Bringing Education to Life!

Baking in the kitchen on a wet Sunday afternoon!

As I sit  here writing my blog my eldest son is building a Go cart at Explorer scouts for a competition. He has also been offered a Rover engine to strip down which awaits collection. Both involve important life skills- ingenuity and creativity!
Meanwhile my daughter has spent all evening curled up on the bed reading the second book in the Hunger Games Trilogy- in the last year or so her interest in books has really taken off. Just by offering books which I thought would interest her and not panicking if she didn't want to read them she has not felt under pressure.
We have found two Japanese pen-pals too, one for her and one for me, Neither of us speaks Japanese but my Autistic son`expressed an interest in learning Japanese and I thought if we wrote to someone in Japan we could learn about the culture and language at the same time. So we are having to start from scratch. Luckily the Japanese learn English at school so at least we have some way of communicating! I have found an Usborne book on Readitswapit for starters with 1000 words and am hoping that will help us learn some basic words. Meanwhile I'm corresponding with a Japanese English teacher who lived for a while in England so I'm hoping she can guide me in the right direction!
My daughter has also been baking in the kitchen this weekend. She made Rock cakes whilst I baked a Victoria sponge. It was a horrible rainy day and nice to spend time together 'doing our thing'.
Whilst all of this has happened at home ,school came up trumps and offered the opportunity for her to dance with the Rambert Dance company last week. She is also off on a Geography Field Trip to St Bees on Wednesday. We see these 'perks' as  an extension of our Education at Home.
Meanwhile my Autistic son has been busy on his Minecraft, building a clock and a slot machine.He has discovered Redstone - basic circuitry and is teaching himself how to implement it. This mornings discussions involved Geothermal and solar energy- not bad for a computer game!