Lockdown Week 2

Making his new desk

We have survived another week of lockdown - yay!

It has gone quite well really, haven't been clock watching, Tom to be fair has been pretty good, home schooling has gone way better than I imagined.

What have we been doing:

Monday: Joe Wicks, English, Maths, Reading, Mindfulness (DIY - the boys made Tom's new desk) and diary writing

Tuesday: Jess' Pilates, English, Maths, Reading, Mindfulness (DIY - Tom pretty much made a chest of drawers by himself), diary writing

Making chest of drawers

Wednesday: Joe Wicks, Steve Backshall, English, Maths, Reading, Mindfulness (Baking: 2x apple crumbles and 1x banana cake), diary writing

Thursday: Jess' Pilates, English, Maths, Yr 6 Zoom meeting, Reading, Mindfulness (Lego - we've decided to make all the kits again) diary writing

Friday: Joe Wicks, English Maths, Reading, Mindfulness (Gyoza making), catch up email to Mrs Clements.

Making Crumble

In English Tom has been writing a story about a boy, Klaus Schmidt, caught up in an earthquake in Vienna.  I get the earthquake bit (Matt and Kobe earthquake) but where the Austrian bit came from I have no idea.  He's been looking up streets and features in Vienna to make it realistic, but did zero planning so it is all over the place.  However, he is enjoying writing it (got to 1,000 words which he is really proud of) so I'm letting him.  I'm sure he is breaking every rule that Mrs C has taught him!  The school suggested a Covid 19 scrapbook - as we are living in historical times.  I have started this with him, but it is a bit of a task - Tom's really not up for it.  We will see if we mange to get anything useful done.

In Maths we have done measurements and BODMAS - I managed to find some worksheets on line which Tom was happy to work on.  The rest of the time was spent doing maths games.

In Reading we both lie on a sofa each with an animal after lunch read for 30 mins and then spend 5 minutes describing what has happened in our books to each other.  Seems to work - both of us are reading books set in India at the moment which helps.

Bonkers Zoom Meeting

On Thursday, one of the parents arranged a Zoom meeting for the whole of Year 6.  It was completely bonkers - 18 children on the screen at the same time shouting on top of each other - there was no one conversation, but they were all genuinely happy to see each other and it brought a lot of cheer into the house.  As I walked past the screen at one point I got a happy chorus of 'Hello Tom's Mum!'

Lego project

We have breaks at roughly the same time as school and Tom stops work at 3.30 (the same as school) when the snooker table seems to come out.  At this point, Matt tends to come down for work, the whisky gets opened and we have a dram whilst playing snooker.  Then we watch an episode of Malory Towers (a new adaptation on the BBC which they released earlier because of the lockdown and is surprisingly good.  I loved Malory Towers as a girl, and they have stayed true to it - except they have brought in ethnic minorities and introduced a good strong streak of feminism - oh and some of the actresses are Canadian)  I have discovered that I have remembered the books almost word for word and therefore know exactly what is

going to happen in every episode.

Eating gyoza

Then we have tea and then head out for our 'Boris Walk'.  We have been discovering lots of new walks around Ingleton and generally fit in a 3 to 4 mile walk before heading back home, jump in the shower, have a snack, listen to David Walliams 'Worst Children' and bed.

Making gyoza

The days are tending to go smoothly and quickly enough.  We will see how the 'Easter holidays' go - no school work to structure the day - but we have thought of some activities we can do instead - what we really need to happen is have the paint delivered for Tom's bedroom - that would kill quite a few hours...