A Summer Sunday

On Sundays we have a review day on the past week, and tie up any loose ends ready for the new week ahead. It's a lot more slower paced, more arts and crafts and garden time, family cooking sessions and walks. 

Sophia wrote out her 'At' family spellings from memory, and she recognised the alphabet method used to make sure she hadn't missed any. She was so proud of herself and then wrote the word 'cow' for me. She asked if there were any other words like cow she could learn.... Next weeks spellings will be the 'Ow' family. This method is working for both girls which is amazing. There's a new lease of life in our spelling sessions. 

I baked cupcakes whilst they had a freshly made banana milkshake, porridge and eggs, which the girls got very excited about. We have to make freshly baked goods daily and cook fresh food every meal for Xander currently due to the medication he's on until January. He can only eat items that have been cooked within 24hrs, so we have a lot of fun daily baking projects. 

After a fun garden time with their friend next door, we had a great time decorating the cupcakes, with peanut butter, vanilla and chocolate icing. So much icing sugar flying around the table! And children's fingers sneaking a cheeky lick of the icing before we were ready. Kira didn't even try to hide her intent, she just dug into her peanut butter icing with a spoon. Luckily as I'm well aware of their antics when it comes to icing we had plenty for the cakes too. Whilst Xander cannot enjoy them tomorrow, these will keep the girls fueled up on sugar for the next few days. It's so hard not to be able to sneak a cheeky one for myself, but as it's their special non dairy, non gluten, non oil recipe I restrain myself. They are yummy though! 


We finished the cow project today, these books are perfect for their level of learning and fit nicely within a week of learning, without over stretching them or boring them. They have really enjoyed doing it and have retained all the information they've learnt over the past week, it's been really fun for all of us. Sophia took over the six cow figures we have as part of the farm set and had a role play session with them making up stories of the cow family. It was great to hear her including the cow facts she has learnt. It was a very factual role play. 


Thank you readers for following our home learning journey, hope you are staying safe and enjoying the summer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning From Your Environment

Image
There is so much potential for learning on car journeys. This time Sophia's attention was caught by seeing electricity pylons and wind turbines and she was avidly asking questions about these. I briefly introduced them to her and offered to set up some follow up science educational YouTube videos at a later date. Good old 'Dr Binocs' came through and the children have been eagerly learning about fossil fuels, renewable energy and electricity. Sophia has started writing down her thoughts and knowledge on electricity in her new science book. It is a great sidestep from their current topic of light, which is being learnt enthusiastically. They have loved their light experiments, as simple as they were, including going into a dark room and shining a torch, seeing how a pencil seems to change when placed in a glass of water, just with a light shining on it. Observing what materials allow light to pass through and which cast shadows, and performing shadow puppet plays on the wall...
Read more

Role playing Is A Serious Business!

Image
The morning period is personally the best time of day for lessons for my girls. They are alert, focused and raring to start lessons, consequently breakfast lessons are an established learning time. I have a captive audience, they are in the kitchen with me anyway learning how to prepare the food, tidy down and set the table. This session can be the best for attention span and concentration out of the entire day, so I have learnt to capitalise on this precious half hour.  This morning we learnt twenty spellings from two word families. They are storming through their word lists, quickly approaching the 200 mark in only a couple of months. I cannot recommend this learning style enough, the girls are retaining their spelling knowledge and are actively using the words in their artwork in their free time. Today they also requested spelling tests to be their handwriting practice, and did further spelling practice on top for another half an hour through choice.  The rest of breakfast ...
Read more

Always be thankful

Image
 It was December 2021 when Miss Jo, The Children's Coach contacted me and offered the girls free places in her January zoom class. This was the tutor who had organised and ran the summer fun project which the girls had been nominated and awarded for bravery. The girls absolutely loved her as a teacher and had immediately bonded with her. They wrote her letters and talked about her every day during this project.  I took her up on this very kind and generous offer and the girls had a regular half an hour zoom class every Thursday on the theme of gratitude. The girls were the youngest ones in the class and they handled it really well.  Sophia wrote the classes on the calender, scheduling in the lessons, for the month. Kira took a postcard written to her by Miss Jo, which she had received the previous year, to bed with her every night until the classes took place. She read it to me as her bedtime story.  The first thing Kira said to Miss Jo on class, was to thank her for...
Read more