Home Education in April

*Collaborative Post

Gosh, it’s already a few days into May – where is 2019 going to?

April feels like a month where we have been consolidating the basics and taking a bit of a break. We started the month with Em being a bit under the weather – a bad cough and a couple of bad nights sleep saw her taking to her bed for a few hours in the day for the start of the month. It makes me thankful that the children are able to do that when they need to, and that I can listen to when they need to rest.

I’m going to split my review this month into the three children as well as a general joint projects roundup.

Emma – Reception Year

In April Em has really been progressing well with her reading. She is working her way through the Songbirds reading scheme and is enjoying the books. She’s gaining confidence and I am sure, but the time the summer is out, she’ll be taking the next steps to more independent reading without me. She continues to do well with her maths work, and we are now onto the second book of the maths no problem series. We mix this up with some of the Letts books to consolidate her knowledge as well as a couple of other bits and pieces. She’s working on counting in 2’s, 5;s and 10’s as well as place value.

She’s getting ever more creative and I often find her doodling pictures or creating patterns using loom bands and various maths tools that we have. She’s got a lot of creativity and I hope I can help nurture this and give her the tools to explore this. I picked up a painting ideas book earlier this week for her so I hope that inspires her to try different things.

Em has been studying Frida Kahlo as part of their artists project for the next Speaking & Listening group and she’s really enjoyed this. She has painted a picture, inspired by Kahlo and I look forward to seeing how her projects finishes up.

April is also the month that Em has managed to cycle unaided – something we hope to have cracked fully over the next month or two.

Daniel – Year 1

Daniel continues to read at a phenomenal rate and this month we have noticed a real difference in him; he is content in the morning to read for a short while before getting out of bed and would spend his days reading if he could.

He has enjoyed using the laptop more this month to type up some of his work for the LIterature Fair that we attended and I need to think about how we might do some coding work with him.

He seems to be really growing in confidence and it’s lovely to see. He bounds into his Beavers meetings and did his first sleepover this month.

We have been working on maths as ever, and he is definitely becoming more confident in his ability, but I do notice moments of frustration when he has to think more about his calculations but he is certainly getting there. We have been looking at ‘Football Maths’ which is on my list to write a full post about soon.

We have also been working on handwriting and comprehension work alongside spelling. He is pretty good on spelling but there is the odd thing that trips him up now and then. We use the Schofield and Sims books for this sort of thing, and tend to dip in and out once a week; that’s enough for us at the moment alongside his reading.

Daniel has been studying Helen Frankenthaler for his artist project; a choice that surprised me. I didn’t think he would choose an abstract artist and that’s so different to how Daniel is, but he has enjoyed learning about her as well as trying to replicate some of her work.

Harry (EYFS)

I don’t really do a great deal of formal work with H – he joins in with the things he wants to but is generally happy to dip in and out of work as and when. He has enjoyed painting this month as well as really getting into game playing. We have a hungry hippos style game which he adores and he has really started to understand the concept of playing games and I often find him and Em playing a game together.

He has enjoyed getting involved with baking and crafts and has really got his counting down to a fine art now. He’s keen to get involved where and when he can and I can see that by the end of the year there’ll be much more planning about how to involve him more in the bigger projects that we do.

Joint Projects

We have enjoyed meet ups with friends – including a Spring and Easter themed meet up where we all decorated eggs. We hosted our speaking and listening group that had a Spring theme and started work on our May speaking and listening group – Artists. We also did lots of work on our literature fair project and the children loved taking part in this.

We have enjoyed baking lots of different things as well as trips out to the Art Gallery and to play with friends. We also started a King and Queens project and all three children have enjoyed this. We still have some more to do on this and I think we will move this into castles soon and look at UK castles that were built when certain monarchs reigned.

Damian had an ear appointment in this month at a clinic similar to Auris Ear Care. This sparked a bit of a fascination with the children about ears – prompting us to have a discussion about the senses and to look at some models of ears and how they work. I konw we cover this soon in the Sassafras work so I’m sure they’ll enjoy that.

We hosted our third CREST award meeting which was lots of fun and attended a St Georges Day themed meet up at a friend’s house.  We have played endless board games, been to the library and shared plenty of stories together. It’s been a calmer month that’s felt less busy, but I think we all needed that short break over Easter and we have picked back up on our work. May looks set to be super busy and we have already done lots.