On the learning front, we are trialing a more formal way of home education. As I explained to the boys, you can't have choice without options. So, having seen, understood and lived a fully autonomous route, and having experienced school, I'm now giving them another version of home education.
We are conducting 20 minutes lessons, with a 10 minute break between. This goes on between 9 and 12, then from 2 till 4. However, these are HE style lessons - in other words, not all at the table with a pen and paper!Today for example we had 20 minutes of handwriting practice (including William). Then we went out to the park and meet another HE family for "PE". (and yes, looking at the picture, he DID need to go to the toilet!). We actually did some ball control games with a football, and then some hand/eye coordination games with a tennis ball.
After lunch, Joshua spent 20 minutes on the free geography tests offered by Chalkface this week.
Meanwhile, Samuel worked through his Geography workbook. He has been doing very well and needed barely any help today - just the confidence from knowing I was sitting next to him helped.
Afterwards, we moved onto science. Joshua continued their Bamzooki project, trying to get to grips with the movement of their creature.
Samuel and William took over the kitchen for a science experiement on celloids using Planet Science's Custard Gone Crazy. It tied in nicely with the work on solids, liquids and gases that Samuel had completed in his science workbook, and for a kinetic learner like Samuel, it is essential to follow up the paper theory with a hands-on, visual exercise.
It was also, with a kinetic learner like Samuel, and a 4 year old like William, essential to follow it up with a mop, sponge, and lots of water! Yuk!Our journey to and from the park today, by the way, was jammed packed with learning.
We covered (in no particular order!):
- smog
- asthma
- fertilization
- fertility treatment
- twins
- language - where phrases come from. The starter for the discussion being "going out on a limb" (when the boys were up a tree!)
For dinner, I'd found a really easy looking trick for tasty pork chops: Put one tablespoon of brown sugar, one knob of butter on each chop, sprinkly with soy sauce, then bake in the oven for 45 minutes. My lazy chewers all managed to eat their chops quickly, and loved the sauce!
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1 comment:
Thanks for the link to chalkface.
I will be praying for you. I hate conditions that you think you have under control that come up again.
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