Tot-School & HE in general.

I thought it might be time for a HE catch-up. I never get round to this on a Sunday, but I'll link this in to the Tot-school Mr Linky when it is available :D

For my tot-school readers, this is not just a tot-school post, as that would be a little bit time consuming to do separately, so forgive my mention of my other children here too!

It's been busy around here these last two weeks or so, and I have actually convinced Stitch to come off the computer/wii every now and then too! With 7 children I unfortunately don't get chance to shoot every activity, but here is a flavour of life round here :D

There’s been quite a bit of playing outside thanks to the weather improving :D Stitch does get dressed sometimes, but other days he refuses ~ it’s a phase and I don’t have time to have a war over it! Here are the small boys learning to ‘share’ ~ they argue constantly over this car, despite both having Diddy cars!

DD still has stabilisers but he’s nearly ready to lose them :D

We spent some time outside potting out seeds one morning. DD is keen to see them grow :D He has been asking lots of questions about how things grow lately so I figured the best way was to actually do it. It’s been a really long time since we last did any ‘growing things’ but last time nothing lasted :( This time we have a real garden and permission to use it as we please, so I am hopeful ! :D

DD enjoyed this puzzle (60 pieces) ~ he’s pretty good at them and only needed minimal help from me. It was good to talk about times of day after we completed this.

Minnie working on some Comprehension work ~ she likes this book. I picked it up cheap in one of the local bargain shops ages ago, but no-one else liked it. The good thing about the children choosing which resources to use is that things like this are seeing the light of day :D

TP worked on Jump Ahead Yr3 for ages ~ completing the entomology section on bugs in one sitting :D She says she is going to go back to do all the reading about the different creatures.

Lilo was given this for Christmas so we made it together and she painted it. Sadly the second packet of Plaster of Paris went off too fast (I don’t think L mixed it fast enough) so I’m not sure if the other two little frames are going to ever set or not, as I had to add an excessive amount of water to pour it into the moulds.

She also did this puzzle ~ it was a bit hard for her as it contains a lot of blue and odd shaped pieces but once done it provided much conversation on and off through the rest of the day.

Another thing Lilo did this week was work on this ~ matching Upper and lower case letters. I was pleasantly surprised how many she knew :D I made a concertina folder game so she could play this over and over. I know DD will be keen to do this too, as he is working on 'what-goes-with-what' on the computer keyboard just now (all of his own idea).

Not posted in pictures, but Lilo also started Miquon Orange today. She seemed to enjoy it and I’m going to try and work it alongside MPH 1A as the beginning of that is well within her abilities at least. I don’t have the practice book, but I do have topic sheets so I’ll just use those for now or otherwise there will be too much paper work for her to enjoy it. She really seems to understand numbers. They don’t confuse her like letters do!

DD enjoyed cutting out a KITE ACTIVITY that I downloaded for a mini Spring project with the younger boys.

Stitch also joined in with the cutting and once I had helped him put his fingers in the scissors correctly he was away. Without any practice in between it is amazing how much improvement he has made with this skill compared to last time he tried it. When he put the scissors down he actually picked them up correctly on his own but put three fingers through the bigger hole (with his index finger on top) which, interestingly, seemed much easier for him and his cut was stronger for it. Great to let him find his own way with this. He was SO happy each time he cut a little bit off!

Stitch loved this SPRING ACTIVITY ~ he loves matching things and is really good at it :D

I printed out extra sets of it so we could play matching pairs with it too. I think this was the first time Stitch had played pairs ~ he did really well and coped well with not winning too :D

Of course, you didn’t expect him to stay off the computer for long did you!

There have been quite a few other activities going on too. Today, for intance, I worked in a sticker book with DD, looking at letter sounds and getting him to think about beginning sounds. He is starting to be able to separate out the sounds a little and seems to actually have more of an affinity with letters than numbers (how different can children be!!). That said, I do think he is beginning to be able to label the numbers now ~ he’s better the less hard he thinks in fact!

I’m loving my new mini-skool system and I think the kids are too ~ there definitely seems to be a lot less nagging going on in my department and there seems to generally be a better feel to our days'; more relaxed and yet equally, if not more productive :D Some weeks the children have chosen to spill things over into Friday and I’m fine with that, it’s their choice, but they have to be clear that my working with them week ends of Thursday so that I have time to mark work and plan stuff for the littler ones on Friday and Saturday (as well as have some ME time and catch up on laundry and cleaning etc…) I’ll blog more about mini-skool another night in a separate post.

I think that’s enough for tonight :D