Horses, Horses and Maths!

Sophia greeted me at 6.30am with, "What fun things are we going to do today?", followed up by Kira answering, "Let's do horses".

I didn't even have to open my mouth before they had decided in what order to start the day. That was fine by me, decision making skills being exercised before my brain had caught up on what day, month, year we are in. We cracked on straight away after Xanders's first meds of the day.

We started with the information book on horses, then viewed some horses and their roles on YouTube, followed up by an informative video on horses presented by the children's presenter Blippi, who is a great, fun presenter for this age group. 

Sophia was delighted to see that one of her favourite child YouTubers, Adley (from A for Adley), also had some videos on the topic of horses, so they were eagerly watched. In Sophias mind she has scored a victory having 'free tv' before midday. It was an interesting video to be honest with a young Adley learning to ride with her parents. 

As breakfast components were baking and being whizzed around in the blender, we started on the 'Ow' spelling family. Kira knew them immediately and rattled them off easily straight away. Sophia had to commit 'Ow' to memory, however she still could follow the spelling concept of adding the revelant first letter to the family to produce the words of bow, cow, how, low, mow, now, pow, row, sow, tow, vow, wow. We discussed the meaning of the words and used them in a sentence. Ding! Spelling sorted for the day. 

Garden time saw Kira swinging on the swing the majority of time and Xander on the slide. Sophia was in a helping mood, rather than wanting to play, so she took out the recycling to the relevant bins and boxes. Kira soon wanted to join in, so the girls helped me with the morning housework chores, clearing and cleaning the table, emptying and filling the dishwasher and washing machine, sweeping the floor, tidying their toothbrushes and toothpaste, whilst I wiped down the downstairs bathroom. 

We got through the housework super quick as a team, and had fun singing songs whilst we did it. Sophia loves making up songs and she was singing about how much she loves me and how we're best friends and she's so happy, whilst she was dancing round with the broom. Kira was making up silly faces and giggling to herself as she wiped the table down. Xander was emptying the box of plastic baking cutters in to the floor, telling me the shapes, and wearing them as armbands. 

Reading time rolled round and having made this announcement, I sat on the sofa and awaited to see what would take place. Sophia impressed me with sounding out a few new words correctly from her reading book (age guide: 5-8yr olds), rather than her automatically asking me what an unfamiliar word was. She was really praised for the attempts. Kira read several books, straight through, retelling the stories to me in her own words page by page and describing the pictures. 

Xander then threw a book in my lap and he stood at a distance as I opened it and focused him on the page. He read, 'That's not my monkey it's eyes are too hairy', and described the picture as a grey gorilla, before he took off again playing. Close enough, the text was 'That's not my monkey it's eyebrows are too hairy. Happy morning so far. 

The girls asked for science, so I took over the remote and chose particular topics which we are concentrating on first this year. We spent half an hour classifying animals by what they eat, and habitats, and learning the definition of what it means to be alive. Sophia wanted to draw then and Xander was playing on his ipad, so it was time for some one and one time with Kira on the topic and activity of her choice. 

Maths with Kira was centred around finishing a 4-5yrs maths leap ahead work book from cover to cover in one sitting. She is more advanced than this stage in her maths skills, but it's a non taxing way for her to practice writing her numbers and have some fun with her maths. We found out through the course of the workbook today that she is really good at estimation, first time she's ever tried and she either got it correct, or was just one over. She was in a really silly mood and completed the session with plenty of laughing, silly voices and tickles which made the time fly by.... She still answered it all correctly. 

She loves her addition + subtraction book full of tests, and she sees this as a fun activity to do when she's bored. She will often randomly come to me and ask for it and proceed to complete a 60 question test in under 10mins. Sometimes she answers it mental maths style, other times she writes the answers.

If workbooks are not suggested by them then I will give a reminder that they are there and I have a vast amount ranging across the different topics for them to choose from. I don't force it though, and when they are in the mood to go through one, they have the power over when the session ends. I've found this means they are far more willing to try one as they know I'll release them even after a couple of pages if that's what they want. A happy child is an attentive child and will retain the knowledge.

 At Kiras age I expect her to answer the majority of the book verbally, with the odd page of practicing writing. As Sophia is approaching six, I expect her to fill in the majority of the book physically, after verbally telling me the answer. Consequently I do not expect Sophia to finish a workbook in one sitting this year, as I am asking for the added level of writing the answers. In previous years when it's verbal she can fly through books with the same ease as her sister. This year I have noticed that both girls can read either the entire question at this stage or read enough to understand what the question is asking, where last year I read the questions to them. 

It was time for dinner peparation and housework at this point, which means free tv and activity time for all as they had definitely earnt it. Kira came down to join me with a backpack on. She said she saw cheetahs running through the savanna upstairs, so she came down to the kitchen so they didn't disturb her. Random but fair enough. 

She informed me she was carrying only red materials in her backpack, and the word red was too easy, so she'd use the word rojo and aka instead (red in Spanish and Japanese). I asked her the random question of what colour does red and blue produce and red and white. She answered correctly. I use any opportunity to slide in a review question from previous years to test their recall and memory. She then proceeded to make horses, a jumping ring, and a barn out of the red lego from her backpack and spent dinner prep playing with her riding school. 

The rest of the day was free fun and more garden time. I hope we have inspired you for some new ideas on approach to teaching and/or fun topics. Stay well everyone and I hope you'll return for the next post.