Wednesdays

 It's high time I wrote about our Wednesdays.

 

 

Home Education is, in many respects, 
about doing our own thing

and learning
in a way that is totally unique to our family.
 

 

 

 

No two home educating families will approach their learning in exactly the same way.

That is the whole point of learning at home,
or at least one of the points.
 

Learning is meant to be holistic
and tailored to the individual's strengths, weaknesses and personality.

So each family's home schooling adventure
is bound to be slightly different,

as each pebble on the shore has its own characteristics,
which mark it out from every other pebble on the shore.
 
 
 

 But it is not meant to be a solitary journey.

It is exciting for us to have found a growing community of likeminded home educating families.

And we count ourselves privileged to call these folk our special friends.
 
 

We rub shoulders with children of all ages
and parents, who may share widely differing views and beliefs.
 

But this special group of people muddle along together just beautifully.

We are very lucky to be part of a caring Home Ed Community, where everyone is welcome.

There is a particularly special lady called Caroline,
who opens her home up every Wednesday during term time.
She provides us with a great place for the children to gather and learn together.

Within the walls of this lovely home, we have found true friendship, energy and support.  

 

Here the children have the opportunity to explore a wide array of topics,

with two excellent teachers, specialising in Art and Science.

Some of the children's Art work displayed at The Red Brick Building in Glastonbury

Some of the Art Students with their teacher at The Red Brick Building

Here are some photos taken by Caroline, during a Science session on electricity:

 

Cress, our lovely Fun Science teacher



Negative and Positive energy



 

 After the sessions, the children have the chance to wander to the nearby park

or play group games of hide and seek, capture the flag and jumping on the trampoline etc.,

in Caroline's garden.

Some children enjoy collecting the eggs

from her large flock of hens,

which roam freely around the garden.

 

 

During the sessions, the mums and dads get to sit round the table in another room.

We drink some of Caroline's delicious filter coffee and chat about the events of the past week.

It is a special time for us to be able to bond like this.

 

 

 

Between the sessions, we can eat our packed lunch in the garden or indoors,

if the weather is cold and wet.

 

Two of the lovely mums I have actually managed to capture on film.
Here they are in Caroline's sunny dining room, practising their pom-pom making skills...

You can see the great outdoor space offered to us by our kind hostess and her family.

I particularly love this photo as it demonstrates the fun the children have,

whilst carrying out their Scientific experiments.

 

-  -  -  -  -  -  ^  -  -  -  -  -  - 



After all this is over, Sarah has been given the opportunity to play with a Symphonics Wind Band at a local Community School. This has opened up all sorts of potential opportunities for her.

Photo for illustrative purposes only and not of this particular band...

We plan to try and go back to swimming lessons on a Wednesday evening too, as Sarah really enjoyed them.

 

 

 



Challenges and Successes

Today we continued with our ebb and flow approach.

I had to take the guinea pig to the vets first thing, but decided to let Sarah sleep in,
as she had had a rather challenging day yesterday, due to feeling overtired.

 

 

The guinea pig needed an injection and some cream.

He had been losing weight and, we just hope there is no underlying condition causing the weight loss and making him more susceptible to infection.

When I got back, Sarah was still finding it slow to get started.
But she finally managed to settle to do some quality Music Practice.
She has two exams this term, which will be a real challenge.
I am wondering whether it is going to be too ambitious, but we will see....

She focussed on practising the second half of Sad Song on the piano, working really hard to vary the dynamics from MF to FF and gradually back to PP.
This is quite challenging, as it's easy to suddenly go from loud to soft or vice versa, without graduating the dynamics.

The left hand was also quite tricky and required some work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K--5YHQ9h0M

She had to practise the scale of F# Minor two octaves both hands together,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VZUyA3bfEs


F# Minor arpeggios in both hands, a chromatic scale and a scale played in contrary motion, both starting on a specific note.

 

She also practised one of her exercises, which she played beautifully.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA3uUhycgHw



She moved onto the cornet, playing all her scales, except A major, as she couldn't remember the fingering for the high G#.

She played a new exercise and a piece that she was supposed to play in a Rock style.
She desperately wanted to play it in a swinging style, which she does amazingly well.
But she had to learn this new style to prove that she could!

Needless to say, after all this focussed activity, Sarah needed some downtime and chose to go out into the sunshine to relax.




Matthew created some very interesting lego designs today and was very engrossed in this activity.

He moved onto his Reading Eggs Challenge quite happily.

Then onto Conquer Maths.
When calculating the missing numbers in an addition sum, he used his awareness of how to make ten to help him to add larger numbers.
He is very good at visualising in his mind, which Numicon pieces fit together to make specific number pairs.
Apparently dyslexics are particularly good at visualising.

When we tried to add multiples of tens with varying units, he found this more of a challenge.
I made a note of these sums and decided to carry out this activity with the numicon apparatus later.

He continued his lego creations, today a sledge:

 

   

.... while Sarah started her activities on the computer.

She carried out some 'real life' multiplication problems and some division sums.

She spent quite a long time doing duo lingo French,
which she really enjoys.

Her letter to an imaginary Grandad was written under the trampoline outside...

This proved to be a bit of a sore point as this was the exact moment when Matthew decided he wanted to jump on the trampoline!

He had spent some time drawing a picture of the mole and the cat by the potion pot and,
had even included a couple of simple words on his picture.

We had calculated the sums using Numicon as planned and he had also read another reading book.

Now he was waiting for Sarah to finish her letter, so that we could all do some Art together.

It turned out to be a rather frustrating situation for us all and I ended up insisting Matthew came with me to the post office to post the letter he had written to his cousins Antonia and Imogen.
It was to be a hard lesson to understand - to give each other the quiet required and to understand each others foibles.

I decided to buy them both ice creams and was afraid that we would return to find Sarah very upset.

 

On the contrary,

she had been busy continuing her assault course challenge, ha ha!

This activity was far more important than writing a letter...

After we had enjoyed our delicious ice creams, I decided to sit with Sarah while she wrote her letter in the dining room.
In the end, she really enjoyed inventing funny adventures about a pig and a camping trip to describe in her newsy letter to her imaginary Grandad. I think her real Grandad will enjoy reading about them too....

After this, Sarah set herself up outside to do some printing with a polystyrene pizza base she had etched on last week.
She had got the idea from an activity she had tried at the Taunton Home Ed Earth Topic Day last week.
She knew exactly what to do with the colours to create the effect she wanted.

     
 
 

Although she had to do several takes of the print, as she discovered that too much paint prevents the image from showing up.
She had based her etching on a Stone Age Documentary, she and Matthew had been watching on Youtube.

Matthew went to find a flower to paint from the garden.

We had to move to the dining room to complete these tasks as it was decidedly chilly!
The wind had picked up and was blowing the paper about.
Sarah had also decided that the stones did not provide a flat enough surface for her printing activity.

Matthew wanted to paint a bright, stripy vase and a couple of flamboyant yellow flowers.

 

When he had finished his painting, we had another look at the flower,

its shape and the subtle shades of colour.

 

He drew and painted a delicate version of the flower, learning to mix the colours to create different shades and tones.

The end result was quite pleasing.



Learning on the Go

Today we dipped in and out of formal learning activities, interspersed with a trip to the library, outdoor play, reading, lego playing and screen time.

At the moment, this ebb and flow style seems to be working really well.

A while ago, I set up a system by which the children could select pictures of their chosen activities and post them onto individual learning boards.

Unfortunately, this only worked for one or two days and, to my disappointment, has been abandoned.

I think Sarah much prefers to use a range of approaches, focussing on one for a week or two and then trying something new....

So after the children had got themselves ready and done their Monday chores, i.e. emptying the dishwasher (usually a daily chore), emptying the bins, tidying their rooms and replenishing the loo rolls, they enjoyed a bit of screen time, before we set off for the library.

We stopped for a few minutes at Dunster park and the children had great fun doing several laps of the adventure equipment in the glorious sunshine.

 

We piled back into the car and set off for the recycling centre.

 

 When we arrived, Matthew was most affronted to see that the recycling assistants were disposing of three very useable chairs. As I had been keeping an eye out for some spare chairs on free-cycle, I went and asked the men whether we could have them. They were happy to retrieve them from the skip and we somehow managed to stuff them into the car, with some clever jiggery pokery...
It was amazing how we turned up at exactly the right time for Matthew to spot the chairs!

We were pleased to find that the library was open when we finally arrived. I had been afraid that it may have closed for lunch, as some smaller libraries are wont to do.

 

Matthew chose a pile of Asterix books, which Sarah immediately started reading.

He also found a couple of Paddington story books

We chose to start reading one of these as soon as we got home.

But funnily enough, while we were still at the library, we ended up reading a Lego Ideas Book Matthew had thought he wanted to return!
Needless to say, he decided to keep this one after all. He wanted to try out some of the ideas at home.

 

We were excited to find Gangsta Granny, by David Walliams, which Matthew was very keen to read.

 



 

As well as a couple of Captain Underpants, Matthew was determined to take home, as he had discovered that the author also has dyslexia....

On the way home, we popped into Tescos. Sarah wanted to read books, while Matthew helped me to find four or five things we needed. We added the total up as we went round the shop.

 

When we got home, Matthew related in great detail, an incident he had watched on youtube involving a mole and a cat and the magic potion pot! It was quite funny and I made a note to encourage him to draw a picture of this as a starting point for a creative writing activity. Apparently it is from an episode of Asterix Conquers America, which he thinks may not be an authentic Asterix, but fun all the same. If you are interested, you can find the link here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av3Tq3iCztk

After lunch, Sarah practised the cornet and piano, while Matthew completed his Reading Eggs and Conquer Maths challenges. He was going to do another Nessy task, but it wouldn't let us in...
He also read a reading book from the library from the Awful Alfie series.
Regular practice is really paying off and we are starting to see some tangible progress, although it is still very hard work for him. occasionally he will write words quite spontaneously, which is so encouraging.

When Sarah finished her Music practice, she needed some down time, as it requires a lot of concentration. She chose to play on the trampoline and has also set herself a challenge to complete several laps of the garden using a circuit she has made for herself, using Matthew's hurdles and the paddling pool!

Another activity she is enjoying at the moment, apart from reading, is to sit on her window sill and record all the books on her shelf on pieces of paper, using her red ink and a feather.



She has created a duplo construction in her room. One of the joys of home education, is the fact that no one tells you that you are too old to play with certain toys. So at eleven and a half, she quite happily entertains herself with small world play.

Matthew also enjoys designing his own lego creations and no longer relies on Sarah to play by his side. They still come to blows over this activity from time to time as they have their own individual rules of play, which neither seems to necessarily understand.

When Sarah had had enough down time, she came upstairs to do some Conquer Maths, Duolingo French and a Reading Comprehension Activity based on Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott.

By this time, she was overtired, as a spate of late nights had caught up with her. She wanted to complete these activities in bed and this she did, where she also ate her tea.

Matthew enjoyed a bath after tea and we shared a couple of chapters from another Paddington Book I had found on his book shelf.



We were in stitches and had to pipe down as Sarah was trying to go to sleep and we were disturbing her! Although we were having great fun, it was important to learn to be considerate as Sarah definitely needed an earlier night.



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