I had a different opening typed out for this post - then I fell asleep! The girls were restless last night and bed time dragged on (and on). Eventually I fell asleep beside the twins, this still sitting comfortably in my drafts.
This happens quite at lot!
The dishwasher wasn’t loaded, there were things on every surface when we woke up this morning and I hadn’t prepared any homeschool resources whatsoever.
While I don’t drop off with the girls every night, even on a good evening I lose at least an hour to housework. Then I have the dilemma - do I start prepping resources at 10pm? Do I go to bed now so I’m well rested for tomorrow? Do I stay up for another hour - or two - enjoying the glorious peace and quiet one only experiences when their children are fast asleep? Read a book, scroll mindlessly through socials, catch up with Substack. (Option three wins out all too often - thank goodness for morning coffee!)
I suppose my point is this: I don’t have it all together. I quite often start the day with only a loose plan in my head. Other days I have a planner full of plans (to alleviate my anxiety) which we never get to. Usually you’ll find me making a list over my 8am coffee, while the girls watch rubbish TV.
My apologies if you’re considering home education and this doesn’t sound very glamorous! This is reality though, not my highlights feed on Instagram. We still do lots of wonderful things, and there is always lots of learning taking place.
With this said, I hope you enjoy reading about our Wednesday on Thursday!
If you don’t know us, A is 6.5 and the twins are 3 years old. My eldest is neurodivergent.
Wednesday
The girls started the day playing in their room while I slowly woke up. Downstairs the twins played and danced to music down one end of the living space, while A watched her tablet with her headphones on and drew in her notebook at the other.
A likes to draw and make things while listening to something from the How To Train Your Dragon franchise. This is A in her happy place. Today she drew and cut out little characters from the story, along with little bits of paper food, and put them all in an envelope labelled ‘Toothless’ (although spelt incorrectly!). She also called me over to watch the Viking burial as she thought it would interest me.
After a while the twins asked to watch TV as well, which I agreed to. This isn’t ideally how I’d like to start our day, but I was feeling tired and didn’t have an alternative to offer up. Breaking the morning screen time habit is tough!
Once I had breakfast on the table, I asked the twins if I should turn the TV off or if they would like to do it. This usually helps with the transition, but not always! I played the Days of the Week song on Alexa and this helped get everyone moving and singing.
At the table we:
Talked about what we were going to do that day
Read the animal and word of the day
Read a Meg and Mog book (the one with the dragon in, as requested).
I started revising a bit of phonics with A but she soon got tearful. She didn’t want to practise today. She was feeling tired. I asked if she would try a game I’d prepared using magnets - it might be fun!
This turned out to be a mistake. Once we’d started it because clear that the game wasn’t all that fun, but A didn’t want to stop until it was finished. I suggested we do something else but she wouldn’t drop the game and so played it while sniffing and red eyed. Of course, I felt awful! Usually when something is hard or boring she’s happy to skip it.
This all took longer than expected and, with A’s mood in mind, I decided to skip some other things I had planned. We did have a small win though. Somehow we got onto the topic of A’s name (which she’s learning how to spell) and we made up a game for learning how to write a new word.
Basically there are two white boards at either end of the room. On one white board the new word is written, and the other is blank. The child has to run to the board with the new word, then run back to the blank board and write as much of it as they can remember. They can go between boards as many times as they like until they have the word.
A wrote her name (all 9 letters of it!) after just one peek at the white board. Then she spelt it out to me using letter names. Maybe this doesn’t sound like much, but she’s been really reluctant to use her full name. She’s had a big block around writing it and spelling it using letter names, not letter sounds (which is how she would need to spell it if someone asked). It’s a big step for her!
The twins busied themselves with their own little games, making nests and presents out of envelopes and stickers. We didn’t get time to do their circle time before leaving for Home Ed group, but we did try to play I Spy in the car on the way (which was a bit tricky for them).
Before we left the girls had a snack and I read them The Spring Rabbit, a perfect read for the spring equinox. There was a last minute dash to be ready when my in laws turned up (they come with us to HE group since the twins started attending) then we were on our way.
HE group was a busy one this week for me as a facilitator as we had a couple of special activities planned. As part of the children’s Egg Paw Print badge, they had each designed something to keep an egg safe when dropped from the top of the climbing frame. We must have had nearly twenty children take part in the egg drop, including A who had thrown something together at last minute. The kids came up with some amazing ideas and cheered each other on!
Afterwards we melted chocolate in my friend’s camper van and the children made chocolate nests. This was messy but good fun! Next week we’ll finish off with an Easter egg hunt.
There was the usual play at the park for the rest of the afternoon. Q took Grandad for a good few walks while she went off on her scooter, and L joined A in the big children’s games.
I can’t really remember what we did for the rest of the day. We all definitely flopped on the sofa when we got home - it’s been a busy week!
Lovely to hear the reality that matches mine! I have 2 neurodivergent kids and the plans never run smoothly :-) Having said that, some of our best learning happens from spontaneous ideas as the kids are more invested in it. And I need copious coffee too :-)