25th September 2020

 I feel so much more confident after this week. 

Archie had his third piano lesson and came out telling me how much he was enjoying it and that he really liked his teacher because she's so nice and fun. I sent her a message to tell her what Archie had said, and she said he was really great to teach and 'really understands music'. 

We also attended our first Science workshop, which is run by a Science teacher (of 25 years) who also home educated his two sons. One is at uni now and one has just started 6th form. It was at his house and he had experiments set up in each room downstairs. 

Archie got to:

• use magnifying glasses to project images onto a piece of paper to find the focal distance
• use a microscope and look at rabbit spinal cells and pine stem cells
• wiring using different materials to determine whether they were conductors or not
• crushed a drinks can by heating up water inside it and plunging it into cold water once it had turned to steam

He also made friends with four new children, one of which he really liked (J). And I got to speak to his Mum who is an experienced home edder (her eldest is 15 and just started an art course at junior college). 

I didn't realise how much I needed it! I felt so reassured that we were doing the 'right thing' and she told me about other groups that happen in the area too. Archie said he'll go to American Football if J does! I am so impressed. 

He was so tired before we went and he refused at first, but he said he was so glad he did go because he would have missed out otherwise. 

We also went for brunch together and talked about how things were going. Archie said he still feels like he's not doing enough, but that he also doesn't want to do anything either. I said I think that's normal, and eventually he will 'de-school' and discover what he is passionate about (as well as gaming!). 

I also had the idea that he could perhaps follow the Scouts badge awards without actually joining the Scouts (it's not for him). We had a look on the website and I printed a couple of the badges - the Skills Challenge and the Creative Challenge. Hopefully that might provide some gentle structure and give us some stuff to do when the weather isn't great. 

We also received a letter from 'What's in the Box'. A local artist put a call out for families to help program a robot so we completed the first stage, which is answering some questions in a manual, and we will post that back this week. It got Archie thinking about what it means to be helpful which was interesting. 

Archie is still really enjoying gaming, cooking and just having a chat about anything and everything.