A (half) Pictorial day in the Life of the FrogAcademy

Every year, there is a little tradition of doing an 'a day in the life' photo-post. Well, no problem you'd think, being that photos are SO much my thing, BUT... for most of last week my internet was down (SUCH a pain), then it was midday today before I remembered I was supposed to be snapping away! So please forgive the first half of this being wordy. The pictures take over half way through!



I get up sometime around 9.30 (a bit of a late start due a disturbed night) ~ I have missed breakfast time it seems; the children are all already fed and most are ready for the day. I busy myself with changing and feeding the baby (who has been playing with the big kids for a while) and settling him back to sleep for the morning. Then I help Stitch get dressed & DD dresses himself. Everyone else is heading downstairs to get started on their day.


Bugs, Taz, Minnie and TP work on their respective Bible Studies. Lilo is starting on her handwriting (she traces over a Bible verse, joining the letters as she does). 
Once Lilo is finished with that I do Bible Study with DD, Stitch and Lilo ~ we are using a series designed to accompany The Beginners Bible.


Taz by now is busy working on his maths and when he finishes that he plays a game with Stitch which involves hiding three letters inside little plastic eggs around the house. Stitch has to find the eggs and then try to make a word. He has previously been playing this game with just one letter and then finding something beginning with the sound. He did well with the words, making hat, mat and van :) By then it was snack time (11am), after which Taz did GP History & then a spelling test. 


Bugs ~ hmm not sure how he spent his morning tbh... 


Minnie ploughs through her written work in the morning, so by 12.00 she had done MPH Maths &  some written Understanding English (poetry ~ S&S). Then she played with Stitch; Dotty Dinosaurs & then writing letters on a mini-whiteboard and he told her what they were. He carried on playing with the whiteboard for a while afterwards too.

TP seems to have had a bit of a slow day ~ she played on Tut-Pup for a while before 12.00.


Lilo went on the Laptop and earned herself 6 'badges' on Explode the Code then joined in with DD and I who were working together, learning about the difference between 'natural' and 'artificial' things. It's something he's been asking questions about for a while and his attention held well for a good while. We did some sit-down-and-chat-about work first, with a fairly easy worksheet. Then we went on a scavenger hunt looking for 'natural' , 'man-made' and 'mineral' objects, which was a lot of fun.

12:00
TP playing Bus Stop with Stitch

 Lilo working on her maths (converting words to numbers and then vice-versa)

Minnie reading on her bed

Taz drumming (notice the addition of practice pads for school hours!)

DD completing a TUX Paint stamper chart to illustrate the morning's lesson.

12:15

Bugs reading on his bed

chart almost completed

Stitch waiting for LeapWorld to load!

12.20

Baby wakes up and gets a bum-change 

(yes that is a purple nappy on my boy!)

12.40

DD busy on Lego.com as reward for working hard this morning :-)

12.55
TP working on her HeadSprout Comprehension.

13.00
Baby plays contentedly on the window seat with his mirror-rattle and chats to us all :-)

Lilo is coming to the end of her maths work ~ it's taken her longer than usual for some reason.

Stitch is now playing on LeapWorld (which took an age to load!)

Taz is writing his blog and learnt how to embed a YouTube Video.

DD has started work on Explode the Code

Sometime around 13.30 we all have lunch and take a bit of a break.
I fed Baby his fromage-fraise & gave him a breastfeed.

The kids start back when they feel ready. Some take a longer break than others!

15.00
Baby has fallen asleep on the window seat of his own accord :)

Lilo is reading to me.

Minnie is waiting to get on the study PC to do her blog

Before this though she has done some 'Next Stop' comprehension work.

TP is off somewhere reading.

Bugs is on Manga High

15.30

Lilo is doing her third page of a 'sight words' book. 

It's easy for her now, but she's only got a few pages left to complete.

I get to play with Baby for a few minutes (who has obviously woken up!)

15.40

A little bit of song-time ~ I think we were singing Wheels on the Bus here.

Bugs took some pictures of us and practiced using manual focus.

(this one is straight out of camera ~ he has to edit his own shots!)

16.00

Minnie eventually gets to write her blog!

DD is at last getting to play on LeapWorld, but this is his free-time now :-)

It looks, from the pictures, that most of DD's school happens on-screen, but this isn't really the case. He does like it that way, but we try to strike a balance between pencil work, manipulative work and screen-work. I don't push anything too heavily with him really and he seems to be making good progress, so I can't be going too far wrong ~ if I was I know he would be digging his heals in and screaming at me. The only tears we had today however, were when LeapWorld wouldn't load up for him in the Study. He's not the most rational at times!

Somewhere in the midst of all that a load of nappies got washed and some washing, that had been waiting for the rain to lay off, eventually got hung on the line ~ it's still there mind!


I hope you have enjoyed a taster of our days ~ they are busy, but mostly not too stressful! I'm sure there was more happening around the house than is pictured, or even described here, but I really can't be everywhere at once with a camera in my hand!! I know that in the evening Minnie helped Paul prepare tea (spaghetti and meatballs), Taz did some more drumming and Bugs had maths to do because he had 'forgotten' do to it in school hours ~ no biggy to me if he wants to work in the evenings he is free to! 


Click the House to read another great 'day-in-the-life' picture story, and there's a whole load more links to be found at the end of that post and the end of THIS one  :-)

Missing the Mark.

Today I tried to take some of the children to the 'Easter Family Fun Day' that was being held on the reserve, but I'd failed to book and wasn't sure where to meet up. We set out a bit past start time in hopes of finding a crowd, but it all fell flat and we found no-one :( Turns out it all started in the Village Hall, but we didn't quite walk that far. Still never mind, we got some fresh air before the day got too hot, we listened to the birds (and the bees) and I took some nice pictures (despite having Baby in the sling in front of me). Next time, I'll know...

 
We are loving the sunshine and the smiles it brings, so I'm just sharing some of the pictures from Baby's 17wk 'shoot' ~ which turned into a little mini-free-for-all-shoot! Enjoy :-) This is how we roll in the holidays (well, most of the time really, but even more in the hols) !!

Oh ~ and on an educational note... our swallows arrived home yesterday and are busy repairing their nest for this year clutches ~ "WELCOME HOME" little birds, we are all pleased to see you, and the sunshine months you herald in :-)

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And during our non-book week last week, my fabulous, arty, x-teacher friend (and her daughter) came and gave us a Hundertwasser art lesson;

(L-R: Bugs (13), Lilo (7), TP (9), Taz (12), Stitch (3) & DD (5) )

I also signed the three youngest 'schoolies' up for 'Explode The Code Online'. I think Lilo will whizz through it, but it will help firm things up for her, hopefully help her 'hear' things better and set her on the road to writing more and spelling better. DD loves it (and the games he gets to play as reward) and seems to understand it really well. I think he will progress quickly with it. But what shocked me most was how amazing Stitch was with it. He tested in only a little behind DD and although his concentration span is not as good as DD's just yet, he did really well and made good progress in just one session. I was surprised to see that he actually can read a little ~ not only understanding beginning sounds, but sounding out and blending too! He is adding new letters (sounds and names) to his repertoire daily it seems and it wouldn't surprise me if he and DD are both reading a bit before the end of the summer!

Photographic Catch-Up Post

Taking pictures is what I 'do' these days ~ it's quicker to keep a record with a snapshot than it is with a whole load of words. Editing images is so much more me than editing words too, so pictures it is for this post! I hope it gives you a little flavour of life here right now and where the kids are at. Next week we are taking a 'non-book-week'. We haven't had one of those for a while - ages in fact. I can't face three weeks of being nagged into screen time x 7, but the kids all want to 'break-up' as many of their friends do tomorrow. We agreed a compromise ;-) ! So next week will not involve any textbooks, and consequently probably very little written work, probably a fair amount of school-screen-time and as much arts, crafts and sporty time as they like! I believe the weather is going to be good, so hopefully much of it will take place in the garden :).

this is candle making

That's a yellow Jolly Phonics reader in her hand ~ she's finished Headsprout at last  and is well on the road now :D

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I think you maybe get the general idea ;-)

And if you're not too sick of my pictures yet, you can see them all bigger if you click on them!