It was a WedEd Wednesday this week (hooray 🙂 ) so we headed over to the Beans’ with good intentions for an early start. We should have left early to get fuel on the way but L, who has been looking forward to his saxophone lesson all week, forgot that a lesson needs a saxophone so had to go back and get it. And then had to go back and get the music. We still had enough time to get fuel though, and to pick up some pasta to share for lunch, so we stopped at the supermarket and filled up then I pulled into the drop-off/10 minute wait space and sent Jfish in for pasta. A few minutes later he rang to say he couldn’t find any of the large bags I’d suggested and didn’t know what to get. I abandoned the car and ran in to show him (he was right; they had no big bags so instead I grabbed a medium sized bag and some cheese while he hunted for the bottle of water he wanted) then ran back out to the car to wait while he paid. Some time later he still hadn’t appeared, so I asked Kfish to pop in and see if he was at a till and to hurry him up if need be. As Kfish went in he passed within a couple of metres of Jfish – we could see them both from the car. Apparently, though, they couldn’t see one another, since Kfish disappeared into the bowels of the shop and Jfish came out to the car. I explained what had happened (the others were laughing too hard by now) and Jfish immediately volunteered to run back in and fetch Kfish, then did so before I could stop him. We waited, torn between frustration and laughter, for a few more more minutes, watching our nice early start tick away, and then Kfish appeared, shrugging his shoulders to say he’d seen no sign of J.It was like a scene from a farce! Once we’d explained he was about to dive back in, but we called him back and instead he hovered in the doorway ready to jump up and down and call if he spotted J. By the time J finally sauntered back out to report his failure to find K the children still in the car were killing themselves laughing 😆
Anyhoo, we eventually made it, only to find that poor HH had a migraine, so rather than starting with Science I scooped up all those who wished to do Art and we talked about Hundertwasser. We looked at some examples of his work and pulled out a few key ideas (such as using bright colours, links with nature, use of spirals, love of water, individuality and personality, avoiding straight lines) and we talked about his theory of skins (your own skin, your clothes, your home, your immediate environment, the wider environment) and the buildings he designed. The basic idea for art was to take lollipop trees as a basis and start with a bright background then make black patterned shapes to stick onto it. Another option was to design a village or street in the style of Hundertwasser – Lfish and the other older girls opted to do this together, with great teamwork 🙂
Since the art was in sections for those doing backgrounds and then shapes, TheBabs took people as they were ready and introduced them to the idea of making up solids from 3D diagrams, then doing their own isometric drawings and 3D drawings. Even Afish was able to work out plan/side/front view cards and relate them to the solid objects and the boys in particular did some really good work with the drawings.
The lovely Em also managed to fit in a long-awaited saxophone lesson for L. This way there’s a definite slot once a fortnight, but we’ll need to think about how to get a lesson into the in-between weeks.
By now HH was feeling a little more human so we had an earlyish lunch and then moved on to Science, which was done outside since we were dissecting kidneys and the smell might have been overpowering in the kitchen! We had looked in advance at a powerpoint about homeostasis, so when HH asked what the topic was going to be Lfish was able to answer 😉 There was a kidney each, but not enough blades, so the actual dissection happened in pairs which worked well because some first cuts showed things better than others but each pair ended up with something where they could see each of the things we were looking for from the sheet HH had provided. Afish gave up first (she’d not been very keen in the first place tbh and felt the last time we dissected kidneys was enough to keep her going for a while!) and went to play, but the others carried on valiantly and managed to identify the key features and talk about their functions. I think L felt a bit uncertain as to what was going on at times, but the occasional quick check kept him on track with what we were doing and each week it should get easier for him to follow.
Jfish, SB and I managed a little French oral practice and a quick bit of future tense revision then it was time for me to take K and Lfish to choir. J had a trial Italian lesson and test set up so also needed to come, but Afish and L were not looking forward to lots of waiting around so were very happy when TheBabs came to the rescue with the offer of a lift home so they could stay longer and join in with the various games about to start.
Italian went well and J has now embarked on a year of lessons with the aim of achieving GCSE at the end. The other children in the (small) class have been learning with the La Dante institute for a while already, hence the test to see whether he would be able to fit in with them and keep the pace of the lessons, and half of them have an Italian parent so it should move fairly fast, I think 🙂
A good day all round, really, with thanks to HH and galoka for hosting and Science, TheBabs for Maths and lifts, Em for saxophone and T41 for the reminder to look again at La Dante 😀
Oh I am glad about the Italian. We’ve hit a blank on it for the moment.