Top Home Educating Resources

Welcome to week three of the Virtual Homeschool Fair run by Susan of Homeschooling Hearts and Minds. This week the topic is How do we cover it all? This is about the programmes and resources that we use.

We have been home educating for almost nine years. This post is about some of our favourite resources.  Some of these items we no longer use but they are ones that have left happy memories. Two of these are free!

• Five in a Row

My children are now too old for Five in a Row but this was a happy curriculum. Five in a Row is a gentle curriculum aimed at 4-8 year olds around picture books. Each week a different book is selected and read each day. The handbooks then have activities around the book which cover science, maths, art, English, craft and cooking. 

Plus points

-the children and I loved Five in a Row.

-excellent selection of picture books

-manuals have a high resale value

-enormous range of activities so those which fit your family can be selected.

-designed for home educating families

Bear in mind

-Five in a Row is probably better for the lower end of this age range.

-many of the books are American and some are out of print. We decided only to buy the books which were inexpensive and easily obtainable and were able to find the vast majority. 

-It isn't necessary or desirable to do every activity in the manual.
-Branch Out World is written by a UK home educator. This is a similar sort of programme based around picture books but these are based in the UK. For example, Mousehole Cat or Katie Moray.

• Veriatas self paced history

Veritas self paced history is an on-line history course which is used daily. It has an accompanying list of literature which we used and found enhanced the course. We used it for two years covering New Testament, Greeks and Romans and for the second year, the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation.  A typical day would include teaching, maps, a history song, a game and a revision game and more.

Plus points
-generated a love for history.
-requires little parental time and virtually no preparation.
-attractively designed.
-literature bundle enhances the on-line programme

Bear in mind
-after the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation year, the course starts to cover mainly US history. We stopped using the course at this point.
-not cheap but there seem to be sales about twice a year with major reductions (about 50%).

• Exploring Nature with children

This is a weekly nature curriculum written by UK home educator, Lyn Seddon. 

Exploring Nature with Children is based around a weekly nature walk to the same venue. This can be the back garden, a local park or some countryside. Each week has a theme, for example, seeds, lichen or birds and the weeks are grouped into seasons. Each week includes a poem, book recommendations, an art suggestion and activity suggestions. This may be art or craft, science, writing or music. Children and parents are encouraged to keep a nature journal but there is a separate, more structured journal which can be purchased either with print copy or cursive copywork.

Plus points

- a major encouragement to get outside and to look at nature.

-plenty of activities for a range of ages.

-ideal for UK seasons.

Bear in mind

-this book is written for UK weather and seasons. It may need some modifying if your seasons are very different.

-it isn't necessary to do every activity.

-these are ebooks. The main title can be used on a tablet but the journals obviously need to be printed.

• Poetry Teatime

Poetry Teatime is a brainchild of Julie Brogart who designed Bravewriter. We have used Partnership writing and certainly use some of the ideas around teaching writing. However, the part of the Bravewriter programme which has impacted us most is the concept of a Poetry Teatime. This is a time set apart for reading poetry, and sometimes other books, over a drink and a snack. Sometimes, we have a carefully laid table and a special snack and other times, the poetry reading is less formal. I have complaints when we miss Poetry Teatime.

Plus points

-poetry in a relaxed environment. 

-reading aloud practice

-sometimes, we write. Covering the table with brown paper and providing pens helps this.

-sometimes, we invite friends to this sociable occasion.

-poetry tea can take place outside the home. We have had poetry in cafes while waiting for an older child taking exams or at Bateman's,  Rudyard Kipling's home, because this seemed the place to read Kipling .

Bear in mind

-you might not want to introduce an extra snack! We are trying to have healthier snacks although this doesn't always work.

-funny poems work well, particularly, with children who aren't used to poetry.

• Morning Time

Morning time is another free resource. This is a time to gather all your home educated children and spend time together. Morning time can make a definite start to the day and helps put first the items that you want to be first in importance. We start with prayer, a Christian book, memory work and a hymn. 

We then put in either extras that we don't want to miss or a special book/topic. Our current items are

-a double spread of  the Usborne Introduction to the First World War

-a chapter from one of the children's current book club choices: a Long walk to water and the Astounding Broccoli Boy.

-a weekly podcast from Classics for Kids or music from the First World War.

Resources for Morning Time include

-Pam Barnhill's podcasts Your Morning Basket
-Kendra Fletcher's book Circle Time: the best part of your day
-the Farmhouse Schoolhouse posts about Morning Time.

What are your favourite home education resources? 

Looking for more curriculum ideas? Visit my fellow homeschool bloggers! 

Our Homeschool Plan for 3rd, 6th, 8th, & 12th Grades by Susan @ Homeschooling Hearts & Minds
Our 10th Grade Plans by Christy @ Unexpected Homeschool
Planning Out Our Unschooling Studies by Jen @ A Helping Hand Homeschool
The Details of Curriculum by Michele @ Family, Faith and Fridays
Reflections of a Curriculum Junkie by Brittney @ Mom's Heart
Freedom through nature journaling. by Kim @ Good Sweet Love
How I pull together a homeschool curriculum without packaged curriculum by Dana @ Life Led Homeschool
Our Favorite Curriculum and Resources - An Annotated Bibliography by Sabrina @ Kids, Crunch, and Christ
Our 2018 Homeschool Curriculum Choices by Amanda @ Hopkins Homeschool
Top Home Educating Resources by Sarah @ DeliveringGrace
Homeschooling Curriculum We Are Using This Year by Laura O @ Day by Day in Our World
Use the Force and Complete the Course by Kym @ Homeschool Coffee Break
Choices, choices - how to choose your curriculum wisely by Lizzy @ Peaches@Home
Our Curriculum Needs - grade seven by Annette @ A Net in Time
The Heart of Our School by Laura @ Four Little Penguins
What I Use with 7th and 9th Grader - Virtual Homeschool Fair -Week 3 by Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory
How to Avoid Gaps in Education by Kristen H. @ Sunrise to Sunset
Tricky Subjects and Starting the Decision Making Process by Lori H @ At Home: where life happens
High School Syllabus by TrueNorthHomeschoolAcademy @ GoldenGrasses

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Please note that the Exploring Nature with Children links are affiliate links.

A Poetry Feast

This is the second week of the 2017 Virtual Curriculum Fair. This is a five week series of posts from a variety of different bloggers around various areas in home education. Last week's post about Starting the Day Well and with links to all the other week one posts can be found here. This week's topic is Playing with Words: the Language Arts or what we would call in England, English or literacy. 

My post, this week, is about poetry in our home education. 

I have written about poetry previously
Ways to enjoy poetry and rhyme with young children
Poetry and Young Children
Poetry Resources

Nowadays, we have a special poetry slot at our weekly Poetry Tea. This is an idea from Brave Writer which now has a separate Poetry Teatime website.

We hold our poetry tea at the same time each week.  One of the children usually selects a recipe and makes a snack. We are trying, not always successfully, to pull away from sweet snacks but fruit and homemade sushi sandwiches have been popular.

The table is laid for Poetry Tea, sometimes, around a theme such as the season 

or an event such as Remembrance Day. Recently, we have often covered the table with lining paper and provided pens rather than using a table cloth. The idea is to encourage writing, doodling and general illustration of the poems. 

We often invite a friend or friends for Poetry Tea. Everyone attending has to choose a poem and either read this or have it read for them. Poems have been written for the occasion. 

On occasion, we have variations on Poetry Tea. We read Kipling at his house, Bateman's. There was the end of term treat with a new anthology and a visit to a cafe. We have had poetry picnics in various seasons!

We now have a large family anthology in which we write our favourite poems and poems written by the children. In retrospect, I would have used a smaller book. Our book is larger than A3 size and is difficult to manage on the table!

Benefits of Poetry Tea

• Increasing awareness of rhyme
• Becoming aware of some well known poems
• Coming to love some poems
• Repetition leading to increased understanding
• Repeated reading leading to increases in fluency and skill in reading aloud. Dialogue poems have been really popular for this. Excuses is the favourite in this category and is read/recited weekly!
• Writing poetry
• Reading recipes
• Conversations about themes in the poems. The discussions have sometimes lasted far longer than I anticipated.

Tips for Making Poetry Tea work

• Some children like poems more than others-all have to sit for a snack, drink and listen to one poem from each person. 
• Funny poems seem to appeal to those less keen.
• I let the less enthusiatic disappear after the minimum expected while keener children can sit and discuss.

Poetry Suggestions

I have previously written about Poetry Resources. In addition to these, we also now use 

• The Puffin Book of Utterly Brilliant Poetry
• Secret Laughter by Walter de la Mare
• Where the Poppies now grow by Hilary Robinson and Martin Impey. This is a picture book around a poem about the First World War.
• The Nation's Favourite Poems-please note that this is not a children's book and not all the poems are suitable for a children's poetry tea. 
• Over Hills and Dales: The Illustrated Poetry of the Natural World

Current Favourite Poems and their authors

• Excuses Gareth Owen
• Chocolate Cake Michael Rosen
• Please Mrs Butler Allan Ahlberg
• The race to get to sleep Brian Patten
• On the Ning Nang Nong Spike Milligan
• Henry VIII Eleanor and Herbert Farjeon
• Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Robert Frost
• A Smugglers' Song Rudyard Kipling
• Gran's XI John Kitching
• In Flanders Fields John McCrae
• A Dragon in the Classroom Charles Thomson

Please let me know about your children's favourite poems or anthologies. I have wondered about having some Poetry Teas around a particular author but haven't really done this yet, apart from a visit to Bateman's. I would love suggestions for themes and extensions to our teas.

Please visit my fellow homeschool bloggers who are writing about Playing with Words this week:

All posts will be live by Monday, January 9th at noon EST.
Delight Directed High School English by Susan @ Homeschooling Hearts & Minds
Act Your Part Well- 2017 VCF by Lisa @ Golden Grasses
The Search For Language by Michele@Family, Faith and Fridays
Our Top Picks for Language Arts by Amanda H @ Hopkins Homeschool
Multiple Approaches to Language Arts in 2017 by Laura @ Day by Day in Our World
How We Cover the Language Arts in Our Homeschool by Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory

Use Your Words by Laura @ Four Little Penguins
The Art of Perfecting Macarons by Jennifer @ A Glimpse of Our Life
Loving Languages Every Day by Jen K @ A Peace of Mind
Speech Therapy & Elementary Latin by Yvie @ Gypsy Road
The Readin' and Writin' Part of Homeschool by Shecki @ Greatly Blessed
Children Who Love Books by Lizzy @ Peaches At Home
Customizing High School Language Credits by Christy @ Unexpected Homeschool
A Poetry Feast by Sarah @ Delivering Grace
Teaching Language Arts without Curriculum by Brittney @ Mom's Heart
I know your pain and it is worth it! by Kim @ Good Sweet Love
Language Arts: Our Style by Annette @ A Net in Time
Words! Words! Words! by Lisa M @McClanahan 7
10 Wonderful Word Games (+1) by Lori @ At Home: where life happens

Finding the Right Words by Kym @ Homeschool Coffee Break
What About Reading Comprehension? by Kristen @ Sunrise to Sunset
Teaching Grammar and Writing Through Discussion by Chelli @ The Planted Trees

An InLinkz Link-up

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Bateman's-a celebration of poetry

One of the most repeated poems at our poetry teatimes is Kipling's Smuggler's Song. In addition, my husband has read The Jungle Book to one of the children. So it was time to visit Kipling's adult home, Bateman's. This is in a lovely part of the Sussex Weald and is owned by the National Trust. 

The house dates back to the seventeenth century

and is close to old smuggler haunts. We drove through Hawkhurst, home of the Hawkhurst Gang on our way. Beautiful now but probably rather unpleasant in the days of the smugglers.

The children loved the rather late Easter egg hunt which took us through the gardens,

to the wild flower meadow,

water wheel

and mill.

Hoping it wasn't too pretentious, we had hot chocolate and scones outside the coffee shop, in the walled garden, and read A Smuggler's Song.

The house doesn't feel enormous. It feels as though a family lived here. 

Probably, though, the most useful thing that I learned is that seven year olds concentrate much better when given a phone camera. Just don't forget to turn the flash off. Anyway, the photos of the house interior are a mixture of mine and my children's.

A clock older than the house.

 Kipling

Kipling's study-see the overflowing waste paper bin.

Recordings of Kipling's works were on this replica radio.

John Kipling's bedroom with his school uniform. He was killed aged just 18 in the First World War.

Model ship

Copies of Kipling's works.

A place worth visiting, partly to put context to Kipling's works and just because it is such a beautiful and child friendly place.

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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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Ten Poems for Children

We've recently started having poetry teas but even before this, poetry has been something that I have enjoyed reading to the children. These ten poems are some of our favourites. They are all available on line hence the links. This list caused a great deal of discussion and one of my children wanted to have a much, much longer list-perhaps for another time!

Cats sleep anywher,e by Eleanor Farjeon. This is a great poem for cat lovers; very easy to learn and true to life.

Excuses, by Gareth Owen, is a poem that I read aloud almost daily as the children love its humour.

Chocolate cake, by Michael Rosen, is relatively new to us but has become popular. Children may appreciate parallels between this and the story of Bad Harry's party in My Naughty Little Sister.

Stopping by woods on a snowy evening, by Robert Frost, is best read with the beautiful illustrations by Susan Jeffers.

Sand in the sandwiches, by Shirley Hughes, is a poem that gets quoted every time we go to the sea and comes from the lovely anthology Out and about.

What is pink?, by Christina Rossetti, was about the first poem one of my children learned. 

The Lion and the Unicorn is a traditional rhyme. This link gives fascinating information as to its origin. 

Macavity: the mystery cat, by T.S. Eliot, is probably the most famous poem from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.

The Painting Lesson, by Trevor Harvey, always causes amusement and comments about Mum's appearance!

Buckingham Palace, by A.A. Milne,is a poem that I remember from my childhood.

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