A Month of Home Ed – November 2022

Well, November has been and gone and  I really thought this month had been a slow month, a month where not a great deal was achieved. Not a lot of focus and not a lot done.

The reason I started writing this monthly round up was more for myself, for those months like this November where I’ve felt lacking. I’ve had a tough month this month. Life has felt hard and the usual stresses of the Christmas period came a little early. That coupled with some stresses Damian was experiencing has meant the month has felt long and really tricky, compounded by a car problem that saw us without the car for three or four days. Thankful however to friends who stepped in to get us to places and my parents too for assisting us.

But, onwards we go to what our November looked like as we move into the final month of 2022.

At the time of writing, D is 10, E is 8, and H 6, so Year 5, Year 4, and Year 2 respectively.

Core Subjects

Maths hit a bit of a sticking point with D as we moved onto prime factorisation – this is the first time I’ve felt stuck with his maths and had to really go back to basics myself. However, a bit of reading around and I found a way to help him. We have spent much of November really focussing on time tables fluency and speed before moving back to his maths book. We plan to pick this up on December again and see if we do any better. Em finished her maths textbook so moved onto a new one and is doing well with that and H, as ever, continues to whizz through his maths. His mental maths ability is excellent and it’s interesting to me to hear how he works out the sums in his head. It feels quite sophisticated for a six year old.

English – the three of them continue to devour books and I work comprehension and writing tasks into the many projects we undertake. They’re all getting really competent at writing, and writing is a skill that Em in particular enjoys.

Science wise we finished up a Space project this month, although I do want to try and do some more little bits which I think we will pick up again in the new year time when there are fewer distractions.

Projects

It was only when leafing through my diary I realised just how much we had done projects-wise. We finished up much of the Space stuff as well as an Islam project. We used Oak Academy as the frame for the Islam project and I supplemented it with a few other bits and pieces. We looked at Islamic art and geometric patterns and Em especially enjoyed recreating various patterns.

We have started a nativity project as we moved into the period of advent and I plan to look at the detail of the nativity with them each week as we move through the period. We have also started a mini-project on Christmas jumpers that we will share with a couple of friends next week.

Finally, we have been doing the World Explorers project via Twinkl. I am hugely disappointed with this and the quality of the project from Twinkl is quite poor. It was billed as a print-and-go project aimed at key stage 2 children however its very very basic and lacking in any real detail. We are halfway through it but it’s required a lot more prep and work from me than I had anticipated and I sort of wish I’d not bothered really (or at least checked it out properly before we started it.!) That said I have managed to add resources to the first half that we have done and I’ll better plan the second half now we are doing it.

Regular Groups

November has been a full month with Spanish for all three, athletics, swimming and scouting groups as well as music for the older two children. The older two have a chef challenge badge with their cub group which was good fun (if not a little stressful trying to do two two-course meals on one camping stove each in 50 minutes!)

Other Bits & Pieces

We have had a couple of days out with friends, as well as delicious cake and coffee with my mum for her birthday this month. We had a lovely session with the learning team at RHS Bridgewater that a friend had organized and a wander in the gardens and a play in the fabulous outdoor area.

H hosted a football-themed quiz for my parents that included prizes – although none of us did very well at the quiz! H really enjoyed being the centre of attention for this and had his own special quiz master chair.

We did some squash-themed painting at the start of the month as well as the older two attended a coder dojo which they enjoyed. H went to Old Trafford with his Dad and, of course, the World Cup has been a big fixture in our lives this second half of the month.