Catch up!

Well we have been up to so much these last few weeks but now it comes to it it seems that I have little to relay but I'll continue anyway!  Well, due to a prompt from Beavers Daisy and I did a little study on good and bad foods and made this traffic light poster thing [I think I may have mentioned this before].  We discussed the types of food that could be included under each colour and why they were good/bad for you and then she cut out pictures from magazines etc and stuck them under each coloured flap of the traffic lights.  

She did get some wrong so I asked her why she had included them in that category. We then discussed her answers and I asked her to tell me where she thought they were still in the right place.  The 'lights' read: red = Stop! These things we shouldn't eat very often (cakes, biscuits, red meat etc); yellow = Wait! Don't eat too much although they are OK choices (potatoes, pasta, bread, chicken, fish etc) and green = Go! The more you eat the better (fruits & veg).

We have been to the park several times these past couple of weeks and had lots of fun looking for local wildlife; Daisy's keen eyes spotted this toad hiding in the brook!  

We also spent some time admiring the gardens...

Not sure what these plants are but we all liked them!

and spent an hour or so using the outside gym...boy did I ache the next day - the kids want to [and I need to]  go every other day to use the gym but we'll see if the rain holds off first.

 

Lego also started at the canoeing club and will start working towards his staged awards inshaAllah [God willing].  He is also going back to boxing next week now that his hand has healed...he's really looking forward to it.

We have also been to see the dyslexia consultant and she did some amazing work with Sprite and taught him to spell a couple of words in just a few minutes using some visualisation techniques. He was so happy to be able to spell these 'difficult' words and is still able to spell them so the techniques seem to be very effective; it's all about finding ways that make it easy for him to commit the info to his long term memory apparently. She also suggested he worked on his cursive handwriting as it makes it easier for his hand to relax and his memory take over when writing and spelling. He needs to be formally assessed which I couldn't afford to do with them so I decided to contact the LEA to see if they could offer some help.

So we are now 'known' to the Education Inspector who will be visiting us next Thursday.  She seemed very supportive and said that just the month before the Educational Psychologist had agreed to assess another home educated child.  So with a precedent set it seems hopeful that we could get Sprite assessed via the Local Authority, this is important as he will need some additional support in the next few years, especially if he wants to take exams [I am hoping to get some ongoing sessions to teach him strategies to help him with his learning too God willing].  I am also enrolled on a 2 day course, run by the local Dyslexia Action group, which aims to teach us how we, as parents, can help our dyslexic children in literacy and numeracy.  I think these types of strategies could benefit any child to retain information so will pass on any nuggets that I pick up God willing.  Have a strange feeling of deja vu about this post!

We also had the annual Scout Parade [when I say we I, of course, mean the kids; us damp mums went for a cappuccino as soon as we could escape unnoticed] and seem to be setting a tradition of having a post parade pizza meal with our favorite homeschooling family.

This is just one of the Scout bands that were playing during the day...I have no pics of my scouts as my phone decided to throw a tantrum! Lego has also been caving again and has started attending the Explorers group; he is currently trying to decide what he wants to do for his Duke of Edinburgh Award.  Also on the Scout front camping season has officially started and as I type this he is on a Muslim Scout Fellowship camp.  He also has a skills camp coming up with the explorers in June.  Sprite has decided to rejoin the Scouts and is looking forward to being invested in the next couple of weeks.

Both Daisy and Crush are working their way through the 'Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons'; they are really, really enjoying it and we often do several lesson in one day!  Other than that they seem to be working their way through worksheets from the tutor which I try to build on during the week.  Having said that, it needs to be said that Daisy, although improved, is still having difficulty in retaining the information but I get the feeling that it's because she doesn't want to rather than can't!

Great progress has been made on the infamous Owl Project...more of that in another post!  The kids have been plodding along at their various tutors but they all seem to have lost their spark; their enthusiasm for learning.  I thought it was me, the rut, lack of direction or whatever so placed them with the tutors but I have come to realise that they did better when they were unschooled.  Maybe the problems we were having was because I had lost my way and was allowing others to have too much influence in the way my children should learn and what their goals in life should be; you know GCSE's at 16, university and a good job to support their family and, last but not least, return to their Lord!  Wanting all these things is OK but it should be their decision, when they are ready for it.  After all, if they really want to become a doctor they would put in the effort to make it happen wouldn't they?  I mean that's the way it works with me and it definitely worked that way with others that I know.  More consideration is needed on this front! I think the first thing I need to do is to have a chat with Lego about his feelings towards his GCSE's...I need to make sure that he doesn't feel 'railroaded' into taking them just to please me/the LEA/family/tutors etc.  I need to make sure that he wants to do them; for  himself!