Sunday, October 18, 2009

It's School Ed', But Not As You Know It!!

This week I was entirely disorganised (again) and didn't have those boxes sorted at all, but the kids are so into this now they just HAVE to fill them! So each morning I jotted on a piece of paper the things that were 'must-do's' for that day - each of them slotted those in and filled in the gaps - easy!! I must confess they did fill in the gaps with a lot of computer orientated learning, but it was all learning none-the-less :D The discovery of TutPup was a GOOD thing - I'm hoping this will be an ace learning tool for TweetiePie as it has speed & accuracy practice with the two areas she struggles most with; spelling and 'number families' (the lowest level of algebra) - LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!! (Thank you Merry :D). Minnie likes it too.
Here's some pictures from our week - just to show you that I can do it even with my hair down ;D!!












(this last shot was Jake practising his photography skills!)

Despite this week being a result of me not being organised it IS a good thing to do this every now and then, because it has a couple of positive effects; it means the children plan their day and that is an excellent thing - they are taking responsibility for their learning, choosing whether they wish to work together or alone, choosing how to arrange their day and when they want to do the 'hard stuff', hence learning what does and doesn't work in that regard (like leaving maths until just before we need to leave for Little Drama Group is NOT a good idea!), AND it teaches certain of them (Taz in particular) how to build some flexibility into their lives. Taz is such a little creature of habit and routine and any change is difficult for him - he can do it, but he takes a while to adapt. He is the only one who seems to want to fit the Workbox System back into his old timetabled way of doing things. He gets quite agitated if he has to skip forwards or backwards to work with someone else (because they weren't ready at the same time as him), but he can't bear waiting around 'wasting his time' either (not that that's a bad thing). He is often first to finish in the day because he ploughs through his work and being held up by someone else, or some 'group' activity is a simple annoyance to him!! Get used to it my son - that's life - and if I have to not fill the boxes some weeks to help you learn to adapt and bend then that is what I will do - nobody else really minds!! :D

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