ART, COMPUTERS AND......IT'S BEYOND ME!

Hiya, don't think I'm doing too bad this week.  Seem to be doing an update every other day.  Could have something to do with me now having a laptop so I'm not fighting over computer time with Callum and, of course, I can do it from the comfort of my own sofa.  However, I also think it may have something to do with the new timetable as I'm now organised with work and Callum knows what needs to be done, so we are doing more.

I don't really notice the difference when we don't have a timetable until I actually have one.  I've mentioned before that total autonomous education doesn't work for us, but every now and again, either because we are too busy or I'm too knackered, we end up practising that style of home ed.  But I know that it doesn't really work and having this new timetable has proved it.  It isn't that we don't do any work at all when its autonomous, but I find that I can't suddenly spring to action when Callum wants to do something (I need to be mentally and physically prepared and that means organising) and I find Callum's motivation lapses very quickly and he just ends up doing the same thing all day every day and that's Roblox or now a game on Facebook.  Callum's Asperger means that he does need a certain amount of routine although as he has got older he is more able to cope with sudden changes that may happen in the day.  However, having a visual timetable and a breakdown of what he's expected to do on a daily basis written up has seen him motivated and self organising which is a vast improvement.  His concentration is better and he is more willing to try.  I know this form of education doesn't work for everyone and I know that having a full day's timetable would not work for us, but this semi structured (mornings), semi autonomous (afternoons) approach definitely works for us.  I just need to ensure that I stick to it plus it helps me as well as I know what I need to plan for.

So what have we done over the past few days.  Well, Wednesday was scheduled for Science and Art and Terri was visiting as she usually does on a Wednesday.  I sort of delegated to her for some of the work and they ended up doing a combination of Science and Art using some experiments which looked at colour and light.  This time we/they looked at reflected colour and light; shining a torch covered in coloured cellophane (red, blue and yellow) onto various toy vehicles of various colours (red, yellow, blue, green and white).  It was quite interesting how the vehicles changed colour when different coloured light was shone onto them.  Non of us totally understood it, but a collective conclusion was that the colour reflected was the strongest colour that was left on the spectrum after you removed the colour of the vehicle and the colour of the light.  Unfortunately the cellophane we were using was from sweetie wrappers and the red one was rather strong in comparison to the rest, so we aren't entirely sure if our results were totally as they should be, but it was fun and we kind of got the idea.

They then attempted to make blue sky by using a glass of water and dropping various amounts of milk into the water.  The torch was then shone from the side of the glass and behind the glass.  As the water became more milky, the light from the side shone through the milk in a bluish tinge and shone from behind in a reddish tinge.  Rather interesting. Will try and post some pictures later.

Then they 'played' on Photoshop on the computer to change a photograph of Draco, the dog, into various degrees of blue tones.  I'm hoping to get Callum to do the same using red and yellow tones.

The afternoon was spent with us all together watching Journey 2: Mysterious Island.

Today was Maths and Computer Studies.  Callum spent most of the morning on www.khanacademy.org continuing to look at areas and perimeters and www.codeacademy.com where he begun to learn to write some proper computer code.  Then it was a single maths sheet on areas and perimeters of triangles to finish off.

After lunch we watched the latest edition of Turn Back Time - The Family, which is a BBC programme about the life of families through history.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01kwlrr/Turn_Back_Time_The_Family_1940/

Callum enjoys this programme as do I as it isn't all about facts and figures, but more about the everyday life of families and how they lived, worked and played.

For the rest of the day, he has played on the Wii and has now started playing playing one of the games online with other people.  Not something that I would want to do or probably could even suss out how to do, but Callum, as do many others, just gets it.  I used to be pretty good using computers, but I think a lot of it is now beyond me.  But good for C, glad he can keep up as he'll need to.

Anyway, last ice skating meet before the holidays tomorrow and then a bit of a clean up of the house.

Cya folks

Hiya, have a little bit of peace and quiet at the moment, so am going to do the weekend update.  So here goes:

Friday was supposed to be a lazy day and it kinda was.  Our timetable stated ice skating and then a free afternoon, but as we have been so busy this week, we decided not to go to ice skating.  It doesn't really matter as, already mentioned a million times, Callum doesn't actually go ice skating.  He sits with us and has a bit of social time or joins in with conversation.  Instead we decided to look over the week's timetable and do whatever we hadn't managed to complete.  So that meant making a colour spinner that, when spun, should turn 'white' to represent how white light is made up of different colours.

As I've mentioned in my own blog, this did not go according to plan as we couldn't find the compass, the protractor or bluetac, but we managed to get round the compass by drawing round a cup.  We finally found the protractor, so Callum could measure out the angles and divide the circle into 6 equal parts.  Then it was colouring in the sections with the following colours; red, yellow, orange, green, violet and blue.  He then stuck a small pencil through the middle and spun it like you would a top.  Experiment relatively successful.  The colour wasn't really a good white, but it was a pale grey, so near enough.  You couldn't tell the separate colours, so they had definitely merged.

Callum wondered if, by putting them onto his small fan (kit from ages ago), the wheel would work better because it would be going faster.  Good idea.  However, had a bit of trouble finding bluetac, but managed a find a small amount which was just about bit enough.  Still wasn't really white, but it was still fun to do.

The rest of the day was a lazy one in front of the telly.

Saturday, I popped to the library and got out a couple of books for me and a couple that were on the recommended reading list for year 9 (which Callum will be from September).  He now has a choice of 4 books that he can read for English Literacy.

Saturday evening we went off to his friend Callum's 13th birthday party which was being held in a church hall near us.  Callum was a bit nervous about going as he knew there would be people he didn't know and that there would be a disco, however he really wanted to go and I said that we could stay as long as he wanted to.

He ended up having a brilliant time.  Thoroughly enjoyed it and was off with the boys playing and dancing.  I hardly saw him and we ended up being one of the last lot to go home.  He's had such a good time socially this week and I've been so proud of him.

Today he's off with his dad to work.  They don't really do anything, it's just them sitting in the office waiting for the 'workers' to get back, but he enjoys doing it and it's only once every 4 weeks.

Callum accepting his medal at Sports Day

Callum and Callum D at the party

That's about it folks.  So cya later.