SoTW Vol 1 Ch 1 Part 1

Today we tackled the first section of chapter 1 of The Story of the World Vol 1 :)
The section is about the first nomads - particularly cavemen. They give the starting date as about 7,000 BC but we've put our timeline at 40,000 BC. Yes! We finally have a timeline :) Or at least the first part of one..... from 40,000 BC to 0. Would that be 0 BC or 0 AD?

The Girl stuck the very first picture on it - a tiny cave painting that she did. It's about 2" x 1.5" in real life :)

They did some cave paintings to go in their notebooks too. This is a sabre-tooth tiger and a hunter. We used acrylics on scrunched brown paper to give the effect of a cave wall.


 




We were lucky enough to visit the Lascaux caves a few years ago. Our holiday diary and the virtual caves really jogged our memories.
 


We looked at lots of pictures of stone tools and compared it to a piece of flint that I found somewhere*. It's quite sharp and resembles a scraper. I did have to stop the Girl from tying it to her 'spear' though. I thought that was going a bit too far ;)

They spent a happy afternoon playing at being Stone Age children practising their hunting skills with wicker woolly mammoths and garden cane spears :)

Another successful day. Hooray!!



*I think it's flint. I have no idea where I found it. Probably a beach somewhere on the east coast. Ho hum!

Books we read -

Non-Fiction
Living Long Ago (Living in History S.)
The Children's Picture Prehistory, Early Man, The Story of the first people on Earth
Fiction
Toolmaker by Jill Paton Walsh
Prehistoric Life Colouring book

Places to visit
Creswell Crags

Useful websites

Activities
Cave painting lesson
Recipes

Info
Virtual Tour of Caves at Lascaux
Virtual Tour of the Cave at Chauvet-Pont-D'Arc


Printables
Stone Age Family picture to colour
Toolmaker and tools to colour
Woolly Mammoth to colour
Prehistoric hut to make

Clip Art
Prehistoric Mammals
Cave Paintings
Prehistoric Animals

Isn't it funny that...

.... one day when you're driving to gym and trying to listen to a French CD that everybody is narky and grumpy and doesn't want to know and then the next day.... driving to a history group at a museum everyone is eager and keen to learn. So keen in fact that they even complete a totally different workbook on the way home!

A weeks worth of posts in one

It's been a busy week here, (it was last week too but I kept forgetting my camera and never got round to posting - hmmm!). When we are at home in the mornings, we've been keeping to the Girl's timetable which is pleasing her very much. Surprisingly, it makes the day feel to be bigger. I feel like we've done a full day by lunchtime but there's always plenty of time left to do other things :) I have to admit that none of her afternoon timetabled activities have happened yet, but that's always because she gets engrossed in something else - usually playing with her brother :)
This week we had 3 Home Ed groups to go to. Story Circle on Tuesday morning and in the afternoon we all went 10-pin bowling:) The local bowling alley have given us a reduced rate of £2 each per game. It makes it really affordable and means we now have a new monthly activity to add to our already full list. Luckily, it's in the afternoon so it doesn't interfere too much with The Girl's timetable :)
On Thursday, we went to French Group. We're learning to tell the time and I found a really useful site where you can create your own flashcards:)
Other things we've done this week that we do nearly every week- have friends for tea, visit cousins, go to choir, brownies, swimming lessons and band.
New and unusual things we've done this week-
1. We created an archaeological dig in the sandpit for The Story of the World;

(They had a whale of a time playing this game. They were pretending to be archaeologists 3,000 years in the future making discoveries about our lives :) They had flying pink cars, strange accents and some very funny ideas what things were for :D)

2. Boykin swam for the first time without armbands :) He was so chuffed :) And I was amazed. He's only had 2 lessons so far. His confidence has just leapt forward. He only puts his feet down because he can't keep his head above water yet and it's the only way he can breathe!

3. We got pet rabbits. Two of them. Beauty and Jessica. The Girl is over the moon and is doing a good job of caring for them with a little bit of help from Boykin and me. I hope she keeps it up :)

4. And finally and very happily, we spotted a sign of Spring. Hurray!!!!!

And the winner is.....

LisaM who left comment number 24. Congratulations!!! I used the number generator at random.org. I've seen how some people can stick the little picture of the winning number on their blog but I can't work out how to do it. Soz. LisaM, please can you email me your name, email and postal address and the age/grade range you require. I can then pass this info onto HOAC who will send you your prize :) I hope you and your children have LOTS of fun with it :)
Send your email to englishweatherblog@yahoo.co.uk
Thankyou to everyone else who entered and a double thank you to those who have become followers. Glad you like my blog :)

Shhhhhh CurrClick has a secret...

Well, I should imagine it's not much of a secret by now really, but just in case you haven't heard.... Currclick are having a massive sale ....I know, I know, this sounds like an advert (how do you type rolling eyes?) BUT, in amongst the items for sale are 10 freebies, 1 from each of the 10 publishers involved in the sale.
There's a couple of lapbooks (including one from HOAC on snakes), an audio book, a couple of unit studies (the Astronomy one looks massive!) and a few other bits too :) I love freebies and think everyone in the world should know about them ;D

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday, we started Story of the World. I think we're going to like it - me and The Girl anyway :) Boykin found it hard to listen even though the sections are short - about 2 and a half pages - and the style is accessible for children. The first section looks at what history is and the textmakes it easy for a child to understand. In the activity book, there are a couple of review questions and a narration question for each section. And then there are hands on activities and all the printables you need. As always, I slightly adapted the suggested activities which were to do with personal timelines and family trees. I got out their All About Me lapbooks from 4 years ago, an old 2006 pocket diary, the Grandfather's Wisdom lapbook that the Girl did and then all the family tree research I did when my oldest was little and went to school and I had free time and could do adult ed classes :) It was lovely spending time looking at these things and sharing memories. I'm really looking forward to the next section which is about Archeaology :)

These were some of our first lapbooks. They contain a timeline already. The Girl adapted the paper figure in the middle and added internal organs and a skeleton :)




Boykin still loves the same things he did four years ago :) Only the face of The Doctor has changed ;) They really enjoyed looking at their pasts and seeing what was different and what wasn't.



Today was full, maths, french group, games, swimming, choir. Lots of toing and froing. Tomorrow is our local HE group social meeting. We're going to play boardgames we got for christmas :) Don't let all these out of the house activities fool you - The Timetable's still in place :)

New Year, new ideas

Well, the biggest new idea so far this year (yes, I know we're only 4 days in) has come from The Girl who has decided that she wants a timetable. This is something I've always avoided and never thought would be in place in this house but there you go. Anyway, she drew up her timetable complete with start and finish times for all her different subjects. I limited her to mornings for the more academic stuff and kept afternoons free for the stuff that she sees as being more fun.

She was actually very sensible about it and put maths first every morning, 6 days a week! Yes, her timetable runs Monday to Saturday. Other things included on it are French (daily), cornet practise (daily), English workbook, BYFIAR, science, SOTW for history, lapbook of her choice and time to prepare for the various HE groups we go to. The afternoons include music, BBC schools radio programmes, art, craft, nature walks and a trip - even if it's only to the swimming baths.

I'm pleased with her choices because some of these things are ongoing and seemed almost to have reached a standstill - BYFIAR and Mega English - while others were becoming a chore - French, mainly because of the homework for the French group we belong to where we use the Galore Park text book. She's not a bad little cornet player but doesn't like practising but now does it happily. Well, we've only been using this new timetable for 2 days so far, so we'll see how it goes :) It's also allowed me to introduce some new things like the The Story of the World: Ancient Times for history. I don't really know much about the Ancient World so it'll be interesting for all of us and I really like the look of the  Activity Book . Fingers crossed that this goes down well.

The first lapbook she wants to do is on Harry Potter and I'm sure I'll find plenty of ideas online :) This is going to be a joint project between the two of them so, hopefully, we'll have some fun and learn something along the way :)

She was trying to convince Boykin to have his own timetable too, but I think I'll stick to workboxes for him just now. She was so taken up with her new idea that I think she was planning on dropping all the groups we go to just to be able to stick to it! Luckily, I managed to convince her not to when she realised that most things happen once a month and pretty much on different days. Phew! I think I'd go mad if I had to stay in the house all week....

Well, I best go to bed. She's set her alarm for 8.30 for breakfast. At least it will all help in my New Year's Resolution to be on time for all our morning groups ;)

HOAC Giveaway Here and Now

Happy New Year! No better way to kick-start 2011 than by holding a giveaway draw :) I love them and even won a couple myself last year. I'm really happy to be able to host a giveaway on my own blog for once :)

In the Hands of a Child are just about to release their 400th Project Pack and to mark this event they are holding a 400th Project Pack Celebration. Woohoo!
This will include a sale with big discounts that will take place early this year, as well as the chance to win a completely FREE 1 year Super Membership (worth $225/£145), a FREE Custom Ordered Project Pack where you decide the topic and the difficulty level (worth $75/£48), and a FREE Lifetime Super Membership (worth $275/£177 ). Sorry if the conversions to sterling are not 100% accurate, I got them from here.

HOAC also have a semi-annual Freebie which anyone can download so you can try before you buy :)

Be sure to keep an eye on their website and sign up for the newsletter to be kept informed of the 400th Project Pack Celebration.

If you're new to HOAC materials, their packs contain all the information and lapbooking pieces needed for the topic in question. That means not much preparation for parents and older children can do them pretty much independently. Of course, you don't have to limit yourself to making a lapbook, we tend to stick the pieces in notebooks too :) There are even online co-ops so you can pool ideas and share experiences with other families who are studying the same topic.

This is a page from our Anglo-Saxon project that we did using the HOAC Anglo-Saxons Project Pack.


ANYWAY, back to this giveaway. In the Hands of a Child are offering a FREE bundle pack to one of my readers :) Actually, not just mine, there are other bloggers taking part in this as well :) A Free bundle pack includes a printed Project Pack, Kit Pack, and Answer Key (when available) which, for US residents, will be posted to the winner . This is a $40 value including the free shipping. For Non-US residents, the bundle pack will be delivered electronically rather than in hard copy.

To enter,  all you have to do is :-
Visit the HOAC website then come back here and leave a comment stating which 5 Project Packs you would most like to own :)
Leave your comments before midnight GMT on Tuesday 11th January when I will pick a winner at random :)

Don't forget to tell your friends about this and GOOD LUCK everyone :D

Disclaimer ~ The giveaway is sponsored by In the Hands of a Child.  There was no compensation for this post and the opinions expressed are my own.