Before baby I was born I never had to stop lessons to feed, change nappies, clean sick, and all the other wonderful things babies demand. We were able to spend the whole day baking, doing crazy science experiments, going out for long walks to see what wonderful creations of Allaah we could spot, and I think I automatically expected to go back to that after his arrival, and when this never happened I felt like I was doing something wrong. For the last few days I have felt quite sad and once again questioned my ability to home educate my children. However after my long talk with my family and a good old cup of tea (I am so English lol) I have realised that with a new baby comes new changes, and that is all it is, a change! It does not have to be the end, we simply have to adapt to having a little baby in the house. So as of today I have hung up my super mum cape and just put on my plain old mum one, it suits me much better I must say. I now see that it is OK if we do not complete some big project every week, or if every now and again we have a relaxed day where the children just paint or do some colouring in, or if we simply spend the whole day just enjoying each others company and just talking together about our interests and life in general.
Today was a much better day with much less stress from me, which means less stress put on the children. Learning is no fun for them if I am miserable and always tired from trying to do too much. I hope this more relaxed way continues as it was so nice to see the children smiling and enjoying their time learning. Here is how our relaxed day went:
9am - Breakfast and then wash and dress (we usually start learning dead on 9am so I was panicking at this stage. I really have to learn to let go a little).
10am - Discussed today's weather (and weather in general) and filled out a weather chart that we bought in the 99p shop.
10.30am to 11.30am - L done some colouring in and looked through a book to see how many words she could find that began with the letter blends BL, BR and TR. This gave me the chance to work with A on his measuring in cm work that he had started in his Maths book.
11.30am to 12pm - A and L played with the shopping list game that we picked up for 99p in the charity shop while I fed baby (and had a nose on Facebook).
12pm to 1.30pm - Discussed Changing States and looked at how water can be solid, liquid and gas. We took some ice from the freezer and the children put some in the fridge, some on the side and some in water and they wanted to time how long it took each one to melt. A little mini experiment led by them which is always nice.
1.30pm to 3pm - The children had lunch and played upstairs for a while and I managed to get some washing done and wash up all the lunch things.
3pm to 4pm - The children sat and read some Islamic books out loud to each other which gave me the chance to listen to their reading while at the same time preparing some food for the evening. I was really impressed with how their reading has improved maashaaAllaah. We have picked up some really great books from local charity shops and A and L really do love to read.
4pm to 4.30pm - We made cupcakes!! This was my favourite part of the whole day as it was so nice and relaxed. Usually I make baking a real structured lesson but today I simply let go and let the children have fun in the kitchen....we even licked the bowl clean!
We ended our relaxed schooling day with a nice tea and cake break where we all sat on the mat and discussed how we had spent the day. The children are now sat watching a wildlife DVD whilst I feed baby and share our day with you all :-)
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