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Showing posts with the label learning from home

Domestic Foraging

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Sophia’s pet project of her herb garden is proving to be a success. She has managed to keep them alive for a couple of weeks now, and takes her responsibility seriously. She spends time with her little charges daily and worries about them when they’re left out in the rain. A parsley plant joined the ranks this last week, donated by Grannie, and it has happily settled in amongst the rosemary, chives, oregano and thyme. It got the tour of the garden by Xander who carried it round proudly, before Sophia gave it some tender loving care, removing its dead heads, giving it a trim and a water. She was clucking over it like a right little mother hen. We had a chat the other morning while she was tending her charges over which herbs compliments which meats and dishes which she found very interesting. She has been providing herbs for varying bbq meals which we have been enjoying during the past fortnight, and takes a taste test daily to see the quality of her stock. Sophia has shown a great inte...

Home Schooling: The Epitome Of Eclectic Learning

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No two days are alike when you home school three children at this amazing age where everything is an adventure and they find joy in any new exploration, whether it is found academically or outside in nature. The subjects may stay the same but the key is to keep the approach spontaneous and in the hands of the children if possible. Over the course of two days, surprising and magical events took place.   In regards to the academic side of things the girls were practicing their mental maths, multiplying by two, five and ten, and adding in tens and ones at breakfast time, and providing alternative additions and subtraction variants to reach the number seven and nine, and then they spent some time on their current maths workbooks. Xander proudly showed his mental maths skills off answering 1+1, 1+2 and 2+2. Multiplying by three has a hit a mental block past the stage of twelve, despite verbal repetition and YouTube songs, so I think I need to get creative and make the three times tabl...

100th Day Celebration

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Sophia was keen to practice her handwriting and her chosen content today was a mix of spellings and copying out animals from a book. She was absolutely fascinated to learn that I had a few secrets up my sleeve. She spelt out the word ‘was’, I whispered to her to add the secret letter ‘h’ and her face lit up in wonder as she read the word ‘wash’. She started squealing with joy when I told her to add ‘ing’. She now knows how to spell washing! She is really blossoming with her writing and spelling and is so connected and tuned in. Long may it remain! Xander was sat on the floor reading through Kiras current set of sight words pack of flashcards, words like ‘remember’ and ‘children’ did not faze him at all. Today marked one hundred days since Xander had his Bonemarrow transplant which is a massive milestone. He has survived the most critical part of the transplant and any complications past this stage should be far less dangerous and the risk should now continue to diminish as time passes ...

It Looked Liked Magneto Had Visited My Poor Kitchen!

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 I th ought lessons had finished for the day when a late afternoon mystery parcel arrived as I was cooking tea. Inside was a pack of magnets I had impulsively brought from amazon as a last attempt to introduce the topic to the girls. They have been quite resistant to learning this topic when I tried to introduce it via books and YouTube videos, and I was willing to try one last teaching method before shelving the topic and moving on to another for the time being. My girls usually cannot resist a science practical, however today there was no big build up or preparation as I wanted them to simply gravitate towards the magnets themselves. They had wandered down to the kitchen to investigate when tea was going to be ready and to see what had arrived in the post. I waved vaguely in the direction of the mystery box on the table whilst stirring the pot on the oven top. The following half an hour was one of the most impromptu, exciting and fruitful lessons we have ever had. It was an abs...

A House Made of Sticks

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The majority of parents know exactly what their role is when the alarm goes off in the morning: it’s the school run, which I would imagine is pretty predictable on the whole. In stark contrast, my mornings prior to breakfast time are always different. Learning sessions happen, however it remains fresh and unpredictable day to day, dependant a great deal on the children’s level of concentration, interest and general head space. It may be a very successful, productive morning for one or two, and one may need to process and time alone and have no concentration for lessons. They may switch in at another point in the day and study something totally different from the others. Sophia has been quite occupied in drawing our house for the past month, and she is not content to simply produce the generic form of a house anymore. She’s been through that stage and now only concentrates on exact replicas of our three storey house. She draws it as if you are looking in at an open dollhouse, seeing a...

A Summer Of Sunshine Fun

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The girls have had a confusing and scary year, with their little world being turned upside down with the deterioration of their little brother's health. Xander deteriorated rapidly in the last few months leading up to Transplant in June, and was in hospital at least once a week, with a few over night stays. Mummy was all of a sudden very busy and absent and Xander was getting less mobile and needed more care. He would come home having had sometimes eight cannulas in a twelve hour trip away at the hospital. He came home one day with several strange tubes coming out of his chest, and just slept all day after that for a week. Mummy and Xander then disappeared one night and didn’t return for seven weeks. Daddy wasn’t working and was busy looking after them along with Nana and Grannie's help. Xander returned home with no hair, he had changed a great deal, and was still needing regular hospital visits. I noticed one day that Joyful Miss Jo, the Children’s Coach, had posted a lovely...

Where did the Internet go?

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The baffling disappearance of the Internet is annoying to most of us, but to young autistic children it can lead to a meltdown or act as a trigger to them heading towards a bad headspace. It is incomprehensible to them how their shows can be there one minute and gone the next, replaced with the never ending circle of doom, which instills a brief moment of panic in me as I tentatively await the fallout. This morning however I had a welcome reprieve from the above, as I was the first one up and I had busily prepared a morning of online learning for them. I then attempted to connect with YouTube....to be met with a black screen and my lesson plan in tatters. No problem, I threw the remote in the drawer and made a dash to the school room.  The children emerged from their rooms and tumbled down the stairs in quick succession and greeted me with 'What we doing today mum?', 'Can I have free tv mum?', 'A for Adley Mammy!!!'. Once the cacophony had died down I put my cun...

Play: The Best Teacher!

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This particular day started at 4.30am, with Xander marching round the bed chanting the alphabet. I stumbled downstairs and my personal educational journey commenced at this ridiculous time in the morning as I quickly realised that Xanders stomach tube had broken, so his morning meds were hitting the floor rather than his stomach. I replaced the peg end for the first time ever by myself whilst half asleep and it worked! Medicines and feeds could once again commence. Where's the coffee!  The English session consisted of Kira finishing of her Farm animal reading book and reading the entire of Shirley Hughes 'Sally's Secrets', aimed at an aged five reader. We finished reading and discussing the horse project book and watched some show jumping on YouTube. Sophia later wrote a few sentences dictated to her, incorporating a mix of common words, basic punctuation, and words from the 'At', 'It', 'Ow', 'In', 'On' and 'En' families. ...

HORSES Eat The Same Things As Us Mummy!

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Greetings dear readers, I cannot recommend learning spelling via the word family method enough, it is really working well with Sophia who struggles with retaining spellings more than a few moments after she's told you. I dictated a couple of sentences to her using a mix of common words and words from the 'At', 'Ow' and 'It' families, as well as basic punctuation. She could use the tools she's learnt so far with a mix of phonics and word families to write it out for me, just needing the odd reminder on spacing. She was so excited when she saw the finished article and proudly read it back to me.  They wanted educational play lists on then, and Spanish was the consensus. Jack Hartmann has a really good, fun, catchy video on Spanish Colours which is a family favourite. Xander recognised the language and started telling us 1-7 in Spanish unexpectedly, toddlers are such sponges, they really do take in far more from their surroundings then we realise. He also r...

Horses, Horses and Maths!

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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 ...

A Summer Sunday

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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, ...

Imaginative Exercise

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The children wanted to watch exercise videos on YouTube from 6am, note that I said watch.... we were all cuddled on the sofa under blankets together just watching the entertaining footage for the first few.  Eventually the girls emerged and completed a few different platform game run throughs, where they run, zig zag, jump and crouch to mimic what's happening on screen. They particularly love running along a game play through with Ryan Worlds - Tag with Ryan (which is just something they came up with, it's not an exercise one). Ryan's World does have several official exercise videos with Ryan and mum which are firm favourites too.  We then switched to this years educationplaylistt. They sang gustily along with Jack Hartmann's 'Spanish colours' several times and then move on to maths. They were shouting out the answers to videos on comparing numbers, adding and subtraction, and the concept of money. They sang along to multiples of two and five, and number pairs f...

Friday 13th!

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  I am relieved to report that nothing disastrous has occurred during this traditionally superstitious day. We also had a lie in till 6am, which really makes all the difference.  The girls were hot off the press this morning, straight after their pre breakfast snack of milk and salmon, they were clamouring to continue the farm project. Kira wanted to re watch the video on hay making, and Sophia was fascinated to watch the process of milking a cow. Both girls preferred seeing hand milking by a farmers wife and asked a lot of questions. The milking machine scared them a little, they were not convinced it wouldn't upset the cows. Sophia was also keen to see an angry bull in action, and Kira was fascinated to learn that there is an even more powerful breed than the bull...oxen.  We are hurtling through this first book, it will be finished by Sunday, which lines up nicely to start book two next week. I am reviewing daily with them and they are eagerly retaining the information...

A Crazy Spontaneous Day

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The day started at 5am and as I stumbled down the stairs after an energetic Xander, the girls met me with their first weird and wonderful questions of the day.  Sophia had found a sprig of rosemary lying around that Dad had found foraging and wanted to know all about the herb. I made my way down to the kitchen to sort out the first of the many meds for Xander, Kira sought me out and we had an in depth conversation about how snakes kill their prey.  Ever since I first had Sophia I remember being warned 'just wait till you reach the questions stage', but I personally love it and take them in my stride, answering them around whatever I happen to be doing at the time. I really recommend you to embrace this question phase, they're not an annoyance, but an opportunity for a quick five minute snapshot lesson, which can sometimes extend into an entire topic. Try and analyse their questions as they can give you insight into the children's interests, and inspire full projects.  T...