Autumn Half Term

We have just finished the first half of our autumn term.

The new introductions were

• Nature Study with Exploring Nature with Children.
  
  
  
  
  
  This has been a great success even, or perhaps especially, with the child that I thought would be least interested.

• Poetry Tea. Again, this has been popular.
  
   Being a bit of a spoil sport, I was a bit concerned about an overdose of cake but there have been requests for poetry even on the couple weeks when I haven't provided cake.

• Free writing. This is another Brave Writer idea. We spend a few minutes on Friday mornings doing free writing and then read our writing to one another. There is no marking of spelling or punctuation during free writing. Yes, I have to write too! In fact, all three of the new innovations have involved me being a participant. I'm sure that this has a beneficial effect on learning. Now, I need to translate this into the less popular parts of the day, particularly phonics and spelling.

Literacy/English aka Language Arts
This is the area that takes the most time. As usual, there has been plenty of reading aloud. Popular books this autumn have been

• Stone Girl, Bone Girl
• Door in the Wall
• Marcia William's Three Cheers for Inventors
• Augustine: Farmer's Boy of Tagaste

Phonics programmes continue although I don't think it would be fair to say that there are popular. We are currently using

• All about Spelling
• Dancing Bears.

Alongside these, we use Galore Park Junior English 2 and Jolly Grammar 2 workbook.

Middle Son works hard, with a tutor, for English and his other IGCSE/GCSE subjects.

Maths

Near the beginning of term, I changed Younger Daughter onto Galore Park Junior Maths 2. This seems to have been the right decision. Having children on two different years of MEP was just too challenging!

History

The Veritas self-paced remains popular. We are in the depths of the Middle Ages learning about the feudal system. This has been a fascinating course and I've learned loads. Justinian and Theodora and Otto I were, previously, not even names to me. 

Geography has been covered at our home education group where we have been learning about Asia. Younger Daughter helped a friend give a talk about Malaysia. It was lovely to see them both spending hours, at a time when they could have been playing, making a banner and doing research.

Science has been about rocks. A friend loaned us a collection to use for our activities.

Of course, the children made volanoes, again! 

We were able to visit Lyme Regis and see the strata in the rocks,

as well, as the extensive work that has had to be done to stop erosion.

The Dorest trip had other science related activities with a visit to the Naval Air Arm Museum

and to the South West Deer Rescue Centre.

The Dorest trip was probably the highlight of this half term. 

What I've been reading

• When Lightening Struck! The Story of Martin Luther. Danika Cooley's new book about Luther. Review coming soon!
• A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park for the home education group for next half of term. This is a Newbery award winning book set in Korea in the Middle Ages. 
• When your child hates handwriting see review.
• An eagle in the snow by Michael Morpurgo to check if it was suitable for the children and it was, until the last chapter. I've got reservations about this, such a shame as the rest of the book was fascinating.
• JC Ryle's Expository thoughts on Mark's Gospel. I love this book. The thoughts are relevant to the passage, applied, challenging and succinct. 

Things I've been considering

• History after the Veritas series on the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation.
• Picture books about Africa.
• Children's book prizes 
• Reading/writing workshops

Looking forward to half term!

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Galore Park-Junior Maths

This is the first of the series about curriculum one year on.

Galore Park produce books mainly for the UK market and primarily aim at private schools although many home educators use their products. 

We used Galore Park maths books for some years with Middle Son. I have been impressed by

• the clear layout
• explanations
• amount of practice for each topic.

Last September, Younger Daughter started Galore Park Junior maths book 1. So how has this worked?

Pros

• clear layout
• Helpful explanations although I add to these and probably would do this whichever book we use
• logical progression through topic
• Reusable books
• Spiral approach so that if a topic is not understood one year it is repeated the next.

Cons

• There is more writing for the child than in a workbook style book. This can be an issue at this stage and can affect output. I have written out some of the problems myself to help with this.
• So far, it doesn't look as though we will get to the end of the book by the end of the year. Yes, I could have divided the book up and pushed on regardless but decided that, at this stage, it is more important to go for understanding. Interestingly, the topics seem to be front loaded with the four operations then sequences and fractions. After this come three chapters about measurement and another about time before going onto angles and data handling. 
• It is necessary to add some extra practice, for example, around tables. One of the main reasons that we won't complete the book, this year, is the amount of time that we have spent on learning tables. 

Will we use Junior Maths Book 2 next year?

This is a question that I have been battling with and have not quite decided. The choice is between Galore Park Junior Maths book 2 and CIMT. The main advantage of CIMT is that it uses a workbook format which includes less writing. It also seems to have more review. Galore Park is more of a known quantity and I have the next book ready and waiting.

I suspect that whatever we use there will be games and other activities added in. Regular games and other activities, this year, have included

• Sum Swamp-really a bit easy but often requested for fun.
• The BrainBox tables game.
• Trilemma
• Tell the time Lotto from Orchard Toys
• Pizza Fraction game from Learning Resources
• Number square colouring for tables
• Timed tables using my phone timer
• Skipping tables out

What are your favourite maths resources?

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Curriculum-a year on

As we come towards the end of the academic year and start to think about next year, I thought that it would be worth posting our thoughts,over the next few weeks, about some of our curriculum over the past year.

Often, reviews are of a short use of a programme and these can be very valuable but I often find that, over time,  curriculum either

•  becomes a loved part of our lives.
• we carry on to the end because it is useful but not especially loved.
• it stops working for us and we change to something else.

Now, what works for my family may not work for yours and of course, the reverse also can apply but I'm hoping to give reasons and pros and cons of each item to help others considering the curriculum to decide. 

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Adding Sparkle to Home Education

This is the last post in the Virtual Curriculum Fair. This week, we are looking at anything that adds beauty to our home education.

This week the hosts are

 Susan @ Homeschooling Hearts & Minds

and

Lisa @ Golden Grasses
Last week, I wrote about our history curriculum. The week before about maths and the first week about English.

This week, I want to talk about those things that add a sparkle to learning. Often these will be topics which range across the curriculum. I hope to add some links and inspire some ideas. Many/most of these ideas are UK based because that it what I know about but hopefully, these ideas may spark inspiration even if the actual events are not available for you. There are so many more ideas: I can only scratch the surface. Please add activities that your family has enjoyed in the comments.

 I will arrange items roughly into subjects. 
English

• Booktime provide free book packs for UK children of reception age whether or not they are in school. The application form for home educators is here.  My younger two both received their free books when they were reception age. It is always exciting to have books in the post!
• John Betjeman poetry competition for 10-13 year olds, again in the UK. 
• The Shakespeare week takes place from 16th-22nd March. Home educators can sign up in the schools section once they have emailed to verify their email. This took less than 24 hours for me. There a plenty of ideas and events in the list.
• Local productions. 
• World Education Games have a Literacy Day.
• Poetry picnic or a poetry tea party.
• London has some great book activities: we enjoyed the Book Benches, last summer and Paddington Bear more recently. I see that a Shaun the Sheep trail is coming to London and Bristol.

Maths

• I have already written about games.
• Primary Maths Challenge is an annual event which is open to home educated young people. 
• This post has six  free maths added value resources.
• World Education Games have a Maths Day.

Science

• Grow your own potatoes is a scheme for primary aged children which provides potatoes and bags to learn about the process of growing potatoes. We used this for a couple of years but tend to grow so many potatoes anyway that it wasn't really much of a learning experience and I resented having to dig the potatoes up early to weigh them! However, if you don't usually grow potatoes this is worth doing.
• The Royal Institution has its famous Christmas lectures which are also available on line. It runs events: both lectures and hands on sessions which are open to home educators.
• RSPB BirdWatch-free and can be done at home!
• The RSPB also have children's membership with attractive magazines.
• The Nature Detectives site has many free activities around nature and the great outside.
• Displays of birds of prey. We have been to two different free displays in our local area-watch the flyers!
• World Education Games have a Science Day.
• James Dyson Foundation have free ideas cards and engineering boxes which are loaned out.
• Science Fairs

History

• There are so many places to visit. Please check out my links to Days out. In the UK, both English Heritage and the National Trust have special deals for home educators. The terms and conditions can be a bit restrictive: National Trust visits all have to be in term time.
• Many venues run hands on sessions which are open to home educators. We enjoyed a Tudor Day at the Museum of Kent Life.
• I've not been but the Tudor re-enactments at Kentwell Hall are popular with home educators.
• Local museums: we have been to tours with actors dressed as characters from history. Some museums  are to be avoided in school holidays as they are so packed but this is also the time when there are many worthwhile events. We have particularly enjoyed the Roman themed days at Fishbourne Roman Palace. The British Museum children's packs are only available outside school hours: I know from sad experience!
•  I haven't tried this yet but there is a Young Archaeologists' Club with regional branches.
• The Protestant Truth Society has a history club for children: Time Travellers' Club. They produce high quality booklets about various historical figures. Obviously, this is written from a Protestant viewpoint.

Geography

• We joined a culture swap and exchanged packages with people around the world. This was fun, very educational although not cheap. The items for the boxes tended not to be particularly expensive but postage was another matter. Sadly, the site though which we arranged our swap doesn't seem to be functional but this is something that it worth pursuing. 
• Postcard swap-we arranged our own postcard swap when we were learning about the United Kingdom.
• Travel! Not always easy but definitely worthwhile.
• Following the travel of others. We spend time over Christmas, following a journey through Russia as well as plotting the temperature in Russia and the temperature here, in England, on a graph.
• Sponsor a child and find out about their country.
• We've learned much from hearing about local pastors supported by our church as well as meeting them when they visit.
• Cooking meals from other countries. This is always popular!

Art

• Many world famous galleries can be visited free of charge. In London, this applies to the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, The Tate Modern and Tate Britain.
• The Big Draw is an annual festival, each October, with different drawing events through the country.

Music

• Lunchtime concerts are often free.
• The Classical Spectacular schools matinee at the Royal Albert Hall has tickets available for home educators although I see that this year's event is sold out. I have taken children much younger than KS2 to the event very successfully!

Other

• List of family adventure ideas from a family who have taken a year off to explore the UK.
• Open House London is a free event held each September where , usually private, buildings are open to the public.
• The National Trust challenge 50 things to do before you are 11 3/4.

A group of other bloggers are also writing about adding beauty to home education. I hope to add specific links on Monday.  Please feel free to link to any posts that you have written about art/music/handcrafts or anything else that adds beauty to your children's home education. The linky is here.

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Curriculum choices for Year Three.

Recently, I wrote about our choices for Year One curriculum for Youngest Son. His sister is just over two years older, aged seven. The choices for Year Three have been difficult: there is so much that Younger Daughter finds interesting and so many fascinating choices. Then there has been a difficult balance around reading. Younger Daughter has found reading difficult. Yes, she has made progress particularly over the last six months but she hasn't achieved her long standing ambition to read The Secret Garden. Perhaps, this year. So, trying to balance reading and other subjects has been challenging. 

The curriculum here is the skeleton. We fill in with many other resources. For example, we use literature to support English and history.

Bible
 I am currently reading Leading Little Ones to God with the children and hope to continue doing this. We work on learning a verse a week. My plan is to continue doing this from a psalm so we can learn larger portions. We have a hymn of the week using hymns that are often sung in church.

English
This year, we plan to carry on using the Rod and Staff reader with the accompanying reading and phonics workbooks. I hope to link spelling in with the phonics. The reading will continue to be daily whereas grammar, writing and comprehension will take turns though the week.

I have recently reviewed WriteShop and I hope to continue using this flexible curriculum for writing.
Much grammar will be informal in our morning Circle Time but I have Galore Park Junior English One to use if we need something more formal and also for comprehension. 

Maths
This coming year, I plan to spend ten minutes each day practicing tables and mental maths. I have several plans for working on tables (hopefully a post, at some point).
In addition, we plan to use the Galore Park Junior Maths book 1. Middle Son used the Galore Park books and this worked well for him. I don't bother with the answer book for the Junior books but found that having one saved time, once we used the main So you want to learn maths books.

Science
The Apologia, Flying Creatures book is our plan. We found the Human Anatomy and physiology a little difficult for a seven year old. I'm hoping that Flying Creatures  is a little easier!

History
This is where life starts to get complicated. We were gradually working through to modern times and were due to study the First World War this autumn. Then, I had the offer to review the lovely Veritas self-paced history. We looked at the modern course but this was US history so went for the Greeks/Romans and New Testament. We loved this course so now I have to decide whether to go on with the First World War or carry on with the Veritas. I'm hoping that it might be possible to call Veritas Classical Civilisation and manage both!

Geography
This is much simpler, I think. We have purchased the Veritas geography curriculum, Legends and Leagues. A lesson a week should get us happily through the course. Of course, there will be some geography in with the history and just in life.

Art
In the last term, we started to use Artistic Pursuits. Younger Daughter loves this and would do a lesson a day. I haven't moved art into the everyday category although I'm not going to stop her doing extra later in the day.

Spanish
I'm really in two minds about this. We have done a little Spanish over the last year. Younger Daughter finds phonics difficult in English so I have some reluctance about doing more formal language. However, I don't want to take away the opportunity to learn another language. I was impressed with Homeschool Spanish Academy which I reviewed last year. The final decision needs to be made in the next few weeks!

Music
We plan that this will be the year when Younger Daughter starts piano lessons. I have been teaching her, very slowly, on our American organ but she is ready for something more formal. I also hope that we will listen to our History of Classical Music.

Physical activity
Younger Daughter has swimming lessons and we try to go outside most days. There are various ideas around about more sport but nothing decided yet!

Do you have any curriculum that you would recommend for this age group? I feel that I have left out a fair amount. For example, at some point, in the next year or so, we need to fit in some typing. There is a limited amount of time and I don't want to cause overload. Any thoughts on balance?

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Love Latin

My friend Beth has posted, over at Life as a Spiritual Marathoner, about why Latin should be a part of every child's education. Well worth a read. We are working on Latin for the first two reasons that Beth states and in the hope that it will be a spring board to learning New Testament Greek.

I would be interested to know the books that other people have used for Latin. We are currently using Minimus which is a very easy introduction and rather light on grammar.


We hope to go onto either Cambridge Latin or a more grammar based course.