One typical Friday

I have to say today was a day when things came together fairly well and the sunshine after weeks of rain helped enormously! Fridays are normally days when we have no set plans apart from possibly a museum or gallery visit related to our current topics of study or interest, or sometimes just a nice day to spend a half day with daddy who takes a bit of time off work to enjoy the best of London life.

Today we had a relaxing morning getting through some chilled work, first in the children's room and then a newly kitted out study. Violin practice happened straight after a hearty breakfast, which was a wonderful thing considering my eldest, who was the one practising, was in top form after a good night's sleep. Both my younger child and I snuggled up seated on top the bedcovers. Listening to the violin music which was coming along very nicely. A gold star was rewarded for my eldest's labours rather effortlessly today!

Then we faffed around in the study trying to work the new state-of-the-art computer. Maths Whizz web-based tutoring failed to launch as we didn't have Flash installed, so my older one had to delay finishing his initial assessment to gauge his 'Maths age' a.k.a. Maths level. He happily opted to work through his Activity Bible while I downloaded a new, recommended Britannica Kids app onto my iPhone for learning about dinosaurs for my 3 and a half year old.

Packed lunch once prepared, we went on our way to the London Fire Brigade Museum to attend a booked 'school group visit' organised by another home ed parent. On a regular basis individual home ed parents would search high and low and book a 'school group' visit or special activity according to their own child's current learning an invite other home edders to join in, mostly only at a small cost. We were blessed with brilliant sunny weather so the children played with other home educated children in the playground opposite the museum before we were due to go in. The visit that ensued was duly informative, being mostly on the Great Fire of London of 1666. They also learned about making a fire plan and had an introduction to the fire engines through the ages, and finished off with every child who wanted to having a go at putting on a firefighter's costume.

That wasn't the end to our venture south of the river. The aforementioned playground opposite attracted a number of home ed families after the visit had concluded, and we gradually gravitated towards the even more exciting adventure playground which opened at 3pm ahead of school children's arrival.
This turned out to be a great time for the children to play and get to know each other better, in wild games pretending to be pirates of all sorts of nationalities and making a fire with the playground staff. We home ed parents were equally happy to chat and swap notes, especially since the planned museum visit intended for KS1 students drew a crowd of patents with children of similar ages.

On the way home my oldest commented on the Monument - which happens to have been erected in commemoration of the Great Fire of London and the ensuing rebuilding of the city- as we passed it on the bus. Looks like we are going back into town to walk the 160 steps up to the top of the Monument!

By the end of the day, my oldest had successfully tackled the entirety of the Maths Whizz assessment and done some more work online, finished his Chinese writing ahead of Chinese Saturday school tomorrow morning, and well ready to snore away in bed.

We the parents went off worthily to the parent talk run by our Suzuki method music centre on the topic of music practice. Suzuki Method and home education are made for each other, I concluded by the end of the evening - but that is another blog entry entirely.