and SB has 4 gcse this year, BB doesn’t like going out much [we are going to have to work on that!] and I have non bloggable worries to worry about! so am being rather less than grgarious. I actually think i should do something about that, but I havent as yet.
so i will just blog about weds4ed, which was lovely, as B brought her daughter R and frenchE with her, and since they are schooled we dont get to see them so much. we had a great day. the sun was out, k did a discussion on andy goldsworthy and his art. it reminded me of DH and i in northumberland after we had seen an andy goldsworthy exhibition – must have been at the yorkshire sculpture park – and we were imitating this. The kids did a wonderful job of recreating some ideas in the garden.
B did maths with the ones working towards gcse maths. SB is really enjoying doing maths with B, and also has already looked at the videos linked.
science was a biology recap, but i realsied as i was doing it htat perhaps i need to go back further in time with the recap! we were looking at seeds, storage of energy as starch and then conversion into sugars when germinated. the experiment didnt work with the big kids [doing the gcse] but perfectly with the younger ones. sigh! however, we did talk about a lot of concpets, so hopefully the talking, especially about why things might not work, will be useful 
bean seeds: sprouted sugar; sprouted starch; unsprouted sugar; unsprouted starch
rice grains: sprouted starch; sprouted sugar; unsprouted starch; unsprouted sugar
we all know i love multicoloured experiments pretty cool hey!
we finished the day with some minecrafters, some [including me and k] on the wii doing winter olympics [we were a bit hopeless!] and SB and J did some of a biol paper together – i think it is more fun doing some of these things together. J corrects SB’s appalling spelling as they go!
lovely day
(((H and family))).
“am being rather less than gregarious. I actually think i should do something about that, but I havent as yet.” If hunkering down at home is what you currently need then don’t put pressure on yourself to be gregarious! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
C wants to do Maths GCSE next year. I’m not so sure as she has done none for so long and it always seemed to end in frustration. Though I think she is reasonably capable, she is inconsistent. I had been hoping for a year off from exams but she has other ideas and doesn’t want to leave it all to her last year and doesn’t accept me saying she isn’t running out of time when she is convinced she is – not sure where the external pressure on her is coming from as it certainly isn’t from us, too many influences on her that I am unaware of these days. She also wants to do chemistry but she found it too hard. I’m wondering if human biology would be better if she wants to pursue this paramedic idea (I am not keen AT ALL and not sure I can see how it fits in with linguistics which is what she also says she wants to do!).
And very beautiful multi-coloured experiments x
thankyou re the gregariousness. i am so keen not to lose myself completely, like i did when vivien was ill and died. it took so much out of my life that i should have been doing with the kids as their time with me is so short. and i know that this is going to get trickier. deep breaths!
. i will ask her and then perhaps tell her to take the foot off the pedal. human biology prob fun 
. personally i think the biology [and prob human] is the easiest of the 3 sciences to do. for maths, thebabs has a programme running she just started on friendfeed if you were interested, linking to a website with a daily 10 mins – tho you can save and do in bulk!
i imagine the maths is prob sb, keen to still be doing something with C once classical civ is done, as she has really loved it! sorry
thankyou for commenting x x
I was thinking influences are ppl (at choirs/st john) who go to school as it was recently OPTIONS time and lots of pressure and expectation and parental negotiation. Not that I could see they have many options when it comes down to it. The timetable and compulsory subjects make that difficult.
Might ask Babs if C thinks good idea but not til after this Controlled Assessment. Thank you.
C has really enjoyed doing work with SB. Will ponder how to replicate that in a while. Not sure maths is such a good one to do together. Whereas discussing ideas is. C keeps wanting to do philosophy. Hmm.
It was a lovely day
(And I asked Ben how come he knew all the answers, and he admitted that he had looked at that section totally by chance just the day before.)
Mich – maths is a brilliant one to do together… comparing their different methods, getting different answers (or not) and trying to work out which is right and why the other is wrong. Ben and SB both planning to do maths next year. The videos we are working through are http://www.examsolutions.net/maths-revision/syllabuses/GCSE/period-1/Higher/module.php
Ben also wants to do Chemistry. He’s already read the text book cover to cover but really struggles with actually answering questions.
Rei wants to do philosophy but there isn’t a GCSE for it. We have a couple of coursera courses bookmarked for when she has finished the psychology course she is doing. The GCSE ‘RE: philosophy and ethics’ is RE linked and completely religion centric. On the other hand, it is the easiest exams ever (2 easy one hour papers) and you only need to do a 5th of the course to take it. (It covers 5 religions but you only need answer questions on one)
I really missed being there this week
Babs E is slightly considering maths for next year! You gave her so much confidence that one time she did it with you having not really done any at all before. She came home and wizzed through two ks3 practice tests we had here, with me just showing her how to do new concepts! So not too much of a leap to GCSE if I can keep her momentum going.
@Em she just wants to do philosophy – not do an exam in it. I think she liked bouncing ideas and varied viewpoints around. She had a few sessions years ago and enjoyed it. I bought “A Little Book of Thunks” but couldn’t find a right time and group of people. (I had thought at Cake but C just wanted to do cooking there, by the time the cooking was done, most ppl had settled into doing something. It was also too difficult to find a quiet room).
Yes would love to have some kind of philosophy group for discussing things. There is debating here but that’s not the same thing and R didn’t enjoy that. I just looked at exams because I was after some kind of framework for suggesting different topics or ideas to explore, rather than for an actual exam. I was really cross when issue what the exam entailed though, it is terrible!
When I saw what the exam entailed. Not issue. Lol
I don’t understand why you have 5 religions but only need to study one. Doesn’t seem right at all. Broad and Balanced?
It’s awful. The papers have 5 questions to answer and you can choose which religion to answer them for. No obligation to choose different religions for different sets of questions.
grin, yep, you put me off the religion one! i think ethics or philosophy would be interesting! SB hasnt really done any of the chem, so planning on starting that after these exams to sit prob next year, with psychology and maths. all depending on how well it goes. [see tick sheet panic!] . maybe Michelle, you will need to come on weds and start up philosophy for the group
. and, ah yes, options! its been the main topic of conversation at air cadets, and SB is absolutely sure now HE is best, as wouldn’t be able to do options she fancies at school, and someone is at a school where she can do 7 things she wants so is going to sit 2 from home anyway.
Problem with Weds is C needs to be in Hatfield for 5:30pm, which is a goodly distance further yet from your house so a lot of driving. Would need to leave at 4pm latest (I would probably prefer 3:30pm as traffic starts building up) and extracting her when she is happily in the middle of something with friends is always difficult.
kfish leaves around 3.30 for choirish things, but see that the drive is a big thing. we need transporters!
Em – suggest to R that she might like to look at the videos I linked to too. And/or she could join the FF group….
And I asked my E again about the philosophy and ethics course. Apparently they aren’t doing every topic from every religion (as I understood initially). They are doing each topic from from just one, mainly, but a different one for each topic. Which is a shame…. I would have thought much more interesting to do fewer topics but study each from more viewpoints. I can only imagine the GCSE is done like that so that it is more flexible? Couldn’t you still use it as a framework? Don’t have to sit the exam. I don’t think its the only GCSE to have options and nothing to stop you studying more than you ‘need’ to.