How We Homeschooled Today #82

A rare visit from the Muses

(My children are 5 and 7.)

A much better morning.

• We began with two breakfasts: one in bed, while the children read these horrible iHero books that I hate and they love. Then they had second breakfast in the garden while they pretended to be the antelopes from the Lion King musical, with long sticks.

• I felt like I’d got out of bed on the wrong side this morning. Mustering all my resolve I forced myself to do some very gentle exercise (laughably gentle: touching my toes and hugging my knees). Fortunately it was enough to get the blood moving and brighten my mood.

• About 9.30 we sat down for some work. With lots of breaks, over the next two hours we:

  • Worked in Jolly Phonics Book 1 and Grammar 1

  • Did one new spelling for my son and my daughter revised another five

  • Played a game of Number Hive

  • Revised/learnt some words for parts of the face in French

  • Learnt the Ancient Greek words for star, planet, and moon (to add to sun, which they already knew)

• Then while I brushed my daughter’s hair we watched the first half of this documentary about humpback whales.

• After lunch we watched some martial arts videos on The Kids Should See This, because we’re going to try out a Judo class and my daughter is very excited. Followed by much running around inside and out, doing high kicks and other very bad imitations of martial arts. I shudder to think what the Judo teacher will make of us. I know nothing about any of the martial arts, but I like what I read about Judo:

  Judo is “the gentle way” because the end result is maximum efficiency with minimum effort. As a sport, rather than simply a combat form, Judo includes a code of sportsmanship, a sense of mutual respect, and a system of ethical and moral development. Judo is both an art and a science.

  What child doesn’t need some of this in their lives?

  

  What my daughter looks like in her head. There are worse self-images for a girl to have.

• There were a blissful few minutes when the children each read books in silence (the latest Mysteries in Time book, and A Kid’s Life in Ancient Greece), and then I read to them from A Kid’s Life as a Viking. NB These books aren’t for everyone. There’s lots of toilet humour and jokes about school being boring etc. My two were laughing uproariously.

• Just as we were getting ready to take my daughter to Beavers/Tiger Cubs, she got the urge to write a story. This happens about twice a year. She wrote until we ran out of the door, and when we got home she wrote some more. She corrected her own mistakes! She remembered spellings we’ve done recently and worked out some herself! She wrote in lovely neat writing! I hope you can sense my excitement, which naturally I kept under wraps.

• My son spent the time while we were out listening to a Big Cats audiobook, and when we got home he started reading Who Was Genghis Khan?

• Tomorrow, I will remember to go to Athletics Club, unlike last week.

• Edited: I forgot to mention that we also had a beautiful time collecting autumn leaves and talking about chlorophyll and photosynthesis, and had a discussion about the different meanings of the word ‘element’—the ancient/medieval sense of air, water, earth, and fire, the modern sense of the Periodic Table, the idea of ‘being in your element’ etc etc. Fascinating!

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