Easter 2016

15th April 201613th July 2018

We don’t break up officially for any holidays. If we fancy some time off, we take it. This is one of the beauties of Home Education, however we do learn a bit about all of the various holidays we would be taking if we were at school.

This includes learning about the proper meaning of them, why we celebrate them and doing various crafts.

One of the Easter crafts we did was some decoupage. I’d never done it before and we saw it mentioned online, so we popped in to our local Hobbycraft to see at what they had available. The girls each chose a basket and a rabbit, which were cheap at £2 and some papers (which varied between £2 and £3.80 for 3.

We just ripped the paper into smaller pieces, watered down our pva glue and off they went.

It’s great fun, it kept the girls occupied for ages and as it doesn’t really matter how much glue you get on it, little ones can do it independently.

Elsa did a co-ordinates sheet which we found on Activity Village, she had to place the co-ordinates in the correct squares to produce an Easter picture. She thought this was great fun.

I found a great little Easter Maths booklet on Twinkl. 🙂 Anna decided she’d like to start on that, she started with her least favourite pastime of colouring. I don’t understand why she doesn’t enjoy it, she’s really good at it.

After that she wanted to do a number sheet. She’s really doing well with her number work.

There was a great game in the maths booklets which we all played together. You had to throw 2 dice and add them together and then colour the relevant egg. The one with the most eggs coloured at the end of the game (in our case 10 throws each) won. It was a bit easy for Elsa, but we all enjoyed it and Anna won. 🙂

What a busy Easter. 🙂

Human Body – Teeth

21st March 201613th July 2018

Our new topic is the human body which we will be starting after the Easter holidays, but as we had been to the dentist this week, I thought it might be a good idea to learn about teeth while the visit was still fresh in the girls minds.

We talked about the number of teeth we had and the girls counted each others teeth while using a torch to look at the different types of teeth.

We talked about which foods were good for your teeth and which ones weren’t, then I printed off some pages of foods and drew some teeth for the girls to decide which foods should go where. Anna drew a happy tooth and a sad face on her teeth. 🙂

Elsa designed her foods into sad and happy faces on her teeth. 🙂

I asked Elsa to create a leaflet to help people to look after their teeth. She decided to explain what were good and bad things to eat and then described how to brush your teeth properly. She was really pleased with how it came out (and so was I), clever little thing. 🙂

We chatted about the various adult teeth and the jobs they did. Then I asked the girls to colour in the different teeth different colours. Elsa had to write her own text about the teeth and we discussed the use (or not) of wisdom teeth.

What an interesting start our Human Body topic. 🙂

World Book Day 2016

9th March 201613th July 2018

I was thinking that it would be quite difficult to celebrate world book day. Elsa tends not to really enjoy reading unless it’s Tom Gates :). Roll on May when the next one is out. 🙂

Anyway, being a member of the fabulous Twinkl website, they had emailed me some world book day ideas. I asked the girls what they would like to do and they said the scavenger hunt, so they got dressed up as a character from a book, we grabbed some books off their bookcases and got started.

The idea was to find the page in a book on which a certain item off the list was on. I printed off the same sheet for both girls but suggested they used different age appropriate books.

For instance one of the items to find was a bus. Elsa found it written somewhere in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkerban. Anna found a picture of one in a Zoe and Beans book.

This was one of the things we did on World Book Day, it was a fun little exercise and both girls enjoyed it.

Photo Scavenger Hunt #1

18th February 201613th July 2018

This time of year it’s hard to get the girls to go outside as the weather is cold and unpredictable, with it raining one minute, sleeting the next and sunny the next.

I thought we’d go on a scavenger hunt around where we live which is a beautiful spot in the English countryside. But instead of coming home with stones, feathers and leaves, they would take photos.

So I created a photo scavenger hunt sheet and each armed with a camera off we went.

This was fun as it got the girls looking at their surrounding as we wondered home from our local village.

Learning About Colours and Shades

28th January 201613th July 2018

I thought it might be a nice idea to teach Anna about the principles of colour in that you really only need 3 colours to make a variety of different ones.

I created 2 different types of colour wheels (well Anna’s wasn’t a wheel at all, but still).

We chatted about the primary colours, mixing colours and what happens if you add more or less of one colour.

The girls then set about making their colour charts.

This was a good exercise for Elsa as it showed her that to make darker or lighter shades all she had to do was add more or less of one of the primary colours.

Finished chart/wheel.

This was a fun and useful activity for both girls. 🙂

Free Choice Fridays

13th January 201613th July 2018

Free choice Fridays are an idea I had. Elsa does a lot I ask of her during the week. She does choose her own topics though (this half term it’s the Romans)

Every day Elsa does a selection of the following, Maths, History, Science, English and Geography, which she enjoys and normally it’s only mornings. In the afternoons we do things with Anna as she’s home from nursery, often related to what we’ve been doing in the mornings.

For instance, if Anna had been at nursery for the first morning after the Christmas holidays, Elsa and I would have learned about the Roman Empire and started our India geography topic, however she wasn’t so we did a Roman mosaic craft instead.

But as the title suggests, on Fridays Elsa is able to choose exactly what she wants to do. Sometimes she chooses to continue with work we’ve been doing in the week because she’s finding it interesting. Other weeks she chooses to do some drawings in her art book. which she can often spend hours doing that as it’s her favourite pastime. Until this week, that was all she’d chosen to do, but she’s becoming really detailed in her pictures and it’s really great for me to see her progressing and becoming more confident with her drawings.

She’s also drawn comic strips 🙂

This is her favourite and most recent picture.

Obviously it’s not just drawing she can do, she can do whatever she would like to.

When we started home educating, to give her some ideas, I’d shown her a cross stitch I’d made when I was at primary school. She said she’d like to do one, and last Friday she spent some of the morning designing hers and choosing the coloured cottons she’d like to use.

cross stitch

I’ve got a feeling I know what her free choice Friday choice will be next week 🙂

Topic – Romans – Mosaics

11th January 201613th July 2018

Elsa mentioned that she’d enjoyed learning about Romans when she was at school, but told me it was taught a bit quickly for her, so she wanted to go over it again.

I think this is a great opportunity to do a load of crafts (mosaics, make a seal etc) and to go on a couple of field trips (the castle to look at artefacts and a local Roman castle building)

As it turned out our first day ended up changing a little bit as Anna wasn’t at nursery as I’d expected, so we decided to design and create our own mosaics, which both girls enjoyed.

Firstly, we chatted about where Romans would have used mosaics, what they were often made from, and what common pictures were made.

Then both girls designed their own mosaic on some squared paper.

They used some cardboard as a base as it is sturdy and squares of different coloured card to make the designs.

Finished mosaics. As you can see the designs of the mosaics weren’t exactly as their templates (not the same at all 🙂 ), however, that’s the beauty of it, the ideas evolve as they are creating.

Busy Bags – Keeping little people occupied

10th January 201613th July 2018 2 Comments

As you know, I have two children, Anna is at nursery most mornings, so Elsa and I can do all our ‘sit down’ work then, however sometimes Anna joins in with what we are doing and sometimes she doesn’t want to. She’s 3 so that’s fine.

I was mooching around Pinterest, looking for inspiration and I stumbled across busy bags, which are self contained activities either stored in a box or zip lock bag (hence the name), which Anna can just grab from her tray and do on her own.

I already had a few bits which I’d bought and was already using but put them in the bags so they were easier for her to find.

I then created Lego pattern cards and sorted out all the lego bricks she’d require to do it.

Then I had a look at this lovely website for some other ideas. I’ve used the bottletop barnyard (but used big counters instead of the bottletops as they were super cheap on ebay), and the cupcake decorating ones so far, but there are loads of fabulous ideas.

I’ve also printed clothes peg alphabet wheels from Confessions of a Homeschooler, however, Anna prefers the pictures to the letters. I think this is because the letters are backwards on the wheel to on the pegs (something to sort out when I get some free time).

Anyway busy bags have been a wonderful, helpful addition to the resources we use. I will be adding more as they are relatively easy and cheap to make up.

Christmas Fun – Christmas Crackers

24th December 201513th July 2018

For the last few years we have made our own crackers and this year was no exception. They are really cheap and easy to do.

I bought hats and snaps off ebay, very cheap and very quick delivery. Elsa wrote some jokes, (typical of an 8 year old) :)and we put in a chocolate as the gift.

Next we wrapped up toilet rolls with Christmas wrapping paper.

We put in the snap and closed one end of the paper with ribbon, then put in the hat, joke and chocolate. Then closed the other end with the ribbon then used pinking shears to pretty the edges.

Tah dah, all finished. They look fantastic. Let’s hope they work on Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas and enjoy the holiday season.

Christmas Fun – Sock Snowmen

10th December 201513th July 2018

I love the run up to Christmas, we get all festive and do lots of lovely crafts. The internet is such a fabulous source of information, you can never run out of ideas.

After seeing this cute little video on You Tube, we decided to give these lovely little snowmen a try.

Firstly, cut off the foot part just above the heel then fill the foot part with rice (or whatever you want).