Tagged, Decided, Arrived!

I’ll try to be brief! ;)

It’s been a mad few days actually, but today has got to be a highlight. Some weeks ago I had decided, at Boo’s suggestion, to organise a home-ed sports day in our local park and today was the day. We had 7 families represented - which amounted to 20 children, a teenager and two babies, plus I roped in another couple of teenagers from church to help out (one of whom is HE too). It was really great fun, Sadly I was too busy blowing my whistle and organising games and races to take any piccies, but I might be able to scrounge some from other folks who did take some.

We started out with team races - relay, dressing up race (Eric (12) dressed as a princess was cool!), obstacles race, space-hopper race, sack race. I had others planned but that took best part of an hour already, so then we had a quick drink-break before one of the dads took over for a while. I didn’t know he was coming, but apparently he was a professional rugby player. He brought over loads of ‘kit’ and looked very pro’ indeed. He had all the children listening and attending as he did about another hour of Athletics (which is essentially what it was) with them, followed by a mini-footy match and some hoop tossing for the smaller ones & girls. Anyway, all I knew about this dad was what I have already said and I kept calling over to see if he was OK with all the kids. He assured me he was, so I chatted a bit with the mums. When I got home and was telling P. all about the day I told him about this dad. He naturally asked his name - which was Jason Robinson! I know nothing about rugby, but yes he was THE Jason Robinson who scored the only try for England in the Rugby World Cup - apparently!! WOW! How silly do I feel for ‘checking up on him’ now!! But also -WOW - what an opportunity for the kids :) Jacob seemed to have no idea how fab this all was until I compared it to playing football with Wayne Rooney, or Beckham - then he got it!!

Another great thing; my box-o-books for Schofield and Sims came today. They look really ace :) Joel should be able to work through those at a comfortable pace and they will gradually become more stretching as he progresses. As there is no Year differentiation (just KS2 on the books) he can just travel through until he gets to the end and he has 3 years to do it in. It also means I shall hopefully only need to top-up for Boo next year (saving me significant cost), but I did also already get her a few bits to keep her going, hopefully most of the way up to and through Yr2, so that I can concentrate my funds of Phoebe more next year. I made a compromise on the workbooks/teaching text front in the end. I plummeted for mostly workbooks, but with a photocopyable resource that requires more input from me as well - and this could possibly turn out to be the best £10 I ever spent I think :) It’s really brilliant and there are 54 units of work in the pack!
Just waiting now for my parcel from Peter (Halfmoon) too - with maths (My Pals this year - I decided to switch from Primary Maths because J & A need more hands-on, slower paced maths I think), art and a few science bits for A & P.

I have a these to sell now too;
Home Instructors guides for Singapore Primary Maths 2A & 2B - £15 + postage (or make me an offer) - used but in good condition - no marks.

On another note - I have been tagged (thanks Merry), but it’s already midnight, so I’m going to do this really quick and as I don’t read much that should be quite easy!

1. One homeschool book you have enjoyed;

Hmm - not read one as I really don’t read much.

1. One resource you would not be without;

Jolly Phonics, Singapore Maths - my new S&S books :-) & the internet (oK that’s four, but in that order would be about right)

1. One resource you wish you had never bought;

Firstly when we started out we used ACE - big mistake and waste of money!
Then probably the CGP stuff - nothing wrong with it, just didn’t really fit with our style of school and the maths was just ‘more maths’ when we had it for Jacob, although I do think it helped him a bit at the time.

1. One resource you enjoyed last year;

Jolly Phonics is always a hit in this house. And for Joel - he really likes the Bond NonVerbal reasoning book :)

1. One resource you will be using next year;

See my blog above!

1. One resource you would like to buy:

The art materials that Peter sells to go with Artistic pursuits, but we’ll make do with The Works! Needs must!

1. One resource you wish existed;

For us - a driving license and a 9 seater MPV. Also, more realistically (or less maybe) e-credits for curriculum online available to home-eders would be nice.

1. One Homeschooling catalogue you enjoy reading;

I like the Sonlight catalogue, but it’s simply not us :-( I drool over some of the stuff in Peter’s catalogue at times (HalfmoonBooks.net) and I really like the LDA & EDCO catalogues too - but their not HE ones (is that cheating?) You should see my ‘catalogues’ box - it’s full of different suppliers. (Fyi edco is a great place to get Cuisenaire rods from too).

1. One homeschooling website you use regularly;

Really - just one! No sorry impossible! Blogring - obviously, although this is not strictly a site is it? Education City (yup we’ve subbed too now) & Live ‘N’ Learn press - for lapbooking :-)

1. Tag five H-edders

I’m going out of the blog-ring for this - hope that’s OK with folks :-)

Kendra
Linda

And I’ll trot round to see who else hasn’t been tagged yet and tag you! But not tonight. Failing that - “I tag You” - let me know if you’ve caught the tag (or is that “tig”) !?!

That’s all for tonight. I’ve got Joel’s Best friend D staying tomorrow night and then family arriving on Thursday, so my 11 yo 2nd cousin will be sleeping here for the 3 night following. I need to get the house straight tomorrow and I’m exhausted from all that exercise today! Still it’s good for me - I hope it makes a dint in my weight-scales!