From what we'll do to what we did ;0)

This is an activity I got from the files of the MEP yahoo group. YOu can see something similar being used in the video of the method in action in Hungarian schools. I kind of extended it a little and got him to sort the shapes into colours first. When he'd done he took a photo of his finished activity.


The girl had spelling book in her box. I gave her the dictionary to use to help her. She wasn't very keen on the idea at first but we went at it together and she soon got the hang of it and enjoyed it..... for a while. I told her it would help her to get more words in Boggle and she was more interested then because it was useful to her :0)

Apart from that, we finished George's Secret Key to the Universe and started Varjak Paw. We had cousins and friends over to stay at the weekend to celebrate the new bedrooms. This involved lots and lots and lots of playing, followed by a huge tidy up, atrip to feed the ducks, play in the river and have icecream :0)

On Saturday, the girl went with Nana to the museum. The Cabinets of Curiosities project, which she took part in with other members of the local Home Ed group, was being opened to the public:) They met other groups that had taken part, did some craft activities and had afternoon tea - she was happy cos that meant cake :) She put in a collection of pencils and the boy added a collection of conkers and acorns :0)

All in all a lovely weekend :0)

Weekly Workboxes

This due to a suggestion on the HSS Forum from Kendra. It made me think about what fun stuff I'm putting in our boxes this week - which is actually only 2 days worth due to out-of-the-home HE activities :)
So, in celebration of the beginning of summer and the passing of the solstice, I've got a paint-your-own suncatcher kit from the Pound shop. It's one of those things I bought last year when we were doing a sea creatures lapbook and we just never used it. I knew it'd come in useful one day ;0)


I'm also going to fill a bag up with about half a dozen objects and have the boy describe them to me and guess what they are. This is part of a yr 1 lesson from MEP maths which I have started with the boy but we onyl do 1 section of a lesson at a time because he's so young. Note to self: Order the Kindergarten book! I'll include a wooden eggcup, a sponge, a marble, a pencil, a toy animal, a wooden cube....will also have a back-up supply in case the girl wants to join in too :) It's an idea also used in Montessori schools and they call it The Mystery Bag :)

Along the same lines as that, we'll be playing a game. Paddington Magic 1,2,3. It's the same idea, a drawstring bag which contains chunky cardboard numbers. The players have to identify the numbers by touch alone and try to match them with the cards in fromt ofthem. the winner gets a key....which often sets off a whole new game on its own :)




They'll also get a mosaic set. A charity shop buy. I love the feel of the wooden shapes myself. They enjoy making patterns. It surprises me how quickly they can do them. One for my girl I think. I'll put some pattern blocks and patterns to put them on in the boys boxes. There's some pattern block free printables here.
I got some off this page by clicking on Pattern Block Pictures. It says to print on cardstock and laminate but I printed on ordinary paper and put them in a see-through A4 pocket. It's easy enough to change the top one for him to do the others. I liked these because printed out one to a sheet, they fit our pattern blocks perfectly :)

Oh, and tomorrow, we'll be making fairy cakes while the boy's at Saurus. I've got an old 1950s Good housekeeping cookbook which is lovely to use. It's so interesting. Full of adverts and all about the Good Housekeeping research centre in London, how to keep a proper kitchen and be a good housewife - something I don't think I'll ever acheive lol! The recipes seem to work well, which is the main thing.

And I'll put her recorder in the last box so she can play for as long as she likes - her request :)

Happier stuff :0)

Well, it's been a busy week so far. I'm trying to push the review stuff on one side for a bit rather than let it take over my head completely:-/
So what have we done? Monday we had visitors which was lovely. The girl made a great cake on Sunday completely by herself :0) She folowed the recipe carefully and mixed everything by hand, the old fashioned way. (Unlike her lazy mother who loves the Kenwood!)


The boy made Scooby Doo biscuits - the modern way...from a packet mix ;/


Anyway, they all played nicely together (my children and their HE friends) and the kiddywinkles got to make good use of their new bedrooms while we drank tea and chated in the kitchen. Lovely! :0)
Tuesday was storycircle where the children read out their Haikus and played a rhyming word association game. They listened to some limericks and learnt about curlihews (new to me too). This month's challenge is to write a limerick and a curlihew of their own. After that a group of them had a chess game on the giant chess set outside the library, very much a team effort.
Then they came home and we did some maths as well as a couple of workboxes each but were actually much more interested in playing out in the sunshine creating a world for all the toy animals (they have lots!!).
The girl's developed a passion for Boggle and can get some pretty big words in there. A good game for practising spelling. We also played Tot-Ten which is a maths game. Surprisingly enough, at bedtime the decided they wanted to finish their boxes off! I had to say no cos it was just too late. They'd been watching the BBC series of 'The Borrowers' on DVD that I found in the library. We read the book a while ago, and this is much more like the book than the film - I don't recommend the film but the series is ok :0) They also practised French and the boy had a days of the week game in his boxes.
This morning it was another early start as we went to French club. It's amazing how shy my boisterous girl can get sometimes. Days of the week came up - which we'd gone over the day before (in English, French and Portuguese) so it was good to reinforce them. We got given a CD of French learning songs we listened to in the car - both children joining in and enjoying it. Then this afternoon, we looked after my friends 4 month old baby and did workboxes. The girl complains at me if they're not ready for her! So we did some reading, drawing a T-Rex, Enjoyable English workbook (pronounced 'Easy'), and some knitting. Then it was off to Drama and the boy went to tea with his cousin and my mum. The baby went home and I had a whole hour to myself.....bliss! ;0)
Then on to swimming, early night and the end of George's Secret Key. Phew!
Now I'm going to pour myself a gin and tonic (should I admit to that? Or is that alcohol abuse?) and organise tomorrow's boxes.

reviewing the review!!!!

I'm only just on recommendation 2 and I am laughing out loud at the sheer ridiculousness of it. These people are supposed to be making a decision on Home Educators and It's pretty obvious that they NOTHING about Home Education AT ALL!!!

In recomendation 1 (amongst other things) is this:

-At the time of registration parents/carers/guardians must provide a clear
statement of their educational approach, intent and desired/planned outcomes
for the child over the following twelve months.
-Guidance should be issued to support parents in this task with an opportunity to
meet local authority officers to discuss the planned approach to home education
and develop the plan before it is finalised. The plan should be finalised within
eight weeks of first registration.

I've been HEing for 17 years and 3 children so far. Each of my children are different. What I did with my eldest is not what I do with my 2 youngest. What I do this week may not be what I will do next week. Twelve months ago (or so) we discovered lapbooks. The kids loved making them and they learnt so much about the different projects we did with them. now my girl is bored of them. the novelty has worn off. At the moment, she likes having tasks presented to her in 'packets' every day. I'll go with this for as long as it holds her interest, for as long as sheis enjoying this method of learning. Then, I'll find a new way of doing it. Who knows how long this will go on for? I can't predict and neither can she.
My children learn about topics they are interested in. They learn about things that life throws in our path. Quite often this can be due to another HEer organising a trip somewhere. Recently we went to Jorvik and the Dig. I had had no intention of learning about viking swith my children just yet, but the trip looked interesting and so we read up a bit about them before we went.The visit further piqued their interest and so we learnt some more. We moved onto other things....and today I picked up a DVD of Beowulf from the poundshop - an animated version with Derek Jacobi and Ralph Fiennes - so we'll revisit Vikings.
Of course, we're really doing is learning about lions (the boy's requested that last week) and finishing up lots of bits and bobs from previous projects (frogs, dinosaurs, Beatrix Potter) as well as reinforcing literacy and numeracys skills and playing lots of games. Oh, and baking :0) Oh and lets not forget, body parts in French, taking part in a Renga chain (a sort of extended Haiku), reading about the Solar System...... etcetera etcetera etcetera
Could I have predicted any of this 12 months ago? No.

And as for finalising the plan in 8 WEEKS after deregistration!!!! Impossible. I read lots of books when the Eldest came out of school but it's only in the last 12 months that I've come across Charlotte Mason. Point being, there's always something new to learn.
They're asking more of us than they are of schools. teachers I know are complaining that their goalposts have recently been changed and they're having to take on new guidelines all the time. They're not given 12 months notice, why should we have to give that to the LA?

So what if it's Saturday?

I know it's Saturday but she still wanted her little packets. Boykin had asked for them too but was only interested in doing one of them which was a book of mazes. I was quite surprised because I'd put a Scooby Doo biscuit making kit at the end as an incentive to at least have a go, but no, he wasn't interested at all. Never mind.
The girl was well pleased that the first packet contained Boggle. I adapted the rules slightly so that I can play with her and just make it a bit fairer. She's allowed 2 letter words and my words must be at least 4 letters long. We didn't keep score. We can do scoring on other games. She also had a few goes by herself against the timer to see what she could come up with. No made-up words are allowed ;0)
She also did a handwriting/spelling sheet, coloured some more Peter Rabbit puppets, practised french vocab on the BYKI program I downloaded. She's learning body parts for French club on Weds. We also discovered french stuff on the BBC website but unfortunately, no body bits there :0(
She was very happy that she finished off with observational painting.
She keeps telling me off for sneaking bits of unfinished projects into her packets. Like this dinosaur joke book to make.

Obviously it's my writing on the front.... She wrote the answers herself inside on lined paper cut from one of those handwriting practise exercise books and she chose the dinosaur sticker to put on the front. It's just a simple minibook folded into three, with the front overlapping the back. The jokes came from scholastic magazines. They publish magazines aimed at teachers and most of what's there is for subscribers but there are lots of free stuff on the site that you can search through too.
She did her 6 packets yesterday but got a bit upset with one of the things she did, mainly cos she was hungry I think, but also partly because my little note hadn't been clear enough for her:0/ It's a learning curve all round. One of the things she did enjoy yesterday was this old mosaic set.


Well, I'd better go and pack the ones for tomorrow. The workbox book says that they should have 12 each but I think we'll stick with 6. It's enough for us for now.

New ways and new windows

Well, today I gave the girl 6 little packets each containing an activity for her to do. She was very excited at the prospect and couldn't wait to get to them. We'd already agreed that she would do maths first and that didn't count as a 'packet'. Consequently, she got through it quickly and even when it got a little challenging for her, we both managed to stay calm and worked it throuh together. She was delighted when she realised that she did know what to do after all, it was just being presented using more mathematical language.
I love our maths curriculum and so does she......even though I still find it hard to believe that i'm actually using a curriculum. Things like that felt so alien and out of place with my eldest. But then, HEing 1 is so different to HEing 2. I still couldn't imagine using a curriculum for anything else though :0)
We use MEP maths which is based on Hungarian methods. It has been translated and adapted by Plymouth University and it's FREE!!!!! But most importantly, it's fun.
The girl worked well through her packets and even took a photo of her first one.

It's an old spell master set that I found in a charity shop somewhere. I loved mine when I was little and she does too. Sweet :0)
The other packets contained a handwriting book, some Peter rabbit characters to colour and construct (part of a set that we'll use to act out the story), a number puzzle, her stamp album and French vocab learning on the computer.
I'll do 6 more packets for tomorrow and keep going with this for as long as she enjoys it. It's sort of based on Sue Patrick's workbox system but I haven't read all the book yet so it's kind of half-baked. I'm sure I'll just adapt what she does anyway rather than follow it to the letter. Certainly won't be using 12 boxes per child - there's no room in my house!!!!
The wee boy brought me lots of books to read today, one or two of which had lions in them..... I think we'll make one tomorrow out of pompoms. We bought this jungle craft kit in Tescos today, it was on the reduced shelf and I thought it was pretty good for a fiver. I thought it was even better when they only charged £2.50 at the till :0)
The new windows? Well, I have now got 5 double-glazed windows in the front of my house. It was quite strange watching my old sashes being removed. I was surprise how attached I was to them. I felt like the house was having its eyes removed. Empty stone rectangular holes look so devastated. Some of the character is gone :0(
On the plus side of it all though, is that the blokes did a really nice job, very neat and they swept up after themselves too :0) And the boy got to see how old windows work and play with the sash weights and I get to build a cucumber frame to put his seedlings in :0)

More Beatrix Potter...and I won!!!!!

Today we went to our Monthly HE meeting at the Scout Hut. This month's theme was Famous Dead People. We took Beatrix Potter. The girl worked very hard finishing all her pages for her book and making her first timeline. She was very proud of it.




When we got there, she arranged her table and display all by herself and laid out everything needed for people to do her activity.



She decided to do thaumotropes like she and her brother had already made. She explained to everyone how to do it and helped all the younger ones with the cutting out. She enjoyed herself immensely and was really pleased that she only had 6 left at the end of the morning. I forgot my camera (as usual :0( ) so it's thanks to Caroline for taking these photos for me :0)
The boy has decided that he wants to make a lapbook on Lions now and the girl has decided that she wants a month off projects thankyou very much!!! She'd like some 'packets' with activities in please. 6 a day to start with....I better go and get on with it ;0)

Here's a link to the pdf of the thaumotrope she made.

Oh, the other news today was that I won a prize that somebody from the HSS message boards was giving away on their blog :0) I got a free 6 month subscription to Bug Cafe....more word games!!!!!! :0D

Beatrix Potter 'tour'

This is the view of Windermere from the Youth Hostel terrace.(Apparently, you shouldn't call it 'Lake' Windermere cos 'mere' means lake...) It completely took my breath away. This photo doesn't do it justice to be honest. Oh for a wide-angle lens!

This is the water feature in Mr McGregor's garden in 'The World of Beatrix Potter Attraction'. The kids both loved it and enjoyed doing the free quiz sheets to go with it. It was lush and green and healthy. My favourite bit of the place really :0)

Here is my small boy tracing the letters of one of the fruits they had to find for the quiz.

   

And here is my girl investigating bumble bee homes.

This is one of the exhibits in there. I was so surprised by how much the girl knew already. She told us all the stories as we went round. There was an interesting section in the middle with a timeline, photos and an interactive computer bit. i would have liked to stay longer in there but the kids soon wanted to move on after they had completed the puzzles.

   

Next day.....over the lake via a cablecar car ferry that is really a section of the B-road that goes to Near Sawrey and Hill Top, the home of Beatrix Potter...

We stopped to chat with Mr McGregor on the way.....

 

  ....to yet another beautiful garden.

We also visited the house, which is small and difficult because you can't touch anything and my children are very tactile (as are most children). The staff were lovely though and gave them books to go round with to spot the house in Beatrix Potter's illustrations. They were also excited by the fact that the animal characters were based on her pets. And to top it all, we saw a wild rabbit in the orchard!!

We also went to the Beatrix Potter Art Gallery in Hawkshead which they also enjoyed. The girl was VERY pleased that she got a goody bag for completing her quiz sheet this time :0) I made 2 notebooking pages on Cumbria for them before we went and a time line. This was also a useful site for activities to take with us, they both especially liked the spinner aka thaumotrope.

I downloaded loads of her stories from here and put them on a CD to listen to in the car on the way there. Variable quality of reading and hard to find English as opposed to American accents....they pronounce 'chamomile' differently. Hey, but it's free and a great resource. I use it lots :0)

Peter Rabbit related activities aimed at under 5s
Online Peter Rabbit quiz
 Beatrix Potter Unit
Peter Rabbit Lapbook
Jemima Puddle-duck lit-based unit and lapbook
Online jigsaw puzzle

Giveaway! Composers Activity Pak

Not sure if competition is the absolute correct word.....which is besides the point really ;0)
Laura is offering the Homeschool in The Woods Composer pack to be won in a draw of people who submit comments. It looks very interesting and I think it's another of those projects where I would learn as much as my kids :0) (See what a school education did for me LoL!)
I've just read further down the page and discovered how to share it on Facebook and myspace too!! I love this lady. I'm learning so much just because of her offer :0)
Looks like there might be some useful ideas on here too :0) Thankyou Laura :0)

Giveaway! Composers Activity Pak

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Blog? What blog?

Blimey! I tried to enter a giveaway on somebody else's page and discovered I needed a blog to enter it......guess what I discovered!!!!! I already have a blog!!!!!!! How crazy is that???? Seems like I've not used it for a couple of years (and then only twice!) but I've got one......I'd no idea. Teabag brain!!!
Anyway....I've been thinking of starting one so I might as well use this :0) It was fun to read over the old posts and see my boykin referred to as 'the baby'. He's a big, strapping 4 and a half now...with legs and bare summer knees. Bless him!
And the girl, well, what can I say about her. She's getting long :0)
We've just had a fab time in the Lake District in a Youth Hostel with my mum for a couple of days on our mini Beatrix Potter 'tour'. The youth hostel was absolutely AMAZING!!!!!!! How posh!! (Oooh, how do I add links?)



Even better, I worked out how to add the photo!!! Hooray! Will work out to add my own photos next :0)
Watch out for further installments of our lakeland adventure tomorrow when I upload my photos. Not doing it now cos I should be in bed and I've got to find the french that the girl has to learn for tomorrow.....