September has been a super busy month; we do like it when the schools go back! We’ve had adventures in Rome for a week, been on several workshops, visited some new places and also done a lot of home-based academic work. September also brings exam-marking season for Susan so the girls have been doing a lot of independent learning whilst Mummy hides herself away working.
What we’ve been up to
Subjects/Activities done jointly
Spanish GCSE June 2024 – the girls have been working daily through the CGP Revision and Practice book, with the accompanying workbook, focusing on building up their vocabulary. We’ve then come together to do new grammar and activities like games and role plays. We’ve also had great fun with some worksheets from Light Bulb Languages. We’re spending a lot of time on verb tenses at the moment and have found some great free online games which the girls are happily playing every day. We’ll write a post on these shortly as they’re a good find.
RE – we’ve been following a course on Buddhism run by Humanatees. We’re never around for the live sessions so we’ve been watching the recorded videos together as a family when we want quality sofa time. Jake’s courses are reliably good and this one is no different. It runs for six weeks so will carry on into October too.
Forest School – we’re back for our fourth year in the forest at our usual time and place. The group has suddenly expanded since last term with lots of new families; we could do with extending the fire circle!
Youth Club – the girls have started going to a newly formed weekly home-ed youth club one afternoon a week. They’re really enjoying making new friends and having freedom to hang out and do what they want. They seem to make something in the kitchen every week but nothing ever makes it home. Anyone would think there were a dozen or so tweens/teens in the building!
Sciences/History – these were shelved this month whilst Susan marked but we’ll be back at them again in October.
GCSE subjects done separately
Latin June 2025 – it’s been a while since Aggie has done some Latin (for various reasons) so we’ve gone back a few chapters to go over some things again before starting on new topics. It’s really highlighted to us that little and often is the best way forward. We’re back on it again now though.
Classical Civilisation June 2024 – Peggy is flying through the pre-recorded videos produced by Humanatees and has covered over half of the paper 1 content; this is way ahead of schedule. She’s started using the amazing workbook from Daedalus Design Curriculums alongside the course which is greatly adding to her learning. And of course, spending a week in Rome has really helped too; she’s got to see things in the textbook in real life.
Business studies June 2025 – Peggy has continued to read through the textbook for this and enjoys looking at different case studies to illustrate what she’s reading about. The plan is to read through the textbook together over the next year or so and then we’ll go into exam mode to get her prepared for the exam after that. At the moment, she’s enjoying the content so we’ll put exam questions and technique to one side as that’s not our priority.
Psychology June 2024 – Aggie has completed unit 1 of her pre-recorded course by Survive Succeed Achieve and has got great feedback on her end-of-unit assessment. She’s gone straight into unit 2 with the aim of completing that by the end of October.
Other subjects done separately
Maths – Aggie has been plodding (and moaning) through the year 8 number topic, with her sister not far behind. We’re being insistent on doing maths more regularly this year and have settled on three times a week for a good hour a time. Progress is now much quicker and the pain slightly less!
English – We’ve invested in some more books from the Hodder KS3 English anthology series and the girls have done an extract a week, choosing from whichever book they fancy. Peggy has discovered a love of gothic stories and Aggie has found a few more detective books she’d like to read.
German – Peggy is continuing to work through the CGP KS3 book and is still loving it. No day is complete without Peggy talking at us in German and us not having a clue what she’s saying. She loves it!
Coding – Peggy is back to doing her Python 100 day course every day and is on track to finish it by Christmas. She’s starting to do some seriously impressive things now. We’ll be sharing some of the games she’s created shortly.
Latin – Peggy has finally got underway with learning Latin. Rather than beginning with Minimus like I did with Aggie, we’ve moved straight onto De Romanis. Since book 1 of this series starts off with Roman mythology, it ties in perfectly with GCSE Classical Civilisation. Peggy can already read some of the myths in simplified Latin!
Humanities Fair projects – the girls attended a home-ed fair at the end of September for which they prepared a display on a humanity subject of their choice to share with other home-ed families. We did several of these fairs last year and the girls really enjoyed them. Peggy did her display on Heracles’ twelve labours (which forms part of her classical civilisation GCSE course) and Aggie did the history of surgery from 1100 to the present day. They spent many hours over September putting together their displays and they enjoyed sharing their learning with everyone at the end.
Sociology – Aggie gave a pre-GCSE sociology course a go which was run by Learn Laugh Play. Unfortunately, after just three weeks, Aggie has said she no longer wants to do it. She found the lessons incredibly slow-paced and at a very basic level; it’s not inspired her at all. We watched one of the recordings together after she seemed less than enthusiastic about it and Susan was left very underwhelmed too. We had provisionally thought we might use this provider for GCSE sociology but it’s put us off now.
Criminology – where the sociology course was a big disappointment, a course on criminology run by Kate Law Tutoring more than made up for it. Aggie has LOVED this course. She’s insisted on attending the live sessions rather than just watching the recordings as we usually do. She even sacrificed an hour in the swimming pool in Rome to log on to the live class. Aggie has signed up for another live course with Kate in November and we’ve also bought a pre-recorded one too.
Music
The girls are back to their regular brass band rehearsals and both girls now only do the Youth Band which means a more leisurely tea can be enjoyed on Tuesday and Friday nights!
We’ve added a new and exciting adventure into the mix this term. The girls have joined a local acting company and will be starring in The Addams Family the Musical at the start of December. After an open audition, Aggie has been cast as Gomez Addams and Peggy as Lucas Beineke (Wednesday’s love interest). These are both major parts so they’ve done really well. They’re loving the weekly rehearsals and they’re working hard at learning their lines and songs at home.
We spotted that there was a production on of The Addams Family Musical in Bolton which we luckily got last-minute tickets for. It was an outstanding production and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. It definitely inspired the girls to get rehearsing!
Sports
Aggie’s back to usual swimming and gymnastics training and both girls are back on the hockey pitch, with matches already in the diary for October.
Books
Our reads for this month have been:
Peggy – The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan. Peggy has gone off fiction reading recently so is opting to dip in and out of different non-fiction books each night and doing wordsearches instead.
Aggie – We were Liars by E Lockhart and The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Dom – A Dance with Dragons by George R R Martin and now patiently waiting, like the rest of the world, for the next in the series. Get a move on, George!
Susan – A Column of Fire by Ken Follett (Kingsbridge Trilogy #3). Finally got to the end of this trilogy. Absolutely superb!
Day Trips and One-off activities
Magna Science Adventure Centre – we took our American friends to this centre in Sheffield and had a great time. We’ll write up about our visit shortly as it’s definitely worth a visit and we’ll certainly be returning soon.
Energy House 2.0 – this tour of a facility at the University of Salford was a fascinating insight into the world of engineering. We saw how science and building companies are coming together with the common aim of creating net-zero housing solutions. It may have only been a thirty-minute tour, but it got us thinking for a lot longer than that! You can read about what was inside this facility here.
CSI workshop at Think Forensics – we had a fabulous morning investigating a murder over in Huddersfield. We learned so much about how to work a crime scene and then got to have a go ourselves. You can read about what we got up to here.
Tudor workshop at Temple Newsam – we attended a workshop about Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. It was a great day out with home ed friends and we came away feeling a little more sympathetic towards the Scottish Queen.
Trips abroad
We headed over to Rome for the first full week of the UK schools being back. We had an absolutely amazing time and ticked off lots of sights Peggy has learned about in her GCSE classical civilisation course. We stayed at a Eurocamp site just outside of Rome so it felt like a dual holiday: days walking round busy Rome and days by the pool either swimming or reading. It was a surprisingly restful trip! We’ll write up everything we got up to at some point and share some tips, especially for those also studying the GCSE.
So that was September!
A brilliant month of adventures with lots and lots of learning, both structured and out in the wide world. The perfect month really!
