October Inspiration

This is the time of year for standing under horse chestnut trees and coming home with pockets stuffed full of conkers.

Here, in England, the weather is still mild but that won't last. This post has some very practical tips for living without central heating. We aren't planning to do that but there are some helpful and fairly low cost ideas for retaining heat. 

I spend hours reading aloud so this was timely. At the end of a long day, it is easy to read too fast! 

Nursery of the Nation has a series about blogging. This particular article is an interesting combination of thoughts about how a Christian blog will be different and how to earn by blogging.

The River Thames is, well, London, so I found this post about discovering its history, fascinating. This is a trip that we hope to enjoy some day.

Claire, at Angelicscalliwags has had an amazing series, over the summer, about learning about the Little House books while renovating their own wooden house. The series finished with a trip to the American Folk Museum in Northern Ireland. 

Last month, I wrote about a German family, the Wunderlichs, whose children were removed because they were home educated. The children have now been returned to their parents although the parents still do not have legal custody and the children have to attend state school. This is a CBN report about the case.

We are learning part of Psalm 19 and at this time of year, this seems so appropriate.

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork.

Hope you are enjoying the beauties of autumn, too.

Modelling the nervous system

We are working through the Apologia book Exploring Creation through human anatomy and physiology. Recently, we have read the chapter about the nervous and endocrine systems.

Both systems are for messaging. A telephone, of the traditional type, resembles the nervous system with its need for wires (the long extensions, axons of nerve cells or neurons)

whereas the endocrine system, sending chemical messages, is more akin to the post.

The chapter suggested modelling neurons using clay. We used playdough as it is cheap to make and easy to manipulate.

Dendrites are in green, axon in red and cell body in green with a cream nucleus. We made neurons of various sizes but didn't attempt one with an axon long enough to reach from the spinal cord to the little toe.

The role of neurotransmitters carrying messages between an axon terminal of one neuron and the dendrites of the next was more easily understood when modelled. Again the dendrite is green, the axon terminal is red. The neurotransmitters are in cream.

Other posts related to learning about the human body:
the heart
blood cells

Learning letters outside

We like to take learning outside. Yesterday, having read a story book which showed a letter made with sticks and a feather, the two younger children (aged 6 and 4) and I went outside to make letters. This is such a simple idea but was great fun and a way to enjoy the fine autumn sunshine.

This was so easy and fun. I was particularly impressed with how keen Youngest Son was about this.

Capital A. The book we had been reading, Angelo by David Macaulay, had shown a capital A so I made this to demonstrate the idea to the children.

The first letter Youngest Son created. "M for Mummy".

Younger Daughter started with a lower case i

She followed this up with a capital E.

Youngest Son is into treasure maps so made several x symbols.

Lower case n.

Upper case N.

e from acorns.

r from old leaves

p was made by Younger Son with some help for the curved portion ( a twig with a break or two)

Youngest Daughter made a question mark.

We made several more although not quite the whole alphabet! This did seem a cumbersome way of making words although it would be fun to learn simple words using leaves and twigs. Perhaps, next week.

Living, Home Educating and Caring

As the population gets older, more and more people will become carers. This will, and does, include those of us who home educate...

Today, I'm writing at the Schoolhouse Crew blog. Do go over to read the rest of the article.

Welcome to those readers visiting from the Schoolhouse Crew blog. 

You may enjoy these posts:

Home schooling around many appointments

Three generations celebrate-12 thoughts

Three generation holidays

Not a child

Caring takes time

The Wool-pack

The Wool-pack by Cynthia Harnett is a book that I first read aged about 11. Recently, I discovered it in the local library and had a happy reread.

The Wool-pack won the Carnegie Medal back in the early 1950s.

This is a "living book". A piece of historical fiction set in the reign of Henry VII with carefully researched detail and  occasional black and white drawings.

Nicholas is the son of a wealthy wool merchant from the Cotswolds.  He finds himself concerned about some Italian banker visitors and disliking his father's wool-packer. His father won't listen to his worries so Nicholas and his friend, Hal, have to sort things out. This involves a journey across the south of England, a mysterious barn and a map.

There are some fascinating extras, in particular, the story of Nicholas' arranged betrothal to the daughter of a wealthy cloth merchant and the events surrounding Christopher Columbus discovering the New World.

At the end of the book is a postscript explaining which parts of the book are based on fact and which on fiction and where various artifacts can be seen,

I found this book fascinating and recommend it for able readers above about 10. It fits in well with learning about early Tudor England.

Recommended!

Disclaimer: I read a library copy of this book because I wanted to reread it. The opinions are all my own and I have only been compensated with the enjoyment of a well written book.

Six free Maths resources

These are free added value maths sites that I have either used with my children or plan to use in the future.

Please do comment with your own favourite sites.

Nrich is a UK resource called the Home of rich mathematics. This has sections divided into age groups and challenges that are at different levels of difficulty. The challenges change frequently so it is worth checking back.  I particularly like the balloon game for learning about negative numbers.

Living math is a site dedicated to learning maths in a non-traditional way. There are plenty of ideas about presenting mathematical ideas in different ways and looking out for maths in day to day life.

The Mathematical Association runs the Primary Maths Challenge in the UK which is easily accessed by home educators. There is also a Secondary section to the site.

Khan Academy-this site has videos explaining maths. We haven't used it below age 11 so I don't know how well it works for younger children. For older children, it is a helpful resource for those occasions when parental explanations are not understood or just aren't  clear enough. The only caveat is to make sure that the level is correct-it is fairly easy to pick a video that covers something just a bit to hard or that the child already understands.

Primary resources is a UK site designed for use with children aged 5-11. There are downloads of activity ideas and lesson resources from UK primary school teachers. There is loads on this site-I certainly haven't managed to explore everything on this. The quality of the resources obviously varies but this is well worth exploring for explaining a topic further or making it more interesting.

Primary MathsHomeworkhelp contains practice with basic operations and worksheet generators as well as maths investigations in a game style.

Over to you. Do you have any maths links that you recommend?

The Pumpkin Runner

The Pumpkin Runner, by Marsha Diane Arnold, is a picture book based on a true story of an Australian runner, Cliff Young, who in his sixties won a running race between Sidney and Melbourne. It is featured in volume four of Five in a Row although we did our own unit study.

I read this book with my two younger children aged 4 and 6. This book is an ideal springboard to study Australia but there are also autumnal and mathematical themes.

A kind Australian friend had given us a calendar with pictures of Australian animals. The relevant year was past so we cut and pasted the pictures and talked about marsupials.

Australia is such a memorable shape. My children describe it as the "dog's head". It seemed the right time to colour maps. Both the children are interested in maps and enjoyed finding Australia on a globe. We discussed seasons and months in Australia and the UK. Having Spring in September, October and November is initially a strange concept.

This week had a food theme. The book talks about pumpkins and various dishes made from them. Our pumpkin became soup.

It seemed the right opportunity to make some other Australian food.

Making damper bread-this tasted good but had a dreadful tendency to fall apart.

 Anzac biscuits. This recipe was made by wives and mothers in the First World War to send to sons and husbands fighting in Europe.

Pavlova-not at all healthy but Younger Daughter had wanted to make this for a long time! 

The pumpkin had to earn its keep. Before being consigned to soup it was weighed and measured.

It was drawn,

predictions were made about its contents which were then inspected

and the seeds counted.
I attempted to dry the seeds for bread but they have turned out rather tough and fibrous.

We were also able to use the cut outline to learn about area. We placed the pumpkin on greaseproof paper and drew round the outside. The pumpkin was removed and the paper cleaned before making a grid of 1 centimetre squares which were then counted. The concept of  measuring area was new to Younger Daughter and this was enjoyable way to learn.

This book naturally introduces the theme of perseverance so we talked about this and the analogy of the Christian life being a race.

This was a satisfying and fun way to learn about a different land.
We have previously used books to learn about
France
World geography
The Arctic
Japan