Epsom & Sutton Home Education Group

Recent group meetings

2010-07-15T01:29:00.000-07:00

Since we finished the Rainbow Light Project we've been lucky enough to have a huge stream of excellent speakers at group meetings, keeping the children interested in a wide variety of topics.

Firstly, we've had Sally from Benjamin Franklin House doing an excellent series of 3 sessions on different aspects of science with us. Despite the talks being more aimed at the older children, many of the 5s and over have been spellbound and fascinated too.

Then we had James from Medecins Sans Frontieres talking about the history of the MSF, the Red Cross and other aid agencies who do medical and humanitarian work in war-zones. We were a little twitchy before the talk, about how he would put this across sensitively for his young audience, but he was an excellent speaker who managed to engage the children and tell them the honest situation but never overwhelming or upsetting them.

We've also had a visit from one of the coaches from AFC Wimbledon who did a long and active football session on a very hot day until everyone was beetroot red and had steam coming out of their ears!

We then had another group visit to Horton Park Children's Farm - their group price is a huge bargain and the children thoroughly enjoy the free tractor ride which is part of the price, as well as the animals, play barn and fantastic wooden playground equipment and outdoor trampoline.

And most recently, we've been entertained by a visit from Janet the Storyteller who got children small and bigger up and taking part in her active stories.

And so, we continue on right through the summer when many other groups and activities stop for a summer break. There may be fewer families during this time, but that just makes for a more intimate atmosphere and a more bonding experience for those who are around.

See you there!

Performance and music video

2010-06-13T01:23:00.000-07:00

The performance was a triumph, with the Charles Cryer Theatre almost filled with friends, family and onlookers. The performers were great on the day, despite nerves beforehand: Charlotte and Thomas performed poems they had chosen, Freya sang a poem of her own composition, and Tobias and Rosie read poems of their own composition, in addition to opera pieces by Hugh and Daragh, I Can Sing A Rainbow with sign lanmguage actions, David's newly-finished Rainbow Lights Song, and the finale - the song Run With Us.

To see the music video which the fabulous Sutton Film Makers made for the song, see here.

Scenery Painting

2010-05-06T12:43:00.000-07:00

Another busy week, but lots of fun was had by all. The children enjoyed colourful freestyle painting on huge opened-out cardboard boxes which will be used as scenery for the upcoming performance at 2pm on 22nd May at the Charles Cryer Theatre. We also painted a large rainbow to use as part of the display at the Europa Gallery 17th-21st May.

In sorting out all the artwork we had amassed from all the children over the weeks of the project, it was clear we had inspired the creativity of both the children and the adults. The light boxes are almost done and look incredibly effective and we have also illustrated almost every line of the song. The Sutton Amateur Film-Makers Society have been very generous in offering their time to make a music video for the song, and one of our parents is also editing the reams of footage of the Project we have already shot.

A Poem on Black & White by Amy

The night is silent, silent like pleasure
Tripping and turning bends, like honey seeping,
The golden combs, like an unheard murmur of
A silent sort, silent, like a trembling witness
Too scared to speak.

Songs and Light Boxes

2010-04-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

Today we didn't have a particular colour to talk about, but the light box making swung into action. Many of the smaller children greatly enjoyed splashing lots of white paint about as we covered the inside of nine cardboard boxes to make a nice reflective surface for the coloured cellophane and fairy lights.

The first few boxes were finished off and looked fantastic as the colours glowed out when the lights were switched on.

The song-writing group unveiled the full song for the first time and we were all bowled over. The chorus was so catchy that I overheard many of the adults and children singing it under their breath as they went about other activities during the rest of the session.

The planning is fully underway now with the performance and display less than a month away. We divided up the song into separate lines and lots of the children spent some time illustrating a line or two each. This resulted in some colourful and highly creative pictures.

Rainbow by Freya

Red is rubies, red is anger,
Red is the king, red is the queen,
Red, red, is everywhere.

Red, red is everywhere but orange is harder to find.
Orange is an orange, orange can be cheese,
Orange can be a flag,
Orange can be on a pretty mug,
Orange can be a little bug,
Orange, orange is everywhere.

Yellow is mellow, yellow is a bee's honey,
Yellow is a beach ball, yellow is the sun,
Quite a few things are yellow.

Green is grass and green is fast,
Green is a green light,
Green is a balloon and green is great.

Blue is calm, blue is fast,
Blue is relaxed,
Blue is the sea and the sky.

Indigo and violet are flowers and berries,
Indigo, violet, indigo, violet,
Indigo is bad and good, so is violet.

Violet

2010-04-23T05:11:00.000-07:00

On Thursday 22nd April we thought about violet. The first thing we discussed about violet was – what colour is it? As with indigo, this was another disputed shade with some thinking it was nearer pink, others that it was a bright and vibrant purple and yet others hovering between the two. We looked at the flowers called Violets in the hope of finding a definitive answer but found that even these could come in different shades, though they were definitely more purple than pink.

Lots of people in the group had violet (purple) as their favourite colour and even more liked purple and pink or purple and blue. Heath thought violet helped him to go to sleep and made him think of night-time meditations while Rosie thought that too much of it would make her feel gloomy and it would be a bit much.

There are lots of purple foods and the foods we had at the session included: grapes, aubergines, red onions, beetroot, plums, prunes, blueberries, blackberries, red cabbage, pomegranate and purple-sprouting broccoli.

Freya did a puppet show for us with home-made puppets showing us a story of how the sun people and rain people learned to work together by making a rainbow.

Isaac had made a beautifully-coloured American pelican, with gorgeous blues, reds and purples.

Daragh had brought in Mr Cheeky, a rare purple Mr Man which was made in response to a little girl's idea in a competition. He had also brought in Spiro the Dragon who is also mainly pruple.

Hugh had brought in Rockstar Penguin from Club Penguin and a Bugs Bunny dressed as a King or Emperor with a sumptuous purple cloak. This brought up the idea of purple being a royal colour and it was noted that this had also come up during the visit to Hampton Court that some of the children had been on the day before.

Amy and Mandy had done a survey of what people in general outside of the group thought of violet/purple and death came up a lot – it was a colour thought acceptable to wear at funerals. It was also associated with sadness and with the sweets Parma Violets. When Amy suggested to one man that maybe purple was a royal colour, he disagreed and thought gold was more of a royal colour.

Harrison had brought in a picture he'd made using a purple chocolate wrapper and spelling out 'I love you'. He'd also brought a 'spy pen' which could write invisible writing and then make it visible by using a small ultra-violet light on the end of the pen. We noted that humans can't actually see ultra-violet light, only its reflection against other things, and that it is the next colour along in the spectrum after violet.

Lois had done a beautiful and colourful painting of a rainbow with herself and Jonathan sheltering beneath it, and she and Jonathan had also done some lovely night cityscapes with rich violet skies and silhouettes of buildings in the foreground.

Charlie had also done a picture of rain and a rainbow with some writing about violet, as follows:

Violet by Charlie

Violet is the highest colour in the visible spectrum – it is the seventh colour of the rainbow – it is the colour on the inner edge. Violet is sometimes confused with purple. The name of the colour comes from the violet, which is a small flower grown in most parts of the world. In colour therapy, it signifies the Crown Chakra. Charlie likes violet because it is like the colour purple. Charlie likes wild violet flowers and Parma Violet sweets.

Blue and Indigo

2010-04-16T02:41:00.000-07:00

On Thursday 15th April, we thought about blue and indigo. There were relatively few families this week (only sixteen families), with several regular families absent through illness or holidays, but it's difficult to say if fewer people or the colours blue and indigo were the cause of the calm feeling. The blue display was magnificent with clothing, artwork and photos as well as a very imaginative display of blue food including blueberries, blue corn tortilla chips and blue Smarties.

We started with Heath's poem as he was desperate to read it out:

Blue by Heath

Blue is nice and blue is fun,
Blue is blueberries
And blue is really, really nice.
It's a lovely colour.
The end.

Freya's poem was also a song and she sang it for us:

Blue by Freya

You want to go out when the sky is blue,
But stay in when the clouds are blue.
Blue is calm and blue is fun,
Blue is bright and blue is dark.
So, come on and sing about blue, do!
Blue is in the rainbow.

And this was Amy's poem on blue:

What is life? By Amy

Our bodies are an ocean
and our tear drops are sea water.
In the end we die of stress,
stress of having to keep the damp gold fish alive
stress of failure to find love,
to be happy, to even force a sort of smile,
and you can hear that unloving voice saying
"you failed the world, John, Amy," and who ever else,
but our names are just plankton floating in our ocean bodies.

Blue made people think of a wide variety of things. Hana said that blue was her favourite colour and the blue display made her want to just dive in and disappear. For Daragh, blue made him think of a Dalek's spots. Lots of people thought of the sea and the sky when they thought of blue.

We also thought of blue football strips, such as Italy and Chelsea, as well as Thomas the Tank Engine who is blue. Heath had brought a blue kaleidoscope to show.

Heath thought that blue was a calm colour and it helped him to go to sleep and Freya agreed. Yahya said that blue made him think of going to Italy and going in the sea in swimming trunks. Amy said that blue reminded her of spirals but wasn't sure why, which was interesting as in many ancient cultural symbols, spirals and swirls represent water.

Emmie-Mae had brought in her Barbies Hadley and Delia, all dressed in blue and Emmie-Mae herself had a blue princess gown on. Lois had brought in some Mr Men books showing blue Mr Men, including Mr Bump. Jonathan had brought in a book about the blue whale.

We discussed blue foods and noted that there weren't that many of them – blueberries, plums, blue grapes, blue potatoes, blue corn and blue cheeses. There are many more blue flowers though including bluebells, and blue animals include peacocks, dragonflies and butterflies, as well as whales. There are also quite a few jewels which are blue including sapphires, blue diamonds, blue topazes and ultramarines.

A suggestion of amethysts led us on to indigo and trying to define it. It turned out that many of us had very different ideas as what indigo actually meant. Some of us thoughts indigo was merely a shade of blue while others thought it was actually an individual colour. Most people either seemed to think it was a navy blue, or a bit more purply than that.

Jae told us about how the dye indigo is used in the manufacture of jeans.

We then moved on to blue activities – Frances had brought blue play dough and Sinead showed the experiment where different foods were tested with iodine and those which contain carbohydrate turn blue. We also made giant seascapes with blue paint and materials and blue junk modelling.

Green

2010-04-08T10:56:00.000-07:00

Today we thought about green.

We had a fantastic spread of green fabric, dresses, books, food, craft and lots of other stuff today on the display table. Vicky thought that the swirls of green looked like she'd just walked into the ocean and with the sun shining in through the windows (finally!) there was a greenish light in the hall which was very soothing.

We started off the brain-storming by talking about the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz which had been designed as that colour to reflect the colour of the American dollar and thus represent America.

We went on to nature and how so many things in the natural world are green. We didn't name all the plants which were green or we'd have been there for ever, but we talked about most plants which grow in the sunshine are green due to the presence of chlorophyll. We thought of green fruits and vegetables and came up with: avocado, broccoli, grapes, cucumbers, apples, peas, lettuce, cabbage, limes, courgettes, artichokes, sprouts, basil, parsley and kiwi fruit. Animals we thought of were: frogs, lizards, crocodiles, caterpillars, grasshoppers, dinosaurs, parrots, parakeets and other tropical birds, and green woodpeckers.

We discussed how the colour green makes us feel: fresh, happy, go, relaxed.

We thought of fictional characters which are green in body or hair or wear green: Peter Pan, the Wicked Witch, the Joker, Ben 10, Mr Men, Robin Hood, aliens, Jolly Green Giant, Incredible Hulk, Shrek, the Grinch, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Green Power Ranger, the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

We mentioned that green is in a lot of countries' flags – it's a sacred colour in Islam so is in the flags of a lot of Islamic countries.

Green is also used as a shorthand to mean looking after the natural world, looking after the planet and other environmental issues, such as in Greenpeace and the Green Party. This association can also be seen in the colour used most often for packaging of organic food.

Harrison had made a fantastic herb picture which he showed us – it was made of sprigs of various green herbs which could also be sniffed, so the viewer could see and smell each herb.

Charlotte had written a story and a poem:

Green Grass by Charlotte

Green is fresh,
Green grass.
The green grass is as fresh as anything.
Fresh grass.
It shines so much for me,
And it's really nice.

The Rainbow by Charlotte

Once upon a time there was a rainbow who decided to go adventuring. He crept into the sky and just then the rain poured down and the sun shone – and he came right up into the sky.

Rainbow Story by Thomas

This is a story of a rainbow and a pen named Thomas. Thomas was its name. A talking pencil spoke to the pen and the rainbow spoke to both of them. The pen and the pencil drew a rainbow together.

A Green Builder by Thomas

One day Wendy went out of her house. Bob the Builder's house was next door and she went to see him. They decided to build a tree house and a toy train.

Isaac had brought a painting he had done all in shades of green. It had been done mainly with his fingers.

Freya had made a rosette-type badge out of green crepe paper with trailing crepe paper ribbons.

Emmie-Mae had a green lunch – all green food with a green knife and fork and everything.

Harrison pointed out that if you mixed the yellow writing on the blue background of his T-shirt it made green.

Heath had chosen a green toy truck to bring, but his mum had forgotten to pack it!

Our green activities today included making green slime out of gelatine, water, syrup and food colouring. It smelt like candy floss and apparently tasted sweet for those brave enough to try it, as it really looked horribly gloopy and snotty.

Mandy made moss gardens with some of the children – with small individual clay holders and tiny frogs and owls to sit inside them.

Frances had brought green play dough, which is always popular, and also green pots to plant cress in and make cress-heads. The children added faces, arms and feet to the pots and took them home to wait for the 'hair' to sprout from the top.

We also made snakes out of paper plates cut in a spiral and decorated. The children were much more imaginative than to stick to just green for the snakes though.

We decorated some green cellophane ready for use in our green light box, and ended with some parachute games.

Yellow

2010-04-01T13:11:00.000-07:00

Today we discussed yellow. We started by discussing yellow in books, poems and on TV and films. The children thoughts of The Simpsons, the Yellow Brick Road in the Wizard of Oz, Wobble Bear Says Yellow, Spongebob Squarepants, Winnie the Pooh, the Lion King, the Yellow Power Ranger, and Colonel Mustard from Cluedo.

Freya had brought in the book Saffron the Yellow Fairy, Lois had brought in a toy of Mr Happy and she and her mum had counted the yellow Mr Men and noted that yellow was the third most common colour for Mr Men.

It was noted that Alice in Wonderland had blonde hair and so did quite a few of the adults and children at the group. Emmie-Mae was wearing a top with Belle from the Disney Princesses on which was yellow and showed Belle's blonde hair.

We also had three poems written by children:

Yellow by Max

Yellow is for daffodils,
Yellow is for sun,
Yellow is for bee,
Yellow peppers,
Let's say hello to yellow!
Yellow labrador Zippy,
Yellow honey.
Yellow is a pretty colour,
Yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow!

Yellow by Amy

The awakening sun in a bed of clouds,
The whole world bathed in moonlight,
Oh, what a sight,
The moon at night,
My homemade kite.
The midday sun beaming contentedly.
So many things are yellow,
The moon, the sun, the happy fellow.
Yellow sunflower,
In the golden hour of the day,
When children dare to come out and play.

Yellow by Rosie

Yellow, yellow, sunny yellow daffodils, so bright, so warm that brings us light. Lemon with sour juice or primroses in splendour. Buttercup with waxy petals or sweet banana and juicy melon. Poison laburnum with deadly juice and milky cheese. Oh, yellow you bring me joy, you stand above all, bright and shining, never shy. Petted chicks and water-borne ducks swimming contentedly. I think yellow doesn't want to be missed. It wants to share its joy with everyone. Yellow, yellow, sunny yellow.

Then we thought about food and drink which was yellow and thought of: cheese, lemonade, pineapple, yellow pepper, biscuits, sweetcorn, bananas, lemons, babyfood, Golden Delicious apples, sponge cake, juice, custard, salad cream, egg yolks, butter, honey and melon.

Animals which are yellow include: lions, ducklings, giraffes, phoenixes, cheetahs, wasps, bees, snakes, leopards and butterflies. Plants are daffodils, dandelions, sunflowers, primroses, roses, snapdragons and tulips.

Yellow jewellery includes gold, topazes, yellow sapphire, gold coins, yellow diamonds and amber.

There are also lots of yellow cars, including yellow American taxis and school buses, lorries and Lamborghinis (Yahya informed us that yellow is the default colour for Lamborghinis). Belisha beacons are also yellow.

Other things which are yellow are: fire, poison signs and other warning signs, and Brazil football shirts as modelled by Yahya and Tabitha. Yahya also told a joke based on birds, which can be yellow.

Sophia and Tabitha had made some yellow collage pictures, Freya had drawn some yellow things she found around the house and what yellow made her think of. Harrison showed us his bright yellow top, and many of the other children (and mums) were also wearing yellow items of clothing.

The children were asked what yellow made them think of or feel and these were the results:

Milly - "a bit not sure"
Thomas - "sad"
Charlie - "nice"
Luca - "acid"
Amy - " bouncy"
Yahya - "sunny, bright"
Hassan - "beach"
Isaac - "sunny beach"
Lois - " happy"
Nathan - "chips"
Harrison - "watch out for a step"
Sophia - " sunshine"
Freya - "heat"
Heath - "sunshine"
Emmie-Mae - "rainbows"
Eleanor - "going to a swimming pool outside"
Laura - "sandcastles"

As activities today we made rocking Easter yellow chicks and wrote in invisible lemon juice writing. The song-writing group has also started meeting up outside of the main group session to really focus on the task at hand.

Easter

2010-03-27T01:41:00.000-07:00

We had our Easter session slightly early this week on Thursday 15th March, and we had Father Stuart (from a member's church) come to tell us the Easter story. He was an excellent speaker and story-teller and had the children hanging on his every word. There were some interesting questions too. Some of the children knew the Easter story already, some didn't; some of our families are church-goers and Christians and some are not. We have quite a mixture of faiths and none at the group, but Father Stuart told the story simply, not in a proselytising way which made it easy for the children to think about the people in the story and how they might have felt.

We also had a great Easter egg hunt which included finding and copying the designs on large drawn Easter eggs, then swapping their own completed drawn page for a small bag of chocolate eggs at the end. It really engaged most of the children, of all ages.

An enjoyable, and relaxing session, which has also produced some colourful egg drawings to add to the Rainbow Light Project.

Black and White

2010-03-23T11:38:00.000-07:00

There was a funny feeling in the air today (Thursday 18th March) which many of us are inclined to feel has something to do with the energetic changes of the Spring Equinox, when day and night are delivered in equal amounts. Many parents and kids felt it, although Samia was feeling unusually uncreative – in fact she was feeling frustrated simply attempting to put black and white on anything and stuck with filming the proceedings a bit and making notes and being in the background - as much as the vibrant Samia is ever simply in the background.

We decided to put black and white into the project here as it tied so well with the Spring Equinox (21st March) and the balance of light and dark at this time of the year. As has become usual, we all arrived dressed in various combinations of black and white and decked the back wall out in an array of black and white from pictures, artwork, fabrics, 80s ballgowns, and foods – olives, grapes, blueberries, popcorn.

Freya, during the brainstorm, created a playdoh model and proceeded to use this to demonstrate a solar eclipse – here's the Sun (all white), here's the Moon crossing it (½ black and ½ white), now here's the Moon, covering the Sun completely (all black) and vice versa.

Yahya showed us a canvas that he made with Samia. They didn't know what it was going to be to start with but it became a black and white volcano with glittery effects. He then busied himself with the challenge of making a play doh Panda (he succeeded, and it was funny when he showed it and the head fell off and rolled onto the floor while he was looking the other way).

Sophia used a book to demonstrate the optical illusion created by closely packed black and white lines and circles. Lois had brought a Panda and a story book, Pi-Shu, The Little Panda. Jonathan had written a fantastic poem:

A Poem by Jonathan

Sweets made of liquorice,
Uniforms, the police,
Animations,
101 Dalmatians,
Playing dominoes,
Looking at old photos,
Orca in the ocean deep,
Zebra, penguin, panda, sheep
In their flocks,
The Spring Equinox,
Dark and light,
Black and white.

Amy had also written an incredibly creative poem:

Black and White by Amy

Black and white,
Female and male,
A Persian cat's fluffy white tail.
A carpet of snow,
The white clouds surrounding a rainbow.
A chessboard, the knight, the rook.
The moon, the sky,
The tears we cry,
Black in sorrow,
Waiting for tomorrow.

Harrison showed us what we can do with charcoal and printing. Max had brought in his black and white cuddly toys, and a couple of books Night Pirates and Funny Bones.

We asked who has black hair and noted that truly black hair was quite rare. We surveyed who thinks black is a colour, and white is a colour or not. We also asked what we think of when we think of black? Responses included:

"Moody" - Charlie
"Nylon tights" – Amy
"Boring" – Yahya
"Evil" – Rosie
"Tyres" – Harrison
"Piano" – Emmie Mae
"Ninjas" – Isaac
"Superstitions, black cats" – Amy

As well as mystery, and negative associations, black is also associated with wisdom, experience and authority as in black belts in martial arts, police uniforms, and the clothes of judges and lawyers. Politically, it's associated with non-conformity and anarchism.

Someone suggested that guns are black and Yahya corrected them and told us that not all guns are black.

Isaac reminded us that nocturnal animals can see well in the dark.

White made us think of:

"Peace" – Rosie
"Brides and angels" – Emmie Mae
"Ghosts" – Freya
"Pages in books and inside cups" – Isaac

After all the discussion on the colours, we discussed the Summer Solstice which has the most daylight hours and the Winter Solstice which has the least and then asked if anyone knew why. Liz demonstrated why using her body, with assistance from Jae & Emmie Mae, and we watched the earth rotate at an angle around the sun while the moon rotated too. Much giggling ensued. There was a rather Monty Python moment as Liz attempted to rotate and tilt at the same time – we all got up and joined in, it is awkward!

Lastly we finished up with a Spiral Dance and then the craft activities began based on the Black and White theme – houses at night, finger printing with charcoal, general black and white crafts session and Hana and Daphne created this weeks Black and White polythene strip for later use with the light boxes.

We also dedicated 20 minutes to learning the sign language version of I Can Sing a Rainbow which will be part of our performance at the Charles Cryer Theatre on 22nd May.

The Orange Session

2010-03-12T05:40:00.000-08:00

The session on Thursday 11th March explored the colour orange. We discussed that there are no rhymes for 'orange', and Samia and Yahya had written a poem/song on this subject entitled No Words (*see end for Samia's account of writing it, and for the song itself). Freya had brought the book Amber The Orange Fairy by Daisy Meadows to show and also read the poem Today, In Strong Colours by Sue Cowling. Emmie-Mae had brought a book on the rainbow. Lois had made a paper model of Mr Tickle and also a book of another orange Mr Man - Mr Topsy-Turvy.

We also had a fantastic wall of orange fabrics, papers, artwork (including a fabulous tiger by Harrison) and gold leaf, and a table full of orange foods including peach, mango, oranges, carrots (which can also be purple and white), jelly, marmalade, and Double Gloucester cheese. Hannah and Katriona noticed that the orange that people had in their homes was mainly on walls or furnishings, such as sofas.

We discussed which oranges can be found in nature, such as autumn leaf colours, tropical fish, tigers, tropical birds, and butterflies. Max had been very excited to learn this week that scientists have found a piece of preserved dinosaur skin which had orange and white stripes on it.

We also talked about volcanoes, lava and fire being orange and how in that case, the colour was associated with heat.

In the man-made world, there are orange toy cars, there was an orange Mini made in the 1970s, American prisoners who we have seen on TV wear orange jumpsuits in order to stand out if they escape, and orange is the USA's second highest terrorist risk alert. Orange means amber - a warning light.

The word 'orange' comes from a Spanish word and was derived originally from Sanskrit, an ancient Indian language. The colour orange is still important to Hindus today, and we observed a gorgeous sari which Rachel had brought in. Orange was first used in English by King Henry VIII. Coincidentally, both Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth I had red/orange hair, which was a Tudor family trait. Red/auburn hair is a recessive gene and so over time becomes less common.

Other man-made items which are orange include space hoppers, workmen's safety clothing, and toy guns which have orange at the end of the barrel to indicate to police officers that they are toy guns and not real ones.

There are quite a few political parties which use the colour orange, especially ones which want to demonstrate that they are new and different.

We mentioned that many animals are colour blind and so wouldn't be able to see the colour orange.

The children also associated the colour orange with: confidence, courage, creativity, happiness, and bouncy-ness.

The family who are following our Project at a distance, continued their bird theme and found the Andean 'Cock of the Rocks' which they say is really, really orange! There's also the orange headed ground thrush which is from Asia and lives in forests, especially dense understorey, often in bamboo thickets and near running water; the orange faced Australian cinnamon and Orange Canaries, both of which are captive-bred colour variations.

After the brainstorming session, we launched into our orange activities. Firstly we had a competition to decide who had the most orange hair - Hannah or Tabitha. Hannah won with 16 votes to Tabitha's 10 (everyone else abstained!) but Tabitha demands a recount on a sunny day!

We also compared the colour of carrot juice and orange juice, noting that carrot juice was much darker in colour than we'd expected. There were paper lanterns to make, with orange tissue paper to put inside to represent a flame.

By far the most popular activity was Sharpie pen dyeing, in which we drew with coloured marker pens on pieces of white fabric, then dripped alcohol onto the drawing and let it spread and bleed the colours before drying them on the radiator to 'fix' the colour. This resulted in some beautiful patterns and colours.

Frances had made some orange play dough, which was not only orange in colour but orange in scent as well! As always, this went down very well with young and old alike.

Rachel did a survey on children's favourite colours and blue won hands-down. The full results were represented as a bar graph and the summary was:

pink 3
red 5
yellow 0
green 3
blue 7
orange 5
brown 0
black 4
purple 2
no preference/no answer 4

Rachel also surveyed the children on their thoughts on orange, how it made them feel and what it made them think of:

"Colourful" - Amy
"Orange" - Tommy
"Warm autumn" - Malcolm, who was also upset by the orange fence around the grassy area currently.
"Traffic cones" - Joe
"Orange colours" - Louis
"Orange" - Jake
"Orange juice" - Sophia
"The fence around the grass. Red and yellow" - Harrison
"Oranges" - Freya
"Oranges. Orange flowers" - Charlie
"Hot summers day. Orange ice lollies" - Yahya
"Fresh orange juice" - Hassan
"Lightly kind of red" - Emmie Mae

*Are There Any Words That Rhyme With Orange? by Yahya and Samia.

Orange is one of those words that famously has nothing perfectly to rhyme with it. The other one is silver. However, the Oxford Rhyming Dictionary does show both these words as having half-rhymes (such as lozenge with orange and salver with silver).
The principle of a half-rhyme in these cases is quite simple. Whereas a full and stressed rhyme (e.g. hand / stand) or even an unstressed rhyme (such as handing / standing) contain vowels that are common to both words, a half-rhyme like orange / lozenge or silver / salver (technically speaking, pararhymes) has obvious differences between vowels in certain syllables.

This humorous ditty is sung in 2 parts deep and loud and high and sweet! Yahya and I created it this morning after eating our breakfast wearing our orange outfits! I ate apricot jam on toast – because it was orange!

There are no words that sound like orange
so we will not even try!
To find a word that rhymes with orange
could make us mad before we die

So we came up with several words
none of them make sense at all
we wrote them down into this song
we shall now sing them to you all

Orange – borange, corange, dorange,
forange, gorange, horange, jorange,
lorange, morange, norange, porange,
quorange, rorange, sorange, torange,
vorange, woarange, xorange, yorange & zorange

Could someone please give us a lozenge?

The Red Session

2010-03-08T01:37:00.000-08:00

On Thursday 4th March we explored the colour red. Red had clearly caught the children's imaginations as various people had been investigating red at home between sessions, as we'd hoped and lots of the children and adults were wearing items of red clothing. Hannah and Katriona and Vicky, Sophia and Tabitha had all been taking photos of red things they'd found around the home which we displayed on the pinboard during the session. Katriona had also found various red costumes to dress up in - a Spanish dancing dress, a devil outfit, and the very creative Blob of Ketchup.

Frances and Joe had made some red play-dough which was very popular during the session. Mandy and Amy displayed some stop-motion animation photos on the red theme, and we also admired Harrison's red mosaic-style collage and Hussein's sketches of a bus, a Ferrari and a shop all done in red pen. Lois had brought some Mr Men books in which the main character was red and Freya and Heath had been counting the things they saw which were red, Freya totaling 172 and Heath 229. Freya also sang a song she'd written on the whole rainbow:

Rainbow Song
Rainbow, rainbow, pretty in the sky,
These are what the colours mean:
Listen to me and you will see.
Red is angry and pretty,
Orange is bouncy,
And yellow is mellow,
Green is grass,
And blue is calm.
Indigo and violet are like flowers and berries,
And that's what the rainbow means to me.

Rosie read a prose poem she had written on red:

Red, the colour at sunrise like a thousand rubies glittering across the skies. Red blood oozing from a scarlet wound. Red, a maiden's rosy cheeks. Red is love, a breaking heart. Red, an apple on a tree. Red, anger and frustration building up inside. Or warmth and light. Red, the colour of fire's flame. Red, a scarlet fox's tail. Red, a royal soldier's jacket. Red, the colour of autumn leaves blowing in the autumn breeze from Mother Earth's woody trees. Red, a fawn's silky coat. Or ladybirds with painted wings. A poppy in a silent cornfield. Red, so many different things. A robin's breast as it sings. Red, a sign of danger, a sign telling you to stop. Red, a carpet for VIPs - can I have your autograph, please? Red, a fire engine saving lives. Red, a chestnut's protective shell. Or horned devils from hell. Sunset over snow-topped mountains. This is red, the colour red, anger and love, fire and warmth. Red is blood, rubies in a chest, a colour, a feeling, a robin's breast.

During the brainstorming session, we discussed what the colour red made us think of. Associations the children made included: danger, cars, poppies, lipstick, fire, wrapping paper, love, Gryffindor robes, jam, jewellery, apples, blood, the basketball hoops in the hall, the sky in the evening, the sun at sunset, mars the planet, hot, strong, powerful, fierce.

We talked about red being a colour included on many flags, maybe because it is a powerful and strong colour. And we moved on to talking about coats of arms and how these were like personal flags and also often featured red.

Yahya mentioned that he had been wondering if all cars had red back lights and why this might be. Possibly because it is an easy colour to see in the dark, and because it means stop and danger, like with traffic lights.

Not many people have red bedrooms - only Sophia and Isaac. Isaac finds it a relaxing colour, but Sophia doesn't.

After the brainstorming session, we made coats of arms, flags, mosaics, and artwork on red paper and cellophane.

The song-writing group made a start on their song.

The parachute games were very popular this week.

Dee did a survey on red and these were the results:

How Red makes me feel...

“Happy” - Eleanor
“Not good” - Danny
While snarling, “angry” - Jake
“It makes me feel inspired” - Amy
“Strong” - Hussein and Yahya
“It’s lovely” - Charlie
“Happy, but it depends what it is that is red” - Rosie
“It makes me feel hot” - Jonathan
“Makes me feel rubbish” - Nathan
“Fearsome, brave and bold” - Freya
“Happy” - Brandon
“Reminds me of the Olympics” - Isaac
“Surprised” - Lois
“Like being happy and stuff” - Heath

Red reminds me of...

“Blood” - Sebastian
“Lego” - Daragh
“Lava and a red light sabre” - Hugh
“Blood” - Joe
“London Buses” - Hussein
“Blood” - Luca.

We have also found out that a local home educating family who cannot attend the group right now are following along with our theme and have been studying birds for the red theme - cardinal birds and the scarlet macaw, as well as bullfinches, the Indonesian Red Lory, the African Red-Billed Fire Finch, and the South African Southern Red Bishop. We hope we can continue to inspire people in the community with our project.

First Session

2010-02-25T10:06:00.001-08:00

Today's session was the first in our Rainbow Light Project which will culminate in the Sutton Arts Festival in May/June.

A Summary of the Session
We started with a brainstorming session in which we discussed the project and its basic themes of Colour, Light and Sound, mentioning the Hindu Festival of Holi which is upcoming and is a Festival of Colour in which coloured powder and coloured water is thrown.

We then moved on to thinking about black and white films/TV/photos as opposed to the colour versions and comments which the children made included: colour film wasn't invented until fairly recently; black and white looks darker and less realistic; colour is brighter but also harder on the eyes. We discussed how odd it would be if life was black and white and had no colour. We noted that most people had favourite colours, although some people liked all colours equally, and that we liked to look at and wear our favourite colours as they made us feel good.

I read the poem Colours by Christina Rossetti to the children to give them the idea of thinking about each individual colour and what it akes them think of.

There was a fair amount of interest in helping to write the song, though the children weren't so sure what was involved in making the light-boxes.

We welcomed Colour and Sound Therapist Ingrid Hennze to the group to give us a holistic health perspective on colour and sound. She reminded us how powerful colours can be to give certain impressions, for example their use in advertising and in decoration in places like prisons, hospitals or vandalism-prone areas. She talked us through the idea of colours causing vibrations in a similar way to sound, which led onto the concept of how bodies feel when they're 'out of tune' and how music can affect the way we feel in a similar way to colour.

Ingrid then led the group in some chanting associated with each chakra. For the base chakra (red) we chanted 'oooooooh' in a long tone. For the sacral chakra (orange) we chanted 'ohhhhhh'. The solar plexus chakra (yellow) was an intermittent tone of 'oh-oh-oh-oh-oh' and the heart chakra (green) was 'aaaaaaah'. The throat chakra (blue) was 'eeeeeeeye', the third eye chakra (indigo) was 'aye-aye-aye' and finally the crown chakra (violet) 'eeeeeee'.

It was great to see (and hear!) how much the children (and the parents) got into the chanting and singing tones. We could all really feel the vibration in the room afterwards and this was the part that really hooked the children into the subject matter.

It was a hard act to follow, but Ingrid managed it with her chakra-attuned tuning forks. Sounding the tones continually and walking round the room, the children were rapt and hardly a sound could be heard apart from the tuning fork tone. The babies and smallest children were especially attentive and seemed to love the sounds passing round their heads.

When the sounds stopped there was a moment of hush and we all seemed to be aware of the vibration of the air around us from the sounds.

During and after the talk, the children had free access to art materials and drew some lovely colourful pictures. We also incorporated colour into movement with some co-operative parachutes games using our new, colourful parachute.

All in all, a successful and enjoyable starting session for this project.

A Summary from Ingrid, Our Speaker
A challenge for me, to tell a very mixed crowd of mothers and a great number of children of varied ages, about my love for colour and sound. How do I bring across my love and belief in what I know works so well to help balance our lives, emotions, mind, body and soul? To get everyone to be quiet enough for me to hear myself talk, plus make sense so all stayed interested enough and motivated to listen.

A bit about colour and it's vibration, the relation to our bodies, seeing it as a rainbow and of course bringing into it the chakras. The vibratational benefit of colour to balance and heal the body. Talking about vibration bridges the talk and takes me to the vibrational healing frequencies of sound.

So I managed to engage all of us to sound with our voices. All the sounds of the chakras. That was going really well and the sounds in the room where amazing. Everyone was so willing to take part and even close their eyes to listen into the vibrations in the body. This certainly gave me a great feeling of joy.

To finish I used the tuning forks, giving a taste of the 8th and 1st fork, addressing the base chakra, which is beneficial for grounding, which was good after the sounding. To finish I used the 6th and 7th fork (colour royal blue and violet) the A and B note, which are the notes used in ancient and classical music, to stimulate a feeling of harmony and peace.

The reaction of the young infants in the room was very beautiful, they really enjoyed the sounds, and some of the older children came up to me afterwards telling me how the energy was still vibrating through their heads. Some experienced pain in their forehead with the first sound of the forks, but with the last ones they found they felt happy and nice. And one fell asleep briefly.
The room was very quiet and everyone's attention was with what we were doing.

That in itself was great, I feel greatly encouraged and happy to have had this opportunity of sharing my love for colour and sound with my captive audience!

Sutton Imagine Arts Festival 2010

2010-02-24T06:26:00.001-08:00

ESHEG has gained some funding from the Sutton Imagine Arts Festival for an exciting project. From now until June we will be doing some structured work around the theme of Rainbow Light.

To kick off our series of sessions on this theme, we'll be welcoming Colour & Sound Therapist Ingrid Hennze to explain the use of colour and sound from a holistic health point of view. After that, we'll be examining colours week by week, discussing how they are associated with feelings, sounds, art, craft, science, movement, drama, and anything else which comes up.

Along the way we'll be using our insights and ideas to make a series of light-boxes illustrating each colour, and also writing a song.

Each week, I'll be documenting our progress, and we welcome any local home educated families to join our project.

Whitehall and Haiti

2010-02-16T00:19:00.000-08:00

We recently had a fantastic outing to Whitehall in Cheam where we had a Victorian Day. It was a really good day. The children made Victorian-style greetings cards, dressed up in Victorian clothes, talked about how the Victorians lived, tried out a quill pen and ink, played with Victorian toys and even had a taste of a Victorian school. The staff were very knowledgable and extremely helpful. It was a good day and we'll certainly be going back there to find out more about Tudor times and the WW2 experience.

In response to the earthquake in Haiti, we had a series of Bring & Swap sales at the group sessions, to raise money. We let it run for 3 weeks and raised a total of £75.61 which went to the Diaster Relief fund.

Pizza Express Outing

2010-01-13T01:00:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't normally advertise mainstream chains but I have to mention our recent educational outing to Pizza Express in Sutton High Street. For those of you who are unaware, Pizza Express as a chain offers these outings to groups of children. They take place before the branch opens in the morning and give groups of up to 25 children the chance to make their own pizzas and cook them, Italian-style.

I was most impressed. The whole experience is free of charge and yet the staff treated us as though we were the highest-spending of valued customers and were very good with all 25 of the kids who ranged from toddlers up to 11 years. The parents got coffee and the children orange, blackcurrant or hot chocolate while the pizzas cooked, and then we were each sent off with our own pizza in a box. The kids enjoyed themselves, and we got a free lunch! What could be better?

Petition to Parliament

2009-12-03T10:40:00.001-08:00

Several of our members have recently managed to get local press coverage (see page 5) of the presentation of the Petition to Parliament to their local MPs. The Petition is due to be presented en masse to Parliament on 8th December, co-ordinated by Conservative MP Graham Stuart.

Please also consider signing the e-petition about Home Education currently on the Number 10 Petitions website here.

Record-breaking attendance

2009-11-07T01:43:00.001-08:00

At our last meeting we had 21 families which included 43 children (I think I counted that right!) which is our biggest turn-out yet and I'm still being contacted almost weekly by new people wanting information, investigating home ed or wanting to come along.

I suppose this is a popular time of year for researching alternatives to school as it is several months into the new term, when parents feel they have given new arrangements, new school year, new schools, or new teachers a fair chance and if they are not working by now, then it's time to look into new options.

For anyone who is new to the idea of home ed, or who is tenatively looking for information, here are some good places to start nationally:

Education Otherwise - the national organisation which offers contact lists, local contact people to chat to about your concerns, model letters to deregister from school, information on the law, information on special needs home education, and much more.

HEAS - another national home education support organisation with contact lists and information.

Locally, there is a lot going on in Surrey, just check out our links section on the right hand side for various local groups and sources of information.

And for anyone currently just embarking on the journey that is home education - good luck, and don't worry. Everyone is scared at first, but you'll soon find the pattern that suits you and your family and wish you'd done it years ago!

Hallowe'en Party!

2009-10-29T13:29:00.000-07:00

A spooky time was had by all:

Talented parent

2009-10-25T01:34:00.000-07:00

It's very exciting to announce that Hana, one of our Group's talented home educating parents, has a painting in this exhibition at the Mall Gallery. The exhibition runs from 12-22 November, open from 10am to 5pm and has free admission. We are organising a group to go up together to see her picture, if anyone wants to join us, please contact me in the usual way.

More events

2009-10-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

As busy as ever, the group has lots of events currently going on, including the second Adult Social Evening tonight, another linked event with Bourne Hall Museum next week (a talk and workshop on WW2), and our fabulous Hallowe'en Party at the end of next week. We also have visits to a local Fire Station and Pizza Express on the calendar and have the local police coming in to do a talk for us in November.

We now have an average of 14 families (including around 30 children) coming regularly every week and the group is gelling nicely.

Now that the Government EHE Consultation has closed with 5,340 responses, the e-petition has closed with almost 5000 signatures on the same day, and the Select Committee Inquiry has been held, all home educators await the outcome with bated breath. Whatever happens, it won't be for want of effort in the home education community as we've all fought to keep Home Education unregistered and free for everyone.

Funding

2009-10-04T05:58:00.000-07:00

We have been granted our first funding - from LifeCycle who have been a pleasure to work with. With the grant, we are going to establish a library of home education books which parents can borrow and use as resources for their own family. Hopefully we'll be able to add to it gradually in the future but LifeCycle's funding have allowed us to start it up with a number of the most fundamental and useful texts, plus buy 2 book racks to store them, and some of our children's books, in too.
Hopefully the orders should arrive within the next 2 weeks and we can set it up straightaway.

History Walk

2009-10-02T04:44:00.000-07:00

This week's History Walk was fascinating. Many thanks to the Bourne Hall Museum
for leading the walk. The children enjoyed St Mary's churchyard very much and the adults (and some of the children) really enjoyed hearing about the history of Ewell. The highlight for many of the children was going inside the old lock-up - and we resisted the tempation to leave the kids there for the afternoon while us parents went to the Green Man!
We are hoping to organise more joint events with the Bourne Hall Museum in the future - hopefully a WW2 hands-on talk to be the next one sometime next month.

Not Back To School Picnic

2009-09-24T01:58:00.000-07:00

Our Not Back To School Picnic this week was very successful with around 18-20 families turning up and having an enjoyable afternoon, including several families who are new to home education and even one family visiting from the US.
Much fun was had by all, many bubbles were blown, the banner made by one of our young members was very useful and beautiful too, and a photographer from the local paper came and took some photos, which we hope will be published.

First Adults' Social Evening

2009-09-22T01:55:00.000-07:00

The group had its first Adults' Social Evening last night and it seemed to go very well with everyone enjoying themselves and our hostess made us most welcome. Hopefully from now on this will be a regular outing - in homes, pubs, cafes, restaurants, or whatever else people want to do. It's so important that the parents also get a chance to chat, socialise and make friends. It's very easy to forget the parents' needs in home education, but they are just as important as the child's needs, in order not to get burnt out or feel isolated.

Harmony Policy

2009-09-21T00:53:00.000-07:00

Our policy for helping the children to get along with each other and to prevent upset:

ESHEG HARMONY POLICY

1. We openly acknowledge that children will not get on all the time and that this is a fact of life. As adult role models at the Group, we need to model ways of resolving and preventing conflict, and aid the children in solving social problems which occur and threaten to cause upset and anger.

2. The Group will not tolerate bullying at any time in any form, whether this be violence, social exclusion or verbal insults.

3. Without interfering in the children's group dynamics, the adults in the Group should aim to be aware of when a conflict is becoming too difficult for the children to handle and step in to aid resolution.

4. All parents agree to being open to be approached in a calm, blame-free and tactful way, by any adult or child who is having a problem with their child. Parents agree to always being open to aiding another parent solve conflict or friction between their child and another child, while all parents involved agree to deal with such a situation in a mature, blame-free, non-defensive and sensitive manner. Parents are responsible for their children's behaviour at all times.

5. If your child has a persistent problem with another child or children, you should firstly approach their parent so that the problem can be solved to mutual satisfaction. If you find this awkward, ask another parent to be a neutral third party in discussing the problem.

6. Solutions should be creative, practical and realistic - we're not looking to gloss over real differences of opinion, personality and temperament between the children, nor to attempt to 'make them make friends'. Maybe a pair of children will never like each other, but can be encouraged to find a solution to being in the same group that will work for both of them.

7. No one wants to blame or upset another parent, but if problems are not addressed when they first arise, resentment, upset and anger can build up causing a much bigger problem. If we are all ready to approach other parents and be approached ourselves, we can nip problems in the bud and keep the friendly atmosphere of the Group intact.

8. We aim to make Epsom & Sutton Home Education Group a friendly place where all children feel welcome. We remain aware that some children who join our group have had problems with bullying at school before starting home education and may therefore be more vulnerable, or more sensitive to negative group dynamics.

Not Back To School Picnic

2009-09-07T01:30:00.000-07:00

To coincide with the national week of Not Back To School Picnics (30 confirmed so far across the country and more still being planned), the Epsom & Sutton Home Education Group are holding a Not Back To School Picnic on 22 September. For time and venue, please email me on elisabethpilley @ yahoo.co.uk (remove spaces) as the more who come along the merrier. Bring picnic, bubbles, toys, and anything to make the event fun!

Ths event is to show that home education is a real option, and that home educated children are not hidden away, vulnerable or isolated, but on the contrary, are happy, well-balanced, social and very much a part of their communities.

August outing

2009-08-28T03:45:00.000-07:00

Our August outing went very well, despite a quick shower of rain, and now we're onto organising September's which we're hoping to make a combined history walk and Not Back To School Picnic! Email us for details if you're interested in joining in, or coming to the group. Our next few sessions include a Sports Day and making snow-domes.

Refurbished hall

2009-08-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

Having had several weeks of meetings in the park, we are now back at our regular hall, with newly refurbished, non-echoing ceiling. And our programme of activities is bursting with fun things: junk modelling, sewing, show and tell, a sports day, various specific craft activities and a link-up with our local museum, as well as an outing to a local beauty spot - and that's just in the coming month. With our constitution agreed on, our bank account applied for and our group response to the Select Committee Inquiry into the Elective Home Education Review written and submitted, the group is going from strength to strength.

Constitution

2009-07-24T00:58:00.000-07:00

CONSTITUTION FOR EPSOM & SUTTON HOME EDUCATION GROUP

1.NAME
The name of the group shall be Epsom and Sutton Home Education Group (ESHEG).

2.AIMS
The aims of ESHEG are:
a) To provide social contact and mutual support for home educating parents and children in the local area.
b) To provide a stimulating and motivating environment where children’s ideas and projects are facilitated, not directed and where children direct their own learning.
c) Through the non-compulsory, educational, cooperative activities and workshops, provide a setting for children to develop their social skills.

3.MEMBERS
a) Membership is open to every parent who attends the group and supports the aims of the group.
b) To become a member, each person must write their name in the Membership Book kept by the Management Committee. To leave the group, each person must cross out their name in the Membership Book.
c) Attendees do not need to become members if they do not wish to do so. All members and attendees pay the same agreed sessional fee per session attended.
d) All members and attendees must read, agree to and abide by the group's Constitution and Ground Rules. Anyone not abiding by these shall be liable to a warning after a Management Committee meeting to mediate the problem, and may be asked not to attend further meetings if deemed appropriate by the Management Committee.

4.EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES
Epsom & Sutton Home Education Group values diversity and expects all parents to be respectful of others of different parenting and education approaches, religion, race, sexuality and ability, and to encourage children to value diversity as well.

5.COMMITTEE & OFFICERS
a) All members are eligible to be part of the Management Committee if they wish to be so, and can attend meetings and vote on issues.
b) The Management Committee shall in a co-operative way perform the roles of Chair, Treasurer and Secretary as agreed at each meeting.
c) Accounts shall be maintained with transparency and shall be advertised to members after each meeting, and available to inspect on request from any member.
d) An Annual General Meeting shall be held at least once every year, minutes to be filed.
e) In between AGMs, the members shall meet as necessary and at least 4 times a year.

6.MEETINGS
a) An AGM will be held within 15 months of the previous meeting at most.
b) Members of the Committee will be notified via Yahoo Group posting or at an ordinary meeting at least one week beforehand.
c) The quorum for the AGM and any other meeting shall be 3 members.
d) Attendees who are not members may be allowed to attend the meeting if the Management Committee agree.
e) Items for discussion can be raised by any member at the meeting.
f) The Committee will present the accounts for the previous year at each AGM.
g) Special General Meetings can be called by any member with reasonable notice.

7.RULES OF PROCEDURE FOR MEETINGS
a) All ideas and questions that arise in any meeting shall be discussed openly and the meeting will seek to find general agreement on how to proceed.
b) If there is no consensus, there will be a vote at which members only are entitled to vote.

8.FINANCES
a) A bank account will be held on behalf of the group. There must be two signatories to any cheque issued. The signatories must be members of the Management Committee. There will be four agreed signatories at any one time.
b) Records of income and expenditure will be maintained by the Management Committee and a financial statement advertised after each meeting.
c) All money raised by, or on behalf of, ESHEG is only to be used to further the aims of the group as specified in item 2 of this constitution.

9.AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION
Amendments to be constitution may be made at any meeting and can be proposed by any member.

10.DISSOLUTION
The Management Committee can decide it is necessary to close down the group. If it is agreed to dissolve the group, all remaining money and other assets, once outstanding debts have been paid, will be donated to a local charitable organisation, to be agreed at the time of the dissolution.

This constitution was agreed at the Inaugural General Meeting of the Epsom and Sutton Home Education Group on:

Date: 16th July 2009

Damp July Outing

2009-07-22T00:15:00.000-07:00

Six hardy families attended our July picnic, despite the rather uncertan weather, and fun was had by all. Wisely, no-one attempted a barbeque and we settled underneath some thick horse chestnut trees and were sheltered even from quite heavy rain. When it really set in to rain in earnest, we finally decamped. And this is July! Hopefully the weather will improve for our Augusty outing!

Ground Rules

2009-07-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

GROUND RULES

1.Parents to remain on the premises and responsible for their own children at all times.

2.Everyone to be responsible for doing their own clearing up, washing up and drying up, and also to help with setting up at the start of the session and clearing away at the end. There is no access to the hall before 12pm and we must be tidied up and out by 3pm.

3.All parents to pay the agreed sum for attendance each week (currently £4 per family) and this money to go into a cash kitty which pays for the hall rental and tea/coffee/milk. Any surplus to be held in the kitty and used to cover rental on weeks where attendance does not cover the cost, or to purchase equipment for the group with general agreement.

4.No one is to give any third party a list of attendees at the Group, or divulge the identities of any individual who attends, without their express permission.

5.No one shall take photos of anyone else's children or publish them, on paper or online, without the parent's express permission.

6.No smoking anywhere on the premises and all used nappies to be taken away from the hall.

7.All doors and gates to the outside of the premises to be kept closed at all times, and all adults to keep a general watch for all children.

8.All parents to be aware of Child Protection issues - keep an eye out for bullying and assist children to settle disputes amicably; make sure your own behaviour is appropriate at all times; if any child confides in you about bullying or abuse, report it to the appropriate authorities.

9.Epsom & Sutton Home Education Group values diversity and expects all parents to respectful of others of different parenting and education approaches, religion, race, sexuality and ability, and to encourage children to value diversity as well.

10.Everyone to bring their own lunch and snacks and clear up after themselves. No nuts please in case of allergies.

Becoming a Non-profit Community Group

2009-07-14T10:03:00.000-07:00

Now that the group is bedding in nicely at our new venue, we are planning to become a more formalised Community Group so that once we're ready, we can apply for any relevant funding and maybe use it to purchase resources or book trips out or hire speakers in. It's a very exciting time to be involved right now, as we are just starting to see our potential, and to start making things happen. We also have our July outing to look forward to, as well as new members every week so far. We're going from strength to strength.

Great first meeting

2009-07-02T08:20:00.000-07:00

Today we had the first meeting in our new hall home and it was a great success! Everyone was most generous with donating toys, art supplies and cash towards the kitty. With a massive 14 families attending, there were kids galore, both inside and outside, doing all kinds of activities and playing all kinds of games. The consensus seemed to be that both children and adults had agreat time.

Midsummer Picnic

2009-06-23T08:43:00.000-07:00

The group had its Midsummer Picnic today, in glorious surroundings and lovely weather. 11 or more families came (I lost count at that point!) which equated to a *lot* of kids running round and many balls flying, frisbees zooming and children chasing. A lot of fun was had by all (I think!) and hopefully all the kids will sleep well tonight.

A Fresh Start

2009-06-19T07:53:00.000-07:00

The first meeting of the Epsom & Sutton Home Education Group in its new hall home will take place the in first week of July. This is a bold new move for the group which is now 10 months old, but we're confident it will move the group on and allow us to do some craft and other planned activities.

If you would like to come along, please read how to contact us at the side. This is a drop-in group, no need to commit yourself to anything at the outset, just drop in and give it a try.