MummyTeacher: Autumn

Monday, 28 November 2022

Autumn

The Boy began a preparation year for his US High School Diploma after we eventually decided the GCSE route would give him neither a good education nor the freedom to be flexible enough with his dyslexia. While I was in the US I visited the special services department of the online school his three older sisters attended. With their assistance, we have decided to pursue this route for him instead. It will be slim-lined but he will graduate with the ability to think critically within the framework of a classical curriculum, just like his sisters.

So he's been busy with his new curriculum. He still attends Taekwondo, trains with and plays for his local rugby team twice a week, attends Cadets twice a week, swims twice a week, goes to youth club once a fortnight, and plays the guitar in his spare time.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II died in September. We took time to commemorate her life and honour her death.

Long live the King.

Now that two older sisters have left home, Sunbaby has a kitten to fill the hole in her heart and as a little study buddy. She is much loved and much cuddled.

Sunbaby has started her first curriculum too with The Good and Beautiful. This has eased the pressure on the need for me to spend my evenings doing homeschool planning now I have re-started my degree.

She does maths, literacy and nature study.

And we fill the time around it with our customary thematic units.

It seemed apt to do a mini project on pets while Sunbaby learned the ins and outs of caring for her kitten.

Then we moved on to a thematic unit on Autumn: something we do every year, with new tangents and angles.

We picked some apples and pears from our community orchard.

Leaf rubbing the leaves from the orchard

Laminated and made into autumn place mats

Working through her workbooks

Reading

Decorating our nature finds

Learning about coniferous tress

Autumn walks

Somebody made a surprise visit from university

Making her own autumn tree

Pumpkins, bats, spiders and acorns

A long autumn walk...

...with a stop for lunch

These two

Pumpkin lifecycles

Chocolate cake and custard

Watching the leaves change colour

Learning about bees in her nature study book

Flowers in oil pastels

Autumn collage

Ready for a morning of hard work

Hibernating

Sunbaby planted her pumpkin seeds last year and after they grew into saplings this spring she asked her cousins to finish growing them in their vegetable garden. She was utterly thrilled to pick them when they'd grown.