BUSY BUSY BUSY!

Yesterday was the start of our non-book week. Unfortunately Ellie and Caleb seem to have developed a bit of a head cold so they have been a bit clingy, but we still managed to do some stuff. Yesterday we did our usual Bible Study in the morning, which atm is reading through Samuel in their 365 Bible Stories book and then chatting about the story and trying to see what we can learn for ourselves from it. However, a couple of times now A & J have asked me how they can know the Bible is true and not just a made up fairy story, so I ceased the opportunity to have a conversation with them about that and at the end of it was fairly convinced that neither of them have any really serious doubts about their faith, they are just stretching their spiritual limbs! I reassured them that there is no problem with asking these questions and that God welcomes a questioning mind - we should earnestly seek The Truth. It was a fruitful conversation J. Following on from that we made a jigsaw of the British Isles (the kids are into Geography puzzles atm) and then moved onto Art. We were going to do some of out 'Indians' project but the printer needed ink so that was kyboshed. Instead we studied 'form' in Art (last time we studies 'shape' - this time 'form') and produced these… (in order me, A, P and J)

And to end off the day we made some Chocolate Chip cookies J

Today was a little less full of variety but still a good productive day! We did Bible Study and then cut out some party hats for E's party on Saturday. Moved straight on to our Indians project then and learnt about Western Apache Wikiups and Jicarilla Apache Tipees today. The kids are really loving doing this and the end result is so pleasing and rewarding for them. If you want to see more pictures go HERE

Tomorrow we are doing some more of it but moving away from 'accommodation' and starting to learn about 'lifestyle' and 'survival'. We might make some Brownies too (I am cheating I have a mix, but the kids still enjoy it all the same!)

Just to let you all know too - I've added some more lapbook pictures here, mainly of last Christmas' Grinch Lapbook and The Girl's 'Merry Christmas' one, but also there is 'our Body' one which the kids did yonks back. Nothing new - but I've only just taken the pics!!

GETTING CREATIVE

Today was one of our non-book days so we spent the majority of the day putting together this 500 piece puzzle. It works well with both our current studies on Greece (in history) and Contintents (in geography). I woke up this morning with idea of doing puzzles today - thinking quiet, busy activity that El also loves, but it was the kids idea to do this one and I agreed it was a fantastic idea. El even joined in when she got back from playgroup and put together Poland all by herself. It was a great exercise in team-work, problem-solving, spacial awareness, geography...
It's on a jigroll to be brought out again and looked at as needs be.

These are some of our other creations this week. They are Hoplite Soldier's shields - part of our project on Greece. They are supposed to be scarey! Do they scare you?! We are using EMC History Pockets and this is part of the second pocket on Military Power. We are only just starting out on Greece and will be doing it for some time as we only do it once a week and that only for an hour, but we'll have fun along the way.

In order of Author; E, A, me & P. I think I like P's creativity :-)

We Made Fimo...



Monday was an inset day for Jake so we had an 'activity' day. Actually he had a heap of homework to do for Tuesday that hadn't got done over half term due to everyone one of us, in turn, being ill with sickness and that coupled with 'Ogre the Top' kids half-term holiday club at church (based on Shrek 3 - with a twist!). So anyway, to break up the bordom of pages of comprehension we spent a couple of hours creating this... our teddy bear's picnic :)

The pieces were made my a variety of children. Phoebe made the roses, the balloon, a couple of cupcakes and the snail. I made the purple bears and Boo made the cherries, tomatoes, sandwiches, the lying down brown bear and then the pink one with a bit of help (he lost an ear almost immediately). Joel made the yellow bear, two cupcakes and the picnic rug. Jake made some fruit, the bowl and plate and generally fiddled a lot!

This is my little bear!

Just for Fun!

Thanks for that Tim!

So ....

How do you all like my template then? I found my old blog template, although I think I've lost a couple of links and some are out of date, so if you spot something that doesn't work PLEASE let me know and I'll put it right.

As we draw near to the end of this half term I can honestly say it's been a good one and seems to be working well atm with my new system.

Mon-Weds are 'normals' days and to be fair are pretty intense - but difficult to make them any less so with 3 primary age children, all at very different levels and with different needs and abilities. Thursday is a more fun day and has been a good mix of music, art, typing, 'Socially Speaking (PHSE), languages, cooking and other hands-on type stuff. Joel has resumed his interest in learning the piano (until this week when it started to get harder!) and A & P have started learning the flute. I am no professional flautist (self-taught actually), but I can certainly get them up to a level at which they can choose whether or not they want to continue. A has a good grasp of it and a reasonable tone already. P is stretched to reach the keys in all fairness, but she definitely has potential to be good. I think she has the makings of a good embouchure. We made an art gallery up the stairs after we made basic 'frames' for all the 'best' pieces they have all done over the last year or so, only they won't stay up with blue tac (any tips for making heavy pictures stay up on walls without pins?).

Then in week 4 we made a start on THIS BOOK and are thoroughly enjoying doing it - and playing the little models that result. It really is very good - perfect level for all of them which is a rare thing! :-) We also have the NorthEastern American Indians and the Mayflower one in the series, so we could be doing these on and off for a while to come. I figured it was a more fun way to do the 'exciting' bits of American History without going into too much nitty gritty that they will never need (and I can learn a bit from it too!) We are all looking to next term as we will have two 'non-book' weeks in which to crack on with this project. I wish there were more time in the ordinary weeks to do it, but with all the playgroup runs int erupting three of our school days and the kids liking to have good long breaks at lunch times, it makes it next to impossible. Great thing about it is that it is virtually (maybe even totally) writing free, so that makes it a real winner with Joel. There is lots of colouring but he doesn't mind that especially when the results are so pleasing.

Aside from all the fun we've been having, some serious school has been happening too...
Phoebe is now on lesson 50 of Headsprout, using 'Easyreadingsystems' too, and breezing through the beginnings of Jolly Phonics - anyone think I'm trying to teach her to read? She seems to need these multiple methodologies to 'get it in' . It seems to me she has very similar 'retention' & 'retrieval' problems to Jacob. She doesn't have the behavioural difficulties that he had at her age, but the struggle seems strangely familiar (although he learnt to read with ease). That said she IS getting the hang of it and is happily beginning to see the fruits of her own labour :-)
A is generally making steady progress across the board. She's a plodder and generally loves to learn - which on the whole makes her a pleasure to teach, although sadly I am not always as patient as I should be with her and when I am not she rushes and her work is then messy. That said - I don't think she is ever going to be the neatest of workers, her motor skills don't seem to be so 'finely tuned' as some of her siblings (iyswim). But she is a bright happy ray of sunshine in my classroom - MOST of the time!
J is doing well generally too, although he is still a slow reluctant writer (hmmm boys...) and he just did poorly in the 'revision' test at the end of MPH 3B (I use this as a measure of how well the concepts have been truly learnt) and we are going to have to go back over it I think :-( First we will us my SPMG Heinemann books that I got from Amazon, for a change of pace, style and 'feel' and then hopefully when we go back to SingaporeMaths it will feel more like review than even it would just now and he will breeze through it and then on to the next level. I think a lot of it is to do with age. He seems to have difficulty applying himself atm (to much 'jump' in him!) and is constantly wandering around. I do give him plenty of 'online' activities to try to keep his interest and motivation levels up, but the three of them have to share one laptop, so there is a limit..!

Some of the sites we are regularly using atm (aside from the reading ones);
Educationcity (on going favourite)

Smartkiddies (complete online maths curriculum and drill - FREE)

Brightmindsonline

poissonrouge (for the littler one)

Starfall (lower primary ages)

New Template

As all the images suddenly disappeared from my blog I've uploaded a new template, but forgot to copy the old one for all the links, so unless I have it backed up somewhere I shall be busy adding to this for a while! Hope you can see it OK everyone - the old one never worked well with FF anyway, and this seems better :-)
I'll write an update soon too - suffice to say we're ticking along and doing OK!

It makes me want to cry!

When I look at my blog I want to cry these day because our babies rabbits are no longer L. We had a fantastic family holiday in London - some of the 500+ pictures we took can be seen HERE - don't worry I only uploaded about 60, just to give a flavour.

Just before we went away Beth (mummy rabbit) gave birth to yet another litter - yes Mr Rosie had done his thing before we got them separated so it seems - but she only had one baby so we feared it would not survive. When we left it was two days old and seemed OK although Beth had become a bit 'nippy' and didn't seem to want to let us anywhere near the other babies to let them out into the run. The day after we left my friend texted me to say that the little one had died and should she bury it - which she dutifully did under the tree at the back of the garden. But then it got worse! On the Friday morning H arrived to feed the rabbits to find Beth's hutch open and empty. She found Beth in the garage and managed to put back home, but she could see no sign of the babies. She texted me and put up 'missing' posters - just in case, but we feared the worst (i.e the ginger tom that hangs around too much for my liking and/or Beth rattling her bottle enough to loosen the hutch door). We returned home on the Tuesday and the first thing we all wanted to do was find the rabbits. I went on a quick hunt round the garden and sure enough found the remains of three under the trees at the back - I cried and the children did too then. Later that night I picked up what I could (more to stop the encouragement of vermin) and the next morning we said our goodbyes! It was very sad - they were SO tame, so well loved and SOOO cute and cuddly. We were really looking forward to sending them off to good homes on our return from holiday. These were the last pictures I took;

Blueberry

The whole clan.

Liquorice (Joel's favourite)

Make A Tombstone MemorialAs it all ended so sadly we think we will breed the rabbits again - more for the children's sake, although some of the homes they were going to have now already gone and bought rabbits elsewhere - there were children waiting for them L, so we'd need to find some more interested homes for them.

As you can see, the grey was named Blueberry in the end as his shade was apparently Blue-grey, so it worked!

Other than that sadness, we had a great holiday and now it's all done and dusted and we're back to school. Had a tiring but OK week getting back into the swing of things. My schedule for the year is no less busy, but hopefully a little less intense than it has been in the past. We are aiming to have Mon-Weds as 'book' based 'normals' days (that is txtbk/wkbk - maths, English, science, etc…) and Thurs as a non-book day (that is all the extra curricular stuff) like art, music, French, IT etc… Also every third week will be an 'activity' week where we lay aside all books of the 'normals' kind and focus on a one week project or read together lots - that kind of thing, all of which has often been neglected here through over commitment of precious time. So this year I'm aiming to MAKE room for it even if it means a little less of the 'normals'! Hand in hand with that idea we are only doing two days of maths and two days of formal 'English' work - the kids are at least up with their peers, if not about year ahead, so I shouldn't feel under any pressure to hassle them silly when it comes to these things - which I know I too often do. This is 'chill' year - well - maybe! It will be if the kids can play by the rules, follow the instructions they are given and keep my life as simple as I plan for it to be - so it sounds like it might not be so chilled as I might hope for!!