Life, Love & Literature

Just another Home Education blog

Mar 14

All the Fun of the Fair

by sarah

To be quite hon­est week­ends have been a strug­gle lately, with every­one being a bit snappy by Sun­day after­noon. I think every­one has had a bit of a case of the JFBs (January/February blues) as Lind­say calls them.

Any­way we all seem to have emerged the other side.
Sat­ur­day morn­ing and the boys got out the Knex fair­ground kits that they had had for Christmas.
Jack did really well at fol­low­ing the instruc­tions himself.
And Sam did really well at …
…heck­ling Pete! ‘Come on Dad. Look how much Jack has done. You’re not doing very well!’
Spa­cial visu­al­i­sa­tion and patience not Pete’s strongest skills but I had to go out.
While I went and set up a dis­play that the Rain­bows had made for a local com­mu­nity event on mak­ing the vil­lage more envi­ron­men­tally friendly, the boys did a pup­pet show for Pete and kept on with the knex and heck­ling (although appar­ently at some point it changed to patro­n­is­ing sup­port ‘come on Dad. You’re doing really well’).
We had made an attempt to res­ur­rect our book of the week idea last week and looked at ‘Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood’ and made some spoon puppets.

Early after­noon I nipped home and col­lected the boys and took them back to the com­mu­nity event. Where they had a go in a fire engine, played with giant jenga and con­nect four, stuffed their face with cakes and burg­ers and then got fed up so went over to the park with friends. First time I’ve let Sam go with­out me, but there was a group all Jack’s age or older and they are sen­si­ble kids.

Back home and I fin­ished off the Knex Octo­pus Whirl for Sam. And we watched the last episode of the Out­num­bered DVD we’d bought last weekend.
Sun­day and Pete took out the boys while I fin­ished strip­ping the bed­room walls, did a moun­tain of iron­ing and caught up with my OU.
Jack and I then fin­ished his fer­ris wheel. He did 90% of the fer­ris wheel and all of the car him­self — not some­thing he finds nat­u­rally easy so I am very impressed.
Oh and he’d bought a new Ben 10 alien in town so lots of Ben 10 games followed.
Sun­day evening and Pete intro­duced the boys to the Carry On films. I opted to hoover upstairs and put away the iron­ing instead!

Day to day life Family

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Jan 20

Jack and the Beanstalk

by sarah

Finally I get to the point of the new blog background.

For a long time Lind­say and I have wanted to do a Fairy Tale/traditional sto­ries theme onActiv­ity Vil­lage but have always been too busy to actu­ally turn it into reality.
Well this term I decided that Sam and I would do a Fairy Tale theme for his ‘book of the week’.
We are actu­ally more ‘book of the fort­night’ at the moment as still strug­gling a bit to get back into rou­tine but hey.
Lind­say mean­while is com­mis­sion­ing art­work and audios and hope­fully we will man­age to start pulling things together soon.
Firstly by some mir­a­cle our beans are still grow­ing. No idea what type of beans they are — they were a spe­cial kids pack labelled ‘Jack’s Beanstalk’.
Look a bit alien actually…


Sam coloured and rewrote the story in his own words.
Then I get to our ‘big project’
Here is ‘Paper Jack’, who for max­i­mum con­fu­sion is a paper cut out of Sam. He took sev­eral days to colour.
Then up the stairs grows our beanstalk. The leaves have the story on which Sam arranged in order as a ‘sequenc­ing’ activity.

Then just to freak me out every morn­ing we have a Giant at the top of the stairs (seri­ously is a good 7 ft plus tall –is not clear how big he is from pic)

Day to day life

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Nov 15

Home Help and Thanksgiving

by sarah

Yes­ter­day Jack’s cub leader sent over the cri­te­ria for the Home Safety and Home Help activ­ity badges. Jack actu­ally has the badge book and spends every spare moment read­ing it and plan­ning what badges he will do any­way. How­ever he was very excited about the idea of work­ing towards 2 new badges.

So he washed his Cubs scarf
And sewed on his hik­ing badge.
We also did usual lessons and began look­ing at Thanksgiving.
We have a pocket book from Evan Moor about the Pil­grims. I bought it for Jack but seemed too easy for him and his inter­est waned so Sam is work­ing through it.
We fin­ished off the first pocket.
And com­pleted the second.
Then it was time to head to Stub­bing­ton for Sam’s gym­nas­tics class.

Day to day life

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Nov 8

Half Term

by sarah

Still in catch up mode.

We had gone to Southamp­ton on the Sat­ur­day so we started off the week by mak­ing Air­fix planes.
Jack’s Super­ma­rine Spit­fire.
Sam’s Messer­schmitt 110.
As part of our Lin Yi’s Lantern week we had dis­cussed gifts, and the value of think­ing of oth­ers so in Southamp­ton Sam and I did a bit of shop­ping. Then we packed a shoe­box up for OCC.
Although we do keep work­ing dur­ing half term we also lose a lot of rou­tine. We had friends over to play sev­eral times and usual activ­i­ties stop.
Our book of the week was nice and halloweeny.

As well as Hal­loween we also fin­ished off some Autumny stuff. A wreath from Baker Ross.

Did some bak­ing.


And made piz­zas.

And made some Witch crafts.

Day to day life

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Nov 8

Moon Festival

by sarah

For numer­ous rea­sons I’ve got really far behind, so time for a catch up.

3 weeks ago we moved our focus from Autumn and plants to fes­ti­vals. To tie the two together we started with a beau­ti­ful book from Bare­foot Books (think they come 2nd to Usborne but only just…)
Mon­day was still film week so we headed over to Gun­wharf to watch Toy Story 3 — which we all hated. Took the oppor­tu­nity for a look around the shops and in par­tic­u­lar to top up Jack’s woe­ful clothes and shoe sup­plies. He has now decided he loves Gap. He’s grown up enough to care about what he wears beyond whether it has Ben 10 or Star Wars on — grr.
To Stub­bing­ton for Sam’s Gym and then home where we spent awhile look­ing up China in the atlas and talk­ing about cul­tural differences.
Tues­day — I had my OU exam so Pete was in charge. Gave him the task of explain­ing phases of the moon to Sam. Then Jack had music and was inducted in to Cubs (which made him very happy).
Weds — We went to Gosport Gallery where there was an exhi­bi­tion of illus­tra­tions from children’s books. We read some sto­ries did some colour­ing and made an Elmer.
As I had to be back in Gosport later for Vision, the Guid­ing Finale we decided to hang around. Had lunch in Mac­Don­alds, went around the shops (to buy gloves, hat, vest and tights — I was woe­fully under­dressed for the evenings fes­tiv­i­ties) and hung about in the library. Sam and I explored the library museum while Jack worked his way through their Goose­bumps collection.
Sun set­ting over Portsmouth. Just before they started light­ing up the Spin­naker in guid­ing colours.
Thurs­day — After the pre­vi­ous week we (or I per­haps) were exhausted so we took it easy. They painted me with Hal­loween makeup (not a flat­ter­ing picture).
And I painted Sam.
Then Sam and I spent a long time in the bath. And I spent a longer time clean­ing the bath!
Then we dec­o­rated cakes

To look like mon­sters!

And took Jack to drama.
Fri­day — Sam fin­ished off his first ever lap­book. About Harvest.

Jack prac­tised the piano.
We painted sil­ver moons to make a mobile the next week.
And I caught up on a week and a half of housework!

Day to day life

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Oct 21

And Turnips

by sarah

Still in catch up mode.

Last week we were still bat­tling colds, I was try­ing to revise and we had the test of endurance that is film edu­ca­tion week. Although hav­ing learned my les­son from pre­vi­ous years we only booked in to 2 films.
With every­thing going on I took my foot off the ped­dle and gave the boys a lot more free time than I have lately and they did me proud.
They spent a LOT of time play­ing lego.
Jack also spent a lot of time prac­tis­ing the piano.
Our book of the week con­tin­ued the seasonal/harvest theme.

Mon­day, we had a home ed meet where we made a bon­fire col­lage, park with friends and then Sam had gymnastics.
Tues­day we walked down to the vil­lage for some shop­ping. Then Jack decided he wanted to do some paint­ing so we dug out some acrylic paints and some can­vases which have been under the spare bed for ages.

We spent a lot of time watch­ing and lis­ten­ing to songs from CBBC’s Hor­ri­ble His­to­ries on youtube. Here is Sam doing the Pachacuti.

Jack made ‘word pic­tures’ based on Autumny and fire­work linked words for a dis­play in the library.
Thurs­day we went into Portsmouth bright and early to watch ‘Fan­tas­tic Mr Fox’ at the cinema.
Sam who didn’t want to go loved it — Jack and I thought it was appalling!
Here’s Jack on the ferry.
Lunch time and we were back in Lee to help another mum from the home ed group put up the library dis­play. It looks fab.
Didn’t have time to go home before drama so lunch at one of the cafes in the vil­lage and an ice cream on the bench wait­ing for the bus.
We get to the school where Jack has drama 30 mins early due to the bus times so Sam drew a map in the mud and explained his war strat­egy (never did find out who we were fight­ing).
Fri­day, we dec­o­rated foam trees.
Com­pared sizes and made a poster.
Jack did a work­sheet on fol­low­ing instruc­tions and wrote a story using the print­a­bles from here

Then we had a tidy up before Jack put on his new Cubs uni­form and we went to the scout hut to see a vis­it­ing plan­e­tar­ium show.


Day to day life

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Oct 17

Pumpkins

by sarah

Realised I have got a bit behind. Too busy revis­ing of an evening to post — although have been doing plenty. So bit of a catch up.

Week before last was a bit of an odd one, we had hos­pi­tals, den­tists and extra guid­ing com­mit­ments as well as my need to revise to fit in to our nor­mal sched­ule and colds to cope with too.
We did lots of bak­ing, cakes and bis­cuits for my Guid­ing AGM (and some to eat our­selves) and made our Christ­mas cakes!
We have also reached our ‘crafty sea­son’ and it was pump­kins galore!

Know­ing the boys would be get­ting excited about Hal­loween, I’d selected an old favourite of Sam’s as our book of the week. Pump­kin soup.

We looked at why we have sea­sons (bed­room lamp and inflat­able globe). We also looked at what plants need to grow and why the fact that they need dif­fer­ent amounts of things mean many crops are sea­sonal. Put in the con­text of why I refuse to buy straw­ber­ries for most of the year!
Of course we made pump­kin soup.
Yum.
We have also been col­lect­ing many leaves. From which we took leaf rub­bings and made leaf prints.
We also lam­i­nated some of the leaves and made some ‘scratch’ leaves . And made a large tree.
We painted the seeds from the pump­kin that we used for soup. Cue lots of mess!
Glued them down.
Ta da pump­kin mosaic

Day to day life

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Oct 1

Slowing down

by sarah

The coughs and colds the boys have been bat­tling for the last week have been slow­ing them down the last few days, par­tic­u­larly Jack. So we’ve been spend­ing some time at home catch­ing up with work and resting.

On Weds, I heard that a trip I’d organ­ised for Fri­day was can­celled! So while I was fuss­ing around try­ing to con­tact peo­ple, Sam indulged in a bit of Boo­gie Bee­bies. Here he is doing the ‘funky chicken’.
Then we made a recipe from our book of the week, Eddie’s Kitchen.
Show­ing off our yummy, scrummy Car­rot and Orange driz­zle cake.
Then Pete came home to cud­dle up on the set­tee and read and watch tv with them while I went out to Rainbows.
Thurs­day we cracked on with work, boys did their maths and eng­lish and both started work on a ‘his­tory pocket’.
On Eddie’s Kitchen we talked about dif­fer­ent fam­i­lies. Here is Sam’s pic­ture of Eddie and Lily. Appaently hav­ing a blue face means you’re happy.

Day to day life

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Sep 29

Home Ed Groups Galore

by sarah
Yes­ter­day we started our new book of the week

We exper­i­mented with chang­ing tex­tures and made bread (Sam told the lady in the co-op tonight that it was hor­ri­ble).

Time for Maths and Eng­lish. Then we headed over to Stub­bing­ton to meet some mem­bers of Fare­Gos for a new meet­ing in the new Guide hall. Was only a few fam­i­lies there but the kids had great fun run­ning around the hall. We didn’t bother with set­ting up any activ­i­ties, a ball and fris­bee and open space and that was all they needed. There was also time for some tree climb­ing before Sam’s gym­nas­tic class.
Today we headed over to Portsmouth to join the home ed group there for book group. We were look­ing at the book Flat Stan­ley. Jack and Sam were very vocal dur­ing the group discussions.
Then they made a new flat trav­eller and pass­port each.
 

The room is attached to an Adven­ture play­ground which Sam was so excited by — espe­cially the sand­pits. Jack got stung by a bee about which he was very stoic.

At home I decided to test out a recipe for next months ses­sion which the boys decided to take as an invi­ta­tion to empty var­i­ous things out of the kitchen cup­boards and mix them up to see what hap­pens. Var­i­ous pots of green salty water with tis­sue paper in and things like that are now sit­ting in the kitchen.
Finally Jack had Cubs at the Ten­nis club.
Tir­ing but enjoy­able few days.

Day to day life Home Ed Group

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Sep 23

Back to Work

by sarah

With one thing and another we really came off the boil over the sum­mer and didn’t seem to achieve any­thing and behav­iour def­i­nitely seemed to suf­fer as a result. There­fore, decided to start the new aca­d­e­mic year with a new ‘struc­tured’ approach. How long it will last time will tell but so far so good and every­one seems happier.

The idea is that for Jack morn­ing is work time. I give him a list of things to do in a book and he man­ages them. After that he is free to do as he wishes. Haven’t told him but I have relaxed my computer/tv rules as to be hon­est if we are work­ing all morn­ing then out late after­noon for what­ever that day’s activ­ity is there isn’t a huge amount of time for him to play on them any­way. How­ever, he does seem to be self reg­u­lat­ing and is happy grab­bing the last of the sum­mer sun in the garden.
Work­wise Jack is using CGP for Maths, Galore Park for Eng­lish, Sci­ence and His­tory, DK Span­ish and Geog and every­thing else I make up as we go along.
For Sam, we are try­ing to fol­low “The Ordi­nary Par­ents Guide to Teach­ing Read­ing” as well as learn­ing the dolch words. I’m not con­vinced by phon­ics per­son­ally but Sam seems to strug­gle a bit with pick­ing out sounds in speech (and as a result it can be dif­fi­cult to under­stand him some­times) so thought I’d see if this helps. Maths we are fin­ish­ing off his Hein­nekken books but plan to start Math-U-See in the next few weeks.
For every­thing else for Sam I am hop­ing to use an approach inspired by “Five in a Row”
The idea is that you read a book for 5 days on the trot and each day fol­low up with an activ­ity, cov­er­ing art, sci­ence, human­i­ties, cre­ative lan­guage and applied maths. I loved the idea and some of the books were nice but hav­ing seen the man­ual it left me cold. There was lit­tle pro­gres­sion of ideas and there was still an awful lot of plan­ning needed.
There­fore I have decided to raid my book­cases and the library and come up with my own ver­sion. Advan­tage being I can feed in from what Jack is doing, home ed trips etc. Hav­ing sketched out a term I still have loads of books/idea so hope­fully will
man­age at least a year or so.
Any­way this weeks book is
Part of a vegetables/healthy eat­ing theme as I try to inspire Sam to not be so fussy.
Mon­day, Jack worked through Maths, Eng­lish, Sci­ence and labelled some maps of Amer­ica, includ­ing play­ing the states games on here and the joined Sam for his ‘Oliver’s Veg­eta­bles’ activ­ity of mak­ing food pyramids.
Then Sam started his new gym­nas­tics class which he loved.
Tues­day — while Jack and I explored phys­i­cal maps Sam played with the blocks from his Math-U-See.
Then we tried iden­ti­fy­ing vegetables
Tying together Jack’s sci­ence (human body) and Sam’s veg­etable theme we used all of our senses to describe a carrot.
And then turned it into poems

A Car­rot by Jack

Bumpy
Long, orange gun
Snaps with a bang
Sweet tast­ing
Smells like a rab­bit hutch
A Car­rot by Sam
Orange
Smells like dino poo
Rough and cold
Crunchy like crisps
Tasty
After­noon left time for an Egypt­ian v’s Per­sians battle

And bub­bles. Always time for bubbles.

Jack had his first recorder/piano les­son which was a hit and then started Cubs com­ing back buzzing and excited.
Weds
Jack wrote and with a bit of help laid out a mag­a­zine arti­cle about foxes.

On the veg­etable theme Sam made some dye from onion skins and dyed a t-shirt
Then I showed that you don’t need to be a ‘dan­ger­ous boy’ despite what the book says to build a fab den.

Curriculum Day to day life

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