Today we had a fun visit to Gainsborough Old Hall. Emily's been there lots of times, but today we were booked in for an educational visit like they do for schools. We had a guide dressed in costume who told us lots of very interesting bits and pieces, but best of all as far as Emily was concerned was the chance to dress up and take part in a pretend banquet. She was Queen Catherine Howard (who apparently visited the Hall, with Henry) so got to sit next to Henry at the table. Here she is in costume with Romy, and with King Henry:
The schools here "go back" tomorrow, and we're intending to get back to some more formal work tomorrow too. Having had a much closer look at the national curriculum Schemes of Work site for Yr 2, some of it looks a lot more interesting than I'd thought, actually. So, we're going to cherry pick the most interesting units/ideas/projects/whatever and give those a go. For instance, the Art and Design one about nature sculptures, and the Design and Technology one about Joseph's Coat of Many Colours - although I daresay we'll find it much more fun to make it a history themed coat, or perhaps an autumn fairy cloak or somesuch. When I first glanced at the "coat" one I thought it sounded wayyy too complicated (6 year olds designing and making from scratch a full sized fitting and properly measured coat?) but on closer inspection the expectations are somewhat more, um, age appropriate, so I think we'll be able to manage that, and it does sound like Emily's kind of thing. Yes, some of the ideas aren't bad at all. As home educators, we're in the luxurious position of being able to pick and choose what we do, and although some of the NC seems entirely pointless I must admit I do quite like some of what I've read this last weekend. So. We'll give it a go, personalised to our own levels of tolerance and interest, of course!
We also spent some time at the weekend thinking about goals for Emily between now and Christmas. I like to have something to aim for - mainly because I'm not a huge fan of "aimless", I suppose. We need to firm up the basic maths, for instance. Emily has moments when she seems way ahead of her age...but then other moments when she struggles, so I think getting that on a firmer footing and not trying to run before we can walk would be a consructive thing to do. And more practice on things like telling the time, both digital and analogue. Get the 2, 5 and 10 times tables off pat. More practice with money. In English, we're going to subtly work on Emily's handwriting - she writes beautifully, but sometimes she does like to make her writing too swirly and complicated, which can make it hard to read. And definitely some more poetry work, and we'll continue with spelling.
We're planning to do some work on famous artists - just looking at simple biographies of some, and then trying to paint/draw in their style, both freehand and on the PC. Science is tricky - most of the science type work for this age group in school is mind-bogglingly obvious stuff like plants needing water and light in order to grow. Um, I think we have that covered. Emily completed the bronze badge from the BA First Investigators Programme some time ago; we could work for the silver, I suppose, but tbh it's not that interesting for her. We mights just do our own thing with lots of experiments as and when the interest strikes. History - well, where do I start? Anything historical will go down a storm, but I think we've narrowed the options down to Romans next!
Which leaves Geography. Well, like science, most of the KS1 type work seems very simple. Again, we'll probably make that up as we go along.
Now, I'll look back at this come Christmas and realise we've gone down a completely different route altogether, lol!
2 comments:
LOL - I know what you mean about taking off in a totally different direction all together!
Have you seen the Krampf science experiments? They're brilliant - I've got a whole stack of them ready to do once I get some 1-on-1 time with Myf.
Dressing up looks great, photos to treasure :-)
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