A week of birthdays

Nanny french came across on monday to deliver and receive presents, as it was her birthday on the friday. I didn’t take a photo tho! It was a busy day for SB as she had ballet and then judo. the monday group is older on average than the weds group, so she has a much more strenuous workout there. she does enjoy it. Her home ed was mostly maths and also taking photos for her arts award.

Tuesday SB spent most of the day on her arts award project [bit of an argh, as this week should mostly be about classical civ controlled assessment and her piano exam!] pm is the arts award class which she really enjoys. Ctually, io shouldn’t argh, because when later on in the week i apologised that our home ed hadn’t been rigorous enough that essay writing was easy for her, and perhaps i had let her down compared to my schooling, she did point out that she had had lots more fun, and that my school type [grammar] wasn’t available, and there was no evidence that the local schools were better than us. always nice to hear our children affirming the choice to home educate, as it is SB’s choice now as to whether to continue.

Tuesday was also DH birthday. he was very happy with his teapot and eggcups and the birthday candles in the dinner!

weds was a lets get down to it classical civ controlled assessment planning fest. I was a bit panicky to find that she and the tutor hadn’t really covered this as much as i thought they may have done. SB has never done anything like this before, and I am pretty rusty at this kind of thing [see comments in the ticksheets for my mind mapping!] however, when we sat down together, i asked her to start in the middle and pick things in the book that helped her answer the questions, and she found some events for Dido and some for Aeneas, whilst i printed out for her the mark sheet and the spec, so she could then use that to come up with a plan for context. It slowly and organically grew from there, and although the whole plan not finished by sat morn as hoped for, it was at least clearly developed. She hasnt approached it as I would have, and the flow therefore isnt quite the same [this is when we had the convo about essay writing!] but i have a psych degree, and this had a fair bit of essays making an argument, so i have all that practice. this has to be her own work, with some help and guidance, and i have been very careful to cheerlead and help her decide and prompt about context, but not to actually interfere with her decisions, flow and what she wanted to include. I have no idea whether it is at the right level tho for this exam, just hoping so since she has done a fair bit of work for it. [home ed panic!]

After lunch on weds we declared it to be SB’s birthday and opened presents before going to see Jupiter ascendant at the cinema. She was v happy with her presents [especially since she thought she was just getting the replacement retainers for those she had lost!] . One of those presents was a lap desk with LED light – cool Jupiter ascendant is a feel good film which is best watched to enjoy rather than use any thinking or critique .

so happy birthday my glorious 14 year old . We love you very very much, and are proud to be your parents . evening activities – marching band for SB and judo for BB.

The day didn’t end quite so smoothly though, as somehow BB managed to severely wrench [or something] her shoulder and ended up in a and e at midnight

argh! and she has been in pain since, seen at fracture clinic, had bloods done etc etc.

Thurs – SB had french and multisports, and classical civ prep! due to BB feeling in pain and miserable, there was a friend chain to get her to all the activities – thankyou – and then the bus back. She is pretty good now at getting the bus in and out of town. Friday was a total classical civ prep day. not as much really as i would have liked done, I think she missed me sitting there chivvying, getting tea and biscuits and general cheerleading!

So what about BB? well, actually she has spent a lot of this week in arts and craft mode, with lots of pencil work  – mostly angry birds pictures, computer based pictures and fimo. I have been really impressed with her angry birds fimo set – will have to take a pic of them all, but here are some going into the oven.

There are no ticksheets this week tho – SB would be all classical civ, some maths, some piano and a bit of french! BB would be some conquer maths, lots of art and craft!