Catch up

Well, it seems like ages since I blogged anything and I'm trying to remember what we've been doing. Mainly, I think we've just been enjoying getting out of the house again after all the snow.
The girl has finished the Boxcar Children so now we have to compile all her pages together into a book. She's excited to start reading Thomas A. Edison and do the activities to go with it. Partly because he was a scientist and she's hoping to do lots of experiments and partly because he was Home Educated :0) She's enjoying doing BYFIAR. The Thomas Edison book looks good, it's part of the The Childhood of Famous American series. So far, I've not been able to find anything similar for famous British people (Britons?).

We've used the reproducibles from the back of the BYFIAR vol 1 manual to show where he lived. I found the map a little difficult as it's just a black outline and I'm not familiar with US geography, however, my daughter was able to add the Great Lakes from here.
They've had quite a few autonomous days recently that have involved building lots of Lego models, or sorting all the animals into a zoo that they've built using workboxes and building bricks. In fact, they've left some of the animals in their workboxes so they can do projects on them :0)
They've watched Muzzy and played games in french. They've both made themselves Neopets and the boy has had lots of fun on Poisson Rouge which has lots of lovely little animated activities that develop mouse skills with the opportunity of learning some French.
They've been to gym, Brownies, band, drama, swimming and choir as per. The girl is also enjoying listening to The Fearless Treasure by Noel Streatfield as well as reading as much Enid Blyton as she can get her hands on :0)

Mirette lapbook finished

Here is the boy's lapbook he made to go with Mirette on the High Wire. Most of the templates came from Homeschoolshare. Inside the 100 sticker page I made him is a 100 square and 100 tallymarks. I substituted his 100 investigations for the maths activity in FIAR vol II. He's really enjoyed listening to the story and can't wait to share his lapbook with his Nana :0)



I love his illustration of copper ore in the ground :0)



And thought that needing to practice getting out of stuck places quite curious ;0)



I made a slight addition to his lapbook. I added photos. I bought some A4 plastic business card pockets to put them in. I cut the sheet in half lengthwise and stuck it with tape just like adding an extension flap. The boy is very pleased with it. Thank goodness ;0)

Science on Sunday

For FIAR, Mirette on the High Wire, the science lesson in the manual is about copper. Well, we read the given info and then looked in the DK Science Encyclopedia for pictures, made a minibook and then did an experiment to make verdigris. The instructions for this were a timely - and unexpected - arrival from Robert Krampf .
The newsletter comes once a week detailing experiments you can do at home with an explanation of what's going on :0) This one worked :0)

First put about 1" of vinegar in a small bowl. Add 1 tbsp of salt and stir.


Put in some copper coins or preferably, pieces of copper. (We found pre-decimalisation pennies worked better than new 2ps, which apparently are copper-plated but weren't affected.) Copper wire sculptures used in this experiment made by by eldest boy about 8 yrs ago.


Remove copper from solution after about 5 mins.


Rinse one lot of copper. Don't rinse the other. We rinsed 1 leg and not the other. Put on a paper towel and leave...


...the instuctions said for 1 hour but we got much better results after 2.


And here's some natural verdigris for comparison :0)


The scientific explanation is that the chemical reaction occuring between the copper, salt, and vinegar produces copper acetate. This, along with copper carbonate and copper chloride, is one of several green chemicals known as verdigris. These chemicals form over time when copper, brass, or bronze is exposed to weather - or in the case of our spider, it's been sat in a plantpot for 8 years getting watered :0)

While we were waiting for the experiment to work, my daughter did some painting...outside...in the snow!

Good News at last :0)

I think this is the best news I've had in ages..... there's hope yet :0)

Lib dems to vote against Home Education Plans

snow, dogs and spuds.

Today the boy did nearly all his workboxes and the girl played. She quietly got up without disturbing me and built the Harry Potter lego trainset. It's one of those presents she got bought, used once or twice then forgot about. So while she was quietly engrossed, the boy did the MEP reception book lesson and made a paper dog :0)

We then read Mirette. We had lovely discussions about Bellini's feats and looked at compound words, which he remembered from Little Red Lighthouse. We used an activity from Homeschoolshare, practiced a bit of reading - he likes the 'oo' sound, being a ghost is fun ;0) Then we played a kind of pairs game to see what new and funny compound words we could invent.
Then, kind of to tie in with the FIAR book, we played colour pairs in French... and then played cars together. I'm not allowed to say ANY french words then even though the cars are picked based on the colours he knows. This is something we do regularly. He seems to like the familiarity of it.
He 'helped' his sister for a bit with the Lego and then we all went for a walk...Finally!!!! I got out of the house. 'Sfunny, but 24 hours inside feels like a week to me ;/ It was beautiful, but cold. Me and the boy are the same, cold fingers, cold toes, cold ears and cold thumbs. The girl on the other hand, ran around with no coat saying she was WARM!!!! Anyway, all in all, they had a lovely time. I'm such a wuss and hate the thought of slipping on some hidden icy patch but they ran off like like penguins, sliding everywhere.
We live in such a beautiful place :0)

Then guess what. Bedtime comes around and suddenly my two pumpkins decide they want to finish their boxes!!! Maths was a disaster with the girl. It's so DEFINITELY a morning subject. Joan of Arc went down better - she was born today in 1412. Then They did some potato printing that hadn't got done yesterday for the Boxcar Children.

Snowed in....almost.

No French group this morning...there was another two inches of snow last night which is probably more like four by now. It's not stopped snowing all day :0)
It's had great advantages as far as Home Ed as gone. Happy children eager to do workboxes - oh it seems so long since we last did them.
The boy started a new FIAR book - Mirette on the High Wire by Emily McCully. We'll be making a lapbook just cos he loves them :0) I'm using resources from HSS as well as chatting lots. He's enjoyed the story today - as did the girl - so hopefully it will be fun. This looks like one that would work very nicely with multiple ages as there are lots of suggestions for lessons in the manual and it could lead into a lovely little topic on circuses....


The girl is finishing up The Boxcar Children still. We had a big gap but she still remembered the story line and enjoyed the activities. I've decided to cut down on the amont we're covering in each chapter as it's taking us so long and I think she was becoming a little overwhelemd by it all. Potatoes today :0) We discussed the history of potatoes, looked at potato plants and touched on the Great potato Famine of 1845. She made potato mountains and a volcano for lunch:) We got the idea from a Polly and Jago book they got for their birthdays last year. It's lovely :0)


As part of our "Traditions and important dates" project we read about Gobind Singh, the 10th sikh guru from the 17th Century whose birthday it is today. It's also Twelfth Night so we're going to watch the animated Shakespeare after tea.
Then the next-door neighbour came round because school was closed due to the snow. So all afternoon they've been playing games.
And measuring the snow - we have 10 inches in our garden!!!!! TEN inches!!!! And it's still snowing!

Happy New Year !

We've still got lots of snow and more to come apparently. My kids are loving it and I'm loving the thermal insoles I finally got round to buying. No more chilblains for me aha!

Well, I'm glad xmas etc is over. It feels nice to know that we're going to be getting back into learning and doing all our HE group stuff. The political situation still looms heavily but life still goes on.... and has been going on even if I've not blogged about it ;0)

We've had a busy month but all the learning has been very practically based. We've read lots and watched lots and talked lots. They enjoyed reading the script of 'Peter Pan' by J.M. Barrie and watching the 2003 film in sections to compare the two. (Guess what my next assignment is! ) The girl has learnt how to light fires and make sure they stay in. They've both had lots of foreign language practice. I've started buying DVDs based on the other foreign languages they have on them - cartoons are especially good for this :0)

You can tell xmas is over when they get up on the first Sunday after New Year and ask for workboxes/start looking at their new project stuff. We had gym today, playing in the snow, friends for tea and Brownies. A gentle start to the New Year I think. I'll be loading workboxes tonight :0)

We keep a family diary in which we put in leaflets/fliers/photos of the things we do outside our home. It's always nice to look back on the various camping trips we've had, museum visits we've made, plays we've seen etc. This year I'm hoping to develop that idea with the girl so that she can keep her own diary in addition to the family one. The plan is to include traditional festivals, mainly British, and use it as a sort of nature journal too. We're also going to make a nature table - windowsill probably. That way the Wee Man can be involved too :0) Let's see how successsful it is :0)