Our Plans: Such as they are...

New Year on the Horizon Alert!!

We have sat and discussed this together and this term (before the end of March) we hope to do this:

English
Emily still likes the Wizard workbooks and would like to do some more of these, so we will be continuing to use the KS1 workbooks we started last term. We enjoy our morning reading sessions, although now Emily can read we seem to have lost our way with these, so we hope to find a paperback to share. We are looking for opportunities to do useful writing as she is not keen on writing for no reason - we have joined Postcrossing, we hope to write letters to the Nannys, and I hope to get her writing my shopping lists etc. I would like her to try to form her letters correctly, but she disagrees. We will also be looking at the spellings of basic rhyming words to help Emily with her spelling which she has identified as something she would like to do.

Maths
Again Emily would like to carry on with the Little Wizard workbooks. She also enjoys Whizz.com and Education City. We also have subscriptions (via Home Ed groups) to Mathletics and Grid, which we have not yet explored.
She has identified that she would like to learn how to tell the time, we have numerous resources for this: Cards, watches, timers and a large cardbook clock to name but a few.

Science
We would like to finish our Space project and reward ourselves with a visit to the Space Centre. After this, we would like to concentrate on planet Earth. Emily is interested in Volcanoes, so we will look at these and earthquakes and if time allows we will move onto weather.

Geography
We will continue our exploration of Geography from big to small. As Emily is able to identify the Continents, we will continue to explore the countries. We will hopefully be doing this with the help of Postcrossing. We will look at the countries as we receive cards, and we will use news stories to fill in any gaps.

History
We have finished our work on the Stone Age, so moving forward our next logical step is the Bronze and Iron age. I need to think further about how we can do this, as I don't intend it to be a long project.

We will also continue to cook each week and do as many arts and crafts as we can. We will visit as many Home Ed groups as we wish to, and we will spend as much time with our friends as possible.

Panto time

Every year, we take Emily to see the Panto. We used to take James and Kate, but at 20 and 17 we doubt they'd join in - and where's the fun in a panto if you're not shouting at the stage and singing songs about Bums?
Exactly - so they stay at home and complain that we don't take them!
This year we went to Loughborough Town Hall to see their production of Beauty and the Beast. It was excellent, plenty to join in with and shout about, fake snow falling from the ceiling onto us and lots of opportunities to get squirted with water (I'm easily pleased!).
But best of all - Emily was chosen to go up on the stage, something she has been desperate to do for many years but has never been chosen. In fact it has probably been her number one wish for a couple of years, and yesterday her wish came true. I'm not certain the experience lived up to the dreams, as she didn't like it when she thought people were laughing at her, but she stood on the stage in front of a theatre full of people and spoke clealy and confidently to a very large man dressed in a frock.
Proud Mum moment.

Postcrossing

We have started Postcrossing as an addition to our work on World Geography. We have sent 3 postcards so far:

1. To Finland
2. To Luxembourg
3. To Germany

Emily has found these places on our world map and we are looking forward to receiving some cards too. We have been into Leicester to buy some more postcards, and we will send 2 more tomorrow:

1. To USA
2. To France.

Here's hoping it works...