Science, maths, guitar playing, poo and poverty.

Owen work well on his maths problems today.

Then we continued looking at forces. I had found some programmes by Dick and Dom, so we watched the one on gravity. They are hilarious and Owen enjoyed it immensely.

Sam has come down with a cold so he played his guitar and worked on RM maths. He's practicing using his right hand fingers to pluck the strings more successfully. After doing and extra session of maths he decided to vacuum downstairs before going off to play on his PC.

As is usual at the moment, we started off with some maths. Sam worked on RM because he prefers that. He was pleased he got his highest score.

Owen and I started working on Infinity maths, but it was very glitchy , so we gave up after a while and did some RM maths before Owen lost all patience.

Next the boys wanted to watch some more of the Genius programs. They chose the one about poo, which had Sam and I retching in places. We learn about the sewers and where poo goes, how it's treated and the by products.

The children particularly liked the bits where Dick and Dom set things on fire and caused explosions using methane.

The boys played on their PCs in the afternoon, then went to jujitsu.

Both boys woke with stinking colds and Sam has an awful cough. I accepted it was going to be a slow day and we spent some time watching Genius with Dick and Dom, whilst snuggling on the sofa.

The boys were really enamoured with the Clifton Suspenion Bridge and want to go and visit it this year.

Even the dogs were feeling out of sorts and although I am recovering , I am still very tired too.

Neither child was in a good mood, with these bugs it's hardly a surprise. They spend the first hour in the morning baiting each other.

Then they asked to watch more Dick and Dom.

First it was Elsie Widdersome and explored about how calories are measured and food science.

Afterwards they watched a programme about Von Braun and rocket power.

Owen and I discussed what he wanted to look at next and I suggested a little project I had seen,  it's about poverty in Africa. I explained the average amount a person would have per day would be $1.90 ...he converted this to £1.50 per person. I suggested we try to get breakfast, lunch and dinner for three people.

He started with bread and searched for the cheapest.

We then chatted about looking at whether it would be possible/better/cheaper to make bread. Owen pointed out that he would need to get water too, because not everyone had clean available water.

I mentioned a supermarket comparison site may help him find the cheapest items and he thought that maybe a good idea.

He chatted and thought about each purchase carefully, making a note in his book about how much he had left.

With his purchases he decided the following could be made:

Breakfast:

Toast ( from the homemade bread) , with spread.

Lunch:

Homemade soup with tomatoes and beans and bread.

Dinner:

Jacket potatoes, beans and ham.

He settled on making bread because it was possible to make far more with the ingredients, than if he bought a single loaf.

He finished up and sat and thought. Then handed me his pocket money.

' I want to buy some food for someone who needs it.'

 I suggested the food bank and we looked up the nearest one. As I still can't drive, I pointed out there was the option to make a donation online. So he did that. I was so proud of him.

In between coughing and spinning Sam was working on his maths. He's doing really well working on his own. He has always been unconfident in his abilities, so I am so happy he's finally believing in himself.

The next day was spent running me to hospital for a neuro appointment. We got back home and walked to the pub for a smashing lunch. I needed to rest in the afternoon, so the boys played with Blokey and online with friends.

We did some shopping the next day and stocked up on books from the library. The boys played outside as the sun was finally shining. Later we went for a bike ride, played chess and Owen played online with his friend. In the evening we watched the Lego Movie again.

Sunday morning Sam was feeling much better ( and no nasty steroids was a huge bonus) , so he and Blokey went swinming. Owen and I were still feeling wiped out, so he played online with his friend and I managed to do some house work. It felt good to get the house in a bit more order, as I hadn't managed much during the week. 

Sam and I went for a bike ride.

The afternoon is spent playing indoor games, such as, chess and Rayman, as well as reading and watching films.

Blokeys birthday, fossils, maths, planets.

The boys had a lovely time with my parents , they came home on Sunday and Monday we are working at getting them back into their routine...such as it is.

We start with Maths and Sam gets stuck in.

Owen worked well too and it was great to see him feeling pleased with his progress. 370 points is a wicked score and he made sure I took a photo.

Sam and Blokey decided to watch Life with David Attenborough. They both thoroughly enjoyed it. Whilst they did that, Owen and I looked at another Infinity School lesson, today fossils. 

We researched how we can prove dinosaurs lived 65 million years ago. 

Then at how fossils are made and finally made salt dough fossils of our own. Owen really enjoyed this activity..he was so enthusiastic to make the dough and then found items to press in the dough to form his 'fossils'.

In the afternoon Blokeys parents called in with his birthday present and I took part in a telephone interview with the wonderful Charity Cerebra. I made steak pies which Sam wolfed down then we went for another walk, whilst Owen and Blokey enjoyed a bit of time together.

Sam and I out walking in the now daily fog. We were chuckling about the fun we could have making these trees into a catapult.

The next day I couldn't run because there was ice everywhere. The sun actually came out late morning , so we went off exploring after the boys had finished their maths sessions. It was a busy start to the day as we had various deliveries to deal with and as usual the boys found this both disruptive and anxiety inducing....therefore I did too. It's catching!

The pond in the play area was frozen and the boys enjoyed playing with the ice and measuring it's thickness in various places.

All the plants looked like they were furry and fluffy.

We had a play in the equipment, then walked into the main part of the village before getting home for some lunch.

In the afternoon the children played with their friends and went to jujitsu. They were tired because they had been up very early, to make sure they could give Blokey the birthday presents they had bought him.

The next day Sam worked on his maths, then requested we look at 'space'. He chose the Solar System

He needed to find the eight planets, but his excited brain was jumping everywhere. I know, it's so unlike him *chuckles*.He managed most but got side tracked frequently but that was ok because he was exploring other theories as he did so. 

We talked about Pluto now being a dwarf planet ( highly controversial ), then compared Sam's list of planets with the official versions.

He got most of them, but as you can see, there were extras. It's hard to tell if some were real or it was just that Sam believed they were ...I would have researched them but he was moving along so fast I didn't get chance. 

We found information on research into a ninth planet, so read up on that.

Sam then put his planets in order, he started with the nearest to the sun and worked to the farthest. He was pretty sketchy on that , so we checked his facts as we went.

We then read about the temperatures of the planets and Sam chose to write these next to some of the planet names he already had on his list. (See above) .

He practiced his letters as he went along too.

Owen and Sam both regularly forget about number places, so Owen chose to do a some work on what the places mean and writing numbers in columns. It also makes him understand the importance of making his figures legible.

We took it in turns to write numbers and equations out.

Afterwards we played Horrible Histories Top Trumps.

Owen enjoyed Infinity maths so much yesterday, he wanted to do more lessons today.

He started by attempting to write his times tables out. He was doing really well but misinterpreted the instructions slightly and felt he had messed up his work. 

I jollied him along and wrote some of the next set out for him and he supplied the answers, sometimes writing them in, other times reading them out to me.

We had three full sheets and talked bout the number patterns...he likes patterns.

Next we drew up a time table grid. We have attempted this before but he struggled to grasp it. So he did look apprehensive initially, but this time saw the number patterns quickly and really enjoyed telling me what to fill in the squares with.

We them practiced using the grid and he was really pleased with the he finished work. He's done quite a bit of pen work this week , and as he tired I stepped in to enable him to finish any work and to prevent him feeling dejected. He seems to be building on his skills slowly but surely but it's incredibly hard for him.

Sam slept late and then sat and worked on The RM app. He's becoming very independent with this programme now. It was nice to be asked to explain something to him on this day, as he hasn't needed any input from me for a couple of weeks. Once I explained the question, he understood what to do and flew through it all so fast, I barely had time to read the questions.

After maths I showed Sam and app that plots the stars and planets, we talked some more about yesterday's topic and I was able to expand on some of the stars he had asked about. We are lucky to have home ed friends with interests in this field , so I had picked their brains the previous evening about some of the stars Sam had mentioned the day before. When prompted he remembered it was the Vega star, not the vagus star...it's the first one you can see in the evening.

We then all played UNO , which is always fun.

Owen listened to his music whilst he played.

When activities were finished they children went off to play upstairs in their rooms together.

There was much excitement because we were going to Flipout by our friends. Sadly, I became ill and had to go to the doctors at short notice. Our lovely friends kindly offered to collect the boys and take them whilst Blokey ran me to the GP for an emergency appointment. I was covered in Shingles. 

The boys had a lovely time and it helped them destress from watching their mother gradually turn red and itchy. 

The next day was spent quietly doing our own thing, I was feeling pretty wiped out , so we all took it easy.

Owen took himself off for a shower:

Sam played Wordfued and chess with his dad.

Owen laced online with one of his home ed friends and Sam did a bit of playing in the rain.