Science experiments

Today we went to a home educators meet up. There are always various things going on around the country, either workshops, lectures or get togethers with other home educating families. It's always good to meet up with others and discuss how they are going about things and for the children to meet up as well. As Ireland is not densely populated you often have to travel a bit in order to get a group together especially if you are out in the country like we are. These groups also provide invaluable support as we are in the minority choosing to educate our children outside of school. Indeed even our own extended family find it hard to be supportive as it is outside of their experience.

As we have been home educating for a couple of years now we know quite a few families and the children run off with their friends when we go to anything. One of the good things about unschooled children is that they are not worried about aligning themselves only with aged matched peers and are inclusive of children of all ages. Its lovely watching a group of teenagers chatting together with one of them holding a toddler or seeing a group running around with the older ones minding the younger ones. The older children get to be mindful of the needs of others and to be responsible while the younger ones learn so much by being with those older.

Today the children were making geometric shapes and then dipping them in a bucket of soapy water (it was found that shower gel works much better than washing up liquid!) to create bubbles that linked up so they were learning about geometry and surface tension.

Beth managed to have a square bubble in the middle of her cube. The black nail varnish is the remnants of Halloween!