So, A New "Term" Begins

It was a bit of a funny feeling this morning, knowing we've now officially been home educating for exactly a year. It was an even funnier one - in a not nice way - to realise that if we weren't, we'd be dropping our little one off this morning into the clutches of the very same teacher who wreaked so much emotional havoc in her life during reception year, since she is now "teaching" (if that word can actually be used in her case) Yr 2. I watched some kids walking to school this morning, and breathed a sigh of relief that Emily wasn't one of them.

We got off to a good start today. We did some spelling first thing, and Emily wrote a piece about her favourite season. We did some basic maths too, and looked through a KS1 science workbook. Lunch out in the garden (how did it turn from such a murky, damp morning into such a hot, blazing afternoon?) and then back in for some art. Emily chose Van Gogh as the artist she wanted to look at. We read Sunflowers and Swirly Stars and talked a bit about his life and his style of painting. Then the fun bit - Emily mixed some flour in with paint and worked on her version of Starry Night.



She really seemed to enjoy that. Must get some proper oil paints. Later on she experimented with creating the same thick, swirly, brush stroke effect in her Dazzle art software too. Tomorrow we'll paint some flowers in Van Gogh style, and Emily's going to make a fact card about him - she was particularly fascinated to discover that despite his paintings now selling for millions of pounds, he only ever sold one painting during his entire life and had to struggle to pay for his food let alone painting supplies. And he only painted for 10 years before he shot himself. I didn't know that. I'm learning too!

We have the Matisse and Picasso books from that Smart About the Arts series, so I daresay they'll be next on the list to look at. Meanwhile, I finally managed to get Emily's Ancient Egypt project into a proper folder, and sorted out the various Tudor bits and bobs into a pile ready to do likewise. An achievement indeed, since I've been meaning to do the Egyptian one since March!!!

We're now letting the kittens go up and down our back stairs - hadn't done until now as they didn't seem very stable and the stairs are very steep. Romeo rewarded our trust in him by promptly falling 3/4 way down and hanging off the third step from the bottom by one claw. Hmmm. So that's why we've kept the stair gate on all this time! They've also been allowed into Emily's playroom/workroom/our stockroom bit. Hadn't done that until now a) because really it's big cat territory and b) because the front stairs lead off it, which leads right down to the front door, which is constantly in use with all our deliveries. So we had to block the top of the stairs off. Much time was spent rescuing the kittens from the results of their inventive "how do we get round this barrier" ideas..... They're off to the vets tomorrow for the first of their two innoculations, as they're now 9 weeks old. So, another three weeks before they "could" go out (although I'm not at all sure we'll be letting them that soon). And when they do, we'll enjoy a whole new set of worries!