Our home ed days have changed dramatically since we first started. As I gained confidence in what I was doing and my son gained confidence in what he was learning our days shifted to a more relaxed approach. Now he is 15 a lot of his learning is self led ready to start a course at the Open University next year.

7am – 10.30am Most days while we are up early it can take a while to get going. My son will normally stay in bed for an hour or so but during this time he will be on YouTube watching something historical he’s interested in at the time. Currently after our trip to Denmark he is watching videos on how the excavation process of Viking burial shop occurs. From this he proceeded to listen and watch more on the Norwegian institute for cultural heritage research and how they and other institutes collaborate together for such discoveries. Then its up and getting dressed for the day and deciding what to have for breakfasts. Some days he will look up online and we will have a good at a new recipe for breakfast.

10.30 – 11.30 This is the time when he’s ready to sit down and do some deep diving. Currently he is studying the Iliad through a free course with the Open Uni. As some of it can be a little tricky, he spends some time googling for more information around the subject. Today its listening to it in ancient Greek and comparing it to rap music and Real Slim Shady and his work.

11-12 – Some days we have his dyslexia tutor during this hour, and they adore each other. The hour is spent full of giggles and laughter and deep discovering while he learns different styles of English writing and how to use various documents and websites for information and how to trust them.

11.30-12.30 – If we don’t have tutor we’re normally at this time walking the dogs. While we walk, we often talk about what’s been discovered and learnt that morning and I ended up finding out a ton of information I have never known before. I often feel that it has got to point where he has become the teacher and I the student! Today we had to google ALOT on the walk as we were watching ants collect and deliver leaves down their nest – the nest is huge! At least 10 metres!

12.30 – 1.30 – Lunch and chill out!

1.30 – 3.00 – Life skills! During this time life skills are learnt whether its mending clothes, making clothes, baking, looking after cars or gardening.

3.30 – 4.30 – Eldest is around at this time and takes him under his wing to do science experiments. Today we’re learning Physics and it’s a density tower being explored. Then of course being teens they have to up the anti and an effervescent tablet is put in the “tower” and lo behold we have a lava lamp! (And a mess but hey who cares?!) Yesterday is was Maths and playing games while learning probability maths techniques and advancing our play strategy with this!

4.30 – 6.00 Popped to a local museum who was having a viking day and trialed some of the “Viking Skills”

6pm-7.00pm – Supper time and a lot of chatter from everyone about what’s been happening that day.

7.00 – 8.30 – Family time! On a Monday this coding lessons with his dad but the rest of week we are knee deep in board games. Our favourites at the moment are Catalan, the Shakespeare Game, Herd mentality or Smugglers.   

8.30 – Again a chill out time and mooch in front of the TV. Current obsessions are The Detectorists and Ghosts – We have even been forced to watch Ghosts in French with english subtitles. Amazingly has helped all of our French.

This though is just one day. Some days we might do more learning, we cover maths most days in various games, Thursday we have Horse Riding, other days we might head swimming. Obviously as well we will do trips, a day at museum, exploring the houses of parliaments, home ed day at a local park. No day is the same for us and a lot of our learning looks like play. We have friends who have completely different styles of learning, some are best learning from textbooks and they love catching up and sharing the differences they have learnt. Others will be learning completely differently and cant wait to show their latest projects!