Thursday, March 08, 2007

Today

This is about the sum of school today...

Joel; Thinking Blocks (getting to the tougher stuff now that requires some deductive thinking and drawing of models himself) - needs to repeat today's section tomorrow.
Spelling time (100% - again)
A little bit of Punctuation work on paper from an S&S book.
20 minutes on EC

Abbie; DK sticker maths fun book (still going slow with her and covering the basics over and over until they feel like sure footing)
Two pages from a Letts English book and two from her Basic Skills (S&S) book.
Spelling time (100% too)
20 minutes EC

Phoebe; 2 'games' on EC & four pages of her 'all about where I live' book from S&S

Ellie - went to playgroup

Caleb - played at getting as dirty as possible all day out in the garden

As you can see school is a bit 'hmm' atm. But with a little help from our new laptop and some good websites at least some is getting done!

We have managed to squeeze in some Child's Geography the last couple of weeks and the kids are really enjoying learning about the atmosphere and learning that the Ozone is so called because it smells - now nicknamed the 'smelly zone' in our house (did you know that fact - I didn't)! It's really quite in depth, but they seem to be understanding it quite well - I'm very impressed with this book.

I'd like to do some art one day, but come the afternoons I am clean out of steam tbh. But we did manage to make a couple of impromptu tissue paper flowers when H dropped in Phoebe's BD present yesterday. She's like to make lots more over the weekend, but it looks like this weekend will be rather filled with furniture collections and assembly (lots of stuff from Ebay and freebies to make room for the new baby).

We have our annual LEA teacher-mediator meeting on Thursday next week, but she is really nice and I don't stress about that :-)

Still haven't photographed those lapbooks despite my promises...must do that, must do that..!

Now a bit about my Caleb...he really is a character to be reckoned with! So far he doesn't say much, but is very capable of making his needs/wants understood and if he can't he just goes and meets them himself. He helps himself to cheese-strings from the fridge, chocolate from the kids sweet corner (an unwraps it) and Chocolate Pillows (cereals) from the cupboard - and boldly parades around with the packet in his hand! I must be getting slack, because none of that really bothers me anymore! What bothers me more is the constant emptying of the games shelf and the drawing on the carpet with a dry marker I removed from his possession just two seconds ago and returned to its rightful home! And even more worrying - his obsession with all things electrical. Within three days of me owning a laptop he had worked out where to plug the mouse in (which USB slot I use) and where to plug the power lead in! He knows exactly which cables fit with which appliances in this house - like which wire is my DS charger and how to plug that it - not only to the DS but to the plug socket too! He even moves a full laundry bin to gain access to a plug socket, so that he can plug in the hoover (which I had to move to a new home because he kept doing so, not that that has stopped him at all...). He really is very scary. If I do anything within his line of vision - just once - I can guarantee that within minutes he is there trying to copy what I did. And it's not just electrical things either...Paul was out cleaning his bike on Saturday and within minutes C had gone into the shed and helped himself to a couple of screwdrivers from P's toolbox to come and 'help'. He is SO hands on and handyman. I'm wondering how I am ever going to be able to sit him down at a table...maybe I just won't! Maybe he will do maths with a screwdriver in his hand - when he's 5! And it's obvious to me that to him speech is of secondary importance - why talk when you can DO!

So that's C - maybe I'll blog about one of the others more another night :-)

4 comments:

Always Learning said...

Hi,

I lurk occasionally, but just thought I'd pop and say thanks for the link to SpellingTime despite being American (re: spelling) I think it will work very well, plus the Thinking Blocks looks good too.

I'm using as well the S&S 'all about' series with my middle one and she enjoys doing them.

I'm just considering lapbooking which I notice you do, I joined lapbooking-uk a while ago, but never really got around to doing them, I've been rather inspired by some of yours from your pictures. :-) I'm sure I'll get around to sorting myself out to doing a lapbook...lol!

CJ

Caroline said...

Hi Philippa - I bought the download and printed it out - 10 pages at a time - it took a while, but it's well worth it!! As it is mainly text (not very heavy on the graphics) it coped pretty well.

Hi CJ - thanks for saying HI! Glad I've been helpful to you. Lapbooking is Ace but does require some enthusiasm for the topic to 'get the job done' in a reasonable time!

Caroline said...

CJ - for lapbooking made easy check out www.liveandlearnpress.com - I find these more cheerful and user friendly than Hands of a Child ones. The print-out work better :-)

Always Learning said...

Thanks for the link Caroline, I'll go and check it out. :-)

CJ