A stab at home education...

Really should be clearing the living room, after M’s ’party’ he organised for the residents of this abode today. They were off school for various reasons, one being my cold is quite bad and didn’t want to struggle getting 2 reluctant children to school on time. Also M was supposed to being doing Easter crafts, and S was v, v upset yesterday night, missing his Dad, his friend in the other city and generally fed up with everything, so I agreed to let him stay home.
Offered S spelling games on the BBC website which he had a go at, but in the end he said he’d prefer to do old-fashioned pen and paper.
Read a bit about different animals, started off by looking up about scorpions. He’d remembered about mammals as we found dolphins in a different section to sharks…
Did lots of drawings of battles (spaceship type mostly), read his new Horrible history annual which corresponds with stuff he is doing in school about the Middle Ages. I myself flicked through, and have learnt that the Black Death spread all over Europe and different countries had different reasoning/ superstitions as to why it was afflicting them.
Oh and the main activity was baking not just another chocolate cake (3rd this week, in fact I’m not even fancying a piece now and we’ve also run out of eggs!), but also gingerbread men (inspired by Shrek game I’m afraid!) (JazakiAllahkhair UmmRashid for giving me the confidence to let them loose in the kitchen).
M , well he had flour fight with Biryani while I was lying down, well more like a re-enactment of his ice skating trip. What was learnt here? Well how to clean the kitchen floor I suppose!
Also today he got me to write out a list of things he has to do e.g. say prayers, brush teeth, he put tick boxes next to each thing, but I think he’s forgotten to follow it up…He also did some drawing with a little writing on, I think inspired by a screen shot from a computer game. Later in the afternoon, finally got him to do his homework he was supposed to do for school. This was definitely not child-led, but didn’t want to have more hassle from school that he’d been off and not done his homework as well. So far they’ve not minded him having the odd day off, alhamdulillah.
H is actually quite keen to try and spell words and write them, although in capitals from right to left but it’s a start mashAllah.
Miss Independent, walked all the way to nursery on her insistence, which I think would have been hard at this age with the boys, I remember having to go to a midwife appointment with S tagging along. It was a much shorter distance and I’d been left without a buggy. It was struggling to keep him going by saying’ look at that bike, let’s walk to it’, kind of thing, and using distraction after distraction to stop him dawdling.
Biryani however strode down the street, only stopping to take a second look at a dog sitting in the front seat of a van which she described as ‘funny!’ Later on though there were difficulties getting her to hold hands across the road and at a relatively busier junction I had to heave her under my arm as she had a mini tantrum ass he wanted to take apart a Deli’s sandwich board sign outside the shop.
She’s just now got her nappy, top and trousers on for bed. OK the nappy was a bit builder’s style, her top was on upside down and I had to help her with the trousers as they were half inside out. This independence thing is all well and good, but with the potty training it gets a bit excessive when you are awoken from a nap by being shown her ‘success’ as she expresses 'doned it, shabash’ and when she wants to empty it herself in the toilet. One way to wake up quickly I suppose!.