His essay paragraph

Fred's first essay work: write a paragraph on My Favourite Hobby. 

Friday 10 May '13

Today we did our devotion from Thoughts To Make Your Heart Sing, then handwriting:
we read thru the introduction & practised the correct pencil hold. spoke about sitting position and inclination to obey the letter-forming instructions.
 F became quite tense during this talk. We prayed.
Then maths.
F did draw a couple of diagonal box method multiplications & fill them in himself.
R had a bit of confidence trouble with factoring, reducing, canceling etc so we had a read through the last 3 lectures and then she produced this "infographic":

wonderful!

Then F & i read a page of his ks2 english about clauses & phrases,

and R & I read up to page 11 of her new Essay Writing Course.

it is quite good at explaining stuff in a simple way.

inevitably R had to write one paragraph about her hobby,

"I don't have a hobby" - I told her to do it about playing sims.

R refused to write or even say aloud an introductory sentence about playing sims. She admitted that she wouldn't because it might not be perfect. even tho' it would only be me and her, and no trouble could come from it being wrong.

Then, once she had moved the laptop out of my line of vision, she began writing in earnest and soon had banged out a nice full paragraph on the laptop.

It should have had a final/conclusion type sentence, but we weren't sure what to put there, so she didn't.

Playing Sims

I like playing Sims. Sims is a computer Game where you can customise (or choose default) characters and then create a life for them. I like it because you can give the people beautiful houses, they could be anything from gothic to girly, grunge to modern. Another good thing about Sims is the wide variety of jobs available. Admittedly most of my Sims become rock stars, but you could become an international super-spy or mutant-robot cross breeder if your Sim was either of those ways inclined. 

I am very happy with this for our first day's work!

Wed 8th May '13

4 types of animal cell:

Today we talked about the spanish inquisition, 

the difference between Martin Luther & Martin Luther King Jr!

 And had a look at the 95 theses, 

and watched a youtube "95 Theses Rap" 

- i got 95 theses but the pope ain't one!

Also read a chapter of The Corn Grows Ripe, and the first chapter of "the phantom tollbooth"

Thu 2 May '13

OO! Just paid for R's Catherine Mooney Essay Writing course £130, it wasn't a bargain, but we need a little help in getting R confident in prep for iGCSE english, which we will also be using Catherine Mooney for.
catherinemooneytutoring.co.uk
We do need to work on her handwriting too. I have bought Getty Dubay Italic Book A, basic italic

Wed 1st May 2013

We completed day 4 of Sonlight week 1. -native americans, their sign language etc.
R completed maths unit 34.
F did maths unit 70.
We did "Antagonistic muscles" - the last unit of Life Processes on bbc bitesize ks3 science.
R looked at Post War Success p12 of Japan.

Antagonistic muscles

wed 20 march '13

bsf: talked about our birthright - being born into a country where we can freely read bible & attend church.
maths: 1 chapter each.
biology: gas exchange. printed out a ks3 syllabus based on bbc bitesize.
code academy. did if/else statements, alert. we are on 18/28 on Javascript intro to programming.
handwriting... did Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg.. then F needed a stress break! Will have to slow down on the handwriting! R took it in her stride though.

Tue 19 March '13

We had brunch out at subway with dh.
we did: BSF finish the week - yay!
biology: revised MRS GREN, did the respiratory sytem - f did a PS3 pic.
hebrew, revised & did "yes, a little "
maths: r lesson 30, f lessons 64 +65
We talked about Catherine Mooney Essay course, R agrees she could do this now.
We looked at a diagram of GCSEs/A-levels/Uni and talked about what a syllabus is and what an essay is.
Spoke about handwriting... I MUST download some worksheets.
seemed like a good day, especially F's attitude to division lessons!

thu 7 march

we chitted the potatoes.

Wed 6 March 13

Freddy went on the bus on his own! using a day saver ticket I'd bought. He went to bus stop by M&S Food by himself, waited for an 82 bus & got on, got off & went home using key to let himself in.
Ruby & I spent time with an adult with learning disabilities, she observed the different ways of dealing with an adult who struggles to make decisions & execute various daily tasks.

I had a crown fitted at the dentist, so asked the dentist to show them the mould of my teeth and so on.
On the way back they asked lots of questions about inflation.

mon 4 march 13

Went to Telling Tales at the Phil with chef.

27 & 28 feb

Wed 27 Feb.
a.m. BSF, maths, hebrew, single shard. pm: chicks arrival!
This was a good day - planned, but not too much. Good expectation/ achievement ratio.

Thu 28 Feb.
a.m. BSF then ladies mtg. pm planned: code academy, maths, cooking.

sonlight core d

Excited! Cos i've bought Sonlight Core D, 2nd hand for £100.It's lots of books! And **the holy grail** : lesson plans for a year.
It is aimed at age 8-11 and is themed around early history of USA, my fave period of history.
It covers bible, history, geography, english, poetry and lotsa stories.
I think we're gonna have a lot of fun with this.
find it at http://www.sonlight.com/homeschool-curriculum.html?core=D
this combined with our biology igcse work and a little of lots of other things, will be a day's work for my mini students.
excited!

11 feb 2013

today we did our bible study, then a page of biology, talking about life processes. then a single shard.

microscope

Ooh! some exciting work today...
as for the biology gcse, i realised there is some ks3 material we have not covered. so i got out the cgp ks3 science book (it came in a bundle, i hadn't looked at it). the 1st 9 chapters are biology.
So we looked at the first page: the parts of a microscope. we looked up each part on the web, named the parts & what they do. THEN! they went on Little Big Planet level builder on the ps3 (they are very quick and able on this and enjoy it absolutely.) "Build me a microscope!" i said.
They built me a (virtual) micoscope, including a lamp that turns on, reflects from a mirror underneath up into the glass slide, upon which they put a tiny dead fish. they put moveable clips holding the slide onto the stage. i was very pleased with the work & they were so enthused! YAY!
as soon as i've worked out how to connect the ps3 to the laptop i'll put the picture up!
Praise the Lord for different ways of doing things!

Wed 30 Jan 13

Hi, there's so much to it!
We watched an intro to biology/evolution/natural selection video today on Khan academy.
Why? Cos i keep wibbling between paying some ££ and getting on with a GCSE, or simply finding everything on the syllabus, finding lessons free on the web & getting on with that - takes a lot more time planning. not my fave.

what is going on at the mo?
*codeacademy          - this is good, and free. but again requires more time, as i have to complete each step myself in order to help the pupils.
*a single shard          -this is quite good too, it goes vocab-chapter-comprehension quiz. Not the kids' most fun lesson. but good.
*anne of green gables      -i have to prepare an extensive vocab list beforehand. sudden brainwave - google it! brb!

Monday 21 Jan '13 - explaining about gcses

today we did our devotion & some bible study.
then the vocab & read chap 1 of anne of green gables.
we made a chicken stew together.
f did chap 61 of maths tt5.

we spoke for about an hour about doing igcse biology using cloudlearn. i explained yet again that you are taught first, then tested.  i explained how we would break it down into chunks....
then i showed R a gcse biology exam paper, she was able to answer some questions outright, using common sense & guesswork.

R made a chocolate cake.
good.

thurs 10 jan '13

The internet was down, so I cast about the house. We  had a great time doing pimsleur hebrew the the 1st lesson from study guide to " a single shard".
All cosy, laughing and having fun!

Carob bread

Tuesday, got the bus to GAP, there wasn't that many there, but there were two new families & a brand new baby.
I made the "Chocolate bread" recipe in my breadmaker, using carob powder instead of cocoa. It wasn't chocolatey but it was quite nice.
Great to be back at BSF tonight!

07 Jan '13

Back To School. After a slow start today we did our BSF, finished reading The Midnight Fox, did a chapter of maths & a page of english.
That'll do for today. Onward & upward!

Next book to begin is A Single Shard.