yay! first part of a gcse completed!

SB worked hard completing her Aenead draft on Monday realised that she had written too many words, so edited and re-edited to be under 2000. She seemed happy with the results. It did mean that she had time to go to roller skating home ed group with BB. This is only monthly, but they both love it.

Tues was ‘The Big Day’ with SB having her controlled assessment for her Classical Civ . She was pretty happy with how things went, and thought she had got across the things that she wanted to. I am so proud of her starting on this exam journey. BB was happy that she got to go to a sweet shop

Weds was our weds4ed day, which is becoming a bit busy for our older, gearing up for exams kids. only SB and J are sitting exams this time [SB french, biol, geog and classical civ; J french, biol and maths] but some of the others are potentially working towards exams next year – like maths. SO there was lots of maths and biol for the older ones. Certainly SB loves doing maths with B, and is actually looking forwards to doing that gcse next year. they were working on histograms this time.

I loved doing the science with the 2 kids groups. they are both lovely, intelligent, inquisitive and challenging in different ways, and it is good for me to keep going and impart knowledge and fun [hopefully simultaneously] in a safe way. Hearing about how girls are still inhibited in science and also there is reduced science in primary schools makes me proud of what we achieve for our home ed kids. We dont have a gender bias, but just an interestedness bias.

So this time we did 2 speriments for gcse in the food and digestion section. Firstly we had our starch solution, tested to show it was starch, with iodine, then added an amylase solution [most commonly termed spit or saliva ] and demonstrated we now had a sugar solution tested with benedicts. appropriate controls along the way.

oh, and we had a third run of this, cos O [5] loved the idea

showing that you are never too young for real science

We simultaneously for the other 2 groups tested for protein, using the Biuret test [NaOH and CuSO4] with starch and sugar as controls. This meant we had a very pretty test tube rack at the end.

control buiret; protein = purple biuret; control test for sugar without amylase – negative; test for sugar with amylase – benedict is sweet – positive; test for starch with amylase – negative; test for starch without amylase – positive

K took all the non mathsy ones to start talking about van gogh, and doing some nature study art. BB took ages doing a very detailed drawing of a leaf.

no music today, as science and maths took a lot of time, and it is the older ones that like the joint music too. so we had a disfussion about that, and how a lot of what we do is really aimed and stretching for the older ones and we had a thought about adding stuff for them too if they want, but def at the others – currently considering animation and pottery with fire pit firing.

Then of course, the usual games playing, computers and board games. SB and I played her new birthday munchkin game

so a lovely day and in a week that was difficult for a number of unbloggable reasons [polyanna all the way ] it was very much needed

Thursday SB went down to her Oddesey workshop with the manor borns and really enjoyed it. she loves spending time with C, and it is a shame we haement managed to see them so much in the flesh recently, however they have skyped and had regular internet contact with this classical civ malarky. She enjoyed the workshop, found it v helpful, and with M, we have come up with a joint revision plan for the girls so they can do paper discussion over the internet. BB mostly legoed at home and did drawing.

Friday SB had french lesson in the city, whilst BB and DH went to the forest school for wild crafts and environmental things. they then all chilled at home after what seemed like a very busy week!