We decided we’d finish our academic year on 16 June as that’s when I started an intense 12 days of exam marking (something I do four times a year). I basically go and hide in a room undisturbed and emerge once I’ve marked 1,250 exam scripts. Every quarter we try and carry on with learning whilst I’m marking but this time was the first time the girls occupied themselves entirely so I could mark full time. Oh my, it was so so much easier for me and I got my marking done in record time. We’ve concluded we need to do this every time now (it’s only taken us 3 years to work this out!) and just plan breaks for the girls accordingly; the girls are old enough now to entertain themselves.
In readiness for the break, we spent the first two weeks of June finishing bits off, getting things to a good place to stop and reflecting on the year we’d had. We’ll then resume our structured learning at the start of August.
Subjects done jointly
Chemistry – we’ve finished our Periodic Table topic which the girls have really enjoyed. We’re going to do another chunk of chemistry in August as they’ve got a real taste for it now. My job for July is to research what experiments we can do at home with our science kit to bring the topics to life.
Spanish – the girls are signed up for another half term block of weekly group lessons with Kelly from Adventures in Spanish so they will be continuing these until the end of July.
History – we watched Ben Fogle’s documentary about the Chernobyl disaster which led us to researching more about what happened and what the fall out has been since.
Forest School – butternut squash ravioli, apple crumble and bilberry cake (cooked in the dutch oven) have all been on the menu this month.
Reflection – we spent a whole morning reading through our blog, looking at what we’ve learned and the places we’ve been over the last academic year. We reflected on the good bits, the not so good bits and the bits we want to carry over into the next year. The girls gave up trying to write a list of their favourite things as it was just too long! In July, I’ll have a separate day out with each daughter when we’ll discuss what they want to learn in the year ahead. It’s also interesting to get more feedback from them when they’re on their own.
GCSE subjects done separately – aiming for June 2024/25 exams
Latin – Aggie finished another chapter off in the De Romanis textbook and did a quick revision session on all the vocab learned to date. She’s now in a good position for the summer break and it’ll be all systems go again in August to get the first textbook finished off.
Business studies – Peggy has now finished topic 1 of the syllabus so we’re ready to move onto topic 2 in August. We’d decided to slow this subject right down as Peggy is wanting to apply the theory to setting up her own crochet business. We’ve therefore decided to work towards the exam in June 2025 and instead concentrate on getting a business up and running alongside the theory she’s learning. Why rush something when you’re really enjoying it?!
Other subjects done separately
Maths – Aggie has completed the CGP year 7 workbook as a revision exercise and Peggy has finished her penultimate year 7 topic. Aggie will start year 8 maths in August and I don’t think Peggy will be far behind.
German – Peggy is continuing on Duolingo and has already finished the first section.
Coding – Peggy has got up to lesson 10 in her Python 100 day course. She’ll probably continue to work on this over the summer break.
Make-up – Aggie attended a two-hour make-up workshop run by a professional make-up artist. She learned how to do a smoky eye and all about the different brands and techniques. She’s booked in for another three workshops, once each month until September.
Craft Projects
Both girls have crocheted a gift for the arrival of another new baby girl this month. Peggy made a unicorn and Aggie a cuddly cow.
Inspired by something she saw on Pinterest, Aggie made a crocheted top in just over a day. She didn’t use a pattern; she made it up as she went along.
Music
The main Brass Band event of the year happened this month – Whit Friday. This is a super special day here in Saddleworth when all the schools and businesses close to allow everyone to join in and all the roads are closed too.
In the morning, all the churches across all the Saddleworth villages walk in procession down into the main village of Uppermill behind their banners and village brass bands. Many churches have Rose Queens and the uniformed organisations all march too. It’s quite a sight! Both girls played with their brass band, which was 90 children-strong across all three bands.
Then, after a quick recharge and food stop at home, we then return for the main event: the band contests. Every village hosts a band contest and over the course of 8 hours, nearly 100 brass bands from all over the UK and overseas work their way around as many of the contests as they can. This year Aggie was in the Youth Band and they did 7 contests; Peggy was in the Training Band and they did 6.
We all had such a great time and finally made it home around 11.30pm. We were all utterly exhausted. The following morning we found out that both bands had won some prizes so that made it all extra special.
We all love Whit Friday. The date for 2024 is already in the diary as we most definitely can’t be away when it happens!
Sports
Aggie competed in the Oldham Wakes swimming gala this month and represented her club really well. The atmosphere was brilliant and although her team came last overall, each swimmer was proud of how they’d swum.
Books
Our reads for this month have been:
Peggy – The Van Conversion Bible: The Ultimate Guide to converting a Campervan by Charlie Low and Dale Comley (Peggy is obsessed with living in a van when she turns 18!)
Aggie – Allegiant by Veronica Roth
Dom – The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien
Susan – Into the Water by Paula Hawkins and The Thing around your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (this was my book club pick for the month)
Day Trips and One-off activities
We’ve had a lot of trips out this month!
Quarry Bank Mill – we went here for Dom’s birthday. We enjoyed looking round the museum part and walking in the woods as it was a seriously hot day.
Wentworth Castle Gardens – we went here for a beeswax wrap making workshop which was great fun.
Lancaster University Physics Day – you can read about this here. The girls got to zap each other with electricity!
Lancaster Castle – we absolutely loved our visit here. We’ll be writing a post on this as we highly recommend a visit.
Community Meal at Oldham Hindu Temple – we spent an enjoyable evening eating and learning about Hinduism at our local temple. You can read about our visit here.
Liverpool World Museum’s Return of the Gods exhibition – this was a great exhibition which has got Peggy super excited about starting Classical Civilisation GCSE after the summer break. We’ll write a post on this too as it’s definitely worth a visit.
Liverpool Maritime Museum’s Titanic Exhibition – all the talk about the missing Titan submarine got the girls interested in learning more about the Titanic wreck which the submarine was on a mission to see. We enjoyed this small exhibition which satisfied our curiosity of how the ship ended up at the bottom of the sea with the loss of so many lives.
Liverpool Maritime Museum’s Border and Customs exhibition “Seized” – this was a fantastic little exhibition which opened our eyes to what people try to get in and out of the country!
Trips Away
We’ve been totally home-based this month but we’ve been busy planning away for our next adventures in September, October and January 2024. Watch this space!
So that was June!
We do like travelling around to lots of places, both in the UK and overseas, but this month was all about visiting places near to home. There is so much to see on our doorstep and sometimes we need to remind ourselves of this (the bank balance normally helps!).
