Life, Love & Literature

Just another Home Education blog

Dec 1

The Witches

by sarah

A bit behind here but…

Last Sat­ur­day was Jack’s drama classes show so we all headed over to Portsmouth.

While Jack’s class did some last minute prac­tice, the rest of us went to Vic­to­ria Park.

Jack was a nar­ra­tor in the play and played sev­eral back­ground parts.  Here he is as a mouse.

And with his certificate

 

 

 

Day to day life Out and About

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Sep 19

Weekend

by sarah

No pho­tos but a good busy weekend

We went into Portsmouth and Jack spent the book voucher he had won.

Jack started a new drama class at the The­atre Royal in Portsmouth.  He seemed happy enough with it, and I had time to browse the fab­ric shop in my own time, I’d say bliss, but the shop is poor.  Per­haps I should have signed him up for lessons in Havant although not sure I could sus­tain the dam­age weekly Hob­by­craft vis­its would do to my bank balance!

Then it was straight home and to piano.

Boys went out to play with friends and then it was time for Dr Who.

Sun­day and Jack went to a water fun day with cubs.  Which for him meant sev­eral goes on the kayaks, he loves kayak­ing.  Came home very wet, not sure what did more dam­age cap­siz­ing or a tremen­dous thun­der­storm when they were on the way home.

Sam went over the road to play.  First time I had let him go with­out Jack.

Peace­ful evening watch­ing foot­ball and read­ing rounded off a good weekend.

Out and About

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Sep 17

Jack’s Curriculum 2011

by sarah

For once we begin the aca­d­e­mic year with Jack work­ing at the level he would be at school.  We’ll ignore the fact that in some sub­jects this is our sec­ond or third curriculum.

The plan is to spend less time focus­ing on Maths, Eng­lish and Sci­ence and intro­duce new sub­jects and do more project work.

 

Maths

Real­is­ti­cally I sus­pect that this is not enough to last the year but we will bulk out, with Maths puz­zles, try some test papers and prob­a­bly start on some KS3 Maths books we have, if necessary.

Eng­lish

Last year I did a lot of work with Jack on writ­ing for dif­fer­ent pur­poses and audi­ences (every­thing he was writ­ing sounded like it came from a Diary of a Wimpy Kid book) and it has def­i­nitely paid off.  How­ever, he is a bit fed up of writ­ing exer­cises so this year the aim is qual­ity not quan­tity.  I hope to encour­age him to start plan­ning a bit more.

We have also time for read­ing built into our days so we aim to read the books linked to the com­pre­hen­sion exer­cises in to Jack’s Eng­lish book.

Sci­ence

His­tory

Geog­ra­phy

Jack wanted to use these

I’m not impressed.  So the plan is to take the themes from it and expand them into projects.

Plan is to look at;

Coasts

Maps

Set­tle­ments

Lon­don

Rivers

These books form the core of our exten­sion work

Latin

Both boys will be work­ing together on Minimus.

French

These books are excel­lent because they work along­side each other.  The books address the same themes in the same order, but obvi­ously the work in Book 1 is more in depth than that in the Ele­men­tary book.  This means we can study the main ideas and vocab together but boys can work at their own level.

Drama

Jack is doing drama lessons at New The­atre Royal in Portsmouth.

Music

I hope to do a bit of music appre­ci­a­tion using this

Plus Jack has fort­nightly piano lessons.

Art

We will look at dif­fer­ent artis­tic works and pro­duce pieces inspired by them.

Project work

Jack is quite keen on the idea of these and as long as he remains so I will leave the entirely within his control.

He is start­ing with one about the seaside.

 

 

Curriculum Jack's Work

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Jul 18

End of Year Drama play

by sarah
Yes­ter­day was Jack’s drama class’s end of year production.
Don’t get me wrong I love see­ing Jack in the end of year play but in prac­tice I hate the actual day.
The the­atre is in a town north of Portsmouth, takes taxi (no buses that early on a Sun­day), ferry and 2 buses to get there.  Leav­ing at 8 to get there for 10.15 for morn­ing rehearsals.  Then we have to hang around until 12 before they open the the­atre (and they are always late) and it’s in a mas­sive hous­ing estate with nowhere to get cof­fee at 10.30 on a Sun­day morn­ing, nowhere to sit and it kept pour­ing down;(
Then we have to sit through 4 plays on very uncomfy seats, whole thing goes on for well over an hour with pre­sen­ta­tions.  Final play was I guess 11-14yo, some of whom had been hav­ing lessons for 8years appar­ently and you couldn’t hear a word!  20 mins of my life watch­ing other peo­ples tweens and teens mum­bling at the floor is not what I call fun.
On the pos­i­tive side, slightly biased but I think, Jack’s play was again by far the best.  On the whole the kids all pro­jected their voices so you could fol­low it (only one of the 4 you could) and they all knew their lines to per­fec­tion.  I am try­ing to move Jack to a new drama class in Sep­tem­ber as the class is very small and the rest of the class are 6/7 yo girls.  But very sad about it as his teacher is absolutely bril­liant. But although he is happy there feel he needs to be in a class with older kids for him to get the most out of drama. If any­one knows any good local (inc Portsmouth) classes love to hear of them.
Back to Sun­day, Jack was a Lion Tamer who lost his lion.  He seems to have a bit of a gift for comic tim­ing and did really well.  Proud Mummy moment — all the fuss was com­pletely worth it.
image of Jack as Rudolpho the Lion Tamer

Jack as Rudolpho the Lion Tamer

Day to day life Growing up Jack's Work Out and About

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Mar 28

Gaining Independence

by sarah

For the last week and a half I have found myself trapped in a never end­ing cycle of dec­o­rat­ing and tidy­ing up. Boys have more or less been left to their own devices.

Jack has pleased me by pretty much keep­ing up with his timetable inde­pen­dently. Work may not have been up to quite the stan­dard as it is if I am stand­ing over him, but from where we were a year ago when he was unable to do any­thing unless I was sat right next to him he has come a long way and I’m really pleased with him.
We man­aged to fit in going to play with friends while I had Rainbows.
Caught up with friends we hadn’t seen for a long time at the park.

Scooted to drama.
Had parent’s evening at drama
where Jack got a certificate.
Jack also kept him­self busy with some National Geo­graphic kits we’d bought in the Jan­u­ary Sales.
A skull has fallen apart but here’s the anatomy set.
And a work­ing water pump based on Archimede’s Screw.
They have also made friends with some of the kids in the Cul-de-Sac oppo­site so have been over there to play at any chance.

Day to day life Jack's Work

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Feb 10

At Home

by sarah

Jack did some prob­a­bil­ity and Sam fin­ished his shape book.

Jack wrote a report on yesterday’s HMS Vic­tory tour (see post below).
Sam did the work­sheets I’d copied from his Eng­lish books.
I had picked up a num­ber of books from Oxfam over the sum­mer that were obvi­ously a teach­ers stash. Among them were a col­lec­tion of pho­to­copi­able work­sheet books called ‘Devel­op­ing Lit­er­acy’ they have quite a few dif­fer­ent ones but with a bit of top­ping up from Ama­zon mar­ket­place we now have the Word, Sen­tence and Text level books for all of infant school. Since Christ­mas we have been using them to add anothe dimen­sion to Sam’s English.
Then we had been sent lots of print­able work­sheets by the edu­ca­tion offi­cer who had led Weds’ workshop.
We redid the spelling your name out in flags activ­ity as we’d mis­layed and I got the impres­sion they had not exactly under­stood it at the workshop.
Drew HMS Vic­tory
and did a word­search
Then on Jack’s sug­ges­tion we printed out more of the flags, coloured them and cut them out and used them to ‘write’ messages.
Jack’s says ‘You are a dork’
Mine says ‘What do you want for lunch’.
Con­vers­ing through flags meant the dis­cus­sion on lunch took a long time. So after a late lunch we had time to clear up and do a quick tidy before off to drama.
The walk to drama is too far for Sam so it is either bus or taxi. Since we have a bus pass this week, despite the rain, we opted for bus. The bus gets us there 35 mins early so we went for a walk in the lit­tle bit of wood­land near the school. .

Unfor­tu­nately we met a friendly, but large and bouncy dog who knocked the boys over and ter­ri­fied them. They are ner­vous of dogs any­way because this is not the first time it has hap­pened. The owner was very apolo­getic but it does annoy me — dog might be friendly but if they can’t con­trol it, it needs to be on the lead.
When I’d got them cleaned up a bit and calmed down, Sam joined Jack in his drama class. Whether he wants to join in long-term we’ll see…

Curriculum Day to day life

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Nov 14

Out and About

by sarah

Last week involved lots of run­ning around.

Mon­day we started with a bit of work. Maths, Eng­lish (read­ing prac­tice for Sam)and read our story of the week.
We looked at ‘Eeyore’s Birth­day’ to con­tinue the ‘fes­ti­vals’ theme.
We then did some exper­i­ments with bal­loons. Putting on some sticky tape and then pok­ing a nee­dle through.
Then inflat­ing a bal­loon using the gas released from mix­ing vine­gar and bak­ing powder.
Then home ed group where they played with the boomwhack­ers and gym­nas­tics for Sam.
Tues­day we braved the wind and rain (and thun­der and light­ning) to go over to Portsmouth for book group. We dis­cussed George’s Mar­vel­lous Med­i­cine. Made a vol­cano from bak­ing soda and vine­gar again. Every­one drew ingre­di­ents and we stuck them on a big pan to make a collage.
The kids then all made blob­ber (borax, and pva) with vary­ing degrees of success.
After lunch we played para­chute games and the kids did some dancing.
Back home we dropped of our bags and then took Jack to his piano les­son. Back home for 1hr, time for a quick tea and change. Then off to Cubs. Where Jack wrote the fol­low­ing poem…
Lots of sol­diers died
By their rules we abide
On Remem­brance Day
I say
Spir­its invis­i­ble to the naked eye
There in the grave­yard they do lie
Weds we messed around at home and then the boys came to Rain­bows with me. The other Guider has 8yo twins, a 9yo and a 10yo, who stayed too and they all get on really well. While the older 2 help out the younger ones hide away in the cor­ner and play/chat.
Thurs­day we caught up with some work and house­hold chores then took Jack to drama. As the lady who is in charge was there Sam decide to ask if he could join in next term. She let him join in then, he loved it!
Fri­day we went out to Southamp­ton to cel­e­brate Sam’s birth­day, which being on a Sun­day (and Remem­brance Day) we’ll spend qui­etly at home (or out parad­ing). Due to the rain we just went to the town cen­tre. To the model shop for Air­fix kits, Burger King for lunch and then to the Build a Bear workshop.
(sorry for pic­ture qual­ity, pho­tos are off phone)
Sam made a rab­bit named Alexan­der — com­plete with Star Wars PJs.
And then played some music with Dad before bed.

Day to day life Out and About

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Nov 8

Moon Festival

by sarah

For numer­ous rea­sons I’ve got really far behind, so time for a catch up.

3 weeks ago we moved our focus from Autumn and plants to fes­ti­vals. To tie the two together we started with a beau­ti­ful book from Bare­foot Books (think they come 2nd to Usborne but only just…)
Mon­day was still film week so we headed over to Gun­wharf to watch Toy Story 3 — which we all hated. Took the oppor­tu­nity for a look around the shops and in par­tic­u­lar to top up Jack’s woe­ful clothes and shoe sup­plies. He has now decided he loves Gap. He’s grown up enough to care about what he wears beyond whether it has Ben 10 or Star Wars on — grr.
To Stub­bing­ton for Sam’s Gym and then home where we spent awhile look­ing up China in the atlas and talk­ing about cul­tural differences.
Tues­day — I had my OU exam so Pete was in charge. Gave him the task of explain­ing phases of the moon to Sam. Then Jack had music and was inducted in to Cubs (which made him very happy).
Weds — We went to Gosport Gallery where there was an exhi­bi­tion of illus­tra­tions from children’s books. We read some sto­ries did some colour­ing and made an Elmer.
As I had to be back in Gosport later for Vision, the Guid­ing Finale we decided to hang around. Had lunch in Mac­Don­alds, went around the shops (to buy gloves, hat, vest and tights — I was woe­fully under­dressed for the evenings fes­tiv­i­ties) and hung about in the library. Sam and I explored the library museum while Jack worked his way through their Goose­bumps collection.
Sun set­ting over Portsmouth. Just before they started light­ing up the Spin­naker in guid­ing colours.
Thurs­day — After the pre­vi­ous week we (or I per­haps) were exhausted so we took it easy. They painted me with Hal­loween makeup (not a flat­ter­ing picture).
And I painted Sam.
Then Sam and I spent a long time in the bath. And I spent a longer time clean­ing the bath!
Then we dec­o­rated cakes

To look like mon­sters!

And took Jack to drama.
Fri­day — Sam fin­ished off his first ever lap­book. About Harvest.

Jack prac­tised the piano.
We painted sil­ver moons to make a mobile the next week.
And I caught up on a week and a half of housework!

Day to day life

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Oct 1

Slowing down

by sarah

The coughs and colds the boys have been bat­tling for the last week have been slow­ing them down the last few days, par­tic­u­larly Jack. So we’ve been spend­ing some time at home catch­ing up with work and resting.

On Weds, I heard that a trip I’d organ­ised for Fri­day was can­celled! So while I was fuss­ing around try­ing to con­tact peo­ple, Sam indulged in a bit of Boo­gie Bee­bies. Here he is doing the ‘funky chicken’.
Then we made a recipe from our book of the week, Eddie’s Kitchen.
Show­ing off our yummy, scrummy Car­rot and Orange driz­zle cake.
Then Pete came home to cud­dle up on the set­tee and read and watch tv with them while I went out to Rainbows.
Thurs­day we cracked on with work, boys did their maths and eng­lish and both started work on a ‘his­tory pocket’.
On Eddie’s Kitchen we talked about dif­fer­ent fam­i­lies. Here is Sam’s pic­ture of Eddie and Lily. Appaently hav­ing a blue face means you’re happy.

Day to day life

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