did this, BEFORE we started. We made the glue far too runny and ended up with some very soggy shapes.

Then Stephanie’s balloon burst! This was not good for holding soggy paper together. The sides of her cocoa pod ended up being propped up by bottles of paint, so it is going to end up rather a funny shape- when it eventually dries!!





We found the “Don’t laugh, it’s Rude” book we had started last summer, with all the funny stories we could think of. We went through them all and reminded ourselves of all those brilliantly funny memories.

We decided we would make a point of having a “Daily Laugh” and make sure we put something new in it every day.

Wednesday 2nd May

Today we all overslept, so the poor dog did not get a walk today. It was a bit of a topsy turvy day with swimming lessons ending up being at the end of the day instead of at the beginning.

We took Jacqueline to see the orthodontist today and went shopping afterwards. As it the tradition with going to Solihull to the dentist, we went into the cake shop and enjoyed a huge slice of chocolate cake each.

We put all this down to our research about chocolate. I love this chocolate project because I now have the perfect excuse to buy and eat chocolate- It is for EDUCATIONAL purposes!

More soon
With love and abundant blessings
Amanda Goldston

Week beginning 23rd April 2007

Monday 23rd April

Welcome to the start of a brand new week.

Greg did quite a lot of Maths with both girls over the weekend. Stephanie is now working on the Maths for the next year and Jacqueline is progressing along with the workbooks.

When we came to do things today, it was just a stuck day all round. Both girls got stuck on their Maths. Stephanie did a Media text piece and said she had not covered these kind of texts before.
I am seeing some surprisingly basic gaps in their English grammar. Greg had bought a Jungle Book CD game with English, Maths and Science for 8 year olds. I was amazed at the questions they were asking me about the grammar, which they do not appear to have covered at school.

We went to school for the 2nd of Jacqueline’s Speech and Drama lessons. I stayed in the reception area this time and it was incredibly awkward, both with parents and with girls. I was very glad to get away and I am very glad we only have a couple more of these.

It was a funny day, with not much getting down. I got very frustrated with myself and had a bit of a “I can’t do this home-schooling thing” rant at the kids.

Their reaction stunned me.

They went into one of the rooms, got loads of pieces of card, stuck them all together to make a sign, which said “You are doing great”.

Tuesday 24th April

This started out with another frustrated session from my part. I had wanted to start at 9am to do a proper planned timetable and by the time Jacqueline had got dressed it was nearly 9.20am.

Jacqueline did the Jungle Book DVD for Maths, English and Science (year 3, for 7/8 year olds) and again I was surprised at the simple things she was asking me.

Mrs Morrell came to do a Speech and Drama lesson for Stephanie. That went very well and Stephanie is going to do her exam in a few weeks time.

We then did a proper planed out timetable for the week, with the subjects we are going to do and when are going to do them. I felt much better after that because I feel like we have really got some much clearer direction now.

Jacqueline had a dentist appointment and we walked into town.

I registered us with the Sainsbury’s Active Kids Cooking programme - http://www.activekidsgetcooking.org.uk/activekidsgetcooking/welcome.htm

and they registered us on their database as home educator, which I was delighted with.

The girls have been getting on much better together than they ever did when they were at school. The weather has been really glorious and they have been playing on the trampoline and also playing bat and ball and Frisbee in the garden.

George, the family rottweiler, loves these games and loves to play the part of the fielder. Only trouble is, he gets the ball or the Frisbee and then runs off with it and won’t give it back.

This usually leads to a great game of “chase” around the garden.

Wednesday 25th April

We went out for an early dog walk and then I dropped the girls off at the swimming pool, while I went and did a weekly food shop.

Stephanie found some interactive tests on the Plymouth Maths site and went through most of the Year 8 (12/13 year old) tests. She said she felt comfortable with all the work and felt confident enough to move onto the next year.

We are making food progress with Jacqueline’s Maths and are filling in the gaps as we go along.

After my self doubting rants and the girls adament insistence that they wanted to stay at home and not go back to school, I quizzed them on this.

It seems they feel they are covering about the same work, but the difference is that they do not feel rushed to complete something and then move onto the next thing, whether they have understood it or not.

We can revisit things until they are clear on them. We are also more flexible on time and they can finish things they are interested in and it does not really matter if the next lesson starts a bit later.

We started our History and Geography today. We have chosen the subject of CHOCOLATE to research. It covers a huge amount of things from the Aztecs to the Victorians, as well as climate and culture of the chocolate producing countries, business case studies, fairtrade and lots of interesting TASTING experiments for Science.

They really got stuck into this one and spend the afternoon researching. One of the best recipe sites is here http://www.best-chocolate-recipes-online.com/ from a fellow home-educator.

Thursday 26th April

Jacqueline finished writing her stories for the Writing Magazine competitions and we just need to format those before we can send them off. She wrote to the editor of the magazine and was delighted to receive a personal response from her.

Both have also been looking at submitting reports and photos to the Childrens’ BBC Newsround site. http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/presspack/

We got a huge amount done today. We went through some Science. Stephanie went through the interactive tests on the BBC bitesize site and was delighted that she could do most of the science. With Jacqueline we were using some workbooks. We did about materials, states of matter and evaporation/filtration.

I had a tarot course this morning and while I was doing that, Stephanie had found the words for several key phrases in French, Spanish and German. It is quite interesting learning all 3 languages at the same time.

Friday 27th April

Jacqueline sorted out her photos for her business website today and put them into categories. Stephanie wrote her plan for her tutorial videos to go through with her friend. Jacqueline made some biscuits as part of her Home Economics.

Both have also written out their Ideal Day, which made very interesting reading.

For Music, we thought we would follow the CHOCOLATE theme and so the girls did the Ooommpa Loompa dance from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory DVD.
They even got me doing it!

They have joined Stagecoach for singing, dancing and drama. Tonight was the first one and the girls had a brilliant time. They have already started making some new friends, which is excellent. Stephanie is starting with Sportscoach tomorrow.

We are now 3 weeks into this and I am finally beginning to feel as though we have got some direction and a plan. I just need to apply the same discipline to my business.

More next week.
With love and abundant blessings
Amanda Goldston

Week 2 starting 16th April 2007

Monday 16th April

This was the day all the other children went back to school, so it was the day we needed to start a little more seriously than we had been.

We have been working our way through the Year 6 and Year 8 Maths from the University of Plymouth site. http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/ This is a really fantastic site for Maths resources.

Jacqueline fell asleep in her Maths class. She said the work was hard and she did not understand it.

There seem to be a lot of gaps in their understanding of basic Maths topics and basic parts of English Grammar.

For English, both girls wrote a plan on the “Pros and Cons of Home Schooling”. Stephanie went on to write a well thought out article on the subject, which she then submitted to the BBC Newsround Press Pack site.

In our Business Studies lesson, we did not market research on other products and services that are already available in our markets. There is very little on Photography for Kids and loads on Maths help products, so we looked at what could be our “difference”.

If we are aiming these products at children, then the best approach is going to be the “for kids, by kids” approach.

In PHSE, we looked for some pictures for our Dream Boards and made those. That was a fun activity, as it had lots of sticking and colouring and creativity. We have also created a Reward Star chart and some of the items on the dream board have become reward items, with a number of earned stars attached to them.

Monday was also the first of Jacqueline’s Speech and Drama Lessons back at school. It was not too awkward as I did not really see anyone. The teacher said we could not have Jacqueline’s art work from the walls until then end of term, so we will have to wait for it.

Tuesday 17th April

We are getting into the routine of an hour of Maths and an hour of English each morning now. The SATs book for English we bought for Stephanie is proving very useful, although it is highlighting all the things she should be competent with – and isn’t. Quite worrying really.

We introduced a combination of Art and English. Jacqueline suggested we design and make a monster, which we could then write about for English. We used some simple creative mind mapping with coloured pens to describe the character traits of the monsters, where it lives, what it eats, who it’s friends are and also the nicest and nastiest thing it has done.

We had great fun making the monsters, with the girls thinking up some quite innovative art techniques.

We had also fitted in swimming and a dog walk, so we all did plenty of P.E. The dog has been for more walks in the last 3 weeks than I think he has ever done.

Wednesday 18th April

We got out with the dog first thing in the morning. That seems to work best, as we have then got the rest of the day for other things. It is a bit of a struggle dragging ourselves out of bed at 7am, but it is still later than we were getting up for school.

In English today, the girls wrote a description of their monsters and Jacqueline wrote a couple of short stories bout the escapades of her monster.

Stephanie showed Jacqueline how to resize some of her pictures in photoshop, so she can put them on her website, so that is ICT.

Today was a money earning day for the girls. We worked out what I would pay them for certain jobs, such as hovering, ironing their clothes, tidying their rooms and cleaning the cars. The next thing was they decided they would clean the car and their was suddenly a long hose trailing through the house from the kitchen sink to the car outside.

We could not get the hose fitting to stay on the end of the hose, so there was water everywhere. They ended up by squeezing the end of the house to spray the water over the car. This obviously meant that everything- including themselves- got sprayed.

It was well worth £2.00 each to see the happy, smiling faces. I am in the process of showing them a basic accounts set up, so they can keep track of their money.

Thursday 19th April.

With Maths we have continued working through the workbooks and worksheets to make sure they have covered everything they need to do, so we can move on to more challenging material.

In PHSE we created an “I am “ chart with all the wonderful characteristics about ourselves and things we are good at.

We did some Languages work today for the first time. We decided to learn French, German and Spanish at the same time. My Spanish is a bit rusty, but we did very well in the end. We did basic greetings in all 3 languages.

The girls had great fun with the “cht” sound in German as in Nacht, as this is a very throaty sound and is almost like you a lion roaring. The Spanish “ç” sound, , which is a “th “ sound. That really sounds and looks like you are spitting.

Friday 20th April

We did quite a lot on Business today. The girls looked at what they had done so far and what steps need to be taken still to launch the sites. Both Jacqueline and Stephanie are making excellent progress with this.

Both have set up their accounts to keep track of their money. Stephanie is quite a whizz on Excel and I showed Jacqueline how to use Quicken.

The weeks are flying past now.
I am really enjoying having them at home.
Until next time. With love and abundant blessings
Amanda Goldston

Friday 13th April

Friday 13th April

Today we had a bit of a slow start to the day. The girls did not get up until 9am and nor did the dog!

Stephanie finished her Devon diary, although she clearly was not very enthusiastic over it. As she will need a GCSE in English to get into University, we need to find things that she is interested in and will write about.

Jacqueline happily finished her diary and illustrated it with lots of pictures from the brochures.

Stephanie did some of the Year 1 worksheets she had printed off and was both frustrated and surprised to find there were things in there that she did not really understand. I think it is just expressed in a new and different way.

Jacqueline did some of the Year 2 sheets and then came across things she was not sure of. Greg is going to help her over the weekend.

After lunch was business and website time. Jacqueline created some new pages and created the table to put the content into. She then went through the pages and put in notes about the content that is going into each page.



Next steps are to create the written content, manipulate and insert the images and then get things such as an autoresponder and shopping cart set up for her.

Stephanie got out the pad and pens and started planning her site. I asked her the same questions based on:

Why- are you doing this? Goals?
What is it? What does the project consist of?
What is on the site? What is free and what is chargeable?
When will it be ready by?
Who is it aimed at?
Where will you be selling your products?
How will you reach those people?

Literary aside here- with thanks to Rudyard Kipling for the 6 honest serving men.



Stephanie got on well with this. She is also pleased that her friend from school is prepared to act as a guinea pig for the project.

Stephanie then started to think about topics they had covered in Year 8.

We made good progress with this and both girls seemed to really enjoy the activities today. We have got quite a list of things we need from Greg over the weekend in terms of image manipulation and Maths.

All in all a good first week.

With love and abundant blessings

Amanda Goldston

Rest of week 1

Wednesday 11th April

I was expecting to do a Tarot course and have a meeting today, so we arranged for the girls to be out most of the day. They walked over to the Leisure centre this morning and went swimming, so that covered PE.

When they came back, Jacqueline did some more of her Devon diary. She seemed much more interested in the events of last Tuesday, when we visited the Glenn Lyn Gorge and saw the money tree. She wrote a lot more than she did yesterday. She cut out some pictures from the leaflets and found some other pictures of the Lynmouth Flood on the Internet.

Stephanie did not progress as well because she wanted to use some of Greg’s photos to illustrate her writing and did not know where to find them on the computer.

Greg is going to show me some basic image techniques in Photoshop, so I can teach the girls how to manipulate their images for their writing and also for their web pages.

With the Maths, Stephanie printed off some more sheets from the Exeter University site. Today’s module was on Algebra, which she did at the end of last term at school.

She got very frustrated because the information was presented in a different way than she had seen before and she felt she could not do the exercises. When Greg came home, he explained it to her and she felt much happier.

We have decided to go right through this Maths programme from the very beginning, which is Maths for 5 and 6 year olds. Stephanie has printed off loads of sheets and the girls are going to work through it together.

As the programme builds on itself, we should be able to highlight any gaps of things they have not covered- or not covered in any great depth.

With Jacqueline I tried to follow the rest of the lesson plan about units, tens and hundreds and it confused me. So I found her some division practice to do in one of the old, incomplete workbooks.

We will be working through all of those in due course.

Both girls worked solidly for a couple of hours and then went to the cinema to watch the film, “Meet the Robinsons”. English work for tomorrow will be to write a film review and also to continue with the diary from last week.

We did not manage to get out with the dog today , so he was a bit of a grumpy grouch

Thursday 12th April

It is becoming clearer by the minute where my children’s passions lie and it is not really in the conventional academic subjects.

Jacqueline wrote about 5 lines on her English and filled the rest out with copies from the guide books of the places we had visited. Stephanie wrote a couple of lines about her holiday in Devon last week. She is still on Monday!

Stephanie had printed off a whole load of practice work from the Maths section on the Exeter University project. As she had struggled a bit with the Year 8 work and Jacqueline had found the Year 6 work challenging, we decided to start from the beginning.

Stephanie printed off heaps of sheets from Year 1 (5/6 year olds) and Year (6/7 year olds). She completed a bit section of the Year 2 work, although she told me there were things she was unsure of.

Jacqueline did a few sheets of the Year 2 work and got stuck on equations with “greater then” “less than” and “equal to”. It turns out she had done that after Christmas in Year 6. Clearly not paying much attention at the time!

The kids interest level perked up considerably when we started on their business plans.

Jacqueline was itching to start building her website. Patience is not her strong point!

I asked her a few questions about her business including:

What were her goals for it?
What is her business about?
Who is it aimed at?
How is she going to reach those people?
What will on her site that is free? What will be chargeable?

To the question, “What will her business look like when it is finished?” I got the answer of “A website!”

Perhaps I need to review the coaching questions!

Once we had done this, we had a pretty good idea of the answers to those questions and what is going to appear on each page, as well as the action steps Jacqueline, me and Greg need to take to get it up and running.

Stephanie made a start on her list of things she knows how to do and things she loves to do.

We took the dog for a walk and used that time to discuss their businesses.

When we came back I started to show Jacqueline how to build her site in Dreamweaver. By the time we finished, we had the outline of the site with the basic pages.

Then she told me that she did not think we were progressing very fast ! Talk about wanting it done yesterday!

Nearly at the end of week 1
With love and abundant blessings
Amanda Goldston

1st proper day of homeschooling

Hi all

Tuesday 10th April.

This was our first official day of homeschooling. I wrote a plan out for the day which consisted of English, Maths, ICT/PHSE, Languages and PE for both girls.

Jacqueline (10) wrote the first part of her diary from our holiday last. She wrote a page and said she did not want to want to do any more and did not want to put in any pictures.

She told me that Monday of last week was the most boring day for her, which greatly surprised me. She spent about 40 minutes on that.

She has got all her books organised into subjects. This really is starting out as school at home. Next we did some Maths.

I have got a really good site, which is part of Exeter University, which has Maths activities and lesson plans for every year group.

Again we did about 45 minutes on units, tens, hundreds and thousands. I could tell when she had done enough as she was starting to get bored and fidgety.

I can quite understand what the problem has been at school. I could never figure out why the teachers said she seemed to start out with good understanding and got all the first part of the lesson right and then started to get it all wrong.

Now I understand what is happening. She has a razor sharp brain and has grasped the concepts. She only needs to do a few examples before she has GOT it and needs to move onto something else.

In the afternoon I got Jacqueline to write a list of the things she KNOWS something about and the things she LOVES to do. This came under PHSE (personal, health and social education) but it is also a great start for ideas for her website business.

She has settled on her first business. She wants to sell her photography pictures and teach kids how to become fantastic photographers. She has already done an outline of what she wants her website to look like.

I need to teach her to use Dreamweaver to build her site and also to get to grips with the coding behind the payment processor, so we can offer a choice of pictures and sizes.

We also managed to walk the dog (PE), go food shopping and change Jacqueline’s library books.

Stephanie (13) got off to a great start as well. From the Maths site, we downloaded a module on Factors and Perfect Numbers.

This is all Chinese to me at the moment but I have a feeling I am going to be getting up to speed on Maths very quickly.

She created herself an Excel spreadsheet to solve the problems (ICT and Initiative)

She happily spent a couple of hours on this – and discovered the answers provided had some flaws in them- and finished it off this evening. Her dad, the mathematician, checked it and give it his seal of approval.

I wrote out the shopping list in English and Stephanie then found pictures for all the items and found all the words, with the appropriate genders, in French and German.

She wants to learn both languages and Spanish. Jacqueline just wants to do Spanish.

We had done a similar exercise a few weeks ago, when Stephanie was off school and I was delighted that she had remembered quite a few of the words in both languages, particularly the fruit! That was very encouraging.

All in all we had a very good day. I have learnt a lot about my girls today. They are very different personalities with very different working styles.

Stephanie will happily work at something for hours, whilst Jacqueline needs everything to be done in quick, short bursts.

Stephanie did not get around to writing her English diary, however she read mine and pointed out all the grammar and spelling mistakes. I need to correct all that before I post it to my blog.

Who is teaching who in this house?

With love and abundant blessings
Amanda Goldston

History, Geography and P.E.

Tuesday 3rd April

Today, we went to Lynmouth, which is the village by the sea that was devastated by a huge flood in 1952. We walked up through the river valley, through a place called the Glen Lynn Gorge.

It is a fascinating place because it is a source of considerable renewable hydro electricity. There are loads of places to play with water pumps and obviously to squirt dad with water!!

You can see the levels of water in the 1952 flood. They reckon that more water came down that gorge in one night in 1952, than flows down the Thames normally in 3 months.

We walked up to Hydro electric pump which currently produces around 1500 kw/h of electricity per year- enough for over 200 homes or to power a small factory for a year.

During the flood of 1952 there was so much water that it came over the top of the hill in the background. This is the current hydro-electric pump.

There was also loads of stuff about water power in their museum as well as a replica of the sister lifeboat of the Louisa, which was taken by road over 20 miles in 1899 to launch from Porlock.

Lynton and Lynmouth are so full of History that you could easily spend hours here.

Lynmouth is also an excellent place to study renewable energy because they also have a wave-power machine in the Bristol Channel which also generates a lot of electricity.

Both the wave-power generator and the Glen Lyn Gorge are connected to the National Grid and supply constant electricity.

We also found some money trees. Yes, money really does grow on trees! We put some coins in the tree and gave it a good RUB for plenty of abundance and prosperity.

Wednesday 4th April

This was a bit of a peculiar day for me because it was a year ago today when our business was shut down and we set off down the financial slippery slope, which eventually brought us to the point of considering home schooling.

We met up with my Mum and her husband today and went to explore some of the fascinating little coves and beaches along the North Devon Atlantic Coast.

From a geological point of view, North Devon is very interesting because some of the rock formations are incredibly ancient. You can still see how the land moved thousands of years ago and to some extent how it is still moving today.

We went to Speke’s Mill beach, which has one of the longest waterfalls in the area. It was OK walking down to the beach, but going back up made me realise just how unfit I am. Hopefully we will start to get a bit fitter with more hill climbing.

After lunch we went to Hartland Abbey, which was the last of the Abbeys dissolved by Henry VIII in the 16th century. The house has been extensively rebuilt and there is fascinating local history across many centuries. From that time, it has never been sold and has just been passed down through the families.

It was also very interesting for Mum because she works at Grenville College school in Bideford and the Stucley family, who own Harland Abbey, also had a lot to do with the Grenville family, who owned the buildings making up Grenville College.

There is huge amounts of History here, as the Grenville family were also part of the war against the Spanish Armada under the Reign of Elizabeth 1.

Thursday 5th April

Today we went to Barnstaple, which is a thriving local market town. Barnstaple has a huge amount of history. It has 2 museums and we went in one last time we were here and the other one today. The history of Barnstaple goes right back to the Celts and Saxons and was a thriving silver minting centre.

Trade thrived here until the battles between the cavaliers and roundheads in the late 1600s when everyone was so busy fighting each other, that trade got neglected and the river then silted up so much that the ships could no longer get to the harbour.

The other museum was just as interesting, as there are relics going back to the time of the dinosaurs.

After that we had our usual trip to the local bookshop and Jacqueline emerged with 3 new books and Stephanie with 2 books. I fall for that every time!

In the afternoon, we went to the chocolate museum, theatre and shop in Ilfracombe. This was a fascinating place, with loads of posters all round the walls telling you why chocolate is most definitely VERY GOOD for you.

The kids have decided that CHOCOLATE would be a good project to do. It covers History, Geography, Manufacturing , Business, Fairtrade, Testing (Science) and Maths – working out how much chocolate you can eat before you are sick!!

On Thursday evening we went to the Valley of Rocks to take pictures of the Sunset. This is also a fascinating place, as it was believed to be formed during the Ice Age. It is probably one of the most southerly examples of Ice age formation that there is.

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There is also a lot of history and legends around the area. The goats have also been there since anyone can remember.

Jacqueline’s picture of the Sunset was definitely one of the best. Greg has got some serious competition coming along now!


Sunset in the Valley of Rocks, taken by Jacqueline


Friday 6th April

Today we met up with Mum again and went to the swimming pool at Bude on the North Cornwall coast.. Greg went in the water with the girls. Afterwards we walked along the beach at Bude and had an ice cream.

Easter weekend

On Saturday we came home, Sunday we pottered about and on Monday Greg took the girls to see Grandma and Grandad in Manchester. They have got a semblance of a timetable ready to begin proper schooling tomorrow.

See you soon

With love and abundant blessings

Amanda Goldston

Devon Educational Holiday

Sunday 1st April

We travelled to Devon today and got to the cottage at about 5pm. Greg and the girls watched TV and I went for a walk in the Valley of the Rocks. It was lovely. I climbed up on Castle Rock and watched the Sunset from the other side of the rocks than where we usually sit.

Monday 2nd April

We went to Ilfracombe today. I was determined to find the “Cairn” Nature Reserve, where the famous author James Allen used to go for his morning meditation when he lived in Ilfracombe between 1905 and 1912. He had written most of his books, including “As a Man Thinketh” after meditating at sunrise on the top of the hill.

When we found it, there were a choice of 3 paths- 2 which gently wound up the side of the hill or the 3rd, which was a vertical set of steps- straight right up from bottom to top! Guess which one we took! Yes, mad, unfit, un-warmed up Goldston family went straight up the steps.

Jacqueline was the fittest and got to the top very quickly. Me, Greg and Stephanie, who are not so fit, huffed and puffed our way to the top and flaked out in a heap on the bench at the top.

So far we have covered PE, History and Geography today. It is probably a good idea to look at the contours of the map before we do that again!

This is Stephanie and Jacqueline doing Morning Meditation at the top of the hill.

On the way back down, Stephanie and I went one way and Greg and Jacqueline went the other. We were trying to find the old railway line.

We ended up with a new topic- “Orienteering by Intuition”. In other words, we got lost and really needed to “follow our noses”.

After that we went into the Ilfracombe museum, which was a fascinating place. We spent more time in there than we have ever done in a museum before.

Later in the day we went to Woolacombe beach for sunset photographs for Greg. We had great fun burying each other in the sand and building sandcastles.

Jacqueline is keen to develop her photographic skills and has taken some superb photos.

We have had a few hairy, scary moments where she has followed Greg into places that are really not very safe for a child to go. Greg has also had a couple of severe tellings-off over this subject.

Jacqueline took this picture of her Dad, with one foot in the water and waiting for the perfect moment. Is it a blessing or a curse to a have a child with a camera in tow?

And all that in just the first day!
With love and abundant blessings
Amanda Goldston

1st week of School Holidays

Monday 26th March.

The first thing we did was enter the receipts for the business accounts, which only ended up taking an hour. We then planned painting the dining room. I think this is going to have to be very led by me for the time being and I need to plan out their days for them.

We went and bought the cloths to cover the furniture and that was as far as we got because it was getting late in the day and I did not wan to start painting and have the doors open all evening. Jacqueline got a heap of books out of the library, mostly Enid Blyton school stories.

Whenever I have caught glimpses of programmes on the TV, they seem to be showing children in school.- Hmm, is someone trying to tell me something?

We had quite a physically fit day. We started out just before lunch by doing a warm up dance to “Summer of 69” and then did some yoga stretching animals. In the afternoon we went for a walk with the dog around the fields.

Once we start regular activities, hopefully that will then lead them into exploring things of their own and really developing their own interests.

We measured the dining room ready for painting. We then measured Jacqueline and discovered she is already 155cm or 5’2”. At 10 going on 11 years old, she is only 4 ½” shorter than me!


Tuesday 27th March 2007

We got up a bit earlier this morning, 9am instead of 10am. We have now started having breakfast together, which is a great habit to get into and one we never really managed before. It was a dull, misty, overcast day so did not start painting the back dining hall.

Everyone seemed tired today, so we did not do very much. The kids played on the computer and watched TV. Stephanie looked on TV to see if there were any interesting educational programmes they could watch and there weren’t any. Stephanie seems to be really enjoying the Little Mermaid films at the moment.

We got out for a walk again with the dog this afternoon. It was a bit of a sulky, stompy walk. I ended up shouting at Jacqueline and she ran off. Not a good start.

Things picked up when we got home. The girls thought of some of the topics they would like to explore in North Devon. There are so many things to do with history, geography, science and nature in that area that we could spend months there and still not cover it all.

We have decided to properly start home schooling when we come back after Easter. That will also give me some time to find some Maths and English work for them.

I think they need to keep a journal and a scrapbook of everything we have done in Devon, to include written work and photographs.

I will get in touch with the LEA in Staffordshire after Easter about them being home-schooled.


Wednesday 28th March

I got up for about 8am, but the kids did not emerge until around 11-11.30am. They must have been shattered. Perhaps it was all the walking.

We went have a skin care analysis for Stephanie as part of her birthday present. The therapist said she thought Stephanie might have digestive disorders and possibly a wheat allergy or stress, judging by where the spots were on her face. We need to look into that.

When we got back we had some lunch and then got to work painting the dining room. It was really terrific fun. The kids did most of the walls with Magnolia paint, which is water based and then I did the woodwork with the gloss paint.

They had a great time. Only thing is, we did not think to look for the camera to take any pictures until we had nearly finished. They did a really good job. After baths all round, we took the dog on a long walk and walked all round the 2nd meadow, as we had promised Jacqueline we would.

We got back and had tea. We are doing very well so far. We have had very few cross words and there has been very little falling-out between the girls.


Thursday 29th March

The kids did not do very much today. They watched TV most of the day. It was a dull day. I had my Tarot course in the morning, where I was teaching a lady to read the cards and I had a coaching call in the afternoon. The girls went into town to do some shopping.

Friday 30th March 2007

Jacqueline went to play with her friend, Tilly, from school and I had a long chat with her mum over a cup of tea while Stephanie stayed in bed until about 11am.

When we got back, we planned out some subjects to cover while we are away on holiday in Devon next week. It looks like everything we do is going to be a very interesting educational experience.

More soon
With love and abundant blessings
Amanda

Getting Started

We have started the Home schooling at the start of school holidays, so at the moment nothing much has changed from before.

Both Stephanie and Jacqueline have planned themselves out a timetable, including setting up and running their own profiable online businesses.

Aims:

My aim is to make everything we do an educational experience.
The more we can encourage their enquiring minds the better.

To develop well rounded, independent, questioning, free-thinking young women who can pursue their own interests

To make education a FUN, happy experience that is practical

To encourage the girls towards their personal dreams

I will shortly be posting a diary of our experiences as we get started properly.

Catch up soon
With love and abundant blessings
Amanda Goldston

Journey into Home Schooling begins

Home Schooling diary

Friday 23rd March 2007

This was the last day of formal schooling for the girls and it was a strange one.

Stephanie came home with loads of goodbye presents from her friends and birthday cards because that was also her birthday.

Jacqueline came home really upset because several of her friends had promised her a leaving present and none of them actually gave her one.

It was very strange and we even got an end of term envelope with all the stuff for next term.
It was almost as if they were not even leaving.

Part of me is really looking forward to this and another part is thinking what on earth do I do wit them at home all day?
When do we get started? Do I give them a bit of a break for a couple of weeks?
How much structure do we put into it?

I have found loads of resources to use in a classroom type situation. T
he kids have also done themselves a timetable.

Jacqueline’s is much like she had at school, but a shorter day and Stephanie’s is a bit more fluid. I think we will probably start properly the week after our holiday when Greg goes back to work.

It amazes me how quickly this has all happened.

From going back to school on 16th February to a month later being home schooled.
What a change!
More on the reasons behind it another day!

As I look at it now, I realise it was the best thing that could have happened.
It is a golden opportunity for our family to really grow together and for the children to learn what they would like to learn in a way that suits them.

Over the weekend Jacqueline, my youngest, has found herself some other friends on MSN who are home schooled so that has made her feel better.

It is a learning experience for all of us.

I would be delighted to hear of any of your experiences of home schooling. I would also love to connect with people who homne school their children.

With love and abundant blessings
Amanda Goldston