It has been a good week this week. We have worked our way through one English Language IGCSE paper, learnt about the Japanese, Australian Aborigines, Cervantes Don Quixote (which C is desperate to get her hands on), and Francis Bacon.
We have had a focus week on the Aborigines and have returned to our former school days and done loads and loads of hands on projects. It felt extremely good to be back doing that which we enjoy so much.
We also managed maths each day, spelling, another chapter of Religious Studies IGCSE, got a decent amount done on the penultimate chapter of are Bible study ‘Who is God?’
The little ones have spent hours drawing, colouring, chalking, painting and using our didgeridoo as some kind of primitive communication device (see below). C has spent each afternoon on her novel, which she is writing for NaNoWriMo. B has come up with some spots on her back, legs and face. We’re thinking it might be chicken pox, but we’ll see.
This week has taught me something I seem to need to be retaught every year, and that is time based timetables do not work brilliantly for us. They do increase productivity but they also encourage a ‘tick the box to say I’ve done the subject’ type of approach. This week I have been doing a list type time-table, which still requires crossing off but tends to be more product focused rather than process. Gasp! Yes, I know, that is NOT a very PC thing to say is it? And yet it works exceptionally well for us. In this way our week has produced some fabulous school work including a heap of hands on projects, as well as an abundance of good quality writing. I can look back and actually see how productive the day has been.
Last Sunday we had T’s Physics’ tutor and his family round for dinner, so I have another table to show you. Apologies, but I just love a beautifully laid table. It gives me tingles!
The biggest news this week is that we finally got round to decorating T’s bedroom. His room and our room are the only rooms which have not been touched since we moved here. T was not sleeping too well a while ago for multiple reasons. Between us we came up with a plan of attack. One of our plans was to create a lovely relaxing room where absolutely no school work was done:
We painted it cream and then we went with a blue theme to go with his hand sewn patchwork quilt. He is a very happy boy, and loves his new room:
T continues to teach himself the guitar and is encouraged hugely by the youth group at church. L has decided to learn piano with the goal of maybe all three of them forming a band with T on guitar, C singing and L on piano. Funnily enough, she seems to be taking to it quite well, and has taught herself many tunes already:
This has been one of those weeks where we look back on our days together with a happy sigh. Over the next week we will be attempting to create two different spaces for C and L in their bedroom and continuing with our lovely hands on and busy homeschool.
