Greetings and a short explanation

Hello from Team Pattisson.

This is Day 1 of our home-school trial.

Francesca is 5 and has already completed her Reception year at school. She totally loved it and she made loads of academic progress but...  I miss her.

For lots of reasons, that I'll probably go into later, I'm rekindling my long-held desire to home educate.

I'm scared though. I don't want to be too hasty in puling her out of school, loosing her school place in the process, only to discover that home educating really isn't for us.

I wish I could ask her opinion. I do ask her opinion, in fact, and she's very enthusiastic about the idea,  but I'm all too aware that neither she nor I really know what we're enthusing about.

Hence the trial.

It's the school holidays, so we have plenty of time to test out our home education process.

Francesca has had one week off school already, doing 'normal' holiday things (and resting - school left her pretty exhausted).

Now we're going to take the next three to four weeks and act as if we were really home schooling.

I have lots of concerns - mainly how I am going to cope with the little siblings, keeping all three children happily occupied whilst also ensuring that Francesca gets enough academic challenge. Later, of course, I'll have to make sure that all three get the right level of challenge and enough attention to sustain their education.

I'm quite prepared to dedicate my time to this but, on the other hand, I have my own projects to work on - my Freshly Baked bread website, not to mention my housework. I need to know whether the novelty will wear off and I'll wish I could just send them all out to school and have my time to myself.

This blog is to record what we do each day and how it works out.

It's for my husband, so that he can help me to evaluate the success of the trial and conclude whether or not to abandon real school in September.

It's for my parents who are enthusiastic supporters of all my trials and tribulations.

And it's for my curious friends who think I'm mad, but are never the less curious to discover what on Earth I'm up to.

So, home schooling, day by day. This is what we did...

PS I'm not going to have much time for editing posts and polishing prose so please excuse the hurried style. It's a log of events, not an essay.