A productive winter's day!

There are days when home learning magic occurs. We had an extremely productive day, working from 9am-5pm, with a mix of formal and independent learning. This intensity of learning will be child led, I do not introduce formal learning from midday onwards. 

Sophia throughout the course of the day completed thirty pages from a range of workbooks, and was learning about the stages of meteors from books and YouTube videos from the Dr Bionics show. I cannot recommend this Youtube educational channel highly enough. It caters for ages 4-12 in all matters science related. 

Sophia also was frequently practicing her photography skills with her ipad, and in her breaks chose to either play brain training games or practice her latest gymnastic tricks. She is loving her current reading book of Peter and Jane 10a and is handling it extremely well, considering the level is aimed for 8-10year olds.

She also has a focused interest in keeping house, and she practices her life skills in this area frequently. Today she was enjoying kitchen role play with her siblings, and helped me load and unload the washing machine and dishwasher, hanging up the dry clothes, tidied her bedroom and made her bed. She chose the menu for their dinner, and gathered the components together from their place in the kitchen.  

Xander has been looking into habitats and wild and farm animals all day, a mix of watching YouTube and playing with a toy farm and wild animals. I've been chatting with him about different animals, placing them within continents, talking about herbivores, carnivores, basic food chains etc. He's been telling me why certain animals have certain characteristics, for example giraffes have long necks so they can eat from tall trees and crocodiles have snap snap snap teeth to eat meat.

Kira has been practicing her times tables today. She completed a few pages of workbooks, and read a few books by herself, and revised a range of subjects with Youtube educational learning. She enjoyed writing a letter to her favourite teacher. 


She also initiated a long discussion with me regarding the dangers of littering, and the effect it has on natural habitats and the animals who live there. We talked about bad sources of energy causing damage to the ozone layer, with the knock on effect of the destruction of habitats. She understood the gravity of the ice melting and the penguins, polar bears and seals losing their home.

These productive days balance out the hospital days and the mental health days they require for being on the spectrum. I I are about the overall goal and work achieved, not when and how it occurs. 

Some weeks they'll have the ration 4:3 formal learning:resting days, other weeks it's 5:2, or 3:4, occasionally it may be 2:5 ratio. However as they are growing older I'm finding I am conducting three different, unique learning days with them. One girl may be very productive one day, whilst the other one is having a 100% child led day. 

Individual mental headspace plays a lot in the decision in how the day flows, as much  as hospital appointments do. The girls have  started to have alone time in their rooms for processing time. I find it amusing when they choose to go together, yet still call it alone time. They share a bunk, snuggle under the duvet and just have a chat setting the world to rights. 

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