The Aphabet Trail

We have been slowly easing back in to a "school" routine.  Pip is following the alphabet path courtesy of Elizabeth Foss and I am finally using the Waldorf Curriculum from Live Ed that was bought late last year!  We are also supplementing from various web sites, as well as text books and work sheets for Benedict.

It's been interesting working with the two of them and Pip has been providing some healthy competition for Benedict!  Her oft repeated phrase is "Right, what's next" and that means I have to be very organised, which I don't mind as my efforts are appreciated.  Here are some pictures of Wednesday's learning with Pip:

 Apple pie. angels and the letter A.



 A colouring sheet whilst waiting for the pie to cook.

A dot-to-dot apple.

 

 

 

 

 Letter recognition and following instructions.

 A favourite Angelina story.

Sequencing and ordering.

 

 

On Friday  Pip completed a handwriting sheet on the letter a, she traced over the letter and then practised writing on her own.  We talked about various things beginning with this letter such as, apple, astronaut, ant, antelope, apricot, acrobat and ape.

  We found an abc of virtues from this site and today's sheet was entitled, "always ask", quite pertinent since items around the house are often moved and "borrowed" without asking.  We pinned our creations to the fridge door.

After lunch we played the "put the apples on the tree game" which necessitated number recognition and counting up to ten.  It was a hit.  Our treat was a "how things work, simple science" you tube programme. 

 

 



Pip's colouring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today we played the bus stop game, which is a great way of reinforcing counting and familiarising oneself with mathematical symbols phrases:

 

 

 

 

After lunch we read from the creation story in particular "The first day."  Benedict devised his own interpretation of the story and Pip worked on her own craft activity:

 

 

 A day and night wheel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also listened to the BBC proms family matinee "We're going on a bear hunt" and both Dave and Pip really got into the groove!



 

 

 

Here's hoping and praying for another productive week ahead.



 



Aesop and Other Stories

After nearly a week of sickness for Pip and I we were finally back in rhythm this morning.  Literacy was our first subject of the day, we read from another famous five book, organised spellings into dictionary format, completed a crossword puzzle based on the same and read our fable "The crow and the pitcher" from the Waldorf kindergarten book.  Benedict's current art style is cartoon format and so the story was re-told in that same theme:

 Apparently I was not meant to help Benedict find the moral of the story, but we would have been sat in our seats all day had I not done so.  The moral is a lesson for me especially and in all honesty needs to be implemented on a daily basis!  Time was ticking and by now Dave and Benedict had an appointment elsewhere, so Pip and I played with the stacking cups and shape sorting train.  After half an hour of play she became increasingly grumpier and with great relief on both sides she settled for a lunch time nap.  This gave me much needed time to sort laundry and make the lunch.

After lunch Benedict worked on a hidden picture focusing on the nine times table:

We used a math workbook to guide us in finding the answers and it was interesting to notice the patterns involved with this particular table.  Number formatting will be a continued problem for B until I can find a way of presenting the material best suited to him.  He did enjoy providing the answers, as long as I acted as the scribe!

After a mid afternoon tea break we looked at our geography book "Violent Volcanoes" and learnt about the Mount St Helen's eruption on the 18th May 1980.  Thanks to the wonder of cyber technology we were able to view a website dedicated to this area, including today's live web cam footage of the volcano.  We are hoping to undertake some practical experiments pertaining to this subject during the course of the week.

I'm pleased with our work today especially considering I am still under the weather and Benedict's diabetes is currently exhibiting volcanic activity!!  Here's hoping for another productive day tomorrow.

Friday Round Up

Benedict worked very hard at Shein's yesterday morning, despite having totally whacky very high BM's:

Concentrating hard.

Whilst he was away with Dad, Sara, Pip and I made Scotch Pancakes for a mid morning snack:

Pip had great fun whisking, mixing and then eating!  We forgot to take a picture of the finished articles, oops!

Pip and Sara then made a jaunt to out local park to collect further specimens for her assignment.  Pip is still currently recovering from a heavy cold/croupy cough so slept in the push chair on the way home.  She managed to acquire a friend from the park and here she is:

" Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home..."

After lunch we decided to make the most of the sunshine and visited Leighton Moss Nature Reserve.  I wasn't totally enthusiastic as I was still suffering with chronic joint and back pain, but the sunshine lifted my spirits and as always the kids enjoyed their visit.  We also met up with our homeopath from years back, who having retired from her practice, now works in the visitor centre one day a week.  It was lovely to catch up.

It's a boy thing!  Skimming stones and digging in the mud.

 Pip pressing the buttons on the interactive wall in the education centre.

A level crossing wait and a passing train, a treat for the railway enthusiasts in the family!

Today Dave and Benedict visited Simon and in addition to lively banter, creatures and masks were made.  Pip and I went to visit Bea and her mindees, it was good to catch up.

A mask in the making.

Curly, whurly creatures.

At the risk of sounding a bore, diabetes still all over the place.  Finally managed to settle B at 11:30pm, having administered another corrective dose and set an increased basal, in the hopes of stabilising his blood sugars.  If left unchecked he'll start to burn ketones and could deteriorate quite rapidly.  It is now 01:00 and I'm about to check him again.  The house is tidy thanks to fly lady and so I'll hop into bed with some knitting, I think it'll be another hour or two before it's safe to leave him.  Knitting in this household truly is therapy!!  Bonne Nuit!

 

Mummy and Pip

Thursday is our usual maths day with Shein, Benedict worked on fractions and the two times table.  After a soup lunch Dave, Benedict and Sara went on an errand trip into town, this left me and Pip with time on our hands.  The kitchen was tidied, we walked in the rain to buy some butter and came home and made muffins.  Whilst the cakes were cooking we read from a "Rosie and Jim" story book and completed a Postman Pat jigsaw puzzle.

An almost "Ta-dah" moment!

Busy with the blue butter cream icing.

 Yummy cakes for tea... thanks Pip!

Blue Sky Thinking On A Grey Day

This morning we abandoned our nature walk as the rain was pouring steadily and heavily.  Pip and Benedict busied themselves with den making and soon it was time to take Sara to Myerscough College to hand in her bursary application.  Whilst they were away, I caught up with some sorting and planning for our learning activities this forthcoming week.  Here they are in the den area:

 Crazy Dudes!

We tackled our regular round of numeracy and literacy this afternoon. Benedict was visibly tired and blood sugars were a little unsteady, but despite this he soldiered on and we completed our target list in just over an hour and a half.

Our visual representation of the five times table using the Montessori ten and five bead bars.  Benedict finds it hard at times to grasp a pattern if spoken in rhythm or displayed in written format, so the beads are another valuable tool in depicting the required formation.

After shared reading and snack time, we worked on mini art project using  glue, salt and water colour paint.  We borrowed the idea from this talented mum: 

  http://pinkandgreenmama.blogspot.com/2011/09/salt-and-glue-watercolor-paintings.html

and then worked in today's feast of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.  Here are Benedict and Pip working on their creations:

 Benedict working on the blue stripe in her Sari head dress.

 Pip making glue splodges.

 Pip's finished salt picture.

This evening Benedict has been working on a self orientated learning programme.  It all began last night when he was drawing a variety of musical instruments and talked about "being in a band", and how that would be difficult since his close friends were at school.  I told him about a band called "The Gorillaz" who are a group of non public - performing musicians and  are  represented by four cartoon characters. We watched some of their you tube videos and then Dad found the video to "Eleanor Rigby" by the Beatles and "Brick in The Wall" by Pink Floyd.  As a result Benedict has named the band, produced tickets using Microsoft Word with help from Dad and his next task is to find a suitable soundtrack for his video.  It is so good to see the cogs of enthusiasm whirring and clanging!

"Time" and Other Happenings.

In addition to our regular maths programme we have begun our main lesson work for this month, which focuses on time and seasons.  Yesterday we explored the different ways of telling the time and our associated practical activity was to make our own sundial:

 Such a simple activity but what a great visual way of illustrating the movement of time throughout the day.

Whilst Benedict was helping Sara in the garden Pip and I actually managed some quiet time together.  We set out the Happy Land village and it was lovely to hear Pip narrating little dialogues as she moved the characters around the play mat.

We had two sets of twins in one house, their Mummy and Daddy must have been very tired!

 "Say cheese!"

We had a rubbish clinic appointment and I left the meeting very disillusioned.  Several times Benedict's consultant proffered conflicting and ill informed advice and I repeatedly stood my ground and fought our corner. After having left the consulting room our dietician gave me a pat on the shoulder and reminded me that, I'm doing a great job and his kindness was gratefully appreciated.  To cheer ourselves we had coffee and gluten free cake at The Whaletail Vegetarian Cafe.

This morning we wrapped up the ten times table by using the Montessori multiplication board as our visual aid:

Benedict really enjoyed the therapeutic nature of placing a bead on each corresponding hole and observing pattern formation.  After this we worked on place value and addition of thousands, hundreds, tens and units; once again the Montessori tools came in very handy:

The individual tiles are a great way of assisting with "trading up" of numbers, so that 10 lots of 100 tiles are then traded for a singular thousand tile.  We filled the sheet with sums and written number values and decided to call it a day with regards to numeracy.

Our literacy work was "alphabetical order" and Benedict had to arrange words in dictionary formation.  The exercise became a little more complex when he had to begin arranging words with the same initial letter and was therefore looking for differences in the second/third letters of each word.  This exercise is fairly familiar to him, as we often arrange our weekly spellings into dictionary format as another way of reinforcing the learning process.

By now it was nearing lunch time, so we just had time to read two chapters of our shared reader,"Five On A Secret Trail".

After lunch Benedict and Pip had fun making a castle in the lounge using assorted furniture whilst I tackled kitchen clean up.  It was then time to undertake our practical activity for the afternoon and in a nod to the slighter colder early mornings/evenings we decided to wash our woolies the old fashioned way!

I am ashamed to say the water was very dirty and we had to refill the sink with fresh soapy liquid between each batch!  Note to myself - wash woolies on a regular basis!  Pip was very sweet she was wearing my as yet unwashed "glubs" and was very reluctant to part with them, only the promise of another available pair, would then see her placing them in the sink to be washed!

Free time heralded once more and both kids went in opposite directions, Pip shared some books with me and as always I'm continually surprised by this wee gal. We were reading the "Peepo" book and she announced, " That baby's blue shoe is missing!!" Not bad for two and a half, eh?!

After tea Benedict worked on the Seasons.  I made a list of family member's Birthdays and he had to name where they belonged on a Seasonal calendar, as well as writing about his favourite season:


"My favourite season is Winter.  I like the Christmas decorations and Christmas pudding.  In this season we celebrate the birth of Jesus.  The weather is cold at this time of year, so we have to wrap up warm."

Happiness is ...

Trying to climb into the washing machine!

Sharing a Lego moment with our diabetes specialist nurse.

Knowing where you will be in a few weeks time... our big girl Sara will be joining the multitudes here, on the extended horticulture course; plenty of opportunity to continue daily battles with the elements and pests!

Taking the train with your big sister to the RSPB nature reserve at Leighton Moss and having yummy tomato soup and ham sandwiches for lunch.

Doing one's bit for the environment and spreading seeds!

Examining the seed pods.

Mud pie making.

An hour in the craft room making something totally mundane but necessary.  The happy thrifted fabric makes me smile and the quiet time with my Janome machine was a sanity saving moment.

Bamboo wigwam made by Sara.

Finally cracking the ten times table using multiplication/division and accompanying word and picture problems.  Not easy for someone with a slight maths aversion and suspected discalculia.

Life In The Slow Lane

This has been our story this past week.  I've been hit with an unexpected health problem and the consequences of that have dominated our home this past week.  No supply teacher to step into the breach so home education in this household has truly been autonomous!  So much so, that Benedict has once or twice complained of boredom and had to find his own way of organising his time!

Pip has engaged in  some extra learning of her own and on Sunday whilst visiting friends, decided to use their  bathroom facilities.  She's been virtually nappy free since then and apart from the odd accident seems to be grasping the concept fairly well.   Enthusiastic praise and the occasional tiny chocolate button as a reward seems to be helping too!

Here are some pictures of this past week:

 Den Building.

Art Attack.

Collage Making.

Pom Poms At  The Ready!

Working And Playing Hard.

"Smile Dad you're on Candid Camera!"

Skeleton Spaceship.

A Much Needed Haircut.