Home ed thoughts for the year

I looked at my mission statement, and with relief saw that it was valid till 2010
obviously some things change! Not the basic philosophy, but how we are approaching the nitty gritty section!
literacy: SB has declared the galore park junior english OK, so that will start us with looking at the breakdown of how ‘english works’ as we have seen she now has a requirement for learning sentence structure and names. She also is enjoying the wizard whimstaff spelling workbooks, so we will continue with these. we do less getty and dubay at the moment because of the above.
maths we are on 3a and also reading books involving maths storylines. she is finding it all easy at the moment, so i hope to do some with her and perhaps push on a bit.
history is unchanged really, with SOTW as the core [and we are half way through as predicted, as we take 2 rather than 1 year per book], and reading story books and interesting fact books. we all enjoy the reading, but i should make an effort to do more associated activities. when we did this with the vikings, we all really enjoyed it. just remembered that when she is 8 she can join the young archaeologists, so will look into this.
critical thinking and logic is by games playing, both board games and ds, with sudoku and easy kakuro too.
science is having some more formal time with the latinetc group on alternate wednesdays, which is all good fun. i don’t really think anything much there has changed. our new microscope is exciting!! oh, MUST try and sort out astronomy group, and Sarah [bless her] as given me her old science club kits now she isn’t HE-ing, that i use in the latinetc group [thnx]
geography we haven’t really got to grips with except as an adjunct to history or following NORAD tracks santa! will ponder how to usefully put in!
I am encouraged by our success really with languages, it seems that our story book plus some add on actiivities are really working for us. I’m not saying that either of the girls are having a conversation in french, just that i can see we are slowly acquiring the language in a fun way – if possibly not the most efficient! latinetc and a bit of practice inbetween is fun too.
I am a bit discouraged in our music. SB stopping the violin was a bit of a blow, but i have said we are child led, so… piano continues as does music theory. we should do more practice though for piano and recorder. a friend around the blogline reminded me about ambleside online, and perhaps we should look at its composer study
we lost drama, though did do a drama activity week. if it ever fits in again, it will be added. PE activities fine – gym has commenced and is loved, though horseriding still outstanding! SInce BB also has a bike. we should add some family biking.
arts and crafts have been done, and SB won a village painting competition with much pride. but now thinking of perhaps working in some technique! i have books about paintings, about painters and about how too, so hopefully this will be good for us!
domestic science [rofl] is fine. we sew more, and are considering a sewing project to make a needle case at the moment. perhaps starting to cook savour food – ie dinners – is a starting point now.
socialising took a bit of a hit with her broken foot and then emotional wobbles, but i think it has been enough that she is a happy girl. i aim to get my weekends out to see who wants to visit as soon as i have my work rota. i think this is something we will always need to be proactive with. we have a group holiday in both jan and feb to look forward too, however. from the HE groups, it appears that there may be a possible monday group after the sports to go too – and other weeks if wanted, and alt week thurs group attendance works out OK – it is available weekly. with the alt wed latinetc and monthlyish city 2 group, that is a fair group commitment!
with my sisters breast cancer diagnosis last year, chris’s uncles bowel cancer that has been resistant to chemo and inoperable, and the news before christmas that little nanny’s breast cancer has spread and that we should take what time we have, we have also been working hard to see and visit relatives we love, not taking the time for granted.
we have started off on some trips out and about, and as BB gets more and more out of them, we will increase them. certainly SB has loved them, as have we.

So there you go, our mid term gap analysis if you will!! we need to something about geography – [i still think geocaching mapreading and some good games would do the trick - we just need to do them], jiggle things a bit with music [ie practice more and see if we can do basic group stuff more and perhaps the ambleside online] and art [which we have the wherewithal to do - doing some technique stuff gently] and increase the socialisation and out and abouting which we all enjoy. we have been surprised and happy with our languages, and continue to be happy with maths, literacy and science – we enjoy this and find it easy and fun. don’t plan to change much there, except perhaps gently encourage more regular ‘work’ – a bit like merry’s normals perhaps – to speed through the maths a bit. history chugs along, we all like it, but don’t have the passion of other HE we know, but i think adding more practical things in and related trips would really lift it.

so not bad, i guess.

oh, and no, there is no mission statement yet for BB – she’s not the age of compulsary education!

outstanding parental tasks
1. arrange some horseriding!
2. RSPB badge scheme thingies as a fun thing to do or perhaps nature detectives club [thnx jax]
3. geocaching
4. organise diary for visiting family and friends
5. arrange trips out and about!
6. tidy the craft stuff so accessible [at least the science stuff done]
7. check resources on ambleside online wrt composer study +/- artists [thnx kirsty]
8. Astronomy group
9. young archaeologists
10. hmm, consider science equipment needs, and kirsty – unhelpfully – linked to what look to me fab books

thinks: OMG that’s rather a lot on the to do list!