Precious Memories

Before I reflect on my week, I must thank all of you for the outpouring of love and support I have with regards to me asking for help.  One hears about how the home school blogging community is a rather special one, and of course I have seen that first hand over the years.  But this week I was blown away by how incredibly supportive you all were of my endeavors to go ‘social’ and attempt to monetise my blog.  Even if you were unable to help you sent me messages and emails of encouragement and support.  You have also shown me just how essential encouragement is to being courageous.  I feel like this could be a very real possibility, and that is thanks to your input and faith.

Okay, onto our week.  It’s not been a good one.  Funnily enough, until I started making notes for this post, I genuinely thought we had achieved very little.  Thank goodness for wrap up posts because actually we achieved quite a lot.  Once more I have a lack of photos.  I seem to be running around like a mad woman; a mad woman without a camera to boot.  I did manage to take some photos last Friday with our nature walk with Lorna’s two, so I shall scatter them around the post to make it seem like I was diligent in my photography.

My littlest two have had a cold all week, so haven’t been sleeping well, resulting in two grumpy children.  They haven’t been well enough to do full school but have done bits and bobs as they felt well enough.

B has learnt about three more letters with All about Reading pre reading course and she has completed three maths lessons.  Granny is still working her way through all the Peter Rabbit stories with her as well as playing copious amounts of ‘eye-spy’.

A has continued with her reading of Enid Blyton’s The Wishing Chair, she has also completed three lessons from Essential Writing and three more lessons from Conquer Maths.  Granny is reading her poetry each day, as well as finishing off Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories.

I am still reading Alice in Wonderland, which we will finish at the weekend.  Being not very well has meant more time than usual has been spent in bed recovering, which means listening to lots of books on CD.  They have worked their way through Jill Tomlinson’s collection of books, as well as a triple set of Michael Morpurgo’s  books,  Michael Bond’s Paddington’, Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit books and Bible stories for the young.  During quiet time they have been listening to Our Island’s Story by H E Marshall.  This has been a fantastic fit for A7 (B4 falls asleep!).  She has listened to almost three discs worth this week and it has to be the lazy parent’s dream way to have a child learn history.  Each day she comes out of quiet time buzzing with all she has learnt.  Yesterday she told me all about the Magna Charta, and it was obvious she had listened and understood.

The older children have been plugging away with their work.  C is probably enjoying hers the most.  She has read five more chapters of Dickens’ Oliver Twist, two chapters of Milton’s Paradise Lost (which she is loving) and Schaeffer’s Everybody Can Know.  She has completed four lessons from her Bible curriculum, four from her English and is very happy with her lot in life right now.

L12 has struggled the most this week.  She has been doing the free biology course from easy peasy home school and has found the jumping around between different sites hard.  She is doing a course for high schoolers so I suggested she work her way through Apologia A & P, alongside our Body magazines.  We have done this before but a review can’t harm any.  She completed this weeks PE and Health lessons without issue and has thoroughly enjoyed many happy hours jewelry making.  Next week I will get photos.  I promise.  She has also completed a couple of art lessons.  I am hoping to be a bit more hands on with her next week to see if we can smooth out the difficulties she is having.

T is burning the candle at both ends and is struggling with tiredness.  He is also feeling like he needs more exercise in his day to help him switch off from the book work.  His bike is out of action at the moment, which hasn’t helped.  I think he is maybe feeling the pressure from his upcoming physics exam, so I may have to look at how I can reduce his responsibilities in other areas to give him more time to focus on his physics.  He looks tired and worn out, which is never good to see.  We’ll be throwing about some ideas over the weekend to hopefully reduce it a little.

Books

All three children have done particularly well in their reading this week.  They have all been complaining of intermittent sore throats and feeling one degree under, so for most resting with a good book has been their choice medicine:

T –   The Ghost of Tokaido Inn by Dorothy & Thomas Hoobler

Maize Runner by James Dashner

 Chu Ju’s House by Gloria Whelan

Trial and Triumph by Richard Hannula

Banner in the Sky by James Ramsey Ullman

C –   Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan

Paradise Lost by John Milton

A Voice in the Dark by Richard Wurmbrand

Nory Ryan’s Song by Patricia Reilly Giff

The Freedom Fighter by Derick Bingham

Chu Ju’s House by Gloria Whelan

Scorpia Rising by Anthony Horowitz

Order of the Phoenix by J K Rowling

Deathly Hallows by J K Rowling

L –   Banner in the Sky by James Ramsey Ullman

Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan

You may notice L has read significantly less than the others.  The reason is because she spends every spare moment jewelry making, choosing this rather than reading to relax.

We have been for very few nature walks this week because of the littles’ temperatures and feeling unwell.

We have all done fairly well with watching videos on the Khan website.  T has watched four more videos in the cosmology and astronomy.  He is still really enjoying these and has often regaled me with stories about things I have completely no understanding of.  It is happening.  His knowledge is far surpassing mine!

We have all watched three videos of John Greene’s crash course in World History.  This week we revised Ancient Egypt, the Greeks and the Persians and Buddha and Ashoka.

All in all, not a great week.  When homeschooling is hard, it is really hard.  And this week felt hard.