Thoughts for the new year.

We all seem to be ready to get back to a "normal" routine. The children, although happy to be playing on the PC all day, are beginning to get into "bored" mode and so we've been chatting about the kind of learning they'd like to do this term. I read recently that being bored is good for children as it makes them go and find something to do! I thoroughly agree with this, and I know the statement is true as I've seen K and B go off and amuse themselves with Lego, drawing or horse model customising on several occasions when they've been at a loose end. The kind of "bored" mode they're getting into these last few days is different. They want to be on the PC all day, and hate it when I drag them off after a couple of hours. I know that if I let them stay on for longer than this they not only look like death-warmed-up, but they're tearful and stroppy too and will bicker with me, P and each other continuously! Anyway, I decided to bring up the topic of interesting ideas for next term's "work" (we're starting back next week), thinking I'd get sour looks from both of them. Not so, they seemed very willing to get back to a routine so we brainstormed a few ideas.

Both are really enjoying the "Around the World" topic we started last term, and we'll finish this off in the next few weeks, looking at Japan, USA and the UK. The library has some of the other Palin travel videos which are on hire for free, so we'll probably look at these and do something to boost our limited knowledge of this fascinating world. We're also interested in starting a language, probably Spanish as I've found lots of good websites to help us along. K also started her own lapbook about horses last term and I think she'd like to continue with this. B had so many science and creative games/toys for Christmas which he's gradually working through that no doubt we can all use them to broaden our learning. Would like to do alot more literacy with the children. We have been doing forms of speech (once in a blue moon), but I'd really like the children to use the written language a lot better than they already do. K loves to type stories on the PC and they are very well written, but when it comes to writing short bits of information, say thank you letters or facts for the Flat Traveller's journal, her writing could do with flowing alot better than it does. B is very keen on using the Thesaurus when doing poems, short stories, so I should really encourage this more too. We will be joining others from the HE group for a visit to the local museum in March to participate in an exhibition on light and optics and also a session on Galileo Galilei. It will be a benefit to us all to cover these topics before our visit, so that's scheduled for this term too. K has also expressed an interest in learning HTML. This came up before but we didn't really get very far, perhaps, as the interest is still there, we'll get a book to help teach this kind of programming.

Finally, we thought it would be nice to pinch an idea from another HE family and produce a small newsletter covering some of the most memorable (to K and B) "work" they'd covered last term (September to December). This will be quite a fun thing for them to do and they've already listed a number of items they'd like to write about. I'll keep you posted!

Today K and B had fun on this website, provided by Merry, and they made several beautiful snowflakes which they added to the gallery. Check this one out too, it's great fun. We also looked at how high birds can fly (and how fast), the size of the largest recorded snowflake (both B's questions) and who invented time zones and why (from K). We also got out the house and went to the park, B on his bike and K on her skates - she did exceptionally well.

As promised, here's a piccie of K's freshly decorated bedroom. She's so chuffed with it and B can't wait for his bunk beds to go up next weekend!