Thursdays are a slightly odd day for us because we are all fairly busy doing things outside of the house. This means we fit in school where ever we can.
Lillie is at work on a Thursday and today opted to walk there, leaving so early I did not get to see her. She has just had confirmation for a Makaton song signing course in June, and is very excited about that. The nursery she works for is so supportive with regards to her education. This is the third course they have sent her on this year, and she just loves it!
Lil wasn’t be back until after lunch, so was not available to help out with the littles this morning.
Charlotte went over to Mum’s to be tested on her Latin vocab. They worked out she has just eleven working days until her first exam. We are on the last leg! When she returned she was struggling to settle down to work because tickets for a concert the twins are hoping to go to went on sale today and she can’t wait for Lillie to return so they can order themselves a couple. She was up and down, up and down so many times it was like she had ants in her pants! She did manage to revise the twelve tasks of Heracles again, because whilst she knows them, she is less confident of the order in which they fall.
As always, I began the day with the littles reading out loud. I had made up lots of new Latin vocab words yesterday afternoon, and so introduced them today. We are up to about fifty Latin words now. I also tested them on their tables. I spent the rest of the time reading a couple of picture books on Pythagoras to finish off our study of him for now:
The girls spent the next hour doing their ACE workbooks, whilst Charlotte translated a passage of Latin to me and answered comprehension questions on it. The littles needed lots of help and fortunately big brother Thomas was around to give them the help they needed without me needing to leave Charlotte:
Afterwards I began our new sewing curriculum. I kind of stumbled on this book whilst I was perusing Amazon, and it was just what I was hoping for. I bought a second hand copy and today we began. The first project is making a needle book. The book comes with patterns for all its projects.
For the last week or so, I have been putting together today’s lesson. The girls and I went shopping together for them to choose their felt, buttons and decoration. We had so much fun! I know I shall really enjoy the shared experience of choosing the cloth and bits and pieces we need for each project. I pre-cut some pattern pieces from coloured paper so there were enough for both girls to use, and put together a ‘needle case’ kit for them:
Today was all about me teaching them some basic, often over looked skills:- Threading with a needles threader; marking out a pattern; cutting out moving the scissors and not the fabric; knotting; sewing running stitch and finishing a run of stitches so the stitches hold:
Teaching took much more time than I had planned, so we worked on this for a good hour before lunch today. It doesn’t look like we achieved anything much, but I am pleased by the quality of the work. Both girls really took their time, and Becca kept exclaiming about how happy she was to be learning so much!
I had hoped to finish it with them this afternoon, but I was out for lunch with my lovely mum and once I returned home I was busy testing Charlotte of the prescribed Aeneid passages. I did have a chance to read about Perseus and Medusa, a myth which had been mentioned in their Latin book this morning:
Thomas, Lillie and Charlotte are off to play frisbee this afternoon, but before Lillie left she braided Becca’s hair for gymnastics:
Last week I had just scraped her hair up in a pony tail and it had all fallen over her face. This looked to hold much better:
So beautiful!
Becca had gymnastics at four thirty, so she got ready whilst I finished taking photos for this post, including a couple of her:
She does love her gymnastics! Gary took her this week, as we have youth group here tonight and I need to tidy up the heap of a living room and prepare food!
Not such a productive day today, but it was good, relaxed and fun. Have a great evening everyone!