Another month and I am a little late writing this up as I am full of a cold and hayfever and generally feeling a bit meh. The time of year when I need a break and just take a step back from it all. We have started the Easter break with a few quieter days which have been needed by us all.
At the time of writing, D is 10, E is 9, and H 6, so Year 5, Year 4, and Year 2 respectively.
Core Subjects
Maths continued and D has almost finished his latest book. He has been doing a lot of work on fractions this month and has got to grips with them well. We will move onto the next book after the Easter break. H is close to finishing his latest books, so I expect he’ll complete it in the next month or early May.
Reading continues to form a large part of the children’s days and we have made time for library visits and reading together over the last month.
Projects
There have been a few projects this month, and I think we have got them pretty much tied up for the Easter break and we’ll start with something new in the next week. We looked at the Great Fire of London ahead of an organised ‘school’ trip in April. The three of them all did an extended piece of writing for this project and I was really pleased with how they did with it.
We also looked at a Polar Bear unit briefly to tie in with an item we were sent to review. We looked at surface tension and some other bits and pieces with this one. It was a nice little project for an afternoon or two.
With finished up our Hinduism project, and I think it’s fair to say they were far less enthused with this religion than they were with others we have looked at this year. They did well though and we will move onto another world religion in the coming weeks. I think we might do Sikhism next then tie up with some of the smaller religions before finishing up with an overview of them all and consider similarities and differences.
Our biggest project this month was to look at The Americas. This project was a lot about comparing and contrasting the continents of North and South America and considering how and why they are so diverse. We looked at longitude and latitude, time zones, climate zones, weather, wonders of the world and did a lot about physical and human geography. There’s still a little left to do on this but we will soon be finished.
Another fun project we did was to look at automata and the children designed and made some automata items. We looked at different types of machines such as levers and had a lot of fun playing with ideas on this project. There are a few bits on my Instagram feed to show the things we did on this. (Pneumatics here, Cams here, automata here).
Regular Groups
Regular groups ran for much of the month, with a break for Easter so that means athletics, running for D & E, Beaver, Cubs and Scouts, Spanish, Swimming and Music lessons. We are looking forward to getting back into the rhythm of the weeks; the Easter break has felt long this time around and I think we will all enjoy getting back into some normality.
Other Bits & Pieces
There’s been plenty of other bits and pieces in March including the Eureka Home Educator Day, trips for D&E with Cubs to Clip and climb, H went to a steel drums demonstration with Beavers and we have had friends round for Easter crafting. We had a morning at the Whitworth Art Gallery with an artist and attended a local soup lunch during Lent.
We helped at the local scout hut with some clearing jobs and the children have all been busy making Top Trumps games. Daniel moved up from Cubs to Scouts and achieved his silver scout award which he was very happy about. Damian and I had a weekend away in Chester and that meant the children had a weekend with my parents, which they enjoyed a lot.
April will be a bit disjointed due to the Easter break but we have a few things planned and I am looking forward to getting back into our normal rhythms.
quality as ever