And we're off...

Blogger in it's infinite wisdom has changed and "updated" so I hope this works!! I did start trying to type this on my phone but as I am constantly making mistakes I thought it would be wiser to wait until I got a moment to type it properly! When I was a "real" teacher my head of department once described the beginning of the school year like the entrance to a long tunnel. At the beginning of the session we would be heading into that long tunnel, not to be seeing daylight again until the light at the end of June! Well, I am once again empathising with that view again as we start another term. I have to admit that the feeling did consume me last Monday as the prospect of another term lay ahead and what I could have been doing had S been at school flashed through my mind... But, more positively here was another term to learn new things together, to settle even more into routines and to working together and is full of so much promise with so many different things going on. I am so encouraged. This term has started so much more positively than I ever could have predicted. My aim for this term is to build on the maths and english that we are now in a good routine with. This term though we need to spread our wings a wee bit in a curricular sense and learn about other things. To start with we are going to look at the human body. Years ago David and I stupidly signed up to one of these "Build your own skeleton" magazine deals. Several hundred pounds later and a ridiculous number of magazines and muscles later we cancelled our subscription as we realised we'd been well and truly sucked into this deal. We have kept all the issues and the bones etc and I have decided that rather than hide it away in the cupboard in disgrace "Jimmy" (as S has named him!) should be built and studied and put to some good use!! So, the term has started and already after just 2 weeks we have established science on a Tuesday afternoon. As I type the ribs, heart, lungs and spine are lying behind me! S took no time at all to settle back into the term and amazingly has worked independantly for much of the time. I was in no way anticipating him to be working like this yet! I was hoping to begin to encourage this for next year and to start setting little projects but a few times over the last fortnight I have laid the work out on the desk and found him working his way through it! He has even started looking at my planner and working out what he is to do! It is so good!! The workbooks we began in March are great and still working a treat. They seem to be on just the right level for him and are taking us in a very logical way through the topics we need to look at. Other positives are in English. His story writing is definitely beginning to take shape and there is evidence that the time spent on punctuation, sentence structure, adjectives and verbs etc is beginning to pay off which is lovely. Today, we read through some poems. I used to HATE poetry at school. I found it dull and on the whole pointless (apart from war poetry that I found fascinating). Today I wanted to introduce some work on it and simply read 5 or 6 poems to him. It was so good to see his face light up as he worked out what was really happening in the poem or as he simply enjoyed the humour. That is one of those times that I just love teaching and what better pupil to have than your own child!! The weekend was a great time for us. Our church play host to an American School every couple of years and all the students are spread out across the families in the area. We had 2 boys. We spent time with these boys and a lot of their friends and it quickly became evident that many of them had been home schooled for their primary school days. This was so good for S and I to chat about and not feel like the odd ones out. These young folks were lovely and so confident in their faith and themselves that it was such an encouragement. All of them spoke positively about their home schooling experience and in fact many of them spoke about how they would like to do it themselves when they start families. In the back of my mind I always remember that we are experiencing both types of schooling with my other 3 at school and we are still sure that that is the best place for them to be but for S it was really good to see that these "home schooled" kids were normal, fun and intelligent and that S could do just as well as them! So, that's quite a ramble for my first post back! I'm so glad it's Friday as I type. We've only been back 2 weeks but I am tired and looking forward to a couple of days off! That light at the end of the tunnel is nearly there...