A Year in the Life of a Home-Schooling Family: Day 78

Wow! What a day! I wish every day could be this wonder filled, and productive. I feel like super woman with many super children! Where to start?

Lillie took Charlotte out last night at sun set to snap some photos for her final portrait photography. She is doing a set of four or five photos capturing and/or representing Charlotte’s journey over the last year as she battled and conquered ME. This was her second photoshoot and I think there are at least two photos she will use for the final four images. My favourite are below (these are the unedited versions – she has since edited them and they are stunning!):

Charlotte was up early today and had a bath and her chores done by 8. She’d also blessed the rest of the household by cleaning up Oscar’s wee. He is having more and more accidents, day and night. We can even let him out, he goes out, comes back in and then defecates all over the floor. He is almost 100 in dog years and is particularly old for his breed. Gary lets him out at 5 each morning, and I let him out before tucking down at midnight. But, those five hours are still obviously too long for him. Either that or he’s getting a bit confused 🙁

Anyway, Lillie was up late, having done a loooong first aid course the day before. She’d had a ball but was so overtired she slept in this morning. Charlotte accompanied her in the kitchen, whilst she was choring:

The littles started their work books early as well. I must write about their current workbooks because both girls are learning heaps and really enjoying them…apart from maths. They are not a fan of ACE maths. It’s great for repetition though, so it’s staying!

Abigail did a demonstration of a lever and the position of the fulcrum:

Y’know yesterday Becs had been crafting up in her art nook? Well, she came down with these two beautiful fashion designs:

She crafted them out of tissue paper, and I don’t know if you can see, but the red shoes have a beautiful red rose on them:

Becs went round to mum’s for reading practice, after Charlotte had been round for Latin vocab practice. My mum is a star!

Mean while Abs took to the garden to read her book:

After quiet time, I helped Abigail with some spelling. I know this isn’t a very interesting photo, but I just felt overwhelmed with love for my beautiful ten year old and captured it in a photo:

Once all the reading and work books were finished, I read a maths lesson from Life of Fred: Farms, and continued with ‘Wonders and Miracles’ the book we are using to learn about the Jewish Passover. Today we read a Jewish work of fiction by Rachel Pomerantz called ‘Alone in the Castle’ and another wonderful Jewish story called ‘The Passover Guest’ by Robert Rubinstein. This morning’s reading also covered ‘The Four Questions’ which are asked as a prelude to the rest of the Passover which concentrates on answering those questions.

Next, the girls played a Space game to see how much of their astronomy unit they remembered (quite a lot, as it happens!):

Becca had made a drawing of a prize, which she presented to herself (she won!):

Charlotte had returned from Granny’s by this time and began making lunch:

We had about fifteen minutes before lunch, so I introduced the girls to their Art Lab this week, which was scribble drawing. Basically, one scribbles and then looks for pictures within the scribbles much like one looks at the clouds and sees images. The first thing I do with all of the labs is have the girls do a casual drawing/sketch in the style required so that they (Becca in particular) understands what the lesson is asking of her. This means she can make mistakes without it really mattering because it is not her final picture:

It’s funny what each girl found. Becca – fish whilst Abs found a racing car!

During lunch, we all relaxed for an hour, before coming back together for school. Tuesday’s are my science time with Abs and Charlotte’s cooking time with Becs. As Charlotte needed to pop to the shops for some supplies, I took the opportunity to read some more from the ‘Wonders and Miracles’ book, reading ‘A Passover Mix-Up’ a Jewish equivalent to Tom Thumb, and learning about ‘The Four Sons’. We are almost halfway through the book. Once we finish I will start planning our own Passover meal.

Once Charlotte returned, she and Becca made some healthy oat, peanut butter and honey balls for a snack, and also some pasta, pesto and sun-dried tomatoes for dinner tonight:

Abigail and I got on with the important business of learning how fireworks are made and recreating some coloured fire by making a green sparkler:

Her little sister happened to see the green flame, and begged Abigail to have a turn. Abs then taught her step by step, and after allowed her to do it by herself:

Abs learnt that it was the copper ions which turned the flame green, and that sodium would turn it bright yellow. Knowing that sodium was found in table salt, she asked if she could repeat the experiment and make a yellow sparkler from table salt. Of course, I said yes! Charlotte commented that I was breeding a group of pyromaniacs…surely breeding is too strong a word?! It was cool to see sodium change the flame though:

Abigail had one more activity left from her crystals Curiosity Box, which was making crystal suncatchers. She got the process started today by making the salt solution and pouring it in three petri dishes:

These are then left to dry out – one in the fridge, one by the radiator and one in her science lab. I shall update later on in the week

Whilst we were doing that, Becca was giving Charlotte a pedicure to thank her for cooking with her:

The last thing Abigail did, before finishing up for the day, was read about a crystal scientist who is using crystals to try to find a cure for blood cancer, as well as the information sheet about the crystals found in chocolate that has been heated or cooled too quickly. This meant she had finished the entire box and was able to stick her two crystal stickers on her chart:

They tidied up, did some kitchen chores and are now relaxing before going to choir later on. A really, really good day!