We hit the ground running this week as we began home school in earnest since lockdown began six months ago. Oh, I kept them on their workbooks but really did very little else. I’m not sure why. I think I had maybe lost my way a little, as the teens have needed me in quite a time-intensive way over the past few years. Although we have gained an extra teen over lockdown, who moved in lock, stock and barrel in the middle of July, things seem to have settled down somewhat, and we all seem to be in a fairly good place coming into the new term.
This self enforced sabbatical gave me a lot of thinking time with regards to how I wanted to move forward with my little ones, who are not so little anymore. I have a few short years left with them, and for the past few years they have really not had the best of me. Now all my teens are well, and busy and settled with their own lives, I feel it is time to focus on my younger two girls.
We have chatted a lot about what type of schooling they would like to partake of. Becca told me that, in no uncertain terms, she wanted to be schooled like the older ones had and did not want to use workbooks at all. It was only fair, said she. Well, yes, she had a point. Both Becs and Abs wanted to know more about world war 1, so began my plan which included working our way through the 20th century in true angelicscalliwags fashion! It is like slipping my feet into a comfy pair of slippers, and sitting in a familiar arm chair, sipping my morning cup of coffee, feeling alive once more. Workbooks had their place, and they stepped into the gap of my own inadequacies, but the time has come to put them to one side and return to what we do well.
For the next seven weeks we will be focusing on the period between 1900 and 1910, immersing ourselves fully in its history and its people. The girls will complete individual projects on areas of personal interest, and will give a presentation on all they have learnt at the end of the seven weeks.
We have a had a wonderful week with lots of independent work, figuring out to use a 1910 Brownie camera, listening to the world first broadcast message on radio and beginning to make our very own radio:
We will be learning all sorts: the first portable cameras; about the first planes; Mr Lipton and his teas; Picasso and cubism; the first ever cartoons and the life of the man who drew them; reading books written during this time and ending each one with a movie and themed snacks; an author study on Beatrix Potter; the suffragettes and what their lives and goals mean for us now in the 21st century; Edwardian fashion (Becca’s project) and Edwardian food (Abigail’s project); we will be watching the Edwardian Farm, learning about nature journaling from the Edwardian Country Lady’s Diary and about Edwardian times from Howard’s Way; the girls will create a newspaper, containing real photos taken with their Brownie camera (hopefully), comic strips of their own making and lots, lots more.
Alongside this they will also be completing two Apologia science books that we are still very slowly making our way through, as well as learning about scientists around during the period which we are studying.
Their time has come and I will thoroughly enjoy pouring all my energies into my two youngest girls.
Expect posting on the blog to return perhaps to some normality over the next few weeks as I share snapshots of our life as well as our learning. Thank you for all your emails and messages of concern. All is well. I think our family just needed some down time and the lockdown was the perfect time for doing just that!
I hope lockdown has been kind on all of you. Here’s to a great year ahead of living and learning together x