For His Glory

The deliciousness of homeschooling

2012-02-18T21:01:00.000Z

This has possibly been one of our tastiest and prettiest homeschooling activities!

Drawing with a magnifying glass

2012-02-10T14:27:00.000Z

Pages 36-39 in The Art Book for Children are about an amazingly detailed painting by Albrecht Altdorfer called The Battle of Alexander at Issus. The text in the book encourages you to think about how Altdorfer might have painted in such detail, so we decided to compare how many stick men we could comfortably draw on a small piece of paper with the naked eye and then how many we could comfortably draw using a large magnifying glass - the results took us by surprise!

The top row is our stick men with the naked eye, the bottom row is using the magnifying glass - as you can see dd2 didn't finish hers - I think she realised how long it was going to take to draw so many tiny stick men! It was a really fun exercise to do though, and even dh was caught having a go himself one weekend!

Picasso's Weeping Woman

2012-02-06T15:17:00.001Z

After what seems like far too long without any structured art work I decided it was time to take action! I planned out several weeks using what we have left to work through of The Art Book for Children. First up for us was Picasso's Weeping Woman which lends itself to discussion really. Then we followed up by going off at a slight tangent and attempting this activity of making our own cubist portrait from a blog which I have found extremely useful called Art Projects for Kids.
This is how we got on (my demo is the middle one):

Planning, planning, planning ...

2011-11-04T17:25:00.000Z

Since I started my teacher training an awfully long time ago (!) I have fiddled around and experimented with different styles and layouts of planning, and being a home educator has not resolved this problem one bit! In fact, faced with the option to plan any how I liked and not how the school policy dictated I have had even more choices!
My most recent (and really successful so far!) planning style is this:

I've been through all kinds of planning since I started homeschooling just over 3 years ago including one busy year when I hand wrote a lined A4 page for each day and a very time-pressed half-term holiday when I word-processed the whole half term onto one A4 piece of paper. I still use (even if it's only in my head sometimes!) the long, medium and short term planning system but I am very relaxed about plans being flexible to suit the child, the weather, and so on!
I'm hoping that I may have 'cracked it' this time but I doubt it somehow!

Fab art ideas

2011-07-05T20:54:00.000+01:00

I have recently begun working my way through 10 Simple Art Activities which I found on this blog. I like to give the girls opportunities to do biggish and random art, as well as handicrafts and smaller craft projects. I wish there were more hours in the day and we could do some every day!

Getting ready - all clean and tidy!

Leaves we collected for printing.

Contact Paper Suncatchers

Hole "Challenge" Drawings

Q-tip Pointillism

Simply Painting (the background!)

Simply painting (the foreground!)

Getting stuck in!

Using Art Straws.

Easter Mosaic Cross

2011-05-27T16:32:00.000+01:00

I had hoped to write about this activity some time ago, but on the grounds that late is better than never and potentially I could just be early for next year (!) here is a brilliant idea from that artist woman.

Now, our results weren't quite so impressive as hers, but for what it's worth, here's how we got on with it:

It was one of those art activities which takes place in stages and involves eating along the way! So, we cracked and used the eggs (I forget what for now), washed the shells and let them dry. Then we painted the shells in different coloured acrylic paint and again let them dry. Next we broke the shells into smallish pieces and organised them into their different colours and cut crosses from pieces of card. Finally we glued the shell pieces onto the card with PVU and painted over the shell pieces with the same glue as we went along.

While we were waiting for paint and glue to dry we culled the nature basket which was still full with autumn treasure and needed some space ready for new finds!

Painting the eggs

Sorting the eggshell pieces by colour

Glued cross ready for decorationg

Decorated cross

Drying in the sun

Crosses at the bottom of our Easter tree

Easter tree 2011

Sorting through the nature basket

Discovering old treasures

Little ones' role play.

2011-05-27T13:53:00.000+01:00

I have often worried that dd2 doesn't get the role play opportunities that dd1 did before we moved house, but I needn't have worried because she is more than capable of resolving any such problems herself. Some weeks ago I came across her in her office. She can send emails (including one to the Queen explaining why I couldn't attend the Royal Wedding recently!) and write letters from her portable office. There are also signs on the two doors to the conservatory, or should I say to her office (!), saying opne (sic) and shut in case there is any doubt!

On a more serious note, I read some time ago that homeschool parents are inclined to worry that they don't have a shop corner, post office corner and a kitchen corner etc like you might find in a Reception classroom, but of course, homeschooled children don't have to go to pretend shops, kitchens and post offices etc because they get to do the real thing! It's a no-brainer isn't it!

Impromptu homeschooling

2011-05-01T22:25:00.000+01:00

I guess impromptu homeschooling is one of the great benefits of teaching your own children - it's certainly one of my favourite parts and today we had a brilliant example of it. Dh and I were trying to bring order out of chaos in our conservatory ready for homeschool after the (extended!) Easter break and some resources were discovered which hadn't been used before. Suddenly the girls are old enough to use these wait-in-the-side-wings resources and beautiful things happen! My Granny (who passed away a month ago) gave us some cards labelled Lucy Harrison Poetry Machines - I've found this website connected to them - and they were too hard for dd1 at the time they were gifted, but today they were just right, and I know my Granny would have smiled from ear to ear to see the poems which dd1 made from the word cards. I wonder what you think of them? I was very moved by them, but that's probably just one of those ex-Londoner motherly moments!

Morning wandered everywhere again.

Sometimes London people can become friends and smile.

Sometimes fiction can speak the language of London.

We remember fragments of happiness.

Time passes ...

2011-04-16T19:40:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since my last post due to a couple of bereavements (one human and one feline!) in the family, but mostly homeschool has carried on. We have continued to study Ancient Egypt and had a go at building a pyramid from lego following some instructions in Story of The World. Despite my desire to let the girls loose with the instructions and the lego I had to help at one point with how to count the blocks on each side of the square:

Homeschool generosity

2011-02-14T14:48:00.000Z

For me, homeschooling was quite a lonely path initially, but over time I have been blessed with kind friends whom I may never have met in those few minutes at the school gate twice a day. Yahoo groups have become my once or twice daily contact with other adults with similar outlooks on education to me - much like those school gate encounters I guess - and that is where I have found many of these friends, some of whom I meet up with regularly.

One friend recently moved to the UK from Germany with her son and English husband and before we had even met in person very kindly asked if there was anything she could bring back for me on her next trip to Germany. Much to my surprise there was something! We had recently taken a look at Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart using My First Classical Music Book and it mentioned Mozart Kugeln, so I asked my friend to bring some back for us, and here they are, and very delicious they were too! Thank you!

Friday? Tuesday? Who cares? We homeschool!

2011-02-09T14:35:00.000Z

Normally Nature Study (going out and observing and then drawing something and checking what it is etc) is on a Friday for us, but as we are walking every day with the dog we take opportunities as they come for observation, awe and wonder. Today was a Tuesday but was such a warm and gloriously brilliant day that we made the most of that fantastic quality of homeschooling - flexibility!

We've had some high winds here since Friday so the poor puppy has had some fairly miserable and short walks across the recreation ground (so we didn't get hit by falling branches in the woods) but today we were back in the woods. We tried to spot fresh branches that had fallen over the last few days - this is hard for us as we do not have the tracking gene in our family (!), but we spotted these fallen twigs with buds:

I don't know how long they had been on the ground so whether they will grow at all is anyone's guess! We also saw snowdrops and croci in the churchyard and grass shoots and maybe bluebell shoots (I haven't seen the wood in the spring so am not sure if it has bluebells yet!) coming up through the blanket of dead brown leaf which still covers the floor of the wood. The girls were so thrilled at these signs of spring that they needed no encouragement to draw the pictures below when we got back. While they were drawing I printed off the signs of spring check sheets from the Woodland Trust's nature detectives website which is a real favourite of mine.

Homeschooling with a meek and quiet spirit

2011-02-07T18:43:00.000Z

Homeschooling with a meek and quiet spirit by Terri Maxwell has been on my reading list for at least half a year and I have recently finished it. Wow, what a book! The title alone is piercingly challenging for someone like me!

I ordered it from Rainbow Books and also ordered the study guide to go with it - so glad I did! God willing I will be re-reading this book in the not too distant future, and repeatedly after that I expect! It's an absolute mine of advice and wisdom from someone who has 'been there, done that' and is refreshingly honest about her failings as well as successes.

There is also lots of brilliant scripture (especially in the study guide) which I will be using for memory verses both for myself and the girls (they are blessed to be much better than me at memory verses!).

If you go down to the woods today ...

2011-02-03T22:38:00.000Z

you're sure of a big surprise ... because if you look carefully you will find graphemes/letters!

Something we have been meaning to do for quite some time is photograph the graphemes/letters the girls spot on our dog walks. The delay came because I realised I was going to struggle to control a crazy puppy on a 10 metre lead and help the girls with cameras, letter spotting and not falling into streams, but the Lord gave me an opportunity this week when dh had a day off work in lieu of doing a first aid course in his own time and I could therefore have an extra pair of hands on the dog walk!

I wonder if you can see the graphemes/letterswe saw!

Learning mats.

2011-01-29T18:45:00.001Z

A really useful little item which was just coming in as my teaching years ended was the learning mat. I've never seen any in use in schools, nor heard of them, but they are great for homeschooling, especially if you move from seat to seat, room to room, house to house or are travelling. I like to have lots of useful info on the walls and windows so my girls can find what they need easily (e.g. which way round to write a 7!), but wall and window space is limited, especially when we move out of the conservatory and into the main house for the winter. Here are some pictures of our learning mats:

I made them on word, printed each side then laminated it, but you could print onto paper and put it into a plastic document wallet or print onto card. Looking back, I would make some subtle changes if I ever re-make them, like starting the number line at 0!
I'm sure you can think of other great ideas for learning mats - maybe one specific to a subject you are studying e.g. Ancient Egypt or Reptiles, or older children could even make their own!

If you would like me to email you a word document of the learning mat which you can then tailor to your own needs then please leave a comment below with your email address and I will very happily do so.

Plugging the gaps day 7

2010-12-24T22:20:00.000Z

Still coughing. Still sneezing. Still spluttering. But we did manage to finish the cake and the girls were very surprised I let them help (not as surprised as I was!). The walnuts come from the garden of a distant relative in Belgium!

Plugging the gaps day 6

2010-12-24T12:20:00.001Z

Sneeze. Cough. Splutter.

Plugging the gaps day 5

2010-12-22T22:03:00.000Z

Well, as the illnesses have increased, the creativity has decreased! The girls had some surprise visitors this morning and a planned visitor this afternoon so there was plenty of playmobil creativity between the rest on the sofa sessions!

Dd2 was a bit creative with this book:

and I managed to marzipan the Christmas cake - very quickly without 4 little helping hands!

I'm not sure what tomorrow will bring but between coughs and sneezes I hope we will get at least one fun creative thing done together.

Oh yes, yesterday's lego creativity:

Plugging the gaps day 4

2010-12-21T22:17:00.000Z

Still just about keeping up with my challenge ... dd1 and I decorated her birthday cake today and for some creative craft I let the girls wrap some Christmas presents - unsupervised! They did a good job! Both girls are still quite poorly and I'm not feeling brilliant myself so I have scaled back my cooking and crafting plans a bit, but one way or another we will have to marzipan the Christmas cake tomorrow!

Plugging the gaps day 3

2010-12-20T20:50:00.000Z

Well, I'm still just about keeping up with my challenge, despite dd2 being very poorly today and dd1 still suffering from croup (they didn't make it to the party this morning but apparently they will be wearing the hats for dd1's birthday tomorow!). For the cooking creation we made the next stage of the Christmas cake and for the crafty bit, they did some lego with dh while I was out shopping. Perfect! Tomorrow, our cooking creation will be dd1's birthday cake! I'm not sure about the crafty bit yet, but something will come to me I'm sure.

Poorly on the sofa with the puppy:

Next stage of the Christmas cake:

Plugging the gaps day 2

2010-12-19T20:21:00.000Z

Well, what I planned didn't quite happen, but I'm still keeping up with my challenge, so for some cookery we started making our Christmas cake:

And for a more crafty type creation the girls made silly hats for a party they are going to tomorrow:

Plugging the gaps day 1

2010-12-18T21:54:00.000Z

Due to the presence of Honey the labradoodle puppy in our homeschool we have had to pare back our learning to the bare essentials. However, now that dh is home and homeschool is officially broken up, I am plugging some of the creative gaps from this term. I have set myself the challenge of doing two creative things every day up to Christmas with the girls - one to be cooking of some kind and the other to be something like Christmas decorations. The more fun it is the better. For once, there are no 'rules' - the food doesn't have to be healthy and the decorations etc do not have to refer to the true meaning of Christmas. It is actually very relaxing to let myself off the tight reins of purposeful activity and living for a brief moment as well!

Today we made some jelly and ice cream - it was a culinary disaster really, but when you are 5 and 6 years old it can also be viewed as a total success! The jelly didn't set, probably due to one of the many things we added to it (marshmallows, coloured balls, glittery sprinkles), the custard we then tried to pour on top fell into it, but the ice cream snowballs rolled in flower shaped sprinkles weren't too bad! We made metallic paper chains and the girls had carte-blanche to decorate the trees (one in the playroom upstairs away from the puppy and the other in their bedroom, also away from the puppy!).

Tomorrow I was hoping we would make a Christmas cake (half of us are wheat and gluten intolerant and those types of cake don't keep very well so it has to be made fairly last minute) but I have been unable to get to any shops due to the snow so instead we will be making mince pies with homemeade gluten free mincemeat kindly given to us last year by one of dh's colleagues last year (oops!). I have just checked that it has survived a year in the fridge and all seems to be well! I'm not sure what to do about decorations as I had planned on getting some paper doilys and making doily dolly chains - maybe we'll make our own doilys!

For those of you who aren't faint-hearted, here's the jelly!

Perseverance!

2010-12-18T21:33:00.000Z

Each year we have asked our children to create a picture for our family Christmas card/email. This year was no different. Below are pictures of the stages dd1 went through in making the picture this year. She thought her first attempt was perfect and told me so but with a bit of guidance she managed to put herself in the shoes of the recipient and think about things like how much white space would be left on the paper and what the image would look like when it was reduced in size on the computer. She was thrilled with the final result which was coloured with watercolour pencils by dd2 and painted over with water by dd2 and me. To be honest, there were some moments of frustration on dd1's behalf during the whole process but I hope she has begun to learn that completing a task is about completing it to the best of your ability and not just getting the job done as quickly as possible!

Homeschooling with a puppy!

2010-11-28T20:29:00.000Z

Our now 7 month old labradoodle, Honey, has meant some pretty drastic changes to our homeschooling routine as she cannot be left unsupervised and unentertained when she's awake! This week she managed to eat/destroy a green scourer, a metal scourer, a pencil case, two rubbers and probably untold other items which we are yet to discover are 'missing' in just 30 minutes of unsupervised waking time! It is probably a bit like having a new baby or toddler in the house, except Honey is way too big to be carried around!

So, I have prioritised our homeschool to Bible, Maths, English, Grammar, Phonics and Read Alouds - anything else is a bonus right now! We have however done a phenomenal amount of nature study on our daily dog walks and the girls have become really confident in the fields and woods as well as seeing lots of spectacular sights. We practise our French and sing nursery rhymes and other songs while we are walking, not to mention the massive amount of exercise we are all getting!

The great thing about homeschooling is that there's always next year!

Magnificent autumn leaves

The Story of the World

2010-10-26T14:13:00.001+01:00

After a lot of umming and ahhing through the spring I finally decided to buy The Story of the World Volume 1 and the Activity Book that goes with it. I'm pretty sure I got these from The Book Depository. Although these volumes are not universally liked within the Christian homeschool community I am more than happy with the books I've bought. The Activity Book is absolutely packed with ideas and photocopiable resources which can be used with different aged children.
Today we started making The Nile - whether the weather will allow the grass seed to grow or not I don't know, but the girls loved getting muddy and hopefully they will remember something about The Nile flooding in years to come ...

Scavenger Hunt

2010-09-29T14:45:00.001+01:00

Yesterday afternoon we and 3 other homeschooling families went on a scavenger hunt on a local bridleway. The children had a whale of a time searching for mini-beasts, flora and fauna! To get the hunt going and give it a bit of a focus I created a sheet:

I used this book to help a lot with the sheet and the ideas. It is a bit dated and not a Christian book per se - I picked up my copy from a charity shop, but there is a newer edition available now.:

and for the younger ones I used this sheet which I'd picked up from Singleton Environment Centre in Kent which is run by BTCV.

This is a great time of year for a scavenger hunt as the insects are still around, fungi can be found (but not touched of course! - unless you really know what you're doing!) and there are plenty of fallen leaves, acorns, conkers etc. We took along a couple of magnifying glasses and a couple of bug catchers which were very popular!

Singing!

2010-09-18T16:32:00.000+01:00

This year I wanted to introduce more music, and in particular singing, into our learning and so far it is proving quite succesful. One of the real breakthroughs was setting up an old CD player in our conservatory where we 'homeschool' for all but the chilliest months. We've been using it for worship songs and general background music of various styles to jolly along the workers (me included!). I bought 3 music books which will last at least this year and no doubt will be picked up again and again over the years.

The first book I bought is The Usborne Nursery Rhyme Songbook which has words, piano music and guitar chords. This book is mainly for dd2 who would be in UK school year Reception, but dd1 is secretly enjoying it too. I manage to muddle along on the piano and hopefully within a few years dd1 will be able to have a go at it too. Most of the nursery rhymes are familiar of course, but one or two have been new to us.

The second book I bought is The National Songbook which contains all kinds of welll known songs, religious, secular, national, traditional and modern. It has 2 CDs words, piano music, guitar chords and suggestions for actions, percussion, activities and performance. This book is mainly for dd1 who will enjoy these slightly more 'grown-up' tunes. I will have a go at playing these on the piano, but they are noticeably harder than the nursery rhyme book so I might end up relying on the CDs!

The last book I bought is The Welsh Children's Songbook which has a CD, words (in Welsh!), piano music, guitar chords and at the back English translations of the Welsh lyrics (hurrah!). I bought this book because dh is Welsh and I would like the girls to have more than just their middle names and surnames connecting them to their national heritage! This book will present the most challenges of the 3 and I'll be leaving it until later in the year when I will rely quite heavily upon the CD!

Another area we are using music in is French - we used Serge the Cheeky Monkey last year which has some songs and are using Lyric Language French (sorry, I can't find our copy on the internet anymore) this year which is entirely songs. We've been singing the French phrases and the nursery rhymes whilst walking our puppy who listens very obligingly!

Signs of autumn nature walks

2010-09-18T16:22:00.000+01:00

Our nature walks still take place on Fridays (I think this is the third year of them now), although to be honest they are the same walk as we do every day of the week with our growing puppy. Friday is however the day when we concentrate on looking out for something in particular and where possible collect it, bring it home, find out more about it and draw it. For our current 6 week block we are looking for signs of autumn, which seems to have come particularly early this year.

Yesterday I started to pack away some coloured pencils when dd2 (pictured above) asked me not to as they are her 'colours of autumn'! We even found a Fly Agaric fungus in the woods this week which we didn't bring home but copied from a book!

If you would like to start nature walks but don't know where to begin I really recommend checking out a blog called Handbook of Nature Study.

Homeschool Fun Sports Day

2010-07-12T19:58:00.001+01:00

A week ago our small homeschooling group (5 families, 18 children) held our first Fun Sports Day. Due to the age range of children the games were more co-operative than competitive and for anyone interested in running one here are the basics of what we did:

We chose a public park where the ground was reasonably level and which was mainly unused during school hours. We had a picnic first (allowing me time to start setting the games up!). We played 8 games, taking a break after the 6th game for the children to have a drink and for me to set up the last two games. I ordered some 'prizes' from crafts4christians who I have found very reliable, and I made some basic certificates on Word.

Games

Atom game (no equipment needed)

Children run around, leader calls out a number e.g. 2, 4 and children have to get into groups of that number.

Through the hoop (1 or 2 hula hoops)

Children hold hands in a circle. Leader introduces a hula hopp over the hands of two children and then each child has to climb through hoop with co-operation of others. Use a further hula hoop between two other children if the circle is sufficiently large. Adults may neeed to hold the hula hoops still to help the children.

Keep out of the water! Birthday order (2 ropes or a bench or suitable log per team)

Children stand randomly in a line between two parallel ropes/on bench/on suitable log. Children have to re-arrange themselves into order of birthdays, Jan-Dec without stepping outside ropes (and into the pretend water!).

Keep out of the water! Alphabetical order (2 ropes or a bench or suitable log per team)

Children stand randomly in a line between two parallel ropes/on bench/on suitable log. Children have to re-arrange themselves into alphabetical order of first names, A-Z without stepping outside ropes (and into the pretend water!).

Hula hoop shoes (1 hula hoop per team)

Children stand one behind the other and behind a line/mark on the ground. One at a time each child runs to the hula hoop and takes off one shoe, then hops back. Next child repeats. When all children have taken off one shoe they repeat to collect shoe.

Over/under ball pass (1 football sized ball per team)

Children stand in a line one behind the other and pass the ball overhead backwards from front to back, when it reaches the back that child comes to the front. Repeat until back in original order and then start again passing backwards between legs.

Obstacle race (1 ropes, 1 hula hoops, 3 beanbags, 1 buckets, enough balls for one per child, 1 hat - all per team)

One at a time children zigzag alongside a rope, climb though a hula hoop, throw 3 beanbags into a bucket, collect a hat (first person in team only) and a ball and return to next child who must wear hat whilst completing the course and bring it back for next child to collect (like a baton) etc.

Water chain (Water, 2 buckets, 3 cups - all per team)

Children stand in a line, spaced out to a little more than arm’s length. A bucket of water is at one end and an empty bucket is at the other end. Children have 3 beakers to pass the water from the full to the empty bucket, passing from hand to hand and remaining in order.

More sacrifices ...

2010-07-12T19:34:00.000+01:00

9 days ago we bought a 10 week old labradoodle puppy and named her Honey and she immediately changed not only our family life but our homeschooling life. Her presence has already meant a lot of sacrifices for us all and although Dh and I can bear this with a modicum of grace, the children are a bit more forthright and vocal about the changes they don't like! They were both desperate to get a puppy and now they are in for some serious character training in sacrifice and selflessness!

Making Maths More Fun Part 7 June 30th 2010

2010-06-30T22:22:00.000+01:00

My ongoing quest to make Maths more fun hit the right note today with a small game of Solitaire. I was surprised how much both dds liked it, maybe its simplicity - of rules and appearance, maybe that it doesn't take too long when you're waiting for a turn, maybe that they could both do as well as me! A great game for developing strategical skills.

I bought this one from this shop.

Holiday Diaries June 15th 2010

2010-06-15T18:40:00.001+01:00

It doesn't matter how hard I try, there is never a break from homeschooling; children are always learning!

We recently had a fantastic week in a caravan in Llangorse in the Brecon Beacons in South Wales and for the first time I decided that we would keep a shared diary, in a child-friendly format and finish it off with photos when we got back home. The drawings, comments and writing are a family effort. We also stuck in tickets, postcards etc. Right now I am really pleased with the results but I think it will really come into its own when we look through it in years to come. It was also a good activity for calming down, being a bit quieter and filling time while we waited for food to cook. Here are a few pages:

Making Maths More Fun Part 6 9th June 2010

2010-06-09T11:31:00.000+01:00

Dd1 has been using New Primary Maths activity books amongst other things this year for Maths and has really enjoyed them. This week we are learning about capacity and today we have the perfect weather for some wet and messy experiments - outside!

It all started out neat and organised (and dry!):

One of the great things about homeschooling is that when the cat won't help:

your sister will!

Visit to Dover Castle 25th May 2010

2010-05-27T13:12:00.001+01:00

Two days ago, we and 4 other homeschooling families took a trip to Dover Castle. In total we were 5 adults (4 mums and 1 grandma who valliantly stood in at the last moment after the poor mum fell ill overnight) and 15 children (aged 8 months to 14). We booked the trip in advance through English Heritage and after making sure we all had suitable ID cards (TEACH/EO/HS) and submitted our educational plans we were granted free entry! Well done English Heritage for recognising homeschoolers as educational groups!

Although it was a very windy day, especially on the top of that hill, there were lots of people there, including many school/educational groups. I think that if I organise another trip I will do it in the Autumn or Spring terms when there are less school trips, so more space, even if the weather isn't so 'good'!

Remains of the pharos (lighthouse)

Model of the Keep

Bugs and Butterflies 21st May 2010

2010-05-21T16:42:00.000+01:00

I try to do different things on Fridays; things that are more nature/art/music based rather than maths and English! Inevitably with a pre-schooler and a Y1 pretty much everything involves maths and English, but it's not the focus on Fridays when we try to be a bit more creative.

Both last Friday and today we have had glorious weather here in Kent. The garden is getting smaller as the trees and shrubs get bigger, but this just means more insects, so that is what we looked at last week when we went for a bug hunt. We tried to identify things along the way and afterwards, counted legs, looked through pots with magnified glass (plastic!) lids at the amazing bodies of bugs and then drew what we had found:

and here is a type of cardinal beatle that we found:

Now, I know this is neither a bug nor a butterfly, but I thought it was too amazing to keep to myself:

Today we looked at butterflies, although we didn't actually try and catch any, especially after reading how delicate their wings are! We used a very old copy of this book, kindly given to us by my sister-in-law. We did some 'pencil and paper' work at different levels from Enchanted Learning which is an American subscription site I have recently joined, and then watched some BBC video clips by simply putting 'butterfly' into the keywords search. We finished off with some butterfly and caterpillar paintings whilst listening to Madame Butterfly by Puccini.

The Good Shepherd Song April 27th 2010

2010-04-27T20:45:00.001+01:00

Just in case this is of any use to anyone either in their homeschooling endeavours or as part of a church service, here are some lyrics I made up for a pre-school song to go with our service on John 10:1-15 this Sunday. It is to be sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and the sheet music can be printed for free at this brilliant website.

Jesus loves his little sheep,

Keeps them safe when they’re asleep,
In the darkness gives them light,

Loves them if they’re black or white,

Watches over them by day,

Gently leads them on their way.

If time permits I will make some cut-out sheep on lollipop sticks, one side white and one side black for the children to use to do actions with while we sing the song this Sunday at church.

Weaving wonders! April 20th 2010

2010-04-20T12:59:00.000+01:00

I have tried to do some handicrafts with the girls every week since last October, but some weeks passed us by, so it has taken a while to finish this first project! We did some paper weaving and lollipop stick/wool weaving last school year so it wasn't too much of a jump to weaving with a card loom and wool. I have tried repeatedly in the past to cut the card myself but never got it right so bought a pack of 10 pre-cut cards very cheaply from a county supplier which is open to home educators as well as schools. I have to admit these pre-cut cards have helped a lot!

It also took me a while to get the needles right ... first we used needles I made from pipe cleaners - not brilliant, then we used metal needles for wool - okay, but kept slipping off the wool so I was re-threading them a lot, and finally we used plastic needles - perfect!

This activity turned out to be really useful for when one child was waiting during another's lesson e.g. swimming.

And now we have rugs for the dolls' house!

Making 'The Easter Story' book. March 30th 2010

2010-03-30T23:25:00.000+01:00

For our homeschool social today we made books telling the Easter story.

Materials/instructions:

1 sheet A3 sugar paper, folded in half twice and then cut the shorter fold and assemble as A5 size booklet totalling 8 usuable sides.
Stitch along fold at top to hold the booklet together.
Colour/decorate/paint text for front of book.
Cut out and stick in green hill and draw 3 crosses - add the text which Pontius Pilate put on the cross to one of the crosses. Add the text from Jn 19:18.
Cut out and stick in grey/brown rock and draw a big stone. Add the text from Mk 15:46.
Cut out and stick in another rock but with an arch type hole where the big stone was. Draw on the big stone moved to the side. Add the text from Jn 21:1.
As colourfully as possible write 'Jesus is alive.' or similar e.g. 'He has risen.' Add text from Mk 16:15.

The pictures below will probably make more sense!

There is definitely scope for making this all a lot more fancy. The pictures are a combination of dd2's book and my (rather hurriedly produced) demo book!

If you would like the Word documents for the texts used then please email me and I'll gladly forward them to you.

Happy Easter everyone!

Afghanistan Project Sessions Three and Four March 19th 2010

2010-03-19T13:18:00.000Z

Continuing with our study of the people of Afghanistan we thought about what Afghans might eat and drink and then read about it in this book and this book and then came the fun bit. We planned a meal based on what we had read about, went shopping and then cooked the meal. It looked very British in the end, but was definitely a bit of a challenge to little ones' taste buds!

We had chicken kebabs, naan bread, leeks and spinach, followed by:

khatai cookies, and washed down with:

a nice glass of sherbat.

For session four we have learnt about religion and culture using this book. We also used this website and this website to look at written numbers in Arabic/Hindi.

Seashore Science Week Two 5th March 2010

2010-03-05T20:25:00.000Z

This week we took a closer look at the pebbles we found at St Mary's Bay. The first thing we did was to try and find similarities in colour in the pebbles, then we used this book to help us with some identification. I haven't read every page of the book but I've noticed it talks about Geology in relation to millions of years which I know isn't acceptable for every Christian household so please be aware!
We were thrilled to have found a granitic pebble and to have been able to identify it! Not surprisingly most of the other pebbles contained chalk traces. We also found a synthetic pebble.

I feel inspired to organise a trip to see the white cliffs of Dover after all that Geology this afternoon!

Afghanistan Project Session Two: The People 2nd March 2010

2010-03-02T16:20:00.000Z

This week we are learning about the people of Afghanistan. Today we looked at clothes. First we talked about what kind of clothes we wear and don't wear, then we tried to guess what Afghans wear. We used pages from Afghanistan and Afghanistan The People for text and photographs. Then we tried to make a hijab type scarf. Unfortunately the piece of fabric I could most easily lay my hands on which was approximately the right size had an African print on it, but we got the general idea. Dd1 liked wearing it a lot, but dd2 was most unhappy, despite smiling for the camera!

Seashore Science Week One 26th February 2010

2010-02-26T14:36:00.001Z

Following our visit to St Mary's Bay on the south coast of Kent last weekend we had two lovely buckets of treasure to explore:

So, 6 days later we spread the contents of the buckets out on a large piece of paper,:

looked at what we had found and then I asked the girls to organise what they had found - no criteria for how they did it, just to do it and this is what happened:

Dd2 (aged 4) separated her find into pebbles, seaweed, small shells, medium shells, large shells, wood.

Dd1 (aged 6) organised hers into concentric circles, smallest in the centre, largest on the outside. This is absolutely typical of dd1 - given any mathematical type task it will become a work of art!

After this we read some pages from the Usborne Beginners Seashore book and discovered that one of our finds was egg cases from a whelk! The girls pretended to be sea otters cracking open mussels with a stone whilst lying on their backs, and we sang a fingerplay song which changed its words frequently but was inspired by this webpage and went something like this:

Five little shells lying on the shore,

Crash went the waves and then there were four.

Four little shells lying by the sea,

Crash went the waves and then there were three.

Three little shells by the sea so blue,

Crash went the waves and then there were two.

Two little shells lying in the sun,

Crash went the waves and then there was one.

One little shell, all by itself,

I picked it up and put it on my shelf.

Dd1 took a look at the Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Seashore book for a bit more depth and finally we cut the corners from eggbox lids and painted 'shells' and used the remains of a large lid as a wave so we can play out the song.

I'm also hoping to use the shells and waves to build up a bigger seashore picture over the coming weeks, but time will tell!

Afghanistan Project Session One: Where in the World? 22nd February 2010

2010-02-22T14:36:00.001Z

This week we started our project on Afghanistan. Because this is such a special project to us (see the end of this post) I bought some books which I might otherwise have tried to manage without. I also borrowed a couple of books from the library but they are more background reading for me than accesible reading for the girls!

For our first session we looked at a globe to see where we are and where Afghanistan is and I asked questions like, is Afghanistan or the UK bigger? What differences do you notice between Afghanistan and the UK? Which of Afghanistan and the UK is nearer the Equator? So which country is hotter in the daytime? We found the capital city of Afghanistan and discussed the term 'landlocked' and looked for other countries that are landlocked and what this might mean if you want to go to the beach!
Then we marked an outline map of the world with Afghanistan and the UK and looked at an atlas to see what kind of terrains make up Afghanistan and used the key to find rivers, roads and railway lines (couldn't find any definite railway lines, but maybe one from Pakistan towards Kabul). We read I Come From Afghanistan (American) and discussed what we had learnt. We looked at a printed off map with physical and geographical details marked and then we marked Kabul and the mountainous areas on an outline map of Afghanistan, printed from worldatlas.com. We will use this outline map for adding futher places of interest that we learn about as the weeks go on.

New Header Photo. 20th February 2010

2010-02-20T18:57:00.000Z

The new header photo is of pebbles on the beach at St Mary's Bay on the South Kent Coast. We made our first visit there today and believe it is probably our nearest beach now that we have moved. It has sand, shells, pebbles, a promenade and a tide which comes in very fast!

We have come home with a few of nature's treasures and will soon be emptying our nature basket from Autumn and Winter and will start our Spring collection. We'll be learning about the shells and pebbles and seaweed we collected later in the week. Watch this space!

Read the Bible in 90 days Update. 20th February 2010

2010-02-20T17:06:00.002Z

Well, it's nearly a month since I started the Read the Bible in 90 days challenge. I have read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Ruth, Judges, 1 Samuel and some of 2 Samuel. According to the schedule from Read the Bible in 90 days I am behind. I am still really pleased with what I have achieved and will be carrying on. At the moment I imagine that I'll be finishing at around 100-110 days.
My eyes were completely caught off balance by this massive increase in reading matter and some of the days I haven't managed to complete the schedule have been due to fearing I was about to have the optical equivalent of a heart attack! Because of the strain on my eyes I sought out the largest print bible we have in our house which is a New International Version Family Bible:

Although this has been very helpful for my eyes, it is not very portable! So much for reading the English Standard Version and not the NIV!
I've been noting down questions as I go along and am thinking that once completed I will start from Genesis again but stop to research the answers to my questions and take it all a lot slower. I'd also like to make a huge family tree on a third or consequent read of the bible. I've started this before and got quite a long way (lots of pieces of paper stuck together!) but think I'd have to start all over again as you kind of need a sense of who goes where and a mental continuum in order to be able to place people without spending hours pouring over it trying to find the right branch of the tree. I may even colour code the different tribes!
A couple of things that have come from me taking on this challenge have been that dd1 is very keen to read the bible in 90 days but as she's only just 6 years old I have suggested some alternatives(!) and my mum has challenged herself to read the New Testament over Lent, simply be dividing the number of pages in her bible by the 40 (or more, depending on your denomination) days of Lent.

Amaryllis Study 22nd January 2010

2010-01-22T14:09:00.002Z

I love the bold amaryllis but a combination of forgetfulness, frugalness, toddlers, pets and lack of airing cupboard have put me off growing them for the last 13 years! However last November I saw one for sale at just the right moment and managed to get it set up in the airing cupboard as just a bulb and a small dead-looking stump and this is what happened:

I moved it from the airing cupboard a couple of weeks ago and put it on top of the bathroom cabinet (where the cats can't get it!) and we now have 4 very arresting bright red flowers from one stem and the second stem is starting to blossom too.

As dd1 has croup and it is cold and raining outside Nature Study Friday is being held indoors! So, under strict supervision and whilst the cats are blissfully sleeping I have brought the beautiful amaryllis downstairs for closer inspection. We have observed that each flower has 6 petals and either 6 or 7 stamen with powdery pollen (some of which is still on the bathroom wall!). We have looked at a very old, second-hand copy of The Usborne Complete First Book of Nature to learn the names of the parts of the flowers and then we drew them:

Read the Bible in 90 days!!! 21st January 2010

2010-01-21T16:19:00.003Z

I came across Read the Bible in 90 days recently and just knew this would be something I would never get out of the back of my mind if I didn't at least attempt it.
I'm one of those types of people who wonders what they will regret not doing when on their death bed - sorry to be so morbid! - and the one thing that has remained at the top of the list year in, year out is not to have read the whole bible, so reading the bible in 90 days would certainly help me out in that department (God willing that I'm still around at the end of 90 days of course!). I think I probably have read the whole bible over the years, just not cover to cover and as I can't be 100% certain, I really want to get it done for sure. Now, going against me is that I am quite a slow reader, I don't have lots of spare time (who does?) and I am easily distracted and tempted by other seemingly more attractive tasks. However, despite these hurdles I am going to go public about my intention to read the bible in 90 days and accept that I may make a fool of myself if I don't complete it - but making a fool of myself for Chirst is something I can live with.

I am going to listen to the lessons for each week (under Hear Weekly Lessons on the home page) as each week begins - I have already listened to week one and that was very helpful. I have printed off the schedule on our rather ropey printer and found myself a notepad and a pen to jot down questions and interesting points so that they are all there at the end for further study rather than distracting me as I go along. The website recommends using the NIV and I have thought about this a lot. I used to find the NIV quite easy to read until I discovered the ESV at its publication time and since then has always been the bible I use by choice. So right now, I think I am going to use my ESV as it suits me better and I want to give myself the best possible chance of completing this challenge. Also I have a paperback copy of the ESV which is easier to carry around.
So, I am going to start on Sunday 24th January and aim to finish on Friday 23rd April. If you would like to do this challenge with me around roughly the same dates then please let me know. I would love to walk this road with a companion or two!

Castles Lapbooks 17th January 2010

2010-01-17T20:20:00.002Z

We have FINALLY finished our Castles Lapbooks. I was beginning to think we would never get there, but the day has come! This project was chosen by the girls after several trips to Leeds Castle in Kent. I wasn't really sure where to either begin or end with this project, but the size of a lapbook certainly helps with controlling such a big subject, especially with young children. They would have liked the portcullises to actually go up and down on the lapbooks (and probably at Leeds Castle as well!), but I managed to persuade them to settle for a drawbridge with 'ropes'!
This is the website where I got the parts of the castle picture - we added a few more parts on ourselves (e.g. moat). These lapbooks were compounded by the fact that our printer has taken to decorating anything in colour with horizontal magenta stripes and anything in black and white with vertical white strips so I ended up drawing and writing a lot by hand which would have been far quicker on the computer. However, they do seem to have learnt various useful bits of information about castles and I hope to top up that learning when they are older and we can look at the whole topic in more depth.
And finally, here they are:

Front covers

Inside - Who lived in a castle? Parts of a castle. The drawbridge.

Back - Castles in Kent - map and key (legend).

I don't tend to check off subjects within projects before we start, but in case anyone is interested, this is what I think we covered:

History - clothes, jobs, buildings, lifestyles

Geography - local, certain buildings for certain places

Technology - constructing drawbridge within lapbook, observing Technology in castles

Literature - reading non-fiction and fiction on castles, writing (dd2 traced letters and numbers)

Maths - spatial awareness to lay out lapbook, numbering castles on map, pattern of portcullis and colouring it

Science - using a key (legend) in recording information

There's probably more but my mind's gone blank now!

Our next project will be Afghanistan. This may seem an odd choice with a 4 year old and a 6 year old but for us it is very personal right now and is something they have asked to do. It is personal for two reasons - firstly, at the church we attended before we moved from Devon we twice met the link missionaries who were working in Northern Afghanistan and they gave us a fascinating insight into the land and culture. And secondly is the fact that my eldest nephew, the girls' eldest cousin is currently serving a 6 month tour of duty in Afghanistan with the British Army. Obviously he is in our prayers every day and this has made the girls very curious about why he is there and what it is like, not just for him, but what the whole country is like. Although we won't be making a field trip, I'm hoping we will learn a lot from writing and photographs in books and websites.

Snow Science 8th January 2010

2010-01-08T18:47:00.001Z

Science is not my strong point but I am very blessed to be married to a Physics and General Science teacher. I know however that not everybody has that blessing so I thought I would share with you a little science experiment which dh did with the girls (aged 4 (pre-school age) and 6 (Y1 age)).

This investigation is to find the most suitable method to preserve a snow dome.

The equipment is all things we readily had available and could easily be adapted or modified to suit what you have to hand.

We used a sheet of newspaper, a jay cloth, a ladle (any kind of scooping tool will be fine for this), a thermos flask and its cup, clingfilm, kitchen foil, a plastic chopping board (only used to protect the carpet and as a tray so anything similar will do) and a car window scraper (this could be replaced with a dinner knife or similar tool for levelling the snow).

Then we collected ladlefuls (is that a real word?) of snow and levelled it (to make it a fair test) with the car window scraper - thus making a snow dome and put each snow dome into a different container:

The thermos flask cup was simply a small container for the larger container of the freezer! The rest of the containers stayed on the plastic chopping board and were placed on the drainer.

We discussed which might be the most effective container and then kept an eye on the snow domes to see which was melting first. At the time of writing some have completely melted and others are intact. We'll check again in the morning.

This was, for us, a very informal science lesson, but could be far more thorough if you wished it to be e.g.

Make predictions, make a table for results, check every five/ten minutes (initially anyway!) and record results at each interval, scientific vocabulary could be used to write up the investigation.

I'd love to hear from you if you have a go at something like this.

Snow in Art and the Art of Snow! 8th January 2010

2010-01-08T18:02:00.002Z

Having moved from a warm and wet urban city in Devon to rural Kent last summer the girls experienced their first 'proper' snow in December. We were inspired by previous posts on this blog to produce the following artwork of trees and snow in differing media:

Above is oil pastel and tempera paint.

(Look at this post for instructions.)

Above is acrylic paint. (Look at this post for instructions)

Above is water-colour paint - and as you can see there are 3 paintings, so even I have to have a go now! (Look at this post for instructions)

And we were inspired by weeks (or was it months?!) of hoping and planning to create this!:

The best laid plans ... 4th January 2010

2010-01-04T13:37:00.001Z

My plans for Advent were about half succesful! We didn't manage to do any of the advent book - I suspect this was because we were away for the first few days of December and were therefore behind before we'd even begun and also because The Jesse Tree book I had borrowed from the library turned out to be very rich so there was a lot to be taken from it and this felt like enough. The readings and drawings from this book took us into January - the book isn't advent specific so this worked out okay. My plan of hanging pictures on a twig turned out like this in the end!:

Last autumn pictures ... 27th November 2009

2009-11-27T13:15:00.001Z

The stunning colours of autumn can't help but make me awed of my maker. I think this will probably be our last autumn art activity, but I was so inspired by a couple of blogs I came across recently that I was determined to squeeze this in!

This blog post has the instructions on how to make crayon cakes - which I did - which make it much easier for small fingers to draw or rub with wax crayons because they have a lot more to hold on to.

This blog post motivated me to create a large leaf rubbing picture activity for a group of children who we meet up with every Tuesday afternoon.

This is how it went for us:

If I do this again (which I probably will next autumn) then I'll experiment with other types of paint - the water and food colouring was very wet and this isn't great weather for drying soggy paper!

Preparing for Advent 17th November 2009

2009-11-17T18:08:00.002Z

Last year I prepared for Advent at the very last minute, so I am trying to get organised very slightly earlier this year! In the spirit of encouraging and inspiring others, here are three of the resources we are going to use:

1 This is the advent ring we made last year:

2 I have ordered this book from the library and am hoping it will get here in time! I'm planning that we will use a branch for a Jesse Tree and I will let the girls design their own Jesse Tree pictures/symbols. There are lots of websites with free resources available for this activity - I just put 'jesse tree' into a search engine and found plenty with varying degrees of help.

3 This advent calendar and activity book which we used last year and will re-use this year are made by The Good Book Company, but I notice they do two other Advent Calendar Packs.

Nature Study Friday and it's raining cats and dogs! 13th November 2009

2009-11-13T13:33:00.001Z

I'm no Charlotte mason expert, but I'm pretty sure that she encourages children to go out in all weathers, but it is just TOO wet and windy here in Kent today, so our nature walk had to be adapted ...

Sometimes it is only after the event that I realise God has been helping me in small ways and I think yesterday was one of those times. We made a rare trip to the shops as I wanted to get an alphabet frieze for dd2 (didn't find one, so will make one instead) but ended up unexpectedly buying oil pastels and pastel paper instead - to be fair, I've seen quite a few oil pastel posts on other blogs and thought I might be able to get my not-very-artistic-head around it, so it must have been lurking at the back of my mind somewhere. Last night I 'youtubed' my way through various demonstrations for beginners, including this one, and this one and then had a go myself:

So today, with no possibility of a nature walk we set about trying oil pastels using conkers from our nature basket and a brilliant fresh leaf dd2 had found on the pavement yesterday at the shops and brought home with us. Here's how the girls got on:

The whole thing was a lot easier than I had expected and I'm looking forward to doing it again.

Operation Christmas Child Shoebox Delivery 12th November 2009

2009-11-12T17:08:00.003Z

Having finished putting together our shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child and wrapping the boxes as per the instructions we set off today to deliver them to our nearest collection point. I was really thrilled to discover that for us our nearest collection point is the national distribution centre in Ashford, Kent. We were made really welcome and shown where the checking happens and the enormous warehouse which has just a few shoeboxes at the moment but which will no doubt soon be filling up. The lady who showed us around had been to Belarus last year to help with building work and had seen the circumstances in which some of the children live who will be receiving shoeboxes this year. The shoebox they receive this year will be their only Christmas present. From the little I have seen of Operation Christmas Child it seems to be really well organised and it is very humbling to have an insight into it and to see how the people involved are living out Christ's love and taking it to the lives of so many children and families in this amazing way.

Learning to sacrifice ... 3rd November 2009

2009-11-03T16:37:00.009Z

A few weeks ago one of the families in our homeschooling group brought along a DVD from Operation Christmas Child / Samaritan's Purse which we all watched. You can watch a shorter version of that DVD here. Since then the girls have been very keen to make shoeboxes full of small gifts for this cause and although I was very pleased for them to take part I've been racking my brains as to how to make it more than just a shopping trip with them picking out goodies and dh footing the bill!

Last night while dh gave them their bath I did an emergency tidy and clearout in their bedroom. This must have inspired me because today I suddenly realised that they could 'earn' the money to pay for the gifts for the shoeboxes by picking out soft toys to send to the charity shop. I made them each a very improptu chart so they could see how they were progressing. They could earn a maximum of £5 each:

We got all the soft toys out and spread them out over the beds and floor and then it was up to them to find toys they were ready to let go of - different sized toys were awarded different multiples of 10 pence until finally the £5 goals were met. This is what we managed to get rid of:

Yes, that's a whole black bin bag FULL!

They both found the last few toys quite a struggle but with the thought that there were children who had never ever had a present they knew that it was a sacrifice they could make.

We're off to start buying the gifts tomorrow!

Taking opportunities 9th October 2009

2009-10-09T13:56:00.010+01:00

One of the things I really like about homeschooling is that it has given us the ability to take up opportunities that could never normally be organised at short notice in a school. One of those such opportunities arose for us on a sunny October day when Nature Study Friday became Nature Study Thursday, and tree study was exchanged for fish feeding! After an irresistable invite, we walked from our house, through our village, along the bridleway and across two fields, straight into the garden of one of our new friends from church. She and her husband live in a rural property and look after a very large pond inhabited by moorhen and carp, amongst other creatures! The carp are very tame indeed - look at them eating the bread we took with us:

Both the girls, but especially dd1 were totally enraptured by this spectacle and here are their drawings:

I especially love dd1's picture (above) because she has drawn the fish as she saw it - from above - and not as it would be drawn in a book!

My new Header photo ... 26th September 2009

2009-09-26T19:41:00.005+01:00

was taken in October 2008 in a very large city park in Devon. It is of Ginkgo leaves as they had naturally fallen on the grass below. When the yellowed leaves were still on the tree it looked like a brilliant, glowing, golden beacon - a startling reminder of God's power and majesty. It was by far my most favourite tree at autumntime in that park .

Nature Study Friday 25th September 2009

2009-09-25T19:04:00.015+01:00

This academic year I have scheduled Nature Study for a Friday so we went on our first organised nature walk in our new village in Kent today. I have been incredibly inspired by this amazing blog which in turn inspired me (after some considerable thought) to purchase this book:

It is such a wealth of information and ideas that I knew after a first flick through that I would be getting way more than my money's worth from it as I would be able to use if for many, many years. I bought this book too late for Autumn last year, so I am making the most of having it for Autumn this year. Today we did our first tree study following Lesson 172: Tree Study on p623 and tackled Exercise 1. I will pick and choose from the rest of the exercises in this lesson as the weeks go by - my girls are too young for some of it, but can access other parts at their own level.

Here are some photos of our chosen tree (which I am still yet to identify!) and of what we did:
And this is what the girls did afterwards!:

And for when it's not Friday, well, we put our collected treasures from our travels around and about in a basket, simply to be gazed at, handled, and generally admired whenever the mood takes us!

September and back to school. 17th September 2009

2009-09-17T08:26:00.014+01:00

We went back to school on Monday 14th September after a long break during which we finally moved house. We are now living in rural Kent, which is a huge change from a large city in the West country. We have met some lovely homeschooling families and believe we have found the church where the Lord wants us to serve.

We are blessed now to have a garden full of mature trees and shrubs and here are photos of our first harvest of plums and pears and another one of the teasels we collected but don't know what we can use them for (any suggestions welcome!):

For our first week back at school we are having an Introductory Week - trying to ease the change from holidays to structure! We have finally finished our Creation Books which we started last term:

DD1 has finished the National Numeracy Strategy Foundation Review Goals and we have have been baking and reading from the bible. DD1 is currently using Keys for Kids which was recommended on a yahoo group I am part of. DD2 is using The Beginner's Bible.

On Wednesday we had a very special treat and went to see We're Going On A Bear Hunt at the Gulbenkian Theatre in Canterbury which we really enjoyed. For Thursday and Friday we are doing a mini-project on our locality, incorporating lots of different subjects from the curriculum.

Next week we will move up a gear and start using some books from the Ambleside Online Curriculum, start learning French and many other exciting things.

Creation Study Part Four 9th August 2009

2009-08-09T09:31:00.015+01:00

We finished our dolphin and shark mini-books some time ago but due to the pressures of being mid-house move it's taken me a while to get this post uploaded!

Here is dd1's dolphin mini-book:

And here is dd2's shark mini-book:

For the fifth day of Creation we had a brilliant (but extremely wet) family trip to Paignton Zoo in Devon and have almost finished putting the photos into our Creation scrap books.
We are taking the rest of August and probably the first two weeks of September off from homeschooling. We've already had a couple of brilliant walks on Dartmoor. Yesterday we managed a 3.6 mile walk - the longest the girls have ever done - followed by ice creams and a paddle in the river! Here are the girls on top of the Dewerstone Rock:

I hope you all have some good weather over the coming weeks - we've certainly loved the last 5 days of dry weather!

Creation Study Part Three 24th July 2009

2009-07-24T20:29:00.013+01:00

To finish our work on the fourth day of Creation using The Creation Story we painted pictures of the 8 planets using I Love Space as a guide.

To start the fifth day of Creation we looked at pages 18 and 19 of The Creation Story (link above) and tried to name as many sea creatures as we could. Then each child chose a sea creature for a mini-book project. DD1 chose dolphins and DD2 chose sharks. We went straight to the library and took out books on sea creatures to help us learn more. We have been working hard on our mini-books and my next post will hopefully include video clips of them!

Studying sea creatures is easier rather than harder where we live as we are very blessed to currently live quite close to the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth, Devon, UK. We often visit and here is some still and video photography from a recent visit (including sharks!).

First of all, here is our absolute favourite, Snorkel the Loggerhead Turtle - read the story of how she came to be in captivity here.

Secondly, a short clip of a Sand Tiger Shark.

Thirdly, a clip of a Black Tip Reef Shark.

And finally here is a still photograph of what I think is a Conger Eel in a pipe.

Creation Study Part Two 29th June 2009

2009-06-29T16:28:00.015+01:00

We have been carrying on with our study of Creation using this book.

For day three of Creation we went to see where the land meets the sea (and had an ice cream whilst enjoying the view!) and discussed other types of land surface where the land meets the sea eg sandy beach.

We looked for seed bearing plants and grasses in our local park and planted some beans which are just beginning to burst forth.

We have just started day four of Creation and have enjoyed using a planetarium made by National Geographic which my sister gave dd1 for her birthday last year.

We also read I Love Space which we picked up quite cheaply from our local branch of The Works. We found it very interesting, but it won't suit every Christian family! I'm hoping we will be able to do some art and craft on space later this week.

Creation Study Part One 19th June 2009

2009-06-19T16:39:00.012+01:00

This week we have started a study on Creation using a beautiful book called The Creation Story, illustrated by Norman Messenger and published by Dorling Kindersley. We picked up this book from our library when it was selling off old stock.

For the first day of Creation we discussed the differences between night and day inlcuding things like temperature, nocturnal animals and why we sleep at night and are awake during the day. We used black paper with white and yellow chalks to show the light bursting through the darkness.

For the second day of Creation we went outside with tubs of water and tried to separate the water into two piles, which was very funny. We printed out copies of this cloud chart and looked for different types of clouds and drew what we saw with white chalk on blue card. I also found this blog with amazing cloud photos.

Amazing Rockpool Ramble Finds 2nd June 2009

2009-06-02T22:20:00.012+01:00

A couple of weeks ago we went on a rockpool ramble organised by the Wembury Marine Centre near Plymouth in Devon. We have been on a couple before, but this time we had our best finds by far.

Amazingly, dd1 found a shore crab (I think that's the correct identification!) which had just shed its shell, so in the tub you see the old empty shell which has come apart and the crab in its new and much bigger shell - I'm amazed it fitted in the old shell!

If you look carefully at the photo of the underside of a rock, towards the bottom in the middle. you will see a lovely little cushion starlet amongst the molluscs.

We've been using Usborne Spotter's Guides; The Seashore to help us with identification and have found it to be just about the right level for us!

Rockpool rambles are a real family treat for us and a humbling experience when we get a glimpse at the complexities and enormities of what the Lord created.

Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks has been a firm favourite and ties in nicely with our crab find - I originally got it in the vain hope it would help with sibling sharing!

Making Maths More Fun Part 5 11th May 2009

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We finally managed to have the right weather and be organised enough to combine our weekly Nature Walk with some Maths this week. We went to our local park and collected flowers that had fallen to the ground and picked some weeds and brought them home to make bar charts based on the number of flowers of each colour. Some of the stages (including spelling corrections!) are shown in the pictures. I found some free printable grid paper here. The paper I used was grid paper large.

Bears Lapbooks 7th May 2009

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Last November we made our first lapbooks using cardboard folders bought very cheaply from our local supermarket. We had been doing some work on Goldilocks and the Three Bears and wanted to find out more about bears. Firstly we found pictures of the 8 types of bear on the internet, printed them out, mounted them on card and made them into small flaps, sticking the name of each type of bear underneath. We marked on a world map where we would find each type of bear and put that onto the back of the lapbook.
After that we learnt about hibernation and watercolour painted a hill with a flap with a hibernating bear underneath.
Then we learnt about what bears eat (I know fish, berries and bamboo isn't the entire list!) and did some wax relief watercolour pictures.
Finally we did the cover (with a lot of help from me!) and cut out bear shapes from fur fabric.
The yellow lapbook is by dd2 who was 3 (only just) at the time - I did the writing and helped her a lot with the rest.
The pink lapbook is by dd1 who was 4 (almost 5) at the time and had some help and a lot of guidance from me.

Making Maths More Fun Part 4 (and other lessons learnt!) 5th May 2009

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We have been looking at rectangles recently and ended our study by cutting out rectangles and making a skyscraper scene. I think in the end though that dd1 learnt far more about using the right tool for the right job and perseverance than she did about rectangles!

Hilarious Science 24th April 2009

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Today we made fairy cakes ... we predicted (in a not very scientific fashion) that it would be harder to make fairy cakes with gluten- and wheat-free flour than it is with regular flour. We decided it would be an experiment (just as well!). The conclusion of the experiment is that the mixture was too runny - so runny in fact that it ran out of the cake cases and completely filled the baking tray - I took a photo when it came out of the oven but later on realised that the memory card was still in the server! Hopefully you can make out some very splodgy flat fairy cakes on the plate and in the bowl is all the overflow cake mixture from the baking tray! Next week we'll try less milk ............

Making Maths More Fun Part 3 24th April 2009

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This week we have spent a bit of time looking at triangles. On Tuesday we discussed the properties of triangles, drew some with a ruler and photographed triangles around the home to go into dd1's maths book (a scrap book with anything she does on paper that can be stuck in), then today we cut out triangles and made triangle faces on paper plates. Next week we'll be doing rectangles and I'm hoping to do a picture of buildings with lots of windows, all made from rectangles.

Easter Garden - Easter Sunday 12th April 2009

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I think it must have been a bit too stony for the slugs and snails so the "tomb" was indeed empty this morning! The crosses are in slightly different positions from Good Friday after the garden had to be re-assembled yesterday when our rather large cat sat on it!

Easter Garden - Good Friday 10th April 2009

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This year we had to make a weatherproof Easter Garden due to the fact the house is for sale (so the Easter Garden has to stay outside) so it's ended up looking quite austere! We didn't have a stone big enough to completely cover the opening of the "cave" so I'm wondering if we might "roll back" the stone on Sunday to find a couple of snails and a slug!

Sometimes help comes from the most surprising places! 23rd March 2009

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Our current project is Farming in Springtime and dd1 was charged with finding out the different names of male and female farm animals. Some she already knew but there were quite a few gaps. To be honest, I wasn't quite sure how she was going to find out by herself, but on a trip to Pennywell Farm Activity Centre in Devon last week some help came from a rather surprising source!

Writing in the sand! 17th March 2009

2009-03-17T12:39:00.008Z

Handwriting practice in a sand tray has been a great idea I've picked up on my homeschooling journey. I've started using it with dd1 as she learns to join her letters, alongside Jolly Phonics Workbook 4 . We practice the joins in the air, then her hand over mine in the sand, my hand over hers in the sand, her finger on her own in the sand and finally a blunt pencil in the sand. Then she gets to write on paper! Today was the best day we've had with it though because the weather was good enough to use the tray outside which is lovely in itself, but also means not so much sweeping up afterwards!

Making Maths More Fun Part 2 26th February 2009

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Through a couple of other blogs I found out about a mathematician author called Greg Tang and this week we read one of his books, Math Fables. Before I let dd1 read the book I made the correct number of animals for each fable, printed them on coloured card and cut them out so that we would be able to act out each fable. On the first day we read and acted out numbers 1-7 and on the second day we read and acted out numbers 8-10 and then 1-7 again! Dd1 had a whale of a time giving the animals sounds and voices and organising them into the correct groupings as each fable progresses. Maths is definitely becoming more fun on our homeschool journey.

Making Maths More Fun Part 1 16th February 2009

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Recently I have been searching for different ways to make Maths more fun and hands-on in our homeschool journey. The first thing we have done is make our own Snakes and Ladders board. We bought a large piece of card from our local Post Office and then numbered some white sticky labels from 1-100 (dd1 did some labels, I did most!). We cut out and decorated snakes and drew ladders. We glued on the snakes and ladders as we gradually stuck on the labels.We made a couple of errors in where we placed the snakes and ladders - one we fixed afterwards and the other we left as it was, so when you go down one of the snakes you end up on a square with a ladder so get to go back up again! This mistake reminded me of how as we repeatedly fall into sin we are always forgiven and raised back up again!We've been playing with two dice so dd2 is challenged to recognise the dots for 1,2 and 3 and dd1 is challenged to count on (eg she throws a 5 and a 6, so I quickly get her to say what numbers she has thrown and then take the higher number away and get her to count on, pointing to each dot on the 5 as a visual aid). I've definitely noticed an improvement in her counting on and we've had some great games of Snakes and Ladders into the bargain!

Why 'For His Glory'? 13th February 2009

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It took quite a lot of pondering to decide to have a blog and even more pondering to settle on the blog's title. I chose 'For His Glory' because I felt God prompting me in 2008 to look carefully at why I pray for things and check that I am asking for things in order that He might be glorified. Equally important to me is that I want to be constantly reminded that anything I put onto this blog is for His glory and not mine and hopefully the title glaring out at me every time I post will help keep me on the right track.