Today marks the start of a brand new six-week term for us, although I’m not certain it’ll be an auspicious start. The girls have been away with their church youth group for the past weekend. This mean multi late nights and exhaustion on arrival home. B2 has had Scarlett Fever and is on a particularly nasty Penicillin (note to self – NEVER mention again that our children rarely need antibiotics. It will inevitably lead to them needing a course!) which has knocked her side ways. T12 and I have had a couple of late nights, with me being introduced to Dr Who by T and T being introduced to James Bond by me.
Everyone is in high dudgeons. T is wondering why I didn’t just stop with him (he’s quite enjoyed having me all to himself each evening); the girls are wondering why he isn’t incredibly excited to see them again, having missed him terribly. Things might be looking up though. Right now they are all taking a coffee break from their chores and are deep in conversation swapping stories of their weekend, and thoroughly enjoying each other. Thank goodness for that!
So here are my plans for the following term:
Basic English and Maths
We’ll be using Galore Park. Using these for just half an hour each a day is a quick and easy way of ensuring my children are learning what they need to learn. They enjoy the curriculum, probably because it is still a novelty for them. It also gives them a much wider variety of reading materials, not just based on the time period we are studying. They’ll read the books in their spare time:
Extra maths for the girls will include lots of hands on fraction maths:
Literature Study
This term will be Chaucer all the way, for which I have many hands on and hopefully fun activities planned. I’ll be doing this study with the children:
Inventor Study: Gutenberg and his Printing Press
Again, this will be done together and ties in rather well with our literature studies, given that the Canterbury Tales was one of the first books printed on the printing press:
I’ve bought some supplies which will hopefully help the children to build their own:
And I bought them a kit which makes the Da Vinci designed printing press, linking in nicely with their Project Based learning this term:
Project Based Learning: Inventor Study & Artist Study: Leonardo Da Vinci
This is the work the children will do independently, although I may chime in with a few hands on activities to supplement – I mean how could I not? Da Vinci is far too interesting a person to study to allow the children to have all the fun!
I’ll be giving them a week to explore all the resources before getting them to choose a particular element to study in more depth.
Project Based Learning: Microbes
We will be continuing our exploration of microbes focusing on Viruses but also completing a few more experiments on fungi and bacterium.
There will be lots of other activities going on. We have, as a family, joined the local health centre and we have been enjoying the gym, badminton, tennis, swimming and the like. I am hoping to include some healthy eating and cooking ‘classes’ for my guys as well.