I wasn't going to write a blog tonight but i thought I'd do a quickie because something pretty good happened today and I have to get it on record!
It all started when I just had to turn the television just after lunch. It'd been on all morning, watching repeats of Tree Fu Tom, Sponge Bob and playing Skylanders and I just go sick of it and said it was going off. Jamie had gone upstairs anyway and Alex didn't seem to mind.
Just on the off-chance, I showed Alex an english work book that I'd ordered for him. (They were the same ones that I got for Jamie a couple of weeks ago that were on offer at the checkout at the supermarket, it was a impulse buy, thought they might get used and they are curriculum linked, only for my peace of mind so that i get an idea of where abouts they are-I know, i still find it hard to let go!- so i found some for Alex's level online.)
Thinking that he'd not be interested at all, i had a sudden brainwave and said that i'd do the writing down for him, and he said "OK!"
So i read it out to him, he answered the questions, and then i wrote them down, and he did 8 pages!!
Then Jamie came came down and was really shocked to see that Alex had caught up with her on the sticker chart that they'd decided to make the other day - they decided that for every page of work they do, they get a sticker and when they have ten stickers, i'm supposed to have a tub full of little toys for them to choose one!!
So Jamie quickly got her workbooks out, thinking it was some sort of competition, I did explain to her that it wasn't, but she didn't want to listen to me, and plowed on and did some more (her ones are harder so take a bit longer) and she got a bit panicky!
After a bit of a battle with Jamie and me, me helping her to see that it's not a competition, and there is no winners or losers, it turned into a 3 hour, solid reading, maths and english extravaganza!
Alex read about 8 books!
Then he did some more from his english workbook, then, while i was helping Jamie with her new maths problems, he made up his own sums, and he even got them round the right way instead of right-to-left, and i could see how playing skylanders has been helping him because he was adding up big numbers and getting them right!
Jamie worked really hard and cracked a quicker way to add up big numbers.
So much work was done!
And it really made a difference to Alex that I did the writing for him, he must find it really difficult.
And just tonight, they both tidied their rooms up without me saying anything!!
Amelia is sitting on the rug in front of me putting a train track together, she's really coming on well too.
I know we're unschooling, but i still cant help get excited about the amount they did today, it's happened just the way I've heard it does - weeks of watching tv or not seeming to do much at all, and then all of a sudden a whole half a terms worth of stuff gets done in a day! I could really tell that they learnt so much in a couple of hours today, it really went in, rather than if they were to be forced to do it and not really be interested, it would've taken a lot longer to sink in.
It was lovely to see :)
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