They grow up so fast...

I have a five-year-old... It's crazy to me to think about that, like, seriously! When did that happen, because it sure doesn't feel like five years ago since I first laid eyes on my Little Bear. It barely seems like five minutes ago some days.

That makes Bear Compulsory School Age now, (CSA) which means that had we been planning to put him through mainstream school, he would now be expected to attend school at the start of next term, which I believe is the beginning of April. He would have technically started school in September 2024, which is the beginning of the school year during which he would turn five, but you can still delay that start time, even if it isn't widely discussed now.

We were flagged by our local council last summer due to having applied for a nursery place for Bear, which we turned down after I changed my mind about him being in that kind of structured setting. We received several letters asking us to apply for Bear's school place and when I emailed a response about not needing a place, they replied giving us the details for our local Home Education Team and told us they'd be in touch.

I heard from them not long after, introducing themselves, and said they'd be in touch in the new term after Bear turned five, so we are expecting that contact after Easter. 

Do you have contact with your local authority's Home Education Team?

We'd love to hear your experiences, I know there is a huge variation and we have heard great things from some of the other home ed families in our area. We have had really good experiences with the health team, and the 0-19 team in our area, so I have high hopes for that to continue further. Bear has a habit of befriending pretty much everyone he comes into contact with, so I don't have any doubt that this will be the same!

Mama Bear

10 day screen detox

When I started the screen detox, I only intended doing a few days, just to get us out of that routine, and honestly, to prove to myself that I wasn't relying on it too much, but I noticed changes in both boys from day 1 and decided to keep it up for a while before reintroducing movie time. 

Over the first few days, Bear asked a few times if he could have a movie on, but easily accepted the answer no, and moved on. I've seen much more imaginative play in both of them and the highlight has definitely been seeing them play together. Granted that looks a lot like The Cub following Bear around and copying him, but it's beautiful to see them getting along after quite a rough patch of them always falling out and upsetting one another.

We have played so many games together, done lots of intentional learning which Bear seems to be more receptive to in a morning than in an afternoon so we've been trying to get that in before lunch. The Cub has started taking part in our learning time and has been looking at shapes and colours. He has his own resources including a couple of easy wipe-clean activity books that were bought just for him. He is very young for this kind of sit-down learning, but he wants to be involved so I've created activities to aid his development so he can join in when he wants to.

Their outside playtime has included a lot of garden time at the end of last week
when we saw some winter sunshine as we've had stuff going on at or around the house that's kept us from going too far, and even that has been imaginative play with sticks, pebbles and an old drain pipe as a slide.

I've picked up a different work-out activity for myself this last week too which both boys have wanted to get involved in, so that's something else we've done together, and by tea time, at what would have been movie time, we've been doing activities at the kitchen table which has put them in the same room as me while I'm prepping tea. They've done colouring, stickers and other activity books, of which I have a whole box full, and they've been chatty, instead of in another room staring at a screen.

I definitely want to keep screen time lower than before as we move forward, and plan to let them have movie time a few times a week, however, I'm going to look at having it earlier in the day, as one of the benefits I've seen in Bear is that he is falling asleep easier and earlier than before when he used to lay in bed for hours before actually falling asleep.

All in all, the benefits far outweigh the ease of having them in front of the TV and I've loved watching them entertain themselves in other ways.

What other activities do you do instead of watching TV?

Mama Bear x