How We Homeschooled Today #68

Athletics, climbing, and crying in the street

If you’re new here, my daughter is 7 and my son is 5.

• I had a lie in until 9am, making up for the previous night’s lack of sleep. Which was much-needed, but there’s no such thing as a free lunch, is there? I missed two hours of my morning and I’ve felt behind schedule all day. While I slumbered, the children were busy reading—Ramona Quimby, Age 8, and The Complete Mog stories.

• We sat down for some work: Beowulf tracing for my son, and Jolly Phonics and another new spelling for my daughter. They both did a bit more than usual in a sort of ‘sprint finish’ to get to the end of their respective books/work.

• They each chose Khan Academy for their maths activity. For my daughter this was quite challenging today, but one of the things I love about Khan Academy is that the quizzes are generally only 4 or 7 questions. Even a challenging concept is bearable for 4 questions, and she made good progress.

• Then we took a break. We were going to be out for several hours this afternoon so I nipped out for packed lunch supplies. But on the way, I met a woman who was inconsolable on the pavement about her dog, who is sick. She was distraught and I couldn’t just walk past, so ended up buying her some water, and sitting with her and crying with her. (Was this helpful?!) I don’t know how long I sat with her, but by the time I got home we should have already left the house, so I threw some food in a bag, we threw ourselves out of the door, and rushed to the bus stop only to have to wait ten minutes, getting later and later for Athletics Club. I hate being late. The children had their noses stuck in their books though, so at least only one of us was going slowly mad checking the time every thirty seconds.

• During athletics, my son and I did some sudoku (alright, it was Pokemon sudoku). Then we went straight into a climbing wall session, again just for my daughter. My son sat by himself for the full hour, reading his books and playing Bird Top Trumps with an imaginary friend. On the way home we had an interesting conversation about how advanced the Wild West was compared to Ancient Greece.

  

  Via Unsplash

• Back at home, I put the TV on, and afterwards they declared it was Quiet Time. My daughter finished Ramona Quimby, Age 8, which she only started this morning. Needless to say she would recommend it! My son read more Mog, and some Alfie stories. (I read those Alfie stories to him almost constantly when he was younger. “Who’s Alfie?” he asked me this afternoon.) I’ve given up on French and Greek happening today, or indeed anything else. I’ll share any bedtime reading in Notes.

Tomorrow the children are going to stay with their grandparents for a holiday. There’ll be a short pause on the daily updates, but we’ll be back. If there are any topics you’d like me to write about in the meantime, let me know!

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