Category Archives: Home education

Jubilee Alphabet

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This is a work in progress by Monkey.  He is having trouble sleeping so we have been composing a Jubilee Alphabet.   I’m not sure if this is the finished version, as I’ve left him thinking about it, with a view to continuing tomorrow if he is in the mood.

Anniversary

Balloons and bunting, blue

Celebrations and cake

Diamond

Elizabeth, England

Flags, fun

Golden crown

Hats

Ice-cream

Jubilee

King

London

Music

Nice day, Northern Ireland

Overtired

Party

Queen

Roundabout, red

Songs, Scotland

Tents

Union Jack

Vicar

White, Wales

eXcellent day

Yawn

Zzzzz…time to go to sleep (the Queen is tired)

Time for a round up…

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It’s been a mad week, and I haven’t blogged anything that happened after the Museum visit on Tuesday.  I can’t remember everything we’ve done, but there are a few bits and pieces I want to record here.  On Wednesday, we had a home education group meeting at our house.  The children had a lot of fun playing in our overgrown garden, and luckily we managed not to lose any of them among the long grass and rather impressive array of weeds wild flowers we are currently cultivating.  Monkey and Owl set up a very good obstacle course and all the children had a go, the older ones helping the younger ones so that they all succeeded in completing it.  We had a teepee at the half way point, and I suggested that each child could go in there and either sing a song or count to ten before continuing.  I particularly enjoyed listening to Jingle Bells sung very quietly and sweetly by a lovely four-year old boy!  After the group left, we went to the Beavers’ Jubilee party and the children had fun playing games and eating lots of cake.  When we came home, Monkey decided he had to write a very important note for the milkman before he could go to bed.  I believe this is known as “writing for a purpose”!

On Thursday, Granny (my mum) came to visit so we had a peaceful and productive morning. In the afternoon I decided that, instead of fighting against it, I should use the overgrown garden as an educational resource, so we spent a long time drawing wild flowers and trying to identify them.  Owl, Monkey and Rabbit all did some really good drawings, and I thoroughly enjoyed doing it with them.

On Friday, the other Granny (I need some granny code names…) came to take Owl for his violin lesson, and afterwards she looked after Owl and Monkey while Rabbit was at pre-school and I took Tiddler to his Musicbox class, which he loves.  Grannies may not be essential requirements for home educating, but they certainly make it easier!  Later in the day, the boys continued writing their Lego stories and worked on their Prehistory project a little.  Owl and Rabbit did reading eggs, and they all played in the garden a lot.

Today I took Rabbit and Tiddler to Dramabuds, and Suburban dad took Owl and Monkey to football.  Then they all had their haircut, before the big boys went to another Beavers and Cubs Jubilee party.  Rabbit painted a box for some treasure that she had collected on the way home from Dramabuds (sticks, leaves and a stone!), before going to her ballet lesson.  She then spent the rest of the day playing in our new train paddling pool, joined by Tiddler after his sleep.  I pottered around for a bit trying to do some domestic tasks, before admitting defeat and joining in with them.  I pulled up a chair and sat with my feet in the pool, and for a while the two of them did the same with their little chairs, which was very sweet.  It took a long time for Tiddler to decide to get in but he did in the end.  Rabbit was in and out constantly, jumping and splashing so we all got quite wet anyway!  They also spent a long time playing with the plastic balls that came with the pool (we have loads already, but there’s nothing quite so exciting as new stuff!)  When the big boys finally returned home, we had a rather late but very nice supper in the garden – although the boys had taken a packed tea with them, we guessed they would be hungry enough for a cooked meal, and they certainly were!  Banana smoothies for pudding went down well too.

British Museum

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I am beyond exhausted but I really want to blog the British Museum visit that I did with the boys two days ago.  This is the kind of “home education” I want to do more of – getting out and about, and making the most of the many interesting places there are to visit, which we would not have so much time for if the kids were in school.  However, at the moment I would struggle to take all four of them up to London on the train, so we still try to fit in all the outings we want to do into the holidays, and occasionally at weekends.  I know this will get easier as the kids get older, but in the mean time I am very grateful for the help of the friends who made it possible to spend some time with the big boys, doing something just for them….

My friend collected the two little ones, and then the boys and I walked up to the station and caught the train to London.  The boys enjoyed the train ride, during which we played Thomas the Tank Engine top trumps and discussed our Prehistory topic which we are just starting.  We then had a short (thankfully) ride on a crowded tube train, and a pleasant walk in the sunshine to the museum.  By the time we had arrived, had the obligatory toilet stop and met up with Owl’s godmother, we decided we were ready for an early lunch.  We had a relaxing cup of coffee while the children ate their packed lunches, but had to speed up once they were finished as they were showing signs of needing to move on (let’s just say some running around, chasing each other and fake slipping on banana skins was involved…)

I had already identified the two rooms we wanted to go to – I knew that would be enough, and I was determined to keep it simple.  The rooms were Britain and Europe 800 BC – AD 43 and Europe and the Middle East 10,000 – 800 BC, and we spent most of the time in the first one.  I asked them to draw pictures of anything they liked, and they both spent a long time drawing the Lindow Man which was gruesome but fascinating.  They then drew a selection of other objects including shields, mirrors, coins, spoons and a helmet.  It was a successful activity, and gave them something to focus on, though it came more naturally to Monkey.  Owl likes everything to be perfect, which is quite a challenge when you are trying to draw something quite detailed and difficult, but we got there in the end.

                            

We then had a look at the hands on table, and were able to touch and find out about several artefacts including an axe head which I think was 5000 years old.  We then went into the second room and had a look round more quickly, before giving in to demands to visit the shop!

We stepped out of the museum into a beautiful sunny afternoon, and walked up to Euston station to wait for daddy’s train to arrive.  We spent half an hour or so on the grass outside, eating the rest of our packed lunch and doing some of the Usborne Grammar and Punctuation cards which proved very popular and filled in the time peacefully.  We then walked into the station to meet daddy for a quick coffee (grown-ups) and giant chocolate coin and drink of water (children) before getting the tube and then the train back home.  It was rather hot and crowded, but not too bad and we played top trumps again (woodland animals this time) to pass the time.  We arrived home in time for the boys to have supper while daddy collected the little ones who were also worn out and happy after a busy day with their friends including a long walk and a farm visit.  It was a very tiring but lovely day.

I don’t know how you do it…

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If you are home educating and have little ones, you’ll have heard this a few times…  “I don’t know how you manage to home educate at the same time as looking after your baby/ toddler/ pre-schooler.”  There are so many ways to answer this, that I never know where to begin.  So every time someone says it to me, my reply is probably something different, but may include the following:

  • I’m quite good at multi-tasking – I’ve been doing it non-stop since my first child was born nearly 8 years ago
  • I remember vividly the stressful (to put it mildly) experience of having a child in school, a pre-schooler and a toddler, and being pregnant… that was much much harder than home educating
  • Home educating 4 children is no harder than parenting 4 children (of course you may be one of those people who say “I don’t know how you do it, I couldn’t cope with 4 children” – I don’t know how to answer that one either.  What can I say?  I’m not you… you might find it impossible to cope with, but to me it’s rewarding and fun and I think I’m the luckiest mum in the world)
  • I’ve been a teacher with a class of 35, so a one to four ratio is easy
  • The gap in ability between children in the same year group can be so great that complex differentiation is always required when planning lessons…in some ways it’s easier, or certainly no harder, to plan home ed activities for ages 2 to 8
  • My toddler sleeps for two hours in the morning, and my pre-schooler spends four mornings a week at pre-school
  • My older children teach the younger ones/play with them/ read to them often without being asked (yesterday Rabbit went through a whole vehicles poster with Tiddler, asking him “can you say car?  can you say fire engine?” … and he solemnly repeated every one!)
  • I have brilliant friends, including other home educators as well as friends who send their children to school, and my parents and my mother-in-law, who help with childcare and education in many different ways

If you asked me that question today, my answer would be the last one on the list.  Today my two oldest boys enjoyed a brilliant educational and fun experience, visiting the British Museum with me and a very good friend, while another lovely family looked after my little two and took them on a wonderful walk through a National Trust park to a farm.  I will blog the Museum visit later, but for now I just wanted to say how lucky I am to have great friends who made this lovely day possible.

Lovely educational stuff!

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Today we have rediscovered these lovely Usborne activity cards.  I think Monkey has done some of the word puzzles on his own recently, but it is the first time in a while that we have done them together.  Owl and I did three of the Maths puzzles together (learning about co-ordinates, identifying even numbers up to 3 digits, and understanding probability.)  Then Monkey and I did two word puzzles ( a castle word search, and matching pairs of words with opposite meanings) and one space-themed Maths puzzle which involved addition and subtraction.

There is a great variety of themes and topics, and they range from fairly easy to very challenging.  Sometimes we have used them to reinforce particular topics, but it’s also fun to choose some at random as we did today.  Usborne has lots of similar sets, including Grammar and Punctuation cards which we didn’t get to today, but the boys were both keen to do some of them as well, so maybe we’ll fit that in tomorrow.  Anything that makes them excited about Grammar and Punctuation is good for me!

Monkey’s milkshake recipe

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This is Monkey’s version of the milkshake recipe which I posted about a few days ago.  He has written several copies, which I keep finding around the house.  I think he has probably copied it from the book, but he at least he is getting lots of writing practice.  I wondered whether to suggest making some different milkshakes and writing recipes for each one, but maybe I shouldn’t interfere as the whole thing was his idea in the first place.  It has led to lots of reading, writing and interesting discussions so far, so I might wait and see what he comes up with next.

Latin and French

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Owl has been learning Latin for a while now using the excellent Minimus series, and Grandpa has also been giving him extra lessons which I think have been very thorough as we have long lists of vocabulary to learn.  Owl has been making flashcards of some of the words (the picture shows just a few of them) and has been doing quite well at remembering them.  It’s been good for me too – my Latin needs a little revision!

While Owl was making his cards, I gave Monkey the eeBoo French flashcards (which I posted about a couple of days ago) to look at.  He was really inspired by them and asked if he could make some of his own.  I cut up some card for him and then left him to it.  He worked very hard on them and I love them!  I think this will be an ongoing project.

Home Ed on the move

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One of the things I love most about the Home Ed lifestyle is that you can take your classroom anywhere.  This is especially useful for us when Suburban Dad is away overnight for work.  The children really miss him and daily life is just that little bit harder for me, so our favourite thing to do when Daddy is away is to go and stay with Granny.  Having lots of extra attention from Granny makes the absence of Daddy more tolerable for the kids;  I also enjoy the company and the change of scene (it helps that my mum lives in a very beautiful rural location!)

Another benefit is that without the regular activities we fill up our week with at home, the big ones certainly get a lot more concentrated learning done, while the little ones are having a wonderful time playing with Granny.  I am not saying it doesn’t work at home – it just works differently. For me it is a good balance to have a fairly busy schedule most of the time, with lots of opportunities for socialising and shared learning, but to get away from it all occasionally and enjoy having more time to develop the boys’ learning and also relax and have fun together.

I really like being able to cover more subjects in one day without having to rush from one to the next.  In two days, we have done Maths, Reading, Spelling, Story Writing, Science, Geography, History, Latin, French and violin practice.  The children have also had plenty of free time for drawing and making things, playing with lego and trains, board games and puzzles, listening to stories, playing in the garden (Grandmother’s footsteps, stuck in the mud, blowing bubbles…) and probably loads of other things I’ve forgotten.

Today we have come home, and it’s good to be back.  We had a great afternoon at our small local Home Ed group, with lots of outdoor play and some brilliant Science activities (making sherbet which was very successful, and using lemons as batteries which is a work in progress!)  The big boys then went to Beavers before returning home tired but happy.

So thanks to mum for a lovely relaxing couple of days, to our good friends who hosted the group this afternoon and to the Beavers leaders who work hard every week, without much thanks I suspect.  Hmm, perhaps I need to go and thank all these people, in case they are not reading this.  It’s good to write all this down – it makes me realise how lucky we are.

Beautiful and useful

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I love these French flash cards by eeBoo because they are beautifully illustrated and look and feel like really good quality, as does the sturdy cardboard box in which they are stored.  There are 56 cards – eight words in each of seven categories.  They are: vehicles, colours, clothing, market, room, animals and nature.  Both the English and the French sides of the card feature the name of the category, the word, a picture and a sentence containing the word.  The set also includes suggested games and activities, and a pronunciation guide.
To some British people, it may be seen as a downside that eeBoo is an American company (based in New York) and therefore American English is used, with spellings such as “colors”, and a number of examples of different vocabulary usage.  On the other hand you could take the view that this would lead to some interesting discussions with your children about regional variation in the English language!  I find it fascinating anyway – some examples include: airplane/aeroplane; pants/trousers; sweater/jumper; truck/lorry.  Interestingly on the card for “l’automne”, the word is translated as “fall” but the sentence “En automne les feuilles sont belles” is translated as “In autumn the leaves are beautiful.”

American usage aside, what I love about these cards is that, among so many educational resources for children, they stand out because they are both beautiful and useful.

Science and milkshakes

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Today Monkey decided he wanted to learn about how bees make honey, so we read together quite a lot of the information about it from The Usborne Pocket Scientist – the Blue Book.  There’s more to read, but so far we have found out about different types of bees, the anatomy of a honeybee, beehives and beekeepers, pollination, how bees make honey and different kinds of honey.

After reading the book, Monkey wanted to try out one of the suggested activities which was making honey milkshake.  So he and Owl and Rabbit made it together and it was a great success.  Even Tiddler sliced his own banana.  It’s a nice simple activity, suitable for all ages – with or without the scientific learning about honey!

Honey milkshake

Blend together a cupful of milk, a scoop of ice-cream and two teaspoons of honey.  Pour into a glass and top with banana slices (though as Owl pointed out, the banana slices sink so it’s not exactly a topping.  Leads neatly on to the next science lesson…)

Thanks to Usborne Books for the idea.  Obviously it’s a pretty simple “recipe” and there could be endless variations.  Anyway, it was a fun activity to go with the topic, and I’m sure we will be making it again soon.  Whether our hands-on learning will go as far as keeping bees in the back garden, I don’t know.  I think the idea appeals to Suburban Dad but I’m not so sure!