Middle of the fourth week already. Time flies when you're having fun. Are we having fun? Well it's not so bad really.
We don't have to get up at half 7 in the morning, there's no crazy rush like lunatics trying to locate everybody's ties, or panicking when we realise that someone's shoe has gone missing. I don't have to drive to school like a mad woman with their forgotten P.E. kits. There's no fretting when your high schooler tells you they've lost their purple pen (yes, one of the requirements for L and A at their school was that they absolutely had to have a purple pen. How utterly bizarre is that?) The list goes on, and honestly the benefits of home education seem to outweigh the negatives rather considerably.
Okay there are a few benefits to brick and mortar schools, don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing schools, I can see the advantages of them, but none of us are regretting our choice to home educate for the time being.
So what have we been up to this week so far? Quite a fair bit, one could say, although trying to remember it all chronologically is difficult as the days seem to speed so quickly one into the next.
A gets on with InterHigh, cracks on with his homework, and that's that. Academically there's not much to report on, other than the fact that he's plodding along with his lessons the way he would do if he were in any other school. The teaching quality is fine, and he's managing to get logged into his lessons on time perfectly well.
He had to create a project demonstrating Kinetic Energy (I think!) which he had to film and show to his STEM teacher. This was the result:
He still hates Creative Pursuits so we've decided it's probably best if he drops it. The problem is trying to think of something suitable to replace it with. It's a thinking work in progress!
He's made an absolute bunch of new friends from his year group which he has been talking to on Snapchat, WhatsApp, and Discord. He's got friends all over the world now, in Scotland, Wales, England, New Zealand, I think even Thailand, and goodness knows where else. He had been so sure that he wouldn't make any friends, but now he's got more than he could have dreamed of. They are all trying to make plans to meet up after the pandemic is over, which I do hope may be possible for the ones in the UK.
This is the photo he sent of himself to his new friends. I think some of them actually believed it was Daniel Radcliffe as a child! It's the hair and glasses for sure!
I bought some Physics books and revision cards to help L with some of the calculations and formulae that she was struggling with. These are the ones I bought:
Let's hope that they're useful, because I only got CC in Double Science GCSE when I was in school, so it's not exactly my strongest suit. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Physics was was my weakest subject, so I'd rather that she didn't require me to start re-studying it myself in order to help her!
(Of course if she needed me to, then I would. There's not really anything I wouldn't do to help my kids. I'd just rather not!)
She's been using the laptop more and more, and taking notes on paper. I don't really understand why she insists on balancing the thing on her knee when she could be sitting at the dining table, but as long as she's studying I'm not going to grumble.
In terms of Classical Civilisation, yesterday she announced to me that she didn't really need me to sit with her to "teach" her it, as she can manage perfectly well without me. Apparently I'm surplus to requirements, but I guess it frees up my time to do other things.
I didn't tell her that I had actually been enjoying our study time together... that the hour we had every day giggling over ridiculous Greek and Roman things such as Hephaistos bonking Zeus over the head (resulting in the birth of Athena), was actually something I looked forward to. She's big and independent and doesn't need me I suppose. *sigh*
J and N have been working steadily to an increasingly "flexible" timetable. J has finished another David Williams book, written a book report, and has started on a third book. N meanwhile is still on the first book, but he's making good progress with it. Remember he's only 7... slow and steady is perfectly fine.
J's doughnut in Blender took an unexpected turn for the worse when he tried to add sprinkles to it on Monday, (you can see the horrified look on his face when lines came randomly out of the bottom of it!) but in true J form he persevered and managed to fix it. Next he'll be working on making the dough look more... well... doughy.
They've both learned more about ancient Egypt this week - more work on the gods, and a bit of a recap on the ones they'd been discussing last week.
There has also been some more geography. I think it's kind of important for them to know, at least loosely, where some of the UK's cities are located, and a general sense of direction when it comes to their own country.
Then there's the sewing. First J decided he wanted to try his hand at Cross Stitch, and then he proceeded to make a bag out of a pyjama top. Yes, you read that correctly, a bag out of a pyjama top. It was an old pyjama top that was too small for anybody, of course. He sewed up the arms and bottom, and put a button and a button hole on the neck.
He's quite prone to sudden fads is J so it probably won't hold his interest for very long. It was knitting last month which lasted about as long as 10 rows of stitches before he set it aside and didn't pick it back up again. I guess it's good to try new things at his age though. I rather like his enthusiasm, even though he flits from one interest to another very quickly. Maybe as he gets older something will hold his interest for longer than a week.
We tried something new this week for maths games. Twinkl is marvellous for resources. I present you with Mathopoly! 😄
The Challenge cards all have different maths problems on to solve, whereas Chance gives you either +10 or -10 to your score, depending on which card you pick up.
They both seemed to enjoy it quite well, and N won the game.
Speaking of N, it turns out the kid is short sighted, as suspected. We've ordered him some specs which will apparently be arriving through the post in around 2-3 weeks time.
I was 7 when I first got glasses, whereas L and A were 8.... or was A 9? I forget! No I'm sure he was 8. L was definitely 8.
Anyway he had a try at the piano on Sunday evening, and enjoyed it pretty well. The app wasn't too bad although it kept picking up voices as piano notes which was silly, so I might look for another app. The piano stickers worked well, and L actually sat with him and tried to help teach him his finger positioning and so on, bless her.
We had eggs on Monday for lunch, which resulted in a quick impromptu lesson about the different sizes of birds and their eggs. Here we have a guinea-fowl egg, a chicken egg, and a duck egg. It's amazing what suddenly turns into a lesson during the day. There seems to be so much to talk about without even planning it out!
I really wished I'd had a quail egg and a goose egg too for comparison, but I don't have any of these at the moment. Truth be told I've only ever tried goose egg once, and I unfortunately haven't seen quail eggs in the supermarket for years!
Yesterday I took J and N into Snake Wood (Lady Clough Woods) in the Peak District, which is just under an hour's drive from our house. I last went there three years ago and there were some excellent mushrooms and toadstools there, so we went on a mushroom hunt. I was hoping we would find some lovely fungi, and sure enough there were plenty to be seen.
I've never yet found another place which has red and white toadstools like this. Both flat ones, and rounded ones, so two different types. They're just like story book toadstools from Enid Blyton fairy stories. I love them, and so did the kids! We were careful not to touch though, as they know these types of mushrooms are poisonous.
We found a few other types of mushrooms as well.
Tomorrow we'll do some online research to find out more about these four mushrooms. I find it quite fascinating myself!
Whilst we were there, it would have been rude not to play "Pooh-sticks" (in other words, stick races in the river.) We did also discuss how the fast flowing parts of the river will eventually cause the rocks to erode.
It really is a beautiful place, but very muddy, as N rather unceremoniously experienced when he waded shin-high into some very thick, squelchy mud.
Today they both wrote accounts of their trip to the woods, and both of them drew a picture of the river and the mushrooms.
Of course there has been English and Maths this week as standard. N has been getting to grips with subtracting three digit numbers, which he struggled with previously, so that's great progress.
J has been playing with his friends from school, O and K, online. He's pleased he's still staying in touch with his mates, although he worries about them in school with this virus being so prevalent.
N has made a couple of new friends online to play Minecraft with and chat to via microphone. One is 7 like him, and the other is 10. He's so excited to have new people to chat to.
The weeks seem to be going so fast, soon it will be the October half term! Maybe I'm just getting old?
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