This was the day all the other children went back to school, so it was the day we needed to start a little more seriously than we had been.
We have been working our way through the Year 6 and Year 8 Maths from the University of Plymouth site. http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/ This is a really fantastic site for Maths resources.
Jacqueline fell asleep in her Maths class. She said the work was hard and she did not understand it.
There seem to be a lot of gaps in their understanding of basic Maths topics and basic parts of English Grammar.
For English, both girls wrote a plan on the “Pros and Cons of Home Schooling”. Stephanie went on to write a well thought out article on the subject, which she then submitted to the BBC Newsround Press Pack site.
In our Business Studies lesson, we did not market research on other products and services that are already available in our markets. There is very little on Photography for Kids and loads on Maths help products, so we looked at what could be our “difference”.
If we are aiming these products at children, then the best approach is going to be the “for kids, by kids” approach.
In PHSE, we looked for some pictures for our Dream Boards and made those. That was a fun activity, as it had lots of sticking and colouring and creativity. We have also created a Reward Star chart and some of the items on the dream board have become reward items, with a number of earned stars attached to them.
Monday was also the first of Jacqueline’s Speech and Drama Lessons back at school. It was not too awkward as I did not really see anyone. The teacher said we could not have Jacqueline’s art work from the walls until then end of term, so we will have to wait for it.
Tuesday 17th April
We are getting into the routine of an hour of Maths and an hour of English each morning now. The SATs book for English we bought for Stephanie is proving very useful, although it is highlighting all the things she should be competent with – and isn’t. Quite worrying really.
We introduced a combination of Art and English. Jacqueline suggested we design and make a monster, which we could then write about for English. We used some simple creative mind mapping with coloured pens to describe the character traits of the monsters, where it lives, what it eats, who it’s friends are and also the nicest and nastiest thing it has done.
We had great fun making the monsters, with the girls thinking up some quite innovative art techniques.
We had also fitted in swimming and a dog walk, so we all did plenty of P.E. The dog has been for more walks in the last 3 weeks than I think he has ever done.
Wednesday 18th April
We got out with the dog first thing in the morning. That seems to work best, as we have then got the rest of the day for other things. It is a bit of a struggle dragging ourselves out of bed at 7am, but it is still later than we were getting up for school.
In English today, the girls wrote a description of their monsters and Jacqueline wrote a couple of short stories bout the escapades of her monster.
Stephanie showed Jacqueline how to resize some of her pictures in photoshop, so she can put them on her website, so that is ICT.
Today was a money earning day for the girls. We worked out what I would pay them for certain jobs, such as hovering, ironing their clothes, tidying their rooms and cleaning the cars. The next thing was they decided they would clean the car and their was suddenly a long hose trailing through the house from the kitchen sink to the car outside.
We could not get the hose fitting to stay on the end of the hose, so there was water everywhere. They ended up by squeezing the end of the house to spray the water over the car. This obviously meant that everything- including themselves- got sprayed.
It was well worth £2.00 each to see the happy, smiling faces. I am in the process of showing them a basic accounts set up, so they can keep track of their money.
Thursday 19th April.
With Maths we have continued working through the workbooks and worksheets to make sure they have covered everything they need to do, so we can move on to more challenging material.
In PHSE we created an “I am “ chart with all the wonderful characteristics about ourselves and things we are good at.
We did some Languages work today for the first time. We decided to learn French, German and Spanish at the same time. My Spanish is a bit rusty, but we did very well in the end. We did basic greetings in all 3 languages.
The girls had great fun with the “cht” sound in German as in Nacht, as this is a very throaty sound and is almost like you a lion roaring. The Spanish “รง” sound, , which is a “th “ sound. That really sounds and looks like you are spitting.
Friday 20th April
We did quite a lot on Business today. The girls looked at what they had done so far and what steps need to be taken still to launch the sites. Both Jacqueline and Stephanie are making excellent progress with this.
Both have set up their accounts to keep track of their money. Stephanie is quite a whizz on Excel and I showed Jacqueline how to use Quicken.
The weeks are flying past now.
I am really enjoying having them at home.
Until next time. With love and abundant blessings
Amanda Goldston
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