Local groups

New home educators often worry about meeting up with other families – well the good news is there are a whole host of social meetups out there. Groups are organised by the families that attend, and vary depending on the families who go – different ages, different interests, and different levels of structure, and of course location – so you may need to try out a few to find the one that suits you best. Or you may find that an organised group is not for you and you prefer to meet up with individual families from time to time. As with all of home ed, the choice is yours 🙂

A typical group might meet for several hours (quite often over lunch, people bring in their own packed lunches) in a village or church hall (sometimes a bit out of the way, but some are more easily accessible by public transport), once a week/fortnight/month, or just as and when, and have a couple of tables out with craft supplies, some toys families have brought along to share, and often some outside space. There may be more organised workshops either occasionally or regularly (eg science, language, art or history workshops), or the children (and adults!) might just take the opportunity to play together. There’s usually a small charge (usually per family, though sometimes with different rates to cover different numbers of children) to cover rent for the hall, tea/coffee and basic art supplies, and sometimes an extra charge for specific extra workshops that require supplies or outside expertise. I usually describe them as a bit like parents-and-toddlers but for older children.

In this area, I know of groups that meet in the following locations – contact me at llanfyllinHE@gmail.com if you want any more information, I haven’t been to all of them and it’s possible some have stopped running or changed since I was last there but I can usually chase down a contact for you. This list is also not exhaustive, so if there’s nothing near you, don’t despair – there may be something I haven’t heard of, or you can always start your own 🙂

North Wales/Chester

Meetings on Mondays and Fridays around the Wrexham area

Meetings on Mondays around Ffroncyslytte

Meetings on Tuesday around Kinnerton

Meetings on Wednesday around Churton

Meetings on Thursdays around Frodsham

Mid Wales

Meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays around Llanfyllin (that’s us :))

Meetings on Thursdays near Newtown

Meetings on Fridays near Bala

Shropshire

Meetings on Mondays in Shrewsbury

Meetings on Tuesdays near Church Stretton

Meetings on Wednesdays at Telford ice-rink

Meetings on Fridays around High Ercall

If anyone would like me to add more details for these or any other groups (or change what I have), please let me know.

Open House Tuesdays

January

February

We’ve been having fun on our open house Tuesdays – thanks to everyone who’s come along and joined in. January has seen us making frozen icecatchers (twice, first time round it thawed too soon!), sowing seeds, knitting cowls, and making soup, in amongst a lot of playing, in streams, bedrooms, and the occasional sneaky bath…. February has been a little quieter thanks to illness and icy weather, but we’ve made throat lozenges, handkerchiefs, and quite a lot of Hama bead creations :-).

Spring is in the air, and I’m looking forward to March open houses – we’ll take a first day walk, see if we can find some animal tracks, and make a terrarrium and some tiny felted treasure bowls. As always, everything is in the spirit of adults having a go at learning new things, and children joining in if they wish, or playing with something else if they don’t. It’s all very relaxed and social. We’d love to see faces old and new – contact me at llanfyllinHE@gmail.com if you’re interested in joining us.

Just a bit of housekeeping – there will be no meeting on Feb 28th, and possibly not on March 20th, so text or email to check if it’s on. There’s no need to book a place or definitely confirm you’re coming, but it’s worth checking before setting out just in case illness has struck us overnight (though fingers tightly crossed we’ve had our share of that for the year now!).

Next Techniquest Home Ed session

Techniquest in Wrexham will be running another home educator Key Stage 2/3 afternoon on Wednesday 1st February with a theme of ‘The Body’. If you’ve not been before and want any more details let me know!

Open House Tuesdays

Open house Tuesdays started with a bang last week and continue tomorrow – the weather is looking perfect for some frozen suncatchers, and there’ll be various bits of knitting and fun with yarn for all ages. Hope to see some of you there – contact me (Katie) for directions.

If you can’t make it tomorrow, then Thursday’s Play Around the Workhouse meeting will be at my house too (just over the winter, we’ll return to the workhouse in the spring).

Fancy some open air Shakespeare?

OK, maybe not right now, but bookings are starting to open for the summer. My littlies are too little for me to make it right now, but I spent many happy (and some rather cold and wet) hours shivering under a blanket watching Shakespeare as a teenager. Bring a cushion, a picnic and a waterproof and enjoy the show.

Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre have Twelfth Night, and a companion piece, Masters Are You Mad?, running from 5th July – 19th August 2012. Booking opens 19th January.

Ludlow Festival is on from 23rd June to 8 July 2012, and always includes a Shakespeare production set at the castle – but they’ve not released details of what it is just yet.

Finally my favourites, Oddsocks, will be at Blists Hill Museum in Telford with Julius Caesar on July 15th, 2012. Not the funniest of plays as I remember it, but the Oddsocks team always manage to find a few laughs somewhere along the way. They’re the only theatre group I’ve ever written a fan letter to. Make of that what you will.  Booking isn’t open yet, but watch this space.

Past years have seen a few other travelling troupes in the area, so if there’s more, I’ll let you know.

 

Open House Tuesdays

I’ll be running open house Tuesdays every week at my home (between Llanfyllin and Llanrhaeadr YM in north east Powys), all this year, starting Tuesday 10th Jan. I’m going to try out some activities based on the book Rhythm of the Family by Amanda Soule (www.Soulemama.com). Some are short, some will take several days or more, some are more suited to adults/older children and some are for everyone, all will be attempted in the spirit of adults trying things the children may or may not want to join in with. Examples are knitting, natural dying, seed planting, fabric printing, cooking, meditating, and lots more!

If you’re interested, contact me at llanfyllinHE at gmail.

Welcome to Shiny Happy Children

Hi! This is the blog for Shiny Happy Children, a group for home educated and preschool children in the Tanat Valley area and beyond. It’s intended to be a quick and easy way to publish details of meetings and events and general things that might be interesting. Be aware this is public information, open to all, and as such we might be a bit circumspect about exact details of children and home addresses. Anyone who wants more information is free to contact me (Katie) any time at llanfyllinHE@gmail.com.

I’m also new to blogging so bear with me! Looking forward to meeting you, either again or for the first time.