weekly catchup maths and stuff.

Had another busy week this week.

Monday we took auntie to hospital and Leo was very good and stayed with granny. As we left he was just showing her the latest spiderman pictures he had drawn so they were both happy.

After a busy morning and a fish and chip lunch we headed home.

Did some maths when we got home and had some down time on the WII.

At the moment the boys have been playing alot on sports resort tennis, archery and table tennis.

Tuesday we spent at home a neighbour came round one afternoon and the boys all played on swingball.

We have been doing alot of maths this week, L picked up times tables really easy x 2.

We also did long addition and subtraction. this was more of a challenge as L is famiar with horizontal sums but understanding them written vertically was abit disturbing for him. Although i found he could work out the sums really easy he found it difficult to put the numbers in the right place, especially carry forward so the written anwers were sometimes wrong although i knew perfectly well he could work them out when we worked through the calculation. We will have to do more work to familiaries him with this.

We did a brief trip to the supermarket did a mass cook and bake of soup and buns etc.

Wednesday we have several doctors appointmets between various members of the family so we managed some school work in between with lots of breaks to recharge brains. Did some more maths and L was keen.

We also did alot of work over last couple of days on handwriting practise to build up confidence with his writing, spelling and reading - again this built up his understanding of how the letters are formed so as he sometimes puts them the wrong way round.

I have found it best to go 2 steps forward and 1 back as it builds his confidence up more and i don;t take for granted that he knows all the basics so we use a wide range of books from Age 4+.

We have also done some work on telling the time and i will look out some more information on times, dates and calenders etc as L's most constant question is when is the next spiderman, xmen etc comic out.

We have had a very enjoyable week so far - not been out feeding the ducks this week but more work based for a change.

Batma - The Prisoner's Revenge any ideas for making videos/comics thans

It was just another ordinary day at Arkham Asylum until ...................the villains escaped.

To be continued when i improve my resources - need to hold a mobile phone more steadily or get better camera equipment.

I also need to find suitable resources for making videos or comic books. Leo is a big fan of youtube, unfortunately some of he homemade lego batman videos are not suitable and i suggested we could make our own so any suggestions would be appreciated.

Any way we are raring t go with our lego and have plenty of action shots ready -where there's a will there's a way.

We had a nice stroll around the park today and came back and did some maths and tell the time exercise. we have not done much structured work this week as we have had a busy couple of days seeing granny and trying to sort a car out following the accident.

We also had a bit of a broken nights sleep so i wasn't going to push but Leo was keen so we did some and he really enjoys it.

General mood today from everyone is tired and grumpy so everything we achieve is a bonus.

Batman and Lego.

Our recent order of Lego arrived from amazon yesterday so after a day shopping with grandma we rushed back to open our packages.

We received 4 boxes of lego figures and vehicles and some more batman books.

The lego we ordered included some figures and vehicles so that we could make our own batman playsets - we looked on amazon and ebay and they were going for very large sums of money so we decided to use or imagination instead.

The first package was a police van for taking prisones to jail/arkham asylum and a couple of hench men. Then we got another police man with a motorbike that we decided could be used for good or bad guys and finally we got a box of figures that we decided would make an excellent commissioner gordon, poison ivy and a few other bad/good guys.

We also got the Daily Mirror last weekend as they are giving away lego vehicles and we got a black sports car that makes an excellent batmoble.

All this cost the same price as 1 mini lego figure and I imagine hours of imaginative play ahead of us.

To complement our lego sets we got a batman sticker book that we also decided would be useful to customise our lego batman.

Finally we got another reading book for the no.l batman fan to read himself and one for bedtime stories - so reading still very interested and keen to keep trying.

homeschooling really seems to be working for us.

Also remembered Leo used his own money he had been saving to buy the lego so we spent the oter afternoon adding up the contents of his money box. He had the grand total of £23.18 all in coins from 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p etc so a very productive lesson in maths and budgetting also occured.

we have still not been out to any groups yet following the car crash but intend to when we get another car - the hire car we have at the moment is terrible and not good for my back as it is very low - will hopefully have one in a couple of weeks so will get out and about again soon.

feeding the ducks and poos.

today we went out to the park to feed the ducks again, he seems really keen to do this again after such a long time and whilst we are there he is wanting to spend lots of time on the adventure playground, so plenty of exercise.

whilst we were out today the town was really busy as there was a freedom march with a local regiment that we had not been aware of. the park was alot busier with spectators so he got freeked out about that but we still had a good time. after having the park to himself most of the week he was annoyed that a load of people were suddently occupying his territory. we still managed to have icecreams and tea and carrot cake for me.

the down side of the trip was the dog doing a poo on oneo the pretty plants in the flowerbeds - luckily i had a bag hand. thought he was marking his territory as ususal until i looked back and saw a poo on display. ha ha...

had the last of our homemade soup today so made a fresh batch today and some more yummy scones for tea. all the family are just so spoilt now.

the boys cleared the playroom as we are awaiting a new batch of spiderman reading books adn some lego - not come as yet.

bread making and veggie planting continued

bread making

inspired by our pizza making home ed visit leo and his dad have been making bread and rolls, we have now had more time at home to bake and do things like this and although i have been getting lots of rest the whole family have all contributed and have a regular selection of cakes, flapjacks and biscuits.


veggie planting

Another activity the boys have undertaken is veggie planting (as well as caring for me!) They have planted lettuce, tomatoes, sweetcorn and carrots as well as potatoes and sunflower seeds saved from last year. I have attempted this but we are novices and everything died last year so they are having a go this time and leo's job is watering the seeds daily. lettuces have grown so far!

car crash, education visits, bread making, veggie planting etcetc....

not updated for along time i am afraid but alot has been happening, admittedly at a shorter pace than normal.

after the success of our first home ed visit we went to another group meet but unfortunately it was during all the intermittent snow and on the way home someone came across our side of the road and we ended up being in a head on crash. yuk.

Leo was physically fine apart from some bruising and i have been making a slow recovery from concussion and a bad back, etc. but we have had plently of time at home to do various activities albeit with some inconvenience as i have either been very drowsy, in pain or based on the bed or settee mainly for the past 3 weeks and have only ventured out more this past week but not driving yet so my home ed trips are on hold at the moment.

read on to see what we have been up to.

education authority visit.

we had a visit from the local education advisor about taking leo out of school. we showed him work we had done on maths and english work and the progress leo had made in his reading. we have about 4 spiderman reading books at level 2 and 3 others that include xmen, iron and batman. he is now very confident at reading letter words and willing to try some 4 letter words - excellent progress since he was taken out of school in january.

we also have had more time to get to know him and realised he is very good at maths and spelling - in the past he did not even want to attempt reading never mind a spelling test.

we showed him our book collection of encyclopedias and factbooks and he was satisfied with our intentions.

playtime
Leo has also had time to do lots of playing in our playroom with his superheroes etc. and we made some buildings during craft and landscapes cutting our shapes.

pizza making, pizza express home ed buxton

had a lovely morning with the HE group buxton.

leo made pizza, we put a selection of ham, cheese, peppers etc and created our own pizza base then put toppings on. the pizza express guy was really friendly and well organised considering there were over 30 pizzas at the end to be cooked.

this environment was abit more challenging for leo but he coped in his own way and it will take abit to get use to strangers and unfamiliar surroundings but it is good to keep trying him to experience different learning environments than school settings.

he really enjoyed his pizza when it was done and was happy to sit and eat it, he is just not so keen on the messy play which i had not taken into consideration but they are a great group and accept every child as they are. a warm welcome was received.