Although it is winter, we have had lovely sunny days - well, cold, but sunny :) Freezing sun or sunny freeze? Anyhow, we have been able to go on some lovely walks:
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| Friends |
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| Frozen in time |
Sunday, February 12, 2012
London
In the middle of January we took a train to London - we bought a family railcard (on a special at 1/3rd of the price) and this card gives discounts on train trips. We have used it a couple of times and it has already paid its way :)
And we are blessed to have friends in London so that we didn't have to pay for accommodation - we stayed with Judy, a friend we met in Keswick, in Streatham, South West London.
We only went for 3 days. Gary attended John Stott's memorial service at St Pauls Cathedral on Friday the 13th. While he was there, The girls and I went to the SA consulate to renew their passports - good thing we did, as it takes 4 months to get it back - and they expire 15th of May!! You'd think in today's technological age, that they wouldn't have to send them all the way to SA to issue! Ah well, at least the photos were accepted - I thought they'd send us away as we had the photos taken at an ID-photo booth and the lady ahead of us who had done the same had her photos rejected - phew! But we had a lovely chat to the lady behind the counter who comes from Kimberley:)
After that we had a quick visit to the National Art Gallery before meeting Gary at St Pauls.
We then headed to the Tower of London. Thanks to Tesco (our supermarket) we had vouchers that they exchanged for entrance to the Tower - so only paid £25 instead of £55 for a family ticket - that would have been ouch!!
The Tower is a worthwhile place to visit - so much history happened there and of course the Crown Jewels, which include the largest diamond in the world, South Africa's Cullinan diamond:
And we are blessed to have friends in London so that we didn't have to pay for accommodation - we stayed with Judy, a friend we met in Keswick, in Streatham, South West London.
We only went for 3 days. Gary attended John Stott's memorial service at St Pauls Cathedral on Friday the 13th. While he was there, The girls and I went to the SA consulate to renew their passports - good thing we did, as it takes 4 months to get it back - and they expire 15th of May!! You'd think in today's technological age, that they wouldn't have to send them all the way to SA to issue! Ah well, at least the photos were accepted - I thought they'd send us away as we had the photos taken at an ID-photo booth and the lady ahead of us who had done the same had her photos rejected - phew! But we had a lovely chat to the lady behind the counter who comes from Kimberley:)
After that we had a quick visit to the National Art Gallery before meeting Gary at St Pauls.
We then headed to the Tower of London. Thanks to Tesco (our supermarket) we had vouchers that they exchanged for entrance to the Tower - so only paid £25 instead of £55 for a family ticket - that would have been ouch!!
The Tower is a worthwhile place to visit - so much history happened there and of course the Crown Jewels, which include the largest diamond in the world, South Africa's Cullinan diamond:
Here are some of the photos from our time in London:
Alexandra has declared London her favourite city as there is so much to see and take photos of :)
Church Family
Since we arrived in Bristol, we have attended Woodlands Christian Church, Clifton. It was a good place to start and Sarah especially has found a home Devotion, the youth on a Friday evening.
But apart from attending the breakfast service on a Sunday - and a wonderful service it was, breakfast aside :), we didn't really get involved - although Gary did help out a bit at Sunday School.
In fact, we met people from Hebron Fellowship, a local church in our village and we became more involved there - I attend the weekly Bible Study, we support the monthly village cafe, sometimes attend Messy Church and other church events during the year, like Shrove Tuesday for pancakes and Carol services. Gary also goes on the men's walks.
Therefore, at the beginning of this year we decided to attend Hebron weekly. It is great to be able to walk to church and also have a better sense of community. Sarah will continue to go to Devo at Woodlands and Alexandra joins in with Hebron's youth - mini NRG - every second week. Both girls attend the Sunday School at Hebron.
And so, for as long as we are still in Long Ashton, this is our new church family
But apart from attending the breakfast service on a Sunday - and a wonderful service it was, breakfast aside :), we didn't really get involved - although Gary did help out a bit at Sunday School.
In fact, we met people from Hebron Fellowship, a local church in our village and we became more involved there - I attend the weekly Bible Study, we support the monthly village cafe, sometimes attend Messy Church and other church events during the year, like Shrove Tuesday for pancakes and Carol services. Gary also goes on the men's walks.
Therefore, at the beginning of this year we decided to attend Hebron weekly. It is great to be able to walk to church and also have a better sense of community. Sarah will continue to go to Devo at Woodlands and Alexandra joins in with Hebron's youth - mini NRG - every second week. Both girls attend the Sunday School at Hebron.
And so, for as long as we are still in Long Ashton, this is our new church family
School's cool
Yay! Our week off starts on Monday. Actually, for Alexandra, it started this past Wednesday. You see, we started a sequence of 4 weeks on, 1 week off. I felt this was a bit too short (sure the girls weren't too unhappy with it, though) so I then decided to do 5 weeks on, 1 week off instead. This worked much better for me. But then, just before Christmas, I realised that if we did 6 weeks, we could have 2 weeks off around Christmas - bonus! So after some negotiating (and motivating!), that's what we did. And it wasn't too bad :) 6 weeks seemed to go by with us all coping. When we picked up tools again in January, without saying anything, I just let us keep going into the 6th week!
Oh dear! Melt down!
By Tuesday, I could see Alexandra was not coping too well. By Wednesday, she was in tears! And so, because home educating our children is also about watching over them, taking note of where they are at, I called a halt to her school time. Phew, sigh of relief all round.
I gave Sarah the option of stopping as well, but she had set herself goals of completing certain tasks by Friday, so she continued with those and now she can also take a break.
With Sarah now in "secondary school", she is doing more work independently. I miss our times working together :( we used to do SA history
together, but now they each do their own work.
Sarah has started Algebra I (Math-U-See) as well as working through some Key Stage 3 work. She is working towards doing English Language and English literature iGCSE (possibly in November, depending on where we are!) She is following a super course by Catherine Mooney.
For Science she has completed Apologia's Exploring Creation through General Science and has started on their Biology book.
And for History/Geography, she is working through a Bob Jones course, World Studies.
Sarah is easy - like me she enjoys working through books in this way.
Alexandra is different! (It has taken me along time to get to the place where I am comfortable changing how/what she learns!...sigh!!)
She is not a workbook type person! She also doesn't like learning for the sake of learning - she wants a reason for it! And she wants a say in what she learns.
So: Maths and English just have to be (in my opinion!!) She continues with Math-U-See Epsilon. Both also do Mathletics - a super online maths programme available in different countries.
For English, we are still using Bob Jones grammar and writing as well as their reading/literature programme.
For the rest, this is what we are doing:
She opted at the end of last year to use Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology.
I think she wishes now she had rather chosen the animals book, but she is persevering.
For geography, instead of bookwork, we bought a CD ROM programme, but quite honestly, it is just bookwork on a computer, so she is not that keen on it.
BUT! We have gone the route of given her the option to either work with the science or geography as mentioned above, or not. If not, she can read/investigate/internet search whatever she wants to :) And this is working much better. She does still use the programmes we bought, but every so often, she finds something else she would rather read about. She has even bought herself a book on astronomy on her Kindle and is much keener now on telling us what she is learning about ;)
So, a bit of a break through there, I think. Now I am keeping my eyes open for books that she may want to read and look through. And to inspire Sarah to also look further than her "school books" :)
But I do miss our times of working together, and so this is what I have come up with :)
On Friday, we only do English and MUS. And for the rest we together read some poetry - Christina Rossetti has been our poet these last few weeks:
LOWERS preach to us if we will hear:--
For music appreciation, we listen to Classics4Kids and I have bought a membership to Naxos, which means we can listen to a lot more of a composer's work during the week :) We also do some music theory together. Individually, the girls are moving along beautifully with their instruments. Sarah has moved onto Gr 2 violin and Alexandra has added strumming chords on her guitar.
Art (previously a 3-letter word!) has also found more of a home in our home.
Using a slightly Charlotte Mason approach : , “Children should learn pictures, line by line, group by group,
we have looked at artists like Thomas Cole, George Seurat, Berthe Morisot and Alfred Sisley
.
Some of the time we have just looked and talked about the pictures, other times we "reproduced" a work and sometimes we did work in an artist's style. I am thankful to Nadine and Patti for their ideas!
But for our own pictures, we have joined in with Sketch Tuesday . Here are some of the pictures we have done:
And lastly, we have also added nature study into our routine on a Friday - although, we don't always do all of the above on 1 Friday. We have done nature walks and hunts in woodlands around Long Ashton and also sometimes followed ideas by One Hour Nature challenge
So all in all, it is working for us at the moment...but, like all life, our home educating journey is dynamic and I constantly need to ask our Lord for wisdom to change/add/remove... as He leads. After all, He made our children and knows them infinitely better than we do. And He knows the plans He has for them :)
Oh dear! Melt down!
 |
| (Original picture at http://images.search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0PDoTD52TdP.C4AyQKjzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTBtdXBkbHJyBHNlYwNmcC1hdHRyaWIEc2xrA3J1cmw-/SIG=12vsl58at/EXP=1329089145/**http%3a//www.onlysuper.com/index.php/2009/09/02/super-crying-melting-glacier/) |
I gave Sarah the option of stopping as well, but she had set herself goals of completing certain tasks by Friday, so she continued with those and now she can also take a break.
With Sarah now in "secondary school", she is doing more work independently. I miss our times working together :( we used to do SA history
and science (Exploring God's creation)
Sarah has started Algebra I (Math-U-See) as well as working through some Key Stage 3 work. She is working towards doing English Language and English literature iGCSE (possibly in November, depending on where we are!) She is following a super course by Catherine Mooney.
For Science she has completed Apologia's Exploring Creation through General Science and has started on their Biology book.
And for History/Geography, she is working through a Bob Jones course, World Studies.
Sarah is easy - like me she enjoys working through books in this way.
Alexandra is different! (It has taken me along time to get to the place where I am comfortable changing how/what she learns!...sigh!!)
She is not a workbook type person! She also doesn't like learning for the sake of learning - she wants a reason for it! And she wants a say in what she learns.
So: Maths and English just have to be (in my opinion!!) She continues with Math-U-See Epsilon. Both also do Mathletics - a super online maths programme available in different countries.
For English, we are still using Bob Jones grammar and writing as well as their reading/literature programme.
For the rest, this is what we are doing:
She opted at the end of last year to use Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology.
I think she wishes now she had rather chosen the animals book, but she is persevering.
For geography, instead of bookwork, we bought a CD ROM programme, but quite honestly, it is just bookwork on a computer, so she is not that keen on it.
BUT! We have gone the route of given her the option to either work with the science or geography as mentioned above, or not. If not, she can read/investigate/internet search whatever she wants to :) And this is working much better. She does still use the programmes we bought, but every so often, she finds something else she would rather read about. She has even bought herself a book on astronomy on her Kindle and is much keener now on telling us what she is learning about ;)
So, a bit of a break through there, I think. Now I am keeping my eyes open for books that she may want to read and look through. And to inspire Sarah to also look further than her "school books" :)
But I do miss our times of working together, and so this is what I have come up with :)
On Friday, we only do English and MUS. And for the rest we together read some poetry - Christina Rossetti has been our poet these last few weeks:
LOWERS preach to us if we will hear:-- - The rose saith in the dewy morn:
- I am most fair;
- Yet all my loveliness is born
- Upon a thorn.
- The poppy saith amid the corn:
- Let but my scarlet head appear
- And I am held in scorn;
- Yet juice of subtle virtue lies
- Within my cup of curious dyes.
- The lilies say: Behold how we
- Preach without words of purity.
- The violets whisper from the shade
- Which their own leaves have made:
- Men scent our fragrance on the air,
- Yet take no heed
- Of humble lessons we would read.
- But not alone the fairest flowers:
- The merest grass
- Along the roadside where we pass,
- Lichen and moss and sturdy weed,
- Tell of His love who sends the dew,
- The rain and sunshine too,
- To nourish one small seed.
For music appreciation, we listen to Classics4Kids and I have bought a membership to Naxos, which means we can listen to a lot more of a composer's work during the week :) We also do some music theory together. Individually, the girls are moving along beautifully with their instruments. Sarah has moved onto Gr 2 violin and Alexandra has added strumming chords on her guitar.
Art (previously a 3-letter word!) has also found more of a home in our home.
Using a slightly Charlotte Mason approach : , “Children should learn pictures, line by line, group by group,
reading, not books, but pictures themselves.
… After a short story of the artist’s life … the pictures are studied one at a time.
Children learn not merely to see a picture but to look at it, taking in every detail.” (Taken from Practical Pages)we have looked at artists like Thomas Cole, George Seurat, Berthe Morisot and Alfred Sisley
 |
| Thomas Cole - Garden of Eden |
Some of the time we have just looked and talked about the pictures, other times we "reproduced" a work and sometimes we did work in an artist's style. I am thankful to Nadine and Patti for their ideas!
But for our own pictures, we have joined in with Sketch Tuesday . Here are some of the pictures we have done:
 |
| Alexandra - Wild West |
 |
| Sarah - Super Hero |
And lastly, we have also added nature study into our routine on a Friday - although, we don't always do all of the above on 1 Friday. We have done nature walks and hunts in woodlands around Long Ashton and also sometimes followed ideas by One Hour Nature challenge
So all in all, it is working for us at the moment...but, like all life, our home educating journey is dynamic and I constantly need to ask our Lord for wisdom to change/add/remove... as He leads. After all, He made our children and knows them infinitely better than we do. And He knows the plans He has for them :)
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