It's June!
Wow it's so busy and the time is flying past so quickly. I have neglected my musings and I suspect this will a regular event as being with the boys is always the priority. It's Sunday today and they are playing nicely together at the side of me.
We have been on many outings with the HE groups I am a member of and this month is no exception. So far we have done a First Aid course. Ice skating a few times, park outings, A Civil War Encampment and on Friday we are all enjoying a group trip to Alton Towers!
We also have some new friends that home educate and go to their houses too.
This week Owen and Sam really enjoyed our trip to Boscobel House and the Civil War day...there was so much to take in and the people taking part very informative. Owen also enjoyed a paper making class this week and it is something I think we may look into doing more of , as his resulting work was very impressive.
Reading and Maths are progressing well and we still enjoy getting or new supply of books from Market Drayton Library...luckily they have an extensive reading selection and who ever does the ordering makes sure the choice is excellent.
We had a trip down to Brighton to see 'The Prof' and although the situation isn't perfect with the boys condition, it is more manageable now. Owen struggles with the journey there and back so there is always a 7 day window either side of any trip where we have to try and keep things as stress free as possible. Even so we had a few meltdowns..but no where near as bad or frequent as when he was in school.
We are still working on Education City, RM Maths and Reading Eggs regularly but everything else is completely child led. Owen is starting to show a great interest in creative art and Sam surprises himself constantly with how much his reading is coming alone. He's really enjoying it now and doesn't stubble over the words or spell them out. He enjoys the fluency of the written word so much more than a few months ago.
The boys constantly amaze me with their progression and how much they absorb from our many conversations about the world. The other day we did a study unit on magnets and they answered everything easily..all because we had bought them a set of magnets a few weeks ago and they were asking lots of questions about how they worked. Days ensued of them testing various surfaces to find if they were magnetic or not. Also they enjoyed pushing the magnets along the floors by using the repelling elements.
Sam loves trajectory games and seems to have a real interest in physics generally, he's getting good at seeing angles and looking at weighting objects etc. and can get absorbed in this for long periods. He skips happily to do his reading and maths, usually asking if he can do it without any prompting. We really enjoy this time and have a lot of smiles and laughs. Owen is more reluctant but usually cannot resist from joining in the fun after 10 mins or so...then elbows us out of the way to do 'his learning'.
Buying the children Marble run has caught their interest and many happy hours have passed building different routes.
I feel we are doing really well, falling into a rhythm more and the whole house is less stressed. Owen's behaviour will always have challenging elements to it but he is still progressing on many levels, both in academics and socially. We are still awaiting the start of his ASD assessment...but it's taking Soooo long.
Had a real breakthrough with getting the boys interested in writing. The book by Peggy Kaye - Games For Writing is just brilliant and the children were very happily playing and writing using some of the suggestions.... In fact they have asked for more of the same...I am so pleased and would happily recommend the book to anyone who's children were experiencing a 'fear of writing'.
I have posted new photos so show some (as it's by no means everything) of the activities we have done recently.
Monday 25 June 2012
Sunday 24 June 2012
Tuesday 1 May 2012
May's Here! Archive 4
Well it was a bit of a turbulent April!
I am still finding what works for us and rapidly realising what ideas are abject failures..but I am philosophical about it all and reassess things weekly. I think that is the key and be forgiving of my mistakes.
I need to find 'me time' where I have periods to do my own stuff and also plan what we are going to do over the week.
It is rapidly becoming apparent that apart from crafts, cooking and reading the boy prefer all their activities to be PC based. This means Reading Eggs is still going down well day after day and I am trialing Brain Pop Jr this week along with Vorderman's maths and a few other sites such as Oxford Owls. I may subscribe the boys to a another site over the next month or so depending on how this pans out.
I have also had to ditch my dream of completely autonomous learning for the time being (did you notice that glimmer of hope that it's on the back burner)?
This week so far has been much easier due to having a 'plan' each day where I give the boys a list of activities to work through. Owen and Sam seem much less stressed having this to work to and therefore so am I!
I am getting less concerned with documenting everything in writing as it was too time consuming and stress inducing so these lists will serve as my records of what we are doing.
Over that last couple of weeks we have read the following from the library:
Monster and Frog Get Fit
FArTHER (beautiful )
Monty's Surprise
Eat Your Dinner!
Pirate Adventures
Mine!
Cactus Annie
Sewing for Children (Owen made a pirate hat and eye patch)
The Lost Voice
Stories of Robots
If we had a Sailboat
Stories of Giants
The Ministry of Niceness
Billy Back to Front
Toad Makes a Road
The Silly Sheepdog
Scrap's Best Stick
..as well as all our usual home bought favourites on top..gosh it's a lot when you see it written down!
We enjoyed viking Day..learnt all about Vikings longboats, Longhouses and their lives in Britain...ate Viking dinner and shout 'Hazarrr!' a lot for reasons of our own amusement.
We backed, check our postcrossing cards on the maps and practised our maths..doing a bit on both number lines and multiplication.
We played sight word bingo and a maths dice game using subtraction, multiplication and addition.
..I'm doing more than I thought!
I am still finding what works for us and rapidly realising what ideas are abject failures..but I am philosophical about it all and reassess things weekly. I think that is the key and be forgiving of my mistakes.
I need to find 'me time' where I have periods to do my own stuff and also plan what we are going to do over the week.
It is rapidly becoming apparent that apart from crafts, cooking and reading the boy prefer all their activities to be PC based. This means Reading Eggs is still going down well day after day and I am trialing Brain Pop Jr this week along with Vorderman's maths and a few other sites such as Oxford Owls. I may subscribe the boys to a another site over the next month or so depending on how this pans out.
I have also had to ditch my dream of completely autonomous learning for the time being (did you notice that glimmer of hope that it's on the back burner)?
This week so far has been much easier due to having a 'plan' each day where I give the boys a list of activities to work through. Owen and Sam seem much less stressed having this to work to and therefore so am I!
I am getting less concerned with documenting everything in writing as it was too time consuming and stress inducing so these lists will serve as my records of what we are doing.
Over that last couple of weeks we have read the following from the library:
Monster and Frog Get Fit
FArTHER (beautiful )
Monty's Surprise
Eat Your Dinner!
Pirate Adventures
Mine!
Cactus Annie
Sewing for Children (Owen made a pirate hat and eye patch)
The Lost Voice
Stories of Robots
If we had a Sailboat
Stories of Giants
The Ministry of Niceness
Billy Back to Front
Toad Makes a Road
The Silly Sheepdog
Scrap's Best Stick
..as well as all our usual home bought favourites on top..gosh it's a lot when you see it written down!
We enjoyed viking Day..learnt all about Vikings longboats, Longhouses and their lives in Britain...ate Viking dinner and shout 'Hazarrr!' a lot for reasons of our own amusement.
We backed, check our postcrossing cards on the maps and practised our maths..doing a bit on both number lines and multiplication.
We played sight word bingo and a maths dice game using subtraction, multiplication and addition.
..I'm doing more than I thought!
Wednesday 18 April 2012
Boys with shield & longship archive5
Viking Day
A whole Day learning about the Vikings, eating a Viking Lunch and making a longship and Shield...a brilliant time was had by all.
A whole Day learning about the Vikings, eating a Viking Lunch and making a longship and Shield...a brilliant time was had by all.
Wednesday 11 April 2012
Sam & Ian archive6
A visit from Uncle Ian on his motorbike. Sam nearly did himself a mischief trying to put Ian's biker jacket on. The boys enjoyed their Easter Eggs.
Saturday 7 April 2012
Thursday 5 April 2012
Busy doing nothing
Thursday 5th April 2012
It never ceases to amaze me that I when I think we are 'doing nothing' we actually seem to get a lot done. Today O didn't get out of bed till 10:30..he was SO tired and it was nice to just let him be whilst S and I worked on our own projects.
Me sourcing resources, Sam working on his reading, spelling and comprehension.
On finally rising the boys played together, taking turns and working out how to navigate the new Octonauts game on CBeebies.
Lunchtime, where we discussed tasks the boys can easily manage around the home. I have explained that they can do as much or as little off the list as they wish but for every completed task 5 HP will be issued. We also discussed the importance of healthy eating and setup a chart so they can assess if they have eaten 5 portions of fruit and veg a day.
Every day they achieve this 5 HP's will be given.
This seems to be helping O make more informed decisions about his eating (always a bonus).
After lunch S vacuumed the living room.
O worked on spelling, reading, comprehension and grammar.
S and I did some artwork and drew a fantastic Cityscape complete with skyscrapers.
We freecycled some of our old items to another family today.
S and I learnt about the life cycle of the ladybird and looked at our new book 'The Children's Encyclopedia of Animals'.
O also looked at the 'Paper Plane' book and tried to figure out some of the instructions..he got about halfway through a very complicated one all on his own.
Wednesday 4 April 2012
1st Post
Well, the start of my blogging and Home Education journey.
Yesterday the boys went to a play scheme for the morning and I felt very lost without them...so bought MORE books for them to peruse.
Both had a great time but were very tired when I collected them, so we watched a couple of films.
Later the boys practised their handwriting in the new journals I bought them and we looked at masks.
Both worked hard on Reading Eggs.
Owen and I looked at 'Splat' pictures and how to morph random splats into cars, zany birds and trains. He enjoyed doing this and having the splats as prompts stopped him from suffering with 'blank page fright'.
Talked about instructions and looked at our new 'How to make Paper Planes Book'..an extensive paper plane making session followed where we tried different designs.
New books arrived in the evening and the boys read:
Harry and the Dinosaurs 'Dinosaurs United' and Sponge bob 'Special Delivery' Sam also browsed the Encyclopedia of Animals.
The boys camped out in the tent setup in Owen's room. They enjoyed making their 'camp' and much giggling followed before sleep.
Today is a sad day as my lovely neighbour sadly passed away after a short and feisty battle with cancer..we are all very sad at this unfair turn of events. So a quiet day for us just looking at what interests us.
Owen and I designed some paper critters on http://paperboxworld.weebly.com/ and http://www.papercritters.com/pc.php
Sam looked at his animal book again and I printed out some resources.
Subscribed to Monominiis.
We thought a random act of kindness was in order so made paper animals, bath bombs and animal pillows. Next we built a cosy nest for them and snugged them in nicely with a large gift tag. We secretly delivered our package of critters to a house in the village, with a tag explaining what they are and how to look after them...there was much giggling, as we tried to hide so we weren't seen leaving our secret parcel on the doorstep.
Yesterday the boys went to a play scheme for the morning and I felt very lost without them...so bought MORE books for them to peruse.
Both had a great time but were very tired when I collected them, so we watched a couple of films.
Later the boys practised their handwriting in the new journals I bought them and we looked at masks.
Both worked hard on Reading Eggs.
Owen and I looked at 'Splat' pictures and how to morph random splats into cars, zany birds and trains. He enjoyed doing this and having the splats as prompts stopped him from suffering with 'blank page fright'.
Talked about instructions and looked at our new 'How to make Paper Planes Book'..an extensive paper plane making session followed where we tried different designs.
New books arrived in the evening and the boys read:
Harry and the Dinosaurs 'Dinosaurs United' and Sponge bob 'Special Delivery' Sam also browsed the Encyclopedia of Animals.
The boys camped out in the tent setup in Owen's room. They enjoyed making their 'camp' and much giggling followed before sleep.
Today is a sad day as my lovely neighbour sadly passed away after a short and feisty battle with cancer..we are all very sad at this unfair turn of events. So a quiet day for us just looking at what interests us.
Owen and I designed some paper critters on http://paperboxworld.weebly.com/ and http://www.papercritters.com/pc.php
Sam looked at his animal book again and I printed out some resources.
Subscribed to Monominiis.
We thought a random act of kindness was in order so made paper animals, bath bombs and animal pillows. Next we built a cosy nest for them and snugged them in nicely with a large gift tag. We secretly delivered our package of critters to a house in the village, with a tag explaining what they are and how to look after them...there was much giggling, as we tried to hide so we weren't seen leaving our secret parcel on the doorstep.
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