The Ups and Downs of Home Educating in 2021

• 2021 has been an unusual year for all of us and home educators are no exception. There is a bit of a folk tale going around that home educators have been affected less by lockdown than everyone else; after all, don't their children stay at home anyway? Not completely true!

Anyway, the ups...

• Lockdown was difficult but it has been a time to appreciate real friends. Those people who were willing to meet in parks or gardens on cold, wet days. The people who sent WhatsApps to keep in touch. It turns out that many of these are from the home education community and I am very thankful for them.
• Our home education group which has had to meet partly online; partly outside-sometimes in rather interesting weather conditions and more recently, inside but we have met! 
• It also turns out that there are new home educators. This has led to an online meeting about setting up new groups and a new Christian home education group starting. 
• Free online resources. This year, we have particularly used Corbett maths, Maths Genie, FreeScienceLessons and Malmesbury education.
• We have continued morning time with some books which worked well
  
  and others which weren't so popular but provoked a fair amount of discussion. Oliver Twist definitely fell into this category.
• Dreaming Spires history course, Longbows and Roses for my youngest. I have wondered about using Dreaming Spires before but this summer with a child who wanted to learn more history and wasn't ready for a GCSE course, we registered. I  must say that this was with some trepidation. The workload is quite heavy and it was either going to be a bit of a disaster or would feed his history interest. Anyway, he is loving the course and we have worked out a plan for the week so that we can fit in the reading, watching and writing.
  
  
  

And the downs...

• It hasn't been the easiest year. We all missed seeing friends during lockdown. 
• Catching Covid over the summer meant that we went into the Autumn term tired.  

We look to 2022 knowing that hitherto has the Lord helped us. 

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