Wacky Wednesday, and Whose Learning Schedule Are We On?!

Here’s an update on our weeks 2 and 3 of school. We added in several things last week, so we’re now going almost full steam ahead, following the schedule I made.

Our maths books arrived (big sighs of relief from me!). We’re using Singapore 2A, and we use it most days but if there’s a concept she’s not getting from the book I try to find other ways to work on it. This week was on place value, and towards the end Esther has hit a wall (I think with school in general, not just maths!), so I’m secretly considering maths cancelled this week, so anything we do is a bonus. We have some funny maths books called ‘Life of Fred’, so we read from that and a biography of Archimedes, and played place value games towards the end of the week. On Thursday she requested that we not do anything that makes her think, but was still happy to play a game J

 

Week 2’s history and geography focus was on Iraq. We read a bit about the Iraq war, some folk tales, and some history from Mesopotamia. I found out that Ninevah, Babylon and Ur are all in Iraq. Interesting to think of Jonah, Daniel and Abraham walking this land. To be honest though, Esther just wasn’t very interested in Iraq! The non-fiction books I’d picked were probably a bit beyond her. And presenting her on Friday with a page to fill in of what she’s learnt tipped her over the edge... End of Iraq.

 

Week 3 was Lebanon, which has gone much better. We read a kid’s A to Z book of Lebanon and watched youtube clips of things that interested us: Jeita Grotto (a huge cave), traditional olive oil production, Lady Hester Stanhope and Eleanor Roosevelt (not sure how we got to her?). We read about Lebanese food and climate, and talked about the Syrian refugees flooding into the country.

For Brain Breaks this week, we’ve done some stretching exercises, danced, sung along to a Sesame St DVD and Esther’s cycled outside. I haven’t had a whole lot of energy this week, so we’ve both been a bit reluctant. Stretching is good though J

For science we read more about bones, and did an experiment leaving a chicken bone in vinegar to see if we could knot it after a week. Apparently the vinegar pulls out the calcium. It was bendy but not knottable, so we put it back in for another week. Esther also had her thumbs taped to her hands for 10 minutes (downscaled from a full day!).

 

 

I love her sense of humour!

Then we read about muscles. As with Iraq, this hasn’t really captured her attention. Maybe next’s week’s experiments will draw her in. I’ve given her free reign on the rest of the term’s books, so she’s been reading ahead – chapter books on Israel and a boy who loses his sight. I can tend to get over‑invested in a schedule when I’ve put so much time into it, and I start feeling anxious when we wander away from it, as if we’re getting ‘behind’. But actually, I really do believe that pushing Esther to learn something she’s not interested in is counter-productive. At this age, part of my job is to present the particular facets of a topic that I think will grab her attention so she’ll want to learn more (pulling rather than pushing). As she gets older she’ll hopefully learn how to root out the interesting for herself. So I’ve had to remind myself several times that when we go off (my) schedule it’s because she is learning (on her schedule), and any learning that she chooses is far more meaningful to her than learning I choose for her. Somehow the prior expense of time and money in a different direction makes that harder to remember! But I am trying to go with it and encourage her interests.

Our handwriting program has been quite a hit. We started cursive last year but I wanted to take a step back because I’m not sure her hand muscles are quite as strong as they need to be. So we’re using Callirobics, a 10-week program which practices individual curves and lines that are used in cursive without writing the letters themselves. We’re both doing it every day, and enjoying it.

Another great thing we did this week was having a Wacky Wednesday...

The idea is to do school differently for the day, to make things a bit more fun. Some ideas from my list for future weeks: choose a different laugh for the day and use it as often as you can; make and wear a silly hat for the day; all questions have to be sung; wear your clothes backwards, etc. This week I hid all the school books in different rooms. Esther had to hunt for them and we did each subject in whichever room it was found. It took a bit longer because of the hunting, but she LOVED it! Our favourite was writing letters in her den under the stairs J

Geography on the balcony and science on the patio :)

Back to (Home)school – Week 1

For at least the last month, Esther and I have both been soooo excited to start back at school! We’ve had 2 and a half months off over the summer while we moved house and I planned out this year of school and had books shipped over, and it definitely feels like time to get back into the swing of things!

On Sunday night, after dinner we gave Esther a back-to-school present and card, played a game together and prayed for her new year of school. We all enjoyed that and I think it will feature as a tradition for future years.

 

I wanted the first day back to be fun and light, so I had planned a surprise day at the beach (take some books, read, walk on the beach, swim...). But when I told Esther in the morning she looked completely crestfallen and asked why we couldn’t start in the schoolroom today! So we started in  on Monday, going at half speed. My plan is to start with just the basics, get into the new routine and gradually add in other subjects as we pick up speed. Also some of our books hadn’t arrived yet, so even my ‘go slow’ schedule had to be pruned back a bit! I’m aiming for full speed by week 3 or 4.

Our schedule:

After breakfast, Esther has half an hour to run around outside and get some energy out. She also has a couple of Brain Breaks through the morning to stretch, dance and go a bit crazy. I’ve realised if we don’t do this, the school day is very quickly derailed! This year we’re starting with 5 minutes of memory work. I’m using a book called ‘Sword Fighting’, which gives a Bible verse to learn each week with a daily Bible study. We’re just doing the memorising for now. Esther has a great visual memory, so this is a good way to start the day with something that plays to her strengths.

Then we have half an hour of maths. Our maths books hadn’t arrived at the start of the week so we played maths games this week instead.

 

This year we’ll be focusing on the Middle East and Asia for History and Geography. I try to weave Esther’s interests into what we do as much as possible, and she had asked if we could learn about Asia this year. As I hunted for homeschool curriculum on Asia for 2^nd grade I found... a big fat NOTHING. So a lot of my time this summer has been spent putting together a booklist and activities on Asia. (This is the kind of thing I could happily spend all day doing!) We’re learning about the Middle East until Christmas, and we kicked off the year with Iran, just because those are the books that had already arrived.

 

For science, Esther has been very keen to learn about the human body, so I decided we would spend a year on that and really get into it. She loves engaging books, and hands-on activities, so (after 3 years of homeschooling Esther!) I’ve finally figured out that as long as I base my curriculum on those we stand a good chance of success. I looked for a premade curriculum that would meet our needs and couldn’t find anything that fitted. Then I found a plan another homeschool mum had made for her son, which was such a God-send. I had to tweak it because Esther’s not so into blood and gore, but it was a great base to work from. This week we’ve been learning about bones. We read, and played a game called Skeletons in the Closet which helped us learn the names of the major bones (and we had a lot of fun playing with the skeletons after too!).

We’ve also been tracking new words we’ve come across on our Word Wall. Looking back over the week’s words they seem a little gruesome! We’ve had abyss, massacre, cartilage, stench, scorn, terror-stricken and vertebrae among others! That’s what you get for reading about a 12^th century trip across Asia, and skeletons.

 

We had Outdoor Hour on Tuesday, and collected some interesting things from the garden to study. Any advice on how to identify what we find gratefully received!

We had a Letter Writing session on Wednesday. Esther wrote a birthday card to a friend’s imaginary little sister called Dorothy. I didn’t get a photo before it went in the envelope!

On Thursday morning, Esther didn’t look too good and asked if we could skip school for the day. She rested and played and we read together a bit. On Friday she spent the whole day in bed and then threw up in the evening. Today she’s totally back to her normal self, and we were able to have friends over this morning. I’m so glad she got rid of whatever it was, and we’re looking forward to cracking on with week 2!