Precious Moments

Starting back at school is always a positive thing for us. The children like to be busy, I like to have a decent routine and we all like to feel productive. This week began well with workbooks and Life of Fred maths early morning following devotions:

After a quick break, I read some well known tales from the Zhou Dynasty before Becca continued her study into the work of Van Gogh:

And Abigail, who was due to be cooking with me, but didn’t feel very well, lay on the sofa and took it easy for the rest of the morning and read the Titanic book she had begun the night before:

During lunch I attempted to take an hour on my own. I managed 3 1/2 minutes before the first interruption! It got better though, and I had a lovely devotion and read some of my Christmas books:

The afternoon was spent doing some zoology, the Big Garden Bird Watch and preparing for the mammoth study on Explorers which we start on Tuesday:

Tuesday began in much the same way: Devotions, work-books and reading a chapter of our Edwardian Mystery series by Katherine Woodfine. During the ten thirty break, I helped Lillie finish off her bibliography and formatting for her first ever academic essay for uni. And did some cooking with a very friendly and eager doggy:

Before beginning the late morning activities, I read another tale from the Zhou Dynasty in ancient China. Abigail spent the rest of the morning baking the most delicious chocolate cupcakes. She is getting better and better at this baking business!

The icing was simply the best I’ve ever tasted! Meanwhile, Becca and I begun to make curtains for Thomas’ studio:

Unfortunately the sewing machine stopped working so we stopped to figure out what was wrong. I am not very very good at this sewing machine business, preferring hand-sewing myself, so Becs returned to her art of yesterday whilst I (unsuccessfully) tried to fix the machine. How great is Becca’s work? She was chuffed (which is really unusual for her where her art is concerned):

Over lunch time, I actually managed almost a whole hour to myself with a pot of tea and one of Abs’ cupcakes, and did my devotions for the day:

The afternoon was spent learning all about the explorers to the Atlantic. We are reading a fabulous biography of Robert Falcon Scott, as well as some great picture books.

We spent the rest of the afternoon learning all sorts of interesting facts about the Antarctic. The girls completed all of the activities on the excellent website ‘Discovering Antarctica’ for ‘Imagining Antarctica’, ‘What, Where, Why?’, and ‘A Changing Climate’. The activities were interesting and varied, which kept their attention nicely during a really long afternoon stretch of homeschool. Most of the activities are interactive, and I can’t recommend them enough, but there were a few paper and pencil activities as well.

Wednesday was one of those highly frustrating days that began badly with my alarm clock going off for 24 minutes before I realised that it was mine and it required attention! Then I spent a very irritating two hours trying to fix the sewing machine. I failed. So I made an appointment for it to visit the sewing machine doctor to figure out what was going wrong.

Once I’d arranged that the day improved slightly. Abigail began her Level Two qualification in Food Hygiene and Food Safety, which she very much enjoyed, whilst Becca took the opportunity to tidy up her art area under the stairs which was threatening world domination and spreading over into the kitchen, the hall way, my bedroom and the dining room…

I left them to it and picked up various doctors letters, test results and prescriptions as well as ten jam doughnuts. Yes ten, but I didn’t eat them all myself. No sireee, I shared them with all eight of the people who live with me (don’t ask about the two left over…)

I tried to get a little time on my own at lunch time, and spent that time tidying up our bedroom. The afternoon was much better. We spent it learning all about the Titanic, boats and ships:

We did a stack of experiments about water and object density, the buoyancy of fresh water verses that of salt water…

Thursday was great fun! Whilst the girls did their work books, I tidied my bedroom, going through all the shelves of books and magazines. After break time, Abigail did a chemistry experiment to turn a bronze coin silver and then gold:

Becca and I had enormous fun tie dyeing the skirt she made before Christmas:

We wrapped plastic around the wet dyed skirt and popped it into a box over-night, to let the dye really soak in. We left it overnight and then washed it on a high heat. Very cool!

The afternoon was spent revisiting the suffragettes and preparing for Abigail’s Edwardian presentation, which she is doing on the suffragettes. We made some pretend rotten eggs out of felt (people threw these at the suffragettes when they were protesting) and some chains from card of various different shades of grey (the suffragettes chained themselves to railings outside the Prime-minister’s residence), and Becs finished drawing some of the suffragettes for their newspaper:

Today is Thomas’ birthday. He’s 19! I made him a special waffle lunch:

Tonight we will be having a special birthday meal and opening presents, but for now Thomas and Becca are currently snuggled up on the sofa watching tv:

Whilst Abigail is making a chocolate birthday cake for her brother:

Looking forward to a lovely night in with the fam-a-lam!

Have a great weekend everyone xx