16 - 30 May (weeks 20 and 21) Free choice week and ...sort of free choice week?
We had a bit of a rethink and a chat in our recent free choice week. It was starting to feel like we were planning a lot of activities that were feeling more and more like "lessons". More for convenience than anything I think it just crept in and felt like Vin was having less of a decision in it. So we had a good week off and relaxed a bit and then the next week we took things a bit easier. Part of the reason for home educating is because the chop and change nature of school, where things are learned for the sake of "this is what we're learning about" doesn't feel natural to me and it had been feeling like we weren't able to just take our time and see where things took us. Vin seems to learn more when he reads books he's chosen, when he's relaxed and having a nice time and just able to be. as well as to have that balance of listening to your own needs, when you need to rest, when you want to really get into something. I think this leans more towards an unschooling philosophy which really sounds like it would suit us both more than a fully structured approach and was more how we started out before I started worrying about comparing to other families or "keeping up" with friends at schools.
Of course this makes it harder to remember to note down everything we have learned or been doing because it's just a bit more random where and when it happens and so much is more just conversations or looking at things. Also sometimes me and Alex are working on things or reading things and Vin will be watching or we'll tell him things so it's a bit more spontaneous, and maybe it's not always that Vinnie joins in with something every time but he'll be taking things in.
With that in mind, here's some of what we've been up to!
We've been for a few nice walks outside. The bluebells are out so late this year, it's nice to still have them to look at even in late May. We took a walk around the nearby golf course and saw so many lovely flowers and plants.
We built some funny models with Vin's IQ Key.
We watched quite a few stories on Vooks. There was one that told us loads about what lived in different seashells.
Vin has got into Octonauts again this week too, he watched the Netflix specials and enjoyed seeing the different kinds of marine creatures. He also liked the first few episodes of a show called "Waffles and Mochi." It was about different foods and the characters went all around the world to learn about ingredients and recipes.
We've read some lovely books - we borrowed a lot from the library again! Floella Benjamin's "Coming to England" picture book was really interesting. We chatted about what it would be like to move to a country that was quite different to where you were born. We also borrowed a great book about Trees and Plants. It had some really cool pictures in. Vin still loves reading so much he's read loads of books this week - it's been nice for him to have a bit more time to do that but he reads so many I don't even know all of what he's read to keep a note of it! Going forward I think I'll just make a note at the bottom of each blog copying from his library page what he has borrowed.
We played one of my Exit! games together, solving puzzles and riddles. We also played some other board games such as Talisman and Monopoly. He also just likes to get the pieces out and play with them in different ways.
We planted our bean seeds in the garden and made stands for them to grow up. We also planted some other pots full of herbs and strawberries.
We played with the pattern blocks a bit. I played a game spinning to see how many parts of a shape to add to my board and then add those fractions. Vin helped a bit but then decided to make his own shape. We decided to work out how to make our central hexagons bigger, making sure they stayed a hexagon each time. It created some pretty patterns!
We did a lot more reading together this week which was really nice as he's mostly been doing reading on his own recently. It means we can chat about things a lot more when we read together. Vin always tells me really interesting facts about things as we read. We particularly liked reading the "Birds" book together. it was interesting to see how the inside of an egg has similarities to how baby mammals grow.
We played a game with pretty butterflies with true or false maths facts on them.
I printed out some other bits and pieces just to leave around to look at. There were pictures of butterflies and chrysalis and caterpillars.
Vin practiced a bit more food prep this week, chopping up pears for snack and helping to get things ready for us.
We went to the playground with some friends too and Vin and his daddy went to Trosley Country Park. It looked really nice there so we will definitely go again together soon!
I keep thinking of things and then forgetting them so may update this again later!
Books currently borrowed from Library:
 | Coming to EnglandBenjamin, Floella2020 Books |
 | Rosie Revere's big project book for bold engineersBeaty, Andrea2017 Books |
 | Barbara throws a wobblerShireen, Nadia2021 Books |
 | Mr Lemoncello's great library raceGrabenstein, Chris2018 Books |
 | Trees, leaves, flowers & seeds : a visual encyclopedia of the plant kingdom2019 Books |
 | Who shouted boo?Grindley, Sally2010 Books | 04 Jun 2021 |
 | The mysterious earthGrindley, Sally2010 Books | 04 Jun 2021 |
 | The astonishing case of the stolen storiesSandu, Anca2014 Books | 04 Jun 2021 |
 | Epic adventuresMarch, Julia2019 Books | 08 Jun 2021 |
 | The 78-storey treehouseGriffiths, Andy, 1961-2017 Books | 08 Jun 2021 | 1 reserve |
 | Traction Man and the beach odysseyGrey, Mini2012 Books | 08 Jun 2021 |
 | Make a wishLenton, Steven2021 Books | 08 Jun 2021 |
 | Corpse talkMurphy, Adam2014 Books | 08 Jun 2021 |
 | Sea-ing is believing!Butler, Steven, 1983-2019 Books | 08 Jun 2021 |
 | Look after us : a lift-the-flap bookCampbell, Rod, 1945-2021 Books | 08 Jun 2021 |
 | Herman's holidayPercival, Tom, 1977-2015 Books | 08 Jun 2021 |
 | Cheer up your teddy bear, Emily Brown!Cowell, Cressida2012 Books | 08 Jun 2021 |
 | The wild robot escapesBrown, Peter, 1979-2018 Books | 08 Jun 2021 |
 | Fox in socksSeuss, Dr2003 Books | 08 Jun 2021 |
 | Sneaky BeakCorderoy, Tracey2019 Books | 08 Jun 2021 |
 | The rabbit problemGravett, Emily2010 Books | 11 Jun 2021 | Renewed 2 times |
 | Meesha makes friendsPercival, Tom, 1977-2020 Books | 14 Jun 2021 | Renewed 4 times |
 | Rosie Revere, engineerBeaty, Andrea2013 Books | 14 Jun 2021 | Renewed 4 times |
 | The bat bookMilner, Charlotte2020 Books | 21 Jun 2021 | Renewed 2 times |
 | Birds : explore, create and investigateUnwin, Mike2019 Books | 21 Jun 2021 | Renewed 3 times |
 | Around the world with the Ingreedies : a taste adventureBather, Zoe2016 Books | 21 Jun 2021 | Renewed 3 times |
 | Maya AngelouKaiser, Lisbeth2016 Books | 21 Jun 2021 | Renewed 3 times |
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