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Monday 20 August 2012

Home-school Moves to Kirkley Hall

We had kind of a slow start this morning, after a bad night (again) with Sebastian, who is not well. He's been waking up with a temperature and we've been giving him paracetamol and trying to cool him down. Teeth, maybe? Or a bug. Anyhow...

We did violin, first thing, building on the success of Friday by letting Elizabeth and Sebastian watch TV while Francesca practised. The incentive for Francesca was to do a 15 minute practise to finish in time to watch The Rhyme Rocket. which worked a treat. She did a great practice. I felt as though we got through a lot of things and she's sounding more in tune. We even started a second piece, which is great because there are two more tunes to be learnt for Step 11, before Anna Maria comes back in September.

Then I packed up a lunch and we headed off to Kirkley Hall. We planned not to go to the zoo today, having been quite recently (also you have to pay) but the rest of the grounds, gardens and play area are free, so we headed for the zoo play area, which doubles as a classroom.

What a lovely morning walk to school. The girls skipped on ahead doing One Two Three Wheeee with Francesca's baby.



The walled garden looked so pretty. We chatted to the gardener who invited us to pick flowers - more on that later.



Here's our classroom for this morning. Francesca is already getting on with her English work. The other two have free-run of the room, including the gated area you can see in the background which is full of toys.



Sebastian found something interesting.



"Look! Terrapins!"




Elizabeth and he found plenty to keep them busy. Although Sebastian wasn't as happy as all that, today, on account of feeling grotty and being very tired.



I particularly loved this page from Francesca's work. It finishes, "Do you know your own telephone number at home?" and Francesca has written, "yes".



There was a duck you could ride on, which became Elizabeth's horse, even though I didn't put any money in the slot.



Everyone loved him (her?)



After English, Francesca wanted to play in the play area and read all the books, which we did for a while.



Elizabeth spent ages 'writing her birthday invitation' - here it is, apparently:



Then we moved on.

Next stop, by the little hump-back bridge and the pond, in the glorious sunshine for Maths.



Even Sebastian wanted to join in.



Francesca worked through her Maths book and Elizabeth used her wipe-down English book again.



Here she is doing a careful drawing on the front page.



It's mummy and daddy, as you can see.



Then we went back to the walled garden, where the 'cutting flowers' border is. The gardener gave us some secateurs and we cut arm loads of flowers. I would have cut more but Sebastian was upset so we had to move on.

This border is planted to pick but no one ever picks them! So we were welcome to as much as we wanted - daisies, sweet peas, some kind of yarrow, everlasting flowers and a few other varieties that I cannot name off the top of my head.



We loaded up the pushchair and Elizabeth carried the sweet peas.



Then we had PE (could we call it that?!)

Climbing ropes for some.



And I sat and had a coffee, admiring the flowers. Or that was the theory. Actually Sebastian wanted to be cuddled, carried, rocked, put down, picked up, in the pushchair, out of the pushchair...


Still, the girls enjoyed themselves. Here's Francesca at the top of the tower.



And coming down.



Sebastian settled just long enough for me to relax and start a snack break (pistachios) but, alas, we soon had to move on again.



He fell asleep in the car but woke up before we got home. He's had a really struggly day, poor thing. He's waking himself up coughing - the girls are coughing too. Urgh.

Anyway, the wonders of home-school: you have no homework, and yet, you can do overtime if the mood takes you.

Elizabeth and daddy played with the 'silly story' jigsaw pieces and made up some silly - and some not so silly - stories after bathtime.



Francesca continued embroidering her cushion cover and is making rapid progress, mum.



So, I reckon we did an hour of actual 'work' as in English and Maths. We also had fresh air, exercise and lots of other experiences along the way. We would have been more productive if Sebastian had been less clingy but that'll pass, obviously, when he's feeling better. It didn't really feel like 'enough' school but I'm relaxing a bit, having pretty much decided to start officially home-schooling in September. I've got all year!

About the Maths - Francesca was doing 'adding 10' and 'taking away 10' which she was most unsure about, having to count on or back each time, despite being familiar with the concept of place-value and me saying, "Look you've got one ten and four units, what if we add another ten?" etc. She was using her number line and making a hash of it. This is a 'note to self' (and Seymour) really, but we must do more reinforcement work on this idea - easy ways to add or take away 10 - before we gloss past it in the Maths book. Just a thought.

1 comment:

  1. What a great day, but poor Sebastian (and Mummy). Hope he is improved tomorrow.
    The cushion cover is looking fine. Well done!!!

    ReplyDelete