Another Week of Home Education

Again just another record of what we have been doing this week now I am home educating my youngest two boys. More for me than anything else but I hope that it is of interest to others too.

Monday

The 10 year old started the 11 plus course with Explore Learning late so had lots of content to catch up on so started the day doing this. The teen’s bus pass didn’t work and so I had to take him to school again. The Sensory Seeker utilised the online maths (also available because the boys go to Explore). Then they were allowed to play Fortnite as it was decided that they need some down time and hadn’t played as much over the weekend. The 10 year old then made lunch and later had his one to one session for his 11+. The Sensory Seeker and I snuggled in bed and read some more Harry Potter together and he also went to his swimming lesson.

Tuesday

We started the day with a Gravitrax wordsearch which involved thinking about the vocabulary associated with it (and the 10 year old noticing the mistake as ever that I duplicated a word!). I made sure that the 10 year old knew what the terms meant and explained a few to The Sensory Seeker. The 10 year old said how good it was for his Non-verbal reasoning – and I said how it was good for verbal reasoning too. The Sensory Seeker read one of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and I tidied the teen’s bedroom. I finally finished doing some important paperwork which needed sending off, so we went to the post office on our bikes. We then had a chippy lunch. The boys went to Explore Learning and after we came back I went to running club (it was super hot and we did not stop running up and down the alleys). The 10 year old then had his swimming.

Wednesday

In the morning the boys designed their fabric shields/coat of arms for the banner for the Medieval festival. The Sensory Seeker played Magnetix and the 10 year old watched riddles on YouTube. We quickly nipped to the library to swap books and then they went to home ed sports. The Sensory Seeker went to his Explore Learning session and the 10 year old did more catch up work and read his new book. Later he went to his 11+ session and I marked the work he had been doing.

Thursday

We had a one off all day forest school. We started with a fire and The Sensory Seeker had brought with his magnifying glass and tried holding over a spade with some cotton wool on to see if it would catch fire. He didn’t quite understand not to keep holding it over his shorts but luckily he got bored before it stood a chance of catching.

We had promised one of the boys who regularly goes our collection of dinosaurs because they just live in our play house. They were very popular and a lot of the children enjoyed playing with them before they went to their new home.

This week there were a variety of options including leaf prints, a mud kitchen, clay modelling – as well as the usual den building (with a book on knots), cutting, fires etc.

The children made lunch of pizza, pancakes and cakes over the fire, as well as picnic of fruit, salad and amazing fresh out of the oven cheese scones.

We took our microscope but it turned out that it needed an AA battery. We did find a dead ladybird camouflaging in The Sensory Seeker’s hair so we put that in the tubs provided in the kit to take home and look at properly.

The boys made bows and mallets, enjoying using the saw and choppers; as well as making a swing and removing branches that were in its way.

Friday

Another bit of a chill day as the boys had such a full on day before and they watched Youtube videos and the 10 year old did cooking (actually from a video he had seen on YouTube which involved bacon, egg and cheese.

The boys then played.

Saturday

We began the day with Parkrun. The boys did some tidying and I cleaned the 10 year old’s bedroom. They played computer games and my husband explained to them how to play Dungeon’s and Dragons.

Sunday

We had let the teen stay up as late as he liked the night before so it was lovely to see him get up and help without even being asked. We cleared the garden (cutting back the wild grass and stinging nettles) and got a gazebo. We put the pool up also. The Sensory Seeker also showed an interest in helping get the roast dinner ready, and with the help of his brothers and I learned to peel (experimenting with both hands and 2 different types of peeler) and cut the potatoes and vegetables. It was quite hard for me as I felt so panicky about it and was hard to show with him being right handed and me being left.

I really can’t believe how much the weeks are flying by and not feeling at all like things are a drag but more just not having time to do everything we want to do.