The last month has been a really good one for homeschooling, since bringing in some changes towards the end of January (I wrote about this in my last update) we’ve found things to be working a lot better. Oh and Cherry started doing gymnastics again and is back to loving it which I’m pleased about.
We’ve kept up with limiting the iPad usage in the week, so we don’t let them watching anything until late afternoon when they get tired and I need a break! I find that if they don’t start the day watching it then they get straight into playing games, in fact as I write this Cherry is teaching Tiger a dance routine, it’s only 7.15am!
We’ve also reactivated our Twinkl subscription which expired last year, we’ve only had it for a week and I think we’ve used it more than we did for the entire year last time. Cherry is just that bit older and really wants to learn now whereas before she wasn’t really interested. She’s literally gone from not recognising any words to being able to read quite a lot of them, I know she’s not at the same level of her peers in school but that was the whole point of us doing this, so that she would do it in her own time. She knows all the letters now so although I still have to spell out words, she can write independently when I do so. I still just find it amazing given that I’ve never really taught her these things, she’s just picked them up.
I think it’s one of the biggest worries when you start homeschooling, what if they never learn to read and write?!? But they just do, if you trust in their abilities and not worry about when they ‘should’ be doing it then it’s like every other stage, it happens and you wonder why you worried about it so much.
The good thing about Twinkl is that you can type in anything and it brings up so many different activities, last week we learnt about Ancient Egypt at the kid’s request. We made 3d pyramids, learnt about mummies and wrote our names in hieroglyphics.
We also did some biology, well Cherry did. She cut out all the organs and stuck them in place before labelling them. I quite like the way she writes in different sizes too, I’m not completely sure but I can imagine her being corrected in school and told to make it ‘neat’ but that will come over time and it’s much more fun to do it all different sizes!
We also printed off a map of the UK and made little dots where all our family lived. Cherry has also done lots of drawing, these monster ghosts are a current favourite, decorating paper plates is also a new activity. They are currently drawing lions on one. And this Shreddie with a face made me laugh, she came in and showed me the other morning!
We’ve been to the Donkey Sanctuary lots, it’s not too far from us and we love the donkeys so much. They are so soft and fluffy and the café there sells vegan cake with all profits going to help the donkeys so we get to eat and do some good, win win!
We had a trip down to Bedruthan Hotel a couple of weeks ago which was so much fun, we went to the Eden Project and met up with our homeschooling buddies and co-hosts Adele and family.
Now it’s March I’m looking forward to the weather warming up so we can spend lots of time outdoors again, the kids have been in the garden lots but I’m still too cold to do much adventuring in the great outdoors!
If you are new to homeschooling then this article by Wallsauce has so many great ambient learning tips, you can find it HERE.
This Homeschooling Life is a linky for you to share either a week, a day or just a moment from your life as a homeschooling family. We are hoping it will be a really nice way to discover new blogs and learn how we all do things differently.
2. Link up a post from your month, no more than 3.
