Home Ed Conversations · Thursday October 11, 2007 by Rose
I forgot to mention on Tuesday that the drive to the play area was a typical HE car journey!
Do you have them? Something about being in the car that seems to trigger off all those conversation; conversations that, via a variety of tenuous links and tangents, can take you to all sorts of exciting places which, afterwards, you can’t work out how you got there!
As the weather was so awful, we naturally talked about rain. My 5 year old aspie asked why the rain drops on his window looked a different colour than those on another window. So that led to a discussion about light, absorbtion, refraction, waves etc. Then we looked at the tyre tracks being left on the road by the car in front. So we discussed friction, pressure, centrifugal force, and I explained why tyres have treads. Then SJ commented on the spray being thrown up and said it was like a hurricane; the rain was being sucked up with the wheel (like things being caught up in the cycling wind) and then thrown out. I was really pleased as making that comparison meant that he genuinely understands the concepts involved.
In fact, when we discussed light, JJ explained something to SJ, and then SJ explained part of it to WD – I love it when they are teaching each other!
Yesterday and today have been a bit tough as the baby has been very fractious and I’ve had two very bad nights. Last night he woke up every hour, which was NOT a lot of fun.
Consequently, I haven’t exactly been a ray of sunshine. But this is where I am actually grateful for home ed. When the two oldest boys were at school, if I had a bad day, I’d go and pick them up from school, grumpy and yelling at them to be quiet etc, and the whole evening would be a disaster. Now, we are all in it together, and far more tolerant, understanding and flexible. I know that even on a bad day like today, on balance, they have had good with the bad, rather than the only time they are with me being “bad”.
The boys have continued on their free trials of Meleto, Education City and Maths Upgrade, and have also reawaken their interest in Patrician III. In particular, they are playing a multiplayer game, by being on different pcs in the house and playing together over the internet!
The game teaches them trading, business skills, bartering, commerce, taxes… between this and Sim City they are probably more clued up than their schooled peers! The other good site that JJ uses is the Red Box site from the Government.
I hope for an early night tonight. After the Restaurant, that is! I’m quite hooked on that, as its one of our family dreams….
