Saturday, 31 January 2009

End of January

I can't believe how quickly this month has flown by! We've done lots of things but haven't really photographed anything as the camera batteries are playing up, well it's either the batteries or the charger, I'm not too sure but I will get it sorted soon.

My youngest has finished her Shakespeare lapbook, although she didn't really enjoy it and because of this it's rather thin on the ground. I feel really bad because I pushed her to do it. In my mind you can't study Elizabeth I without Shakespeare can you? They go hand in hand or so I thought, but not in my daughter's mind.

She found it difficult to understand and rather boring so much so that she has declined to go see 'The Tempest by Shakespeare for kids' with a home ed group. Aaaagh! I may have put her off for ever...

We've started to go to a local art gallery for lessons with an artist fortnightly. I hope this will kickstart our art at home again, as I have neglected it of late.

My youngest has now finished Year 5&6 maths so we celebrated with a walnut loaf topped with fudge icing, yummy - I love it when we celebrate!

We are doing the Georgians in history using Our Island Story. They arn't on the national curriculum which means there's not a lot of info/crafts out there suitable for children but our timeline is filling up nicely anyway.

We celebrated Chinese New Year with calligraphy, painting and making tea for everyone which we ate with chopsticks naturally - some better than others but it was lots of fun!

Wednesday, 14 January 2009

Woop! Woop!

Yeah, I am soooooo proud of my youngest daughter, well I am proud of all my children but particularly my youngest this week because she won a trophy at her FIRST trampoline competition. She came joint first with 46 marks, but because she did the same set for her voluntary she received a 2nd place trophy. The other girl did her set routine and a different routine for her vol and therefore received the first place trophy.

I am over the moon that she got a place at all as we didn't expect her to. I thought her nerves would let her down with it being her first competition but she was just wonderful on the day.

We don't usually go in for competitions or exams in our house so this has been a big thrill for us all. I will try for a piccie when I find my camera... lost in the graveyard of my room....


Goals...

I can't believe my last post was early in December; the time has flown by.
We started a Jesse Tree but only got to day 11 and then one by one we fell ill. We had a variety of coughs and colds etc to keep us going well into the new year but somehow the big day was not affected too much by it all :o)

I had a lovely time surrounded by family, everyone playing games and generally having a good time but almost as soon as this was over my thoughts started to turn towards goals for 2009.

Ideally I want to get fitter as I really don't do enough exercise, none of us do really with the exception of my youngest who does trampolining. I want to start flylady (again) and stick to it this time and finally get our bedroom sorted (it is definately the graveyard for everyone's junk).

Educationally I would love my son to knuckle down and get into the college that he wants and I would love my youngest to have a desire to learn the things I want her to learn as well as the thing she loves to do! I would love my oldest to finally sort herself out (her dreams and aspirations seem to change on a daily basis).
As for my hubby, well, last year had many upheavals for him on the job front and I would just like him to be happy and contented in his work.

Tuesday, 9 December 2008

Digilapbook Designer

Below is the link for my son's finished program for designing digilapbooks. We would really love it if you would sign up (for free) and start making your own!

Classification lapbook

My youngest daughter got to grips with and finished her HOAC classification lapbook. She enjoyed working on it and I felt she was capable to be left alone with it, so I got on with lots of little things around the house. We've been listening to lots of Christmassy music and she's been practising carols on her keyboard, all in all it's being very festive in our house this week.

Friday, 21 November 2008

Rabbit lapbook (HOAC)

So what have we been up to this week? Not much really. I think we are slowing down and reserving energy ready for the christmas period ;o)

It's my eldest daughter's birthday this weekend so preparations are underway for that, such as cake baking and decorating it, present making and card making. We are looking forward to Chinese for tea. It's become a bit of a traditional in our house that on birthday's we visit the Chinese and we luurrvve it!

We have continued watching 'Little Dorrit' and 'Oceans'. This week in Science we've done about food webs, food chains and changing environments. No experiments were neccesary as my youngest remembered with a shudder, my son doing the 'woodlice environment' last year and trusted his results entirely!

My youngest has nearly finished her lapbook on Shakespeare, and read a great novel by Gary Blackwood, well 3 in 1 novels to be precise; she highly reccomends it.

My daughter also finished her HOAC Rabbit Lapbook this week; she did all the cutting out, sticking and fact finding herself and we're really pleased with the finished results. She has 2 pet rabbits so obviously knows quite abit about rabbits already but even she found out new facts about them from the lapbook.


Wednesday, 19 November 2008

Routine and digi lapbook

We seem to have naturally fallen into our own schedule recently. Mon, Wed and Fri = Maths, English, Science and Art, Tues and Thurs = Maths, History/Geography and helping at local Toddler group and going out. Dog walking and general exercise is a daily occurance!

Last week we explored writing non-fiction, continued with times tables, watched Twelth Night and Julius Caesar and started a Shakespeare lapbook. We took a break from Science last week as youngest wanted to look at WW1 after seeing her Grandpa in a parade marking the end of the war. We've also started watching a really good programme on oceans: http://www.bbc.co.uk/oceans/
We've been sculpting soap like Michaelangelo, well I don't think he used soap but we did ;o)


We played a few games of 'Smath' last week along with Cludeo, Guess Who and Boggle


My son has finished converting a lapbook into a digi-lapbook on The Normans: http://www.rkwebcreations.co.uk/digi/users/knxrb/The%20Normans.html just click on the coloured boxes for all to be revealed.