Last year wasn’t my best. And when I’m not on top form, neither is the house, or the educational provision! However, in an uncharacteristic bout of autonomy, Aprilia has got the hang of reading at a functional, if still basic, level. She can sound stuff out (and regularly exclaims with exasperation when her friend can’t) but the real breakthrough seems to ahve been from a look and listen aproach courtesy of watching lots of edutaiment type TV with subtitles. I think that counts as "the best of both worlds" as she has the tools to work out words she doesn’t recognise but has the speed through "whole word recognition" to be able to read quickly enough to make sense of sentences rather than fumbling along a word at a time. Only the parents of a child who has struggled to learn to read can understand the joy of sitting and listening to that same child reading chapters of Rainbow Fairy books with expression and fluency. (hands up how many others have a love-hate relationship with the dread Daisy Meadows!!!)
She has Moshi-ed and more recently Ed City-ed and, by way of treats has played numerous games on FaceBook, all of which require at least a basic level of literacy and I believe that this has helped her greatly in as much as providing incentive to put in the large amounts of effort required to stretch her reading abilities, although quite where in real life she will need to read "alchemy" and "ballista" I’ve yet to work out
Other major attainments were several more Brownie badges, although the momentum to do many on her own has waned a little, which I do think may be down to the lack of inspiration being provided by me - did I mention I was crap last year? and she is part way through several more that I’m going to "timetable" into our work time over the next few months. She graded up twice at Kung Fu, passing the same requirements as the adults, and did one of those gradings without any parent for company, for which I was very proud of her, as was Sibok who made a point of telling me, in front of her, how well she had done. I do like our Sibok (teacher) Swimming also happened rather a lot, resulting in a 25m badge on her swimming bag, she’s probably capable of her 50m now but needs a bit more technique and confidence before she "graduates" to the next class as she only did crash courses for a few weeks over summer rather than regular lessons. Her teacher did say though that if we nobble a lifeguard on a quiet session to watch her then she can be awarded her next badge without lessons. Spontaneous writing has also occurred, mainly in the form of list writing related to games she is playing. Handwriting has been requested as a regular feature to help her to write better and to practice how to spell things.
So, looking forward into the new year. She is asking for more structure, and to be fair, we BOTH need an imposed structure on our day in order to get things done. It is too tempting to let her sleep herself out of a morning whilst I loll about, leaving us both floppy for hte day and unable to settle to anything. So I am making a simple "morning routine" in PECS form for the both of us. Mine will have such FlyBaby concepts as re-booting the laundry, hers will be a little more simple but will include getting dressed and making the bed as an absolute minimum! From there we will also have various tasks on a bigger schedule in the living room including brain work, crafty bits, chores (for both of us) and "rewards" of free choices for how to fill half hour slots in the day.
I am planning on finishing off our current SonLight and various stray books we have lurking arround so that we can cull the books a little, well, at very least get rid of stuff we really don’t like to give us enough room for the ever growing collection of things we do! There is a good shelf full of easy-ish books, things like My First Little House which are getting a bit young for her these days so we may read them together one last time and sell them on, likewise the Benny and Watch books which are based around the very wonderful Boxcar Children books and are now really within her ability with very little help but getting a bit below her interest level so need one last push to get the benefit from them and send them on to be enjoyed by another family. She has informed me that the Rainbow Magic books are not for passing on…. grin.
I’m also planning on either working through or disposing of the basket-ful of random puzzle/workbooks. She quite likes the full colour cartoony type books but I’m really never convinced about their value in developing any sort of depth of understanding! Hence why she is rattling through the maths ones but really still with a very patchy understanding of such basics as Hundreds Tens and Units (pass the base 10 blocks….) I’d like to finish off the Stile books as well, then either sell the whole set including tray or buy the next set and carry on with them.
She’s specifically asked for timed challenges on basic skills (tables, sums, spellings etc) in the form of file folder games with an egg timer, I’ve made challenge cards for these, if she completes the challenge 5 times she gets a specified reward (a book, some money etc negociated when we start the challenge) i may throw the Stile books into the timed challenge catagory as they are a sort of "match and sort" activity really.
She’s asked for handwriting practice too. I have plenty of stuff for that, I just need to print it off and bind it up so the pages don’t wander off round the house!
And she’s asked for project type stuff. Specifically so far for Dinosaurs (I have a lapbook set for that) Ancient Egypt, Romans, Space (have stuff for that too, plus a few ideas for "3 part cards" of conselations etc) and Tudors - what is it with home educated children and The Tudors????
And last but not least she has informed me that we need to go on the following holidays…..
Shell Island (but I’m sorry Nic, it’s the dunes not the view….. am wondering what compromise we can come to with that????)
the Sustainablity Centre (will bring wood again, and maybe pay in advance and stockpile lots and lots so we aren’t forced to resort to burning the furniture
)
Visits to a large number of "Puddlers"
Sigh, we need more hours in the day!!!
So, we shall be very busy!