Its been three weeks since I blogged anything! I knew I;d been busy but hadn't realised quite how busy until I promised a friend I would blog 'tonight I promise' 3 days ago and still haven't got round to it!
So what have we been up to?? LOADS!
Our Sonlight Core arrived( world history and geography) and the kids are really enjoying it, especially the geography songs on CD :) I'm glad I didn't buy a whole great big package though with Maths, handwriting etc because Connors doing really well with his Miquon programme and Sophies started practicing her tables every day when she realised she just isnt managing her maths any more because she doesn't know them.
I'm going to look into getting some of the 'optional' language arts workbooks for Connor though because IMO they shouldn't be optional, the language arts frankly isn't very good without them!
Connor likes his reading books though and Sophie is reading aloud some of the bits and pieces of history etc instead of me doing it. I initially intended the core for Connor and thought Id get a different one for Sophie but shes enjoying it all and it doesn't seem too 'young' for her. She has her Galore Park English which she can do to differentiate the language arts bits anyway!
I'm finding the first 'read aloud' novel rather boring but they love it so I'm guessing its just me then....!
We don't do it all every day, if its too much for them to manage all at one sitting so we just pick it up as we feel able to and leave the bits we don't want for another day when they are more interested.
Its definitely led by them though, they ask to 'do work now please' and are able to say "actually I don't want to do this bit, can we do something else now please?"
I'm glad I did bite the bullet and got it though, their demands to "do work now please" were difficult previously because whatever I tried to conjour up nothing seemed to satisfy them for long. Sonlight really does seem to fit the bill in that respect.Its nice covering so much with so little perceived effort on everyone's part and I certainly don't feel I'm 'teaching' them really, just reading to them or guiding them through whatever is on the schedule for the day and keeping track of whats next if we stopped and pick it back up again at a different time.
They gave up on Education City for a while but its been redone lately to meet the needs of home users better and they are both really liking the new format and games etc so have been using that quite a lot too.
Other than the home ed stuff we've been meeting up with other home edders both locally and further afield.
Wise up has held another couple of Brilliant sessions, a Water play session which the kids both absolutely loved and threw themselves into with great enthusiasm. The session went on for hours while most of the mums managed to stay dry and clean by lounging like seals in the sun while the pups splashed, raced, slid and bounced around soaking each other and getting plastered in mud and bubbles! There were several exclamations of "Amazing, brill! etc and Sophie made me well up when she announced loudly "I LOVE my life!!"
Tuesday club last Tuesday was another great one. Connor spent most of his time in the Dojo with Jon the sports coach and Sophie spent all day with the girls doing arty bits, producing a lovely poster of a Dalek and doing some Cross stitch and tormenting Torin ( which appears to be an activity in itself) fortunately Torin appears to be enjoying it as much as they are! Ill put links to the piccies up at the end, I always manage to mess up the formatting!
Locally we've been Swimming with another family who live nearby and the kids are keen to go again. I'm hoping maybe we can make it a regular activity as other friends have also said they'd like to come along :)
We also went birdwatching at The museum of Welsh life in St Fagans which necessitated an early start... up at 4.30 to meet at 5.30! OUCH! It was well worth it though, the guide Gareth taught us all what to listen for before we set out and over about an hour and a half we saw loads of different birds The kids had a tick sheet and managed to tick off almost all the birds and had to add quite a few to the lists. We also spotted rabbits in the clearing, newts and fish in the tannery pond. It was lovely to go when it was so peaceful and still. I hope we can repeat it sometime.
They are still enjoying their activities , Connors sticking at Tae- Kwondo and is trying hard to learn to count in Korean.
Sophie has joined the cheerleading sessions and is working hard in her new swimming club. Shes been a bit blah about Trampolining this term but she does this every now and again so I know it will pass. I didnt think she would want to add anything else in activity wise but living so close to the leisure centre she takes herself off down there to do whatever it is she wants( lovely for her and for me!)It also means no running round after her apart from Trampolining.
Sophie is still wavering about school. We have to make a decision soon, sometimes she wants to go, sometimes she doesn't. Unfortunately the cost of petrol is starting to make it prohibitive for us to actually get her there every day and its too far for her to get public transport back home if one of us can't get there to collect her :( We had hoped she could go to MIL's house but things have been 'difficult' in that dept lately so its not an option.That makes the decision all the harder and petrol doesn't look like its getting cheaper either!
There is a small Christian school closer that we've discovered and visited, its only just starting up with about 10 kids aged between 4-13 and 2 staff its designed to be for either full time or home educated and flexi school so the kids are going to go and try a session and see if they like it.
Ive realised lately working as much as I do after being with the kids all day is just unsustainable for me physically. I'm exhausted much of the time ( and thankfully Darren has realised this too) Several times a week I do a full 'days work' after having spent all day running round with the kids!
Financially we cannot afford for me not to. If I didn't the kids would have to go back to state schools and Id have to work in the day.( really not an option) so hopefully if they can spend a couple of sessions a week somewhere then Ill get a little bit of time off to catch up with things in the house or just to sleep if necessary!
Chloe's home this weekend and thinks the idea of going to school for just some of the time is 'wierd' but seems happy to keep her counsel for now, I think so long as shes happy shes stooped worrying what the others get up to without her. Shes very keen to go to Wise up and see what goes on at Tuesday club. She'll be with me every weekend now, then breaks up in the 2nd week in July for 2 months before moving to the upper school ( shes scared she will get lost and its too big... she doesn't realise how small it is compared with most schools!)
We've both been in stitches watching the new comedy 'Summer hills high' on BBC, set in an Australian High School.. and one actor playing the three main, very different characters ( a gay drama teacher with aspirations, a bitchy pretentious new girl and a Polynesian lad who is trying to drop out and disrupt in every possible way as he 'entertains' the class)
This evening I cringed and waited for a bad reaction when there was a scene in a 'remedial reading lesson' where the main character was learning to read the word 'Circus' ... "sound it out"said the teacher and the kid said "C" ( as in Cat) and corrected by the teacher said "It doesn't begin with a F***ing S"... cue Chloe Falling about laughing and says See! See?? That's what I think when I'm in speech and language doing my THRASS ( specialist phonics for severely dyslexic kids)
It could have been such an awful moment but it was so funny and so special that we can all now sit and laugh at the ridiculousness of parts of the English language and what used to be such a sore subject is something she now has the confidence to find hilarious. We are also loving the bitchy girl from the private school on the exchange programme and how awful she is.
anyway... heres the rest of the piccies from the Water play session
Ill probably go quiet again after today for a week as we're off to Glastonbury this week... Im taking 4 kids, inc Chloe's friend Charlotte ( I must be mad)
I'll make sure I don't leave it so long before blogging all that when I get back!
2 comments:
Great to see autonomy working so well for you. :)
Hope the school thing works out well, the small school sounds ideal and hopefully it will mean you get the rest you need.
Enjoy Glastonbury, my sister and her hub are going too, I've never been, maybe next year, lol!
Sounds like your having lots of fun with sonlight and I think we will do it in a similar way and be led by the kids on it as opposed to strictly following the IG each day.
Hope you enjoy Glastonbury.
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