Home Education: A Family Affair

This last week heralded an unexpected extended stay in hospital with Xander fighting several serious infections in his bloodstream, so whilst the staff worked to prevent sepsis, our family had to adjust to hospital life once more. Home education has to continue both for the girls and little man at this time, as it is not a one off occasion but is our way of life. It is not an excuse to not learn. The pattern of learning may change under Daddy and Grannie's care, but what is important, is that the learning journey continues. The girls applied existing knowledge and skills to new situations, enjoyed a lot of physical education and learning new skills. 

Sophia likes being post mistress and collecting the letters from the front door. She has been practicing reading from takeaway menus and writing down dishes, before she put them into the recycling. As she helped to prep the meals she was reading from the back of the packets, utilising her skills from outside of the traditional reading book and applying it in the real world. She read through a pizza takeaway leaflet and chose the pizza of choice which she wants for her birthday pizza party. Kira likes to read from subtitles on the TV and any signs they may come across in the community when they're out walking. I have noticed a considerable improvement in Sophias reading whilst I have been away, and her confidence to sound out an unfamiliar word has grown. 

Grannie had heard that Sophia's plants in her herb garden were struggling as they were beginning to outgrow their current pot  space, so super Grannie to the rescue surprised the girls by coming over to have a gardening session. She came armed with soil and some larger pots and taught the girls how to replant the herbs into their new homes. Sophia is so happy they're all still ok and has been clucking over them settling them in. 

Drawing is always a part of life for Sophia, no matter what is going on in our personal lives. She has drawn some lovely pictures during our time away, and they did some arts and crafts projects, including making telescopes, and headbands. Kira has been watching their Spanish playlist, and revisiting the topics of magnets and light in their science list. She has been exploring shadows, running round the room looking at everything that casts shadows and has seen some cool experiments she wants to try with Mummy now we're home. She had a music lesson with daddy too. 

Their YouTube educational playlist is great to have as a teaching option during these times. It is always accessible to them, they have videos set up to watch reflecting years curriculum, separated into subjects. Kira has spent time learning about snakes and she gave me a presentation on them upon my return. She told me, 'Snakes are reptiles who slither along the ground or up and down trees. They take off their skin and have a fresh one underneath, and lay eggs to have babies. Large snakes are carnivores and eat meat including humans, they wind themselves around their prey and squeeze hard or they spit potion at them and make them sleepy. Snakes can make their mouths very very wide and they swallow people whole'. That is a reasonable amount of information to learn in a week about one particular animal. It was disconcerting that during the presentation she was petting her rubber snake and it was moving on its own after she stopped touching it. 

The girls have been keeping fit with practicing their tricks on the sofa, and walking on their hands. The children have been gifted a wonderful trampoline by their grandparents and aunt, partly for Sophia's birthday and for a joint Christmas present. It arrived whilst we were away and Daddy put it up much to the delight of the girls. They absolutely love it. 

The weather held so one day they all went out for a busy walk via the canal, chatting away to passers by, on route to a fun hour at the local playground. Sophia successfully played on the zip line for the first time without assistance and impressed herself. The last port of call before trekking back home was the postbox, so Sophia could post a letter off to her penpal. 

 

Meanwhile in hospital Xander has been doing a lot of work on his Amazon fire tablet ipad, practicing tracing letters and numbers, training his hand muscle memory, and playing spelling word games. He watched a number of Blippi educational  videos, including Sink and Float, Abc and Transport. He watched Ryan's World educational videos, including ones on organs, gravity and prisms. Cocomelon was also a firm favourite, watching potty training, how to get dressed, and role playing. He practiced his colours, alphabet and numbers in Spanish along with Jack Hartmann and friends, and gustily sang number songs, days of the week and months of the year. Xander would not play along when anyone else was in the room however, he would leave me hanging and looking daft, and the staff never heard anything intellectual come from him. He'd answer me the minute they left the room. They were very happy he personally has made a milestone by tolerating the blood pressure cuff on him for the first time whilst awake.

The Book lady visited us again one day, connected with the Henry Dancer charity, http://henrydancerdays.co.uk/the-storytelling-project/. She came in with her wheel along suitcase stuffed full of books. She spent time reading a few books with Xander and then gifted him a Spiderman book which he read through for hours after and it went to bed with him for several days. 

The play team were great as usual and continued to help him gave his concerns with messy play. One day they brought in rice crispies in a tray for him to play with his cars and diggers (they were considerate not bringing in corn flakes in case he ate them as he's intolerant). They have tried several times before during the transplant to engage him in dry messy play unsuccessfully, however this session was a big turning point for him. He participated in dry messy play positively for first time, playing happily for ten minutes before he got stressed with the mess. He was very happy sweeping up the mess though. 

Another day they brought Xander paint and paper and he handled it like a pro, only getting stressed if he got paint on his hands or feet. The team asked if he would like to do a handprint but that is beyond him at the moment. He did a few paintings before his interest waned, one of which was later chosen to be the front cover for a special thank you card. September has been childhood cancer awareness month in connection with https://www.childrenwithcancer.org.uk/about-us/childhood-cancer-awareness-month/. The play team did a themed art project reflecting this called the Heart of Gold. Each child was given several heart cutouts for them to decorate with gold craft pieces. Xander loved decorating his heart, so long I dealt with the glue side of things. 

We returned home from hospital nine days later and the family was reunited in time for Sophia's four day birthday celebrations.