Busy Doing Something

Sometimes I feel like we are wading through treacle when it comes to home schooling, it is often a case of one step forward and two back.  However  I'm learning to roll with it, to enjoy the successes, accept the failures and work with the grey in between, that's life isn't it?  So here's our take on life in the learning zone these past few days:

As a result of nagging from me, Benedict took a break from LEGO... for all of a day! *smile* and came up with his version of a spitfire.  You can guarantee a running commentary to accompany any of his creations and the stories woven into the design are quite interesting.

We've finally begun work on our lap book "Things We See In Church", this will run in conjunction with preparation for the sacrament of confession and first Holy Communion.  Lap books are great!  They are a totally fab way of achieving progress in short bursts.  Benedict hates any task that appears monumental and when faced with the insurmountable quite understandably looses heart.

A mini book focusing on the different candles found in church.



A big first, a burst of creative writing.  The last time Benedict felt inspired to write a story was last year!!  He wrote five sides of A4 in total and each page was decorated with tiny illustrations.  To complete the project he designed a front cover and then stapled the sheets together to form a book.  He was justifiably proud of his efforts and I restrained myself from proof reading or correcting any grammatical errors.

In addition to this morning's narration work, copy work and art, we found this really great maths game entitled "Beat The Clock."  Benedict sometimes struggles with hand and eye co-ordination for computer games, so I was in charge of pressing the stop clock!  The object of the game was to match the time on the clock with the written time listed underneath.  This is the first clock game that has been a huge success, so we'll be logging on to this site on a regular basis.

After lunch Dave and Benedict completed the extension work based on their recent study of rock formations, they quite literally had a smashing time!



After they had smashed, grouped and identified the rocks, they watched a you tube video of the eruption of pillow lava off the East Coast of Samoa.

The day finished with his weekly swimming lesson and this week he came home with a certificate and a badge, so big smiles all round!