Friday 18 December 2009

It's all over

When I was one

I ate a bun

The day I went to sea

Just over a year ago, I found a scrap of paper on which The Kid had written these lyrics, the beginning of a song she liked. Only one word was spelled correctly. By the time she started school in September, I think she could probably have done it with just one word spelled wrong. She never had a spelling lesson; she just read and read, and wrote blogs on behalf of her teddy bear.

Yesterday The Kid participated in a qualifying event for a national quiz championship. She came home very excited, having qualified to represent the school. Of course, she'll be long gone by January and someone else will take her place at the area heat, but oddly that doesn't seem to bother her. She told me a few of the questions.

Bizarrely, one of her successes was spelling "cauliflower" correctly. I was flabbergasted: she's not a very advanced speller yet. "Cauliflower"?? It turns out that she has been reading her dad's seed catalogues which he keeps beside the toilet. As for those school spelling lists over which she toils every week, usually scoring 100%... those spellings have not stuck in her mind at all. What she learns one week is forgotten the next, and when writing up her homework she must ask me how to spell words which I know she "learned" for a spelling test just a week or two ago.

So, there's no hesitation about leaving school on her part or mine. Small Fry, naturally, is over the moon: "Mousie NOT go a mill!" And home ed friends are delighted that their friend is once again free to play with them.

One legacy of this term at school is a mountain of white polo shirts and t-shirts. Washing them for the last time, I look forward to Christmas. The Kid will be receiving dyes and fabric pens with which to home eddify these uniform items. A colourful future beckons. I can't wait.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for writing this blog. It was interesting and informative. I'm glad your daughter realises the benefits of home education.
    Blessings
    Patricia Hope

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