Home schooling the 3rd year

Hi everyone, it has been 3 years now since i took my children out of school and i thought it would be good to let anyone interested in homeschooling see how my experience is developing.

There has been a lot of development this year, and it was less formalised than last year. I think mostly to keep it fresh and also to tackle some important skills that help with academia and also work in life as well. I started to feel that introducing self discipline would be most helpful to my son and daughter at this stage as self study also needs to be introduced. Confidence and responsibility, and being able to research effectively and to manage more of what they want to learn.

Giving my children more responsibility worked well, my daughter got the responsibility of looking after the chickens and she has really taken to it. She even hatched 9 chicks with a surrogate mother and has really taken the responsibility seriously. We had one chicken death and we didn't have an emotional melt down, and a quick recovery showed her understanding that we give them the best we can whilst they are with us. They all have names but i can't tell what they are called.

Her confidence both socially and academically have also improved as she has held her own in a couple of difficult situations this year, and she has got up in the mornings and grabbed a book and read up on her own volition without prompting. She will write a page or two about it and pass it to me of which we then discuss and i check to see how much she has retained.
That has worked well.
My son has been doing the same and one of his subjects that he has chosen to research is the American revolution. I was surprised being such a complex matter for a 10 year old. He has immersed himself and coming up with fact after fact, telling me about all the people involved. So seeing his genuine interest and desire and even excitement about history, i found Turn on Amazon Prime. He begged me to watch it and so we have been working our way through it......and it isn't my personal thing but many a great night we have had watching it and talking about it because his excitement is my excitement. He researched the characters on Turn and found out one or more of the characters were actually real people.

Socially, this year i have found when they have mixed with the children from the local village the children seem to be pretty badly behaved as a rule. Now with that said my son made a friend with a young boy who recently lost both his parents and is in an orphanage/care home. They met when the carer took him out to the park, they got on brilliantly and the care home phones us up fairly regularly to meet up as the other young boy has never been seen connecting with anyone else his age other than when he is with my son. Its lovely and happy to support that in every way. My daughter has met a couple of girls she is friends with and tonight is wrapping a present for her friend that she bought with her own Christmas money.

We have been practical as well this year and we have all been involved in making jewellery, crafts, of which two shops want to stock some of our products and we have had 7 commisions which has helped with funds.
My son has helped with many of my building projects including my log greenhouse, he helped with the A frame and wanted a cordless drill for his birthday.
I have had to hide all my really good wood before it is drilled to the decking or something else!
They have been Zorbing which was fun and cycling when the weather has been fine. The next stage is to get them to concentrate on a grow bed each, find out what crops to put in and to write about the times to sow and what they are learning and then we will cook a meal with their vegetables.

This year i have not stuck to the national curriculum as such and i have not had a home school visit either for some reason.
Im not too bothered by that, i have all last years work tucked away for when or if they do pay me a visit.
They are making good progress and i am proud of them both and so very blessed to be able to enjoy this time with them.
Anyway just a little idea of how it has gone since last time i posted on this subject, and i had expected to write about the visit that never actually happened so a little ramble will have to do this time.
Thanks for the time, vote, comment and have a great Christmas break.