Weekly Wrap up 4

This week has been a mixed week for us. Our plan for the week didn't go exactly to plan as often seems to be the case when I plan!!!

Monday was ok. We got everything I wanted done besides French and Science. The kids decided for time-out period they wanted to go bug hunting and they really enjoyed that and found a caterpillar, a stick insect and a moth. This led to them learning about the lifecycle of butterflies. So not a bad day really.

Tuesday they both did their Bible, English and FLL3 ok. Then we decided on a good present for christmas for my family would be a book written by them with their own stories and pictures. They were very keen to get started on this straight away and by the end of the week had got a good story down. They aren't finished yet and they will need a few corrections but I am thinking of once they have them written down then going through them correcting mistakes and particularly in E's case making sure that it makes sense and is easy to follow. Then I will probably type it up and they can add lots of pictures so it will be a nice storybook made by each of them. Then we can get it published by Lulu or another self publishing site.

J's Story so far:






E's Story so far:





On Tuesday evening the kids were in the Lion King show at the hotel so we had another late night.

Wednesday ended up being a bit of a lazy day. We had to go grocery shopping as the cupboards were looking increasingly bare. They kept going back and doing more of their stories periodically. The plan pretty much went out the window by this point.


Thursday we didn't get much done at all. The kids made some figures out of clay including a lovely dolphin by J and some love hearts by E.





They also found a stick insect on the sweeping brush.





We caught up on our Bible reading in the evening.


Friday turned into a goodish day in the end despite getting off to a dubious start.

It started when E came down and hid behind the kitchen breakfast bar. Dh had just got up and was making the coffee and I was on the computer. I knew she was hiding there but pretended I didn't. I said to dh how I can't wait for the kids to get up so we can get on with finishing up their schoolwork. I said I have some fun stuff they might like to do. Apparantly E was sat behind the counter shaking her head with her fingers to her lips and trying hard not to giggle but you could hear her giggling. J joined her on the kitchen floor behind the breakfast bar. I started going through the list of things I wanted to do and they would either nod or shake their head to dh depending on whether they actually wanted to do them or not.

It started off quite fun and there was lots of humour involved but by the end of it they pretended to sneak back upstairs I felt quite hurt that they didn't want to sit and do their schoolwork. I was upset and was thinking I must be a failure as a homeschooling mum if the kids would rather play in their rooms all day then come downstairs and do some seatwork with me.

After another hour or so of faffing about and the kids avoiding me dh put his foot down and called them downstairs and gave them both the choice: they either work for me and we do homeschool and be done in 3 hours if they work well or they can go to school for 6 hours and they will have to pay attention in lessons and then when they come home have at least one hours homework per night and have to go to bed early so they can be up in time to do it all again the next day.

E immediately said homeschool. I know she would find it hard going to school as she suffers with Selective Mutism (a fear of talking in public) and school made it worse. She has improved a lot and 98% of the time it isn't even an issue for us now she is not in school. She will talk sometimes to others but I think she finds it easier in front of strangers than people we have known for a while.

J sat there with a funny look on his face and said he didn't know. Dh told him that he had to decide what he wanted to do as he was fed up of them bunking off upstairs all the time and not working for me.

At that stage I honestly thought he was going to say that he wanted to go to school when we get back to England. I was preparing myself for it and cuddled him and said if he wanted to try school I wouldn't stop him. Whatever he wanted to do was his decision and I would do my best to support it. I was thinking that if he had have said school then he could try it for a month or two and then would realise that he was looking at it through rose-tinted spectacles and come home.

Fortunately he eventually decided he wanted to be homeschooled still.

After that they both worked really well. E finished up the rest of the maths I had assigned for this week and then went on to finish her book. J did the rest of his week's worth of GP Junior English 1. He ended up doing more than the week's worth too as he was itching to do the wordsearch near the end of chapter 1.

I was pleased with what they got through in the end but we still have quite a bit of work on the plan for the week outstanding:

Seatwork:
History Pockets Ancient Civilizations - Pocket 3 Ancient Egypt
J's maths for the rest of the week (4 days worth) p18 - 23 (HW bk - p39 - 42)
WWE wk 3 day 3+4
FLL3 Lesson 8
Science - Education City
French - Education City
Music - Making posters of each section of orchestra

Read-Alouds:
Atticus Storyteller: Rainbow Eggs; War & Strife; The Baby & the Cows
Horrible Histories: Awesome Egyptians
AO Week 3 readings
Charlotte's Web ch 16 - 22

Reading:
J - Magic Tree House: Mummies in the Morning - ch 1 - 10
E - Imogen Ice Dance Fairy (Rainbow Magic) - ch 3 - 6

I will more than likely just plan it into next week's work instead but I feel like such a huge failure at the moment that we can't get through the work I planned for us. I haven't spent anything like as much time on the computer this week as I think that has contributed in the past to us not getting as much done as I would like. I don't think I am overscheduling us but perhaps I am I just don't know.

I am going to have a good think over this weekend over how to make it fun as it hurts that the kids don't want to do the work. I thought they liked the work we did but perhaps I was wrong.


I think one of the reasons I am stressing about things so much is that I am worried about coming under the scrutiny of the LEA in England. I am certain they will find out about us almost straight away and worry that they will think we aren't doing enough and make the kids go to school.

Anyway sorry to rant. Feel a little better for getting it off my chest.

The kids were in the Aladdin show at the hotel last night where J was Abu the monkey (he's my cheeky monkey!) and E was Princess Jasmine's younger sister (she's my princess!) so I shall end on a positive note with a picture of them posing!!









Thanks to Kris at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers for hosting the Weekly Wrap Up.