END OF WEEK CATCH UP

Hiya

Well, as you can see the daily blog hasn't exactly been daily this week! We've been quite busy and I think I've been getting the start of the hibernation season tiredness. All I want to do in the evening is curl up in front of crap telly and mong out, haha. So as Callum has his best mate around this afternoon, I'm going to use that time to do this and catch up with emails, etc. So, here goes:

Wednesday was another day at home, so it was the usual ritual of maths and literacy worksheets and then a quick review of acids and alkalines. We wrote up our experiment and then did a worksheet and comprehension sheet. Callum has never done comprehension sheets before but I thought it was a good time to start. Luckily the book I use by Letts contains a Key Words Exercise, a Comprehension Exercise, Testing Understanding section and a Skills Practice sheet for each section of work, so I'm not having to find and create worksheets. It also has an answer section...phew!!! ;-) The comprehension bit is just a few small paragraphs to read with about 1/2 dozen questions so nothing really difficult as all the answers are given in the paragraphs. Callum answered the questions and wrote out his answers (wow!), but didn't want to do one of them as he couldn't answer it as thoroughly as he wanted to without writing loads!! After he'd finished the rest of the questions I went over it with him with the answers given in the book and he realised that the amount he was writing wasn't really necessary. He still isn't happy about it all, but I think he's understood the point about being concise.

Wednesday afternoon was cooking as we were out all day on Thursday so we needed lunch. Broccoli soup for me with sage and onion rolls, some shortbread and some apple and blackberry muffins for breakfast just in case we didn't get up in time to eat and they were something we could eat in the car.

Thursday, we were up at 7am and being picked up at 8.30am. Off to a home education trip to natural pathways and a bushcraft day. We learnt about knots and how to put up bashas, Callum didn't want to help put up a basha as such but made sure everyone had ropes, tent pegs and helped out explaining some of the knots (evidence that he'd retained something from him being shown). We also did a sensory awareness exercise where some people were blindfolded and others helped lead (in case they walked into trees or tripped over brambles or roots). You had to listen for the sound of the drum and aim towards it using your hearing and personal space awareness. Callum didn't want to actually do the exercise, but he was quite happy to do the drumming!

Callum in our Basha

Toasting marshmallows around the fire

After lunch we learnt about animal skulls, skats (poo), pellets and tracks and went off on a walk to see what we could find. Callum was very comfortable by this point and I lost him off with the rest of the children while us adults trailed behind having a chat. Actually we really did get lost, one minute the kids and guide were in front of us and the next minute they'd disappeared into the trees. We did find them though. All in all it was a fabulous fun and informative day, 19 of us (parents and children)in all and the weather stayed lovely.

Animal skulls

Today I was giving a talk about home education to the local MAGIC group.

Callum went off and played with a boy called Ben on their XBox which again shows how much his confidence has improved. And this afternoon he has his best mate round to play.

So, there you go, another catch up done.

Cya later