Newcastle Photographer and Content Creator, Mandy Charlton, Always on a quest for adventure, often seen on buses, trains and planes. On a quest to be happier and healthier. Lives in Newcastle with her 3 cats, Iris, Maggie and Arthur. Loves good vibes, musicals and cakes. Full time professional wedding photographer in the north east of england alongside content creator on Tiktok, Instagram and Facebook

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Educating Looby, 3 months in...

Looby building a gingerbread house from the Biscuiteers as part of her home education, Mandy Charlton, Photographer, Writer, Blogger

Christmas days are magical days, especially when it snows prior to the big day, it really makes me feel so much more festive, I think watching the snow fall when you are cosy and warm and everywhere is twinkly and bright, it's my nirvana, couple that with cuddles from Holly Bobbins and a big cup of hot chocolate topped with squirty cream and marshmallows and it's the nearest thing I think I'll get to absolute perfection.

This year has been my favourite countdown to Christmas for as long as I can remember because Looby has been here and we've really been able to embrace the whole countdown from decorating our house together which took many days to building (or trying to build) an epic Gingerbread house from our friends at Biscuiteers.



Let me just say now that Looby and I shall not be entering into any professional competitions anytime soon, it took 3 people to secure the sides of the house so that the walls didn't fall in whilst the roof had to be held on for 5 minutes.  Some people are ace builders of Gingerbread houses, I can say now, I am not one of them but we did end up with lots of tasty sugary icing dowsed gingerbread and the house is actually standing this morning so I think we've achieved our goal.

Just as we were erecting our gingerbread structure another heavy snow shower happened, now I should just say that the rest of the country have had snow days for the last couple of days whilst we in Newcastle have had approximately 2 heavy showers so I was a little shocked when I saw Looby and her friend wheeling 2 major parts of a snowman up our path and we have a chubby short snowman now sitting outside of our door.


So that's been this weeks quotient of art covered and Looby is also working on a horse related project about stabling and looking after a horse which her dad set her and as I write this she's doing 2 hours of science with her tutor after a morning of maths with her tutor, she's exactly where she needs to be with her educational level and the best thing for me to see is just how keen she is to learn just because no one is telling her that she has to.  I think the best and biggest difference about home ed to traditional education is that we are constantly learning, "school" never stops, she'll be writing a blog post at 10 in the evening or we'll be off doing grocery shopping in the mornings where she'll have a shopping list or where she'll work out what we need to purchase for recipes and then we cook together though I must admit, she's not the biggest fan of cooking or of cookery programmes but I feel she'll have enough skills to look after herself when she eventually does leave home one day.

Home education isn't a cheap fix, it requires time, patience and the financial ability to be able to pay for tutors and activities but it's 100% worth it to see how happy she is.  There are some days where I want to teach her things which she doesn't want to know or she just isn't interested in and that can be frustrating but we spend very little time arguing and I have nothing but appreciation for the time we get to spend with each other.

In January we're meeting with the representative from the local education authority and hopefully they're going to give us their blessing that we are doing exactly the things we need to do but you know what?  I have no doubt that it will all be fine because what I have now, is a confident unicorn who is bright and shiny and happier than she ever was, with home education, Looby really has come into her own.
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