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 :)