Day Five

I wasn't expecting it to always be sunshine and roses, but I can't deny that today has been trying. It doesn't help that I was woken up several times last night so I'm particularly tired, but I just don't feel as though today was particularly delightful. I suppose, as with everything in life, there are ups and downs. I didn't end up taking the car in for a service after all.

L got on with her work as usual on Absorb Online Learning.

During Classical Civilisation I gave her an impromptu mini test based on the chapter we've just covered in her book. She didn't do too badly at all to say she's only been learning this subject for five days (four days if we're not counting today), but she seemed a bit prickly when I tried to give her some advice about some of her less plausible answers.

I don't think she liked being wrong about anything, and she gave herself a hard time about it, but I reassured her that she's doing fine. She needs to take my feedback as helpful rather than getting defensive and seeing it as critical, and I think she understood that eventually.

This is the book she's working with. She's chosen Myth and Religion for her first topic, and War and Warfare for her second.

J did some reading today, as well as working some more on his English worksheets from Twinkl.

N ended up earning a raccoon of some sort on Skoolbo, and doing various educational games.

He then got on with some English from Twinkl. worksheets, but he didn't get very far before encountering some spellings that he found tricky, so he practiced the spellings for a while.

After that, we decided to tie R.E. in with History, so as the boys are currently learning about ancient Egypt, I put on an animated version of Moses on TV for them, and when it was finished, N wrote about what this particular Bible story was about.

A had three lessons today at InterHigh, which were English, Creative Pursuits, and Computer Science. He had to do some work on kinetic drawing in Creative Pursuits which wasn't something he'd ever heard of before. He also met his tutor for the first time.

J worked on an animation today on his computer. He loves to make stop motion animation, among other things. It's just a basic stick figure thing, but it's funky. Nowhere near finished yet of course, it will take thousands of frames to tell a story.

He's also been working on some more 3D modelling with Blender. He's working through a tutorial to create a doughnut. He's proud of the fact that he put some texture into it, and that it's not a perfect circle, because (in his words), "doughnuts aren't perfectly round."

We finished off the day with discussions around the dinner table about 9/11. L knew what it was all about, but the boys didn't seem to have any idea, so we talked about it and heard their thoughts on it.

I received some letters today from L and A's high school, acknowledging that they're now being home educated, but stating that the school is "disappointed" with our decision to de-register them. I'm sure they're disappointed, that's two less pupils they are going to be receiving funding for.

Ultimately it isn't safe to send them back in this pandemic, and they're learning perfectly well at home.

Today's conversation of the day:

J: Is David Attenborough dead now?
Me: No, he's just very old.
His dad: His brother is dead, Richard.
J: Ah... well you know what you say, don't you?
Me: Ummm... no, I don't. What DO they say?
J: When two great people work together to do great things, only one of them will be remembered in history.
Me: 😳Nobody says that! Who says that?
J: Me. I say that. When there's two people, only one gets remembered... like Einstein and his cousin Terry.

😂😂😂