Better than expected

We've had two very productive days. By 'productive' I mean that we have 'done school' both mornings and have managed to cover all the things I thought we 'should'.

Having just read this post about unschooling, I'm not so sure that I 'should' be concerning myself with any sort of curriculum or mummy-driven targets, but that's a whole nother debate. I, currently, feel better/more organised/more in controlled/more justified in my approach/more comfortable if we all have some sort of routine and structure.

I like to have targets (quite flexible ones, but targets never the less) and things ticked off lists. Maybe I'll have to learn to let go more but that's how it is for the moment.

I feel best about home educating on days when we've done some English, Maths and violin practise in the mornings, and fit in some art, French, Science or whatever in the afternoons.

It's not that I want the afternoon activities to be like desert after you've eaten your greens - the 'fun stuff' after  the 'boring stuff' - more that I'd like the children to have a good grounding in basic literacy and numeracy and I think we can achieve that with a directed, consistent effort and that other things can be learnt indirectly, in a less formal manner.

Oh well, the pros and cons of this approach can be argued but this week, I feel good because we've done a lot of literacy and numeracy.

Better still, Francesca has developed a WHOLE new work ethic. She actually gets on with things faster, rather than procrastinating. She finishes all her school work before lunch, rather than dragging in out until late afternoon. She is proactive about moving onto the next activity, even if I am waylaid elsewhere.

I've tried to lay the praise on really thickly today, in light of this productive streak. I feel as though we (she!) is really starting to reach her potential, whereas previously I was frustrated by the day drifting by and wanting to put a rocket under her but not really knowing how.

Perhaps my unerring, "You take your time but then miss out on X" approach is paying off. Or perhaps she's just growing up. Or maybe she's settling into the not-school way of life. Who knows.

Maybe Elizabeth's academic progress is spurring her into competition?!

I've noticed a real maturity in Elizabeth this last fortnight. She's got a real desire to do what Francesca can do. I've even bought her the Reception level Heinneman Maths books, which she's very excited about. Here she is showing daddy, on the day they arrived:

A few months ago, Elizabeth couldn't/wouldn't have sat and done maths (as such) and I wouldn't have suggested it but now she's ready. She's keenly working through the Heinneman Maths and is very enthusiastic about having her maths time when Francesca does.

Here they are today, both working away keenly:

Francesca has just been reunited with Heinemann. I'd bought her a Colins maths book in the summer holidays, when we were just trying home-ed for a few weeks. She didn't enjoy the Colins maths much and has finally reached the end of it (hooray!)

Now, she is finishing off the pages that were not done in her Heinemann maths books from school, prior to starting the Year 2 books that I have bought her for this year. She loves the Heinemann maths! She was so keen, she didn't want to break for lunch and she never once asked for my help - not because she wasn't challenged but because she was happy with the level of challenge.

I'm looking forward to doing some starter activities on whiteboards, involving both girls, then setting them off to do some of their own work books. Hey, I even got to hang out washing today, while they were both beavering away!

Francesca has done some minute maths every time we've done maths. She's definitely improving. Today I gave her some really easy sums (plus 1, only using numbers up to ten) and she did 19 sums!!! (versus a high of 9 when working with numbers up to 100). Anyway, it gave her quite a confidence boost, which is great.

For English, Francesca wrote an email to Grandma and Grandad, yesterday, which was a bit of a cop-out literacy-wise because her typing and IT skills slow the process down so much, but it's all good experience.

Today, wearing her blue princess dress, I asked her to write a description of herself, which she did willingly, with the usual creative spellings ("phonetically plausible" as they have been described!) and none of the usual procrastination.

On the basis that her peers at school get spelling tests, and the fact that her spelling is so - err - creative, I have decided to try getting her to learn some spellings of her own. This is the list for this week:

It's a rather arbitrary list, chosen from among the common errors in the work that she has done. I'm going to encourage her to work with the words on her own, in time for a test on Monday. I'll remind her about the 'look, cover, write, check' method for learning spellings and see how she likes it.

I will not, as the Y1 teacher at school is alleged to have done, threaten her with detention if she doesn't learn them(!)

Elizabeth, meanwhile, is making great strides with her reading. I've made her a word wall with the key words as specified in the back of her level 1 Oxford Reading Tree books. I've broken it down into two sets of 12 words each - some happen to be on yellow card and some are on orange. The orange ones are harder. Elizabeth plays with her word wall (and me) every day, reading the words and putting them on the wall, or taking them off the wall (anything to interact with the words and become familiar with them). This is going to become her sight vocabulary and already, I am noticing increased confidence with her reading books. There's less of the 'stare out of the window and guess' type reading and more pointing to the words and sounding out. She must have done an hour's literacy this morning, what with word-walling, reading two books and then moving onto learning the next few phonemes. She listened to the Jolly Phonics songs and did 4 more phonics worksheets. Wow!

As I say, a most productive few days! 

In other news, we baked hallowe'en gingerbread biscuits:

Actually, we made rice crispy cakes as well.

And this afternoon we had a brilliant, brilliant time doing fireworks art with friends (their HE diary is here), who let us loose with glitter, shiny paint, glitter glue and even a salad spinner to make some special spun-paint effects. The children loved it and I wished I'd taken a photo.

Project Day Again - The Rocket Complete

Francesca had so enjoyed Project Day last Monday that she remembered to remind me that it should be Project Day again today.

Time to finish the rocket. (Previous rocket-building details are here, in case you missed them!)

As luck would have it, it was a dry, warmish autumn day, so we were able to take the rocket outside for painting. I marked out stripes, the width of my kitchen foil, and we used the purple paint from the playhouse to paint horizontal stripes.

Then we made alternate stripes of kitchen foil and the rocket was finished.

Here it is! (To be viewed in conjunction with these count-down/blast-off sound-effects).

Build Your Own Rocket

We made today 'project day'. That means the children get to decide what we do - one big project - all day.  Francesca chose to build a rocket.

We did it! Well, we got as far as building the structure, ready to decorate it. I'm envisaging some red paint and some kitchen foil silver stripes...

Anyway, I haven't got time to go into the details right now, but here's how we did it, in pictures:

Please note the door-closing mechanism, designed and implemented by Francesca!

Autumn Leaf-Rubbing Art

We had such an excellent time making this lovely, autumn art.

After collecting a bag of autumn leaves of all different shapes and sizes, we arranged them on a huge piece of paper. I used some wallpaper backing-roll, which is a super-cheap way to buy excellent quality paper. If anything, it was slightly too thick for this project and I might try again using thinner paper, next time.

We chose some autumn-leaf coloured wax crayons.

Here's our final leaf arrangement - quite pretty in its own right.

Then we put another layer of paper over the top and began to make leaf-rubbings with the wax crayons.

I've taped the paper down so it doesn't slip too much during the colouring process.

Everyone joined in!

Then we used diluted food-colouring to make a colour-wash over the leaf rubbings, giving a lovely wax-resist effect.

Elizabeth said this was her BEST part of the day.

Francesca had fun with it too.

I haven't got a photo of the finished article just yet, but it's a gorgeous mass of autumny colours and leaf shapes. It would make a beautiful wall-hanging or some very posh hand-made wrapping paper.

Smart Art

This week has felt great! We've been properly back into 'school' and I think we've done a lot.

Today's agenda was:

Violin
Maths
English

Then Abuelita came round and we did some impromptu Art. More Art followed after lunch, too, which was great.

Francesca also had a violin lesson and both girls got chance to watch TV before going to a friend's house for tea.

Francesca's 'Minute Maths' was worse than yesterday! She only got 4 questions done. I guess that's why we're practising...

She did a couple of pages in her workbook about 'Making 10' which was quite easy for her, although not as easy as I would have thought. Perhaps we need to revise/reinforce things (like number-bonds to 10) more.

For English, Francesca wrote her Plans For This Afternoon, which were:

"I will wath TV because it is a Friday. I will doow my tiyping practis. I will doow sum art."

Then she added some more homophones to her list.

She did doow sum typing practis, actually, as well as the Art, so that list was all ticked off.

Abuelita brought round a book which showed how to draw all sorts of things using squared paper to get the proportions right. They all enjoyed getting straight on with some pictures.

Later, when Francesca showed Abuelita the typing tutorial, Elizabeth did a big jigsaw in the lounge.

Then, because Sebastian was asleep and the coast was clear(!), the girls decided to do some painting. Francesca delicately mixed pink to over-paint some rose wallpaper. She even mixed dark green and used her brush to create the texture of the leaves.

Elizabeth blended orange and pink too, and made some splodges, very carefully.

Minute Maths

This is an excellent way to increase mental maths skills at any age. I am using it with my Year 1 child, aged 5.

The idea is to do as many sums as possible in just one minute.

I made a sheet of sums today and was very over-optimistic about Francesca's mental maths speed, even though all the sums were "plus 1".

She paused to rub out a mistake for a few seconds, which reduced her score, but even so, I overestimated her by a long shot(!)

Never the less, I praised her efforts and said she had managed to do "SEVEN WHOLE SUMS! In just 60 seconds!!!"

No doubt she'll be quicker tomorrow without the rubbing out, and quicker by the day as she:
a) Becomes better at mental maths
b) Learns more about the passing of time and the merits of speed (we wish!)

I'll no doubt be making more mental-maths sums along the way, so keep an eye out for resource-updates.
Meanwhile, you can download your own copy of these sums here. Happy adding!

French with Ben Le Chien

We've had a lot of fun learning some basic French vocabulary this week with Ben le Chien.

Ben is a puppet dog who speaks French. I had originally called him Claude, but the girls insisted that he was 'really called Ben', so it stuck.

Anyway, Ben greets everyone with 'bises' and "Bonjour" or "Salut" and asks how everyone is. He asks their names and ages, then we move onto other things.

Yesterday, we learned the names for some of our rooms.

I labelled each room with a bright piece of card:

Ben le Chien led everyone round the house, showing them the labels and telling them the names of the rooms in French.

Then we went back to the table and matched up pictures of the rooms with the correct labels:

Et, apres ca....

We did une chasse tresor, with les indices in French.

This culminated in the finding of some chocolate and the end of French. Elizabeth asked to do French again today, and we went through the clues again, in a different order, with a new prize. It was a very popular way to learn and Ben le Chien is a big hit too.