5 days of learning about England: history resources

Welcome back to this series on learning about England. I hope it will be useful for those of us who live in England and want resources to help our children learn more about their native land as well as those from abroad who may want to visit either in reality or virtually.

Day 1: Introduction
Day 2: History

I'm no historian, just a jobbing home school Mum who is trying to introduce her children to the history of her native land. My aims in teaching history to my younger children are to

• help them to develop an enjoyment for history
• Develop a sense of relationship of events in time
• Learn a Christian perspective of history. Christianity has been very important in England's history but is often ignored in secular history for younger children. 
• Learn about primary and secondary sources and have some idea of the possible biases of each.

England has a long and fascinating history. We can see so much and for us, trips to historical sites are important and tend to enthuse children.

Stonehenge

The Roman Baths, Bath

Battle Abbey

Bodiam Castle

Georgian Bath

Many of these sites have re-enactments or hands on activities for children. My younger children can still march in Latin, over a year and a half after they were taught this interesting skill, at Fishbourne Roman Palace.

 It is much easier to understand why William the Conqueror won having seen a reenactment of the Battle of Hastings which for non-locals didn't take place in Hastings!

We have found that English Heritage re-enactments tend to be particularly well planned. From the experience of only having attended one some time ago, I was really impressed with the annual History Extravaganza. 

There are so many historical sites but many are managed by

• English Heritage
• National Trust
• Royal Palaces

These are places to start for those wanting a virtual tour as well as anyone wanting to visit.

Books

It is difficult to know where to start. 

I wrote recently about UK fiction for children. Several of these titles are historical fiction.

We particularly like the books by R.J. Unstead. These are out of print but easily obtainable and were specifically written for primary aged children (grades K to 5). 

Other resources

• Ladybird books which have a picture on each page.
• Our Island Story by H Marshall. This is quite old but is in print and also free on the internet. Of course, it doesn't tackle modern history and tends to be light on church history.
• Christina Eastwood is a Welsh home educator who has written a couple of volumes called The Story of God's dealings with our nation ( a history of England and Wales).
• Usborne sticker books really appeal to younger children. Younger Daughter loved one about the monarchy.

Websites

The BBC schools website has some useful resources. Some periods in history are missed which reflects the current National Curriculum.

Primary homework help (formerly Woodlands Junior) is another site worth visiting.

Please feel free to add to these resources in the comments.

Do join me tomorrow to learn more about my fascinating country.

Some of my fellow Schoolhouse Crew members are also taking part in the 5 days blog hop, this week. Do visit these blogs
Ellen @ Grace Tells Another Story ~ Making Homeschooling Fun!
Marcy @ Ben and Me ~ Helping Children in Uganda
Wendy @ Simplicity Breeds Happiness -- International Meals
Melanie @ FinchNWren ~ Finchnwren's Fabulous Family Movies
Sarah  @ Delivering Grace ~  learning about England
Victoria @ Homemaking with Heart ~  Connecting with the Creator through Nature Study
Joanie @ Simple Living Mama ~ 5 Days of Charlotte Mason Preschool
Gwen @ Tolivers to Texas ~ A Happy, Peaceful Home
Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses ~ Homeschooling 4 FREE resources
or click on the banner for even more topics.
 

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Victus study skills: a review

Learning to study efficiently is an underrated skill and something that I felt would be helpful for Middle Son, aged 13, so I was delighted to have the opportunity to review Victus Study Skills System products.


We received the Victus Study Skills System Student Workbook and the Victus Study Skills Teacher Edition.


These are both spiral bound books which are designed to be used with students in grades 5 to 12 which correspond to UK years 6 to 13. The Workbook has 65 pages and the Teacher Edition has 82 pages. There are ten lessons which are designed to be used either over a week or spread over a couple of weeks. Each lesson takes about half an hour. We chose to use the books over a fortnight.

The System is based on three questions:

• Where am I now?
• Where do I want to be?
• How do I get there?

The books work through aims- both long term and short, learning style, organising time and space, reading and note taking techniques and more.

The idea is that the parent, or teacher, goes through the lesson, with the child before the child completes the workbook.

The teacher workbook has three sections: an introductory section which explains about the course, possible teaching schedules and has a list of helpful techniques to make the programme relevant and useful to the child: a section which explains how to introduce and teach each lesson along with copies of what is in the student book and for the worksheet type pages, the correct answers. The last section is an appendix with extra materials including goal setting forms, information about ways of organising work and a particularly useful list of mnemonic devices and strategies.

What we thought about the programme

Looking at study skills was helpful and Middle Son found the learning style questionnaire and the list of suggestions for each learning style particularly helpful. It was helpful to develop awareness about the way he learns as well as making aims clear. 

Several of the lessons had sheets to complete of a fill-in the-correct-word-in the space format which was really quite tedious. Middle Son became quite fed up with these. The teacher manual has copies of correctly completed sheets but this doesn't seem to be the best way of learning particularly for children of this age and leads to concern, from the child, about whether synonyms are appropriate or not. The lessons with different activities: goal setting, time management, learning style questionnaire, note taking were more valuable.
The Teacher Edition felt "schooly". Students are mostly described in the plural and the lessons were structured in a way that one would teach to a class rather than the way that an individual child would be mentored.
The appendices are particularly useful and their content should not be ignored. Some of the most helpful time management resources were in this part of the book, in particular, the 168-hour exercise.

Overall
This is a useful resource and something which should be introduced to teenagers. Much of the content was useful but changing the worksheet style pages to something more open ended would improve the retention of the contents.

Cost
The teacher edition costs $40 (about £24.13) and the student edition $20 (about £12.06). I note that there is also a student DIY edition for $25 (about £15.08) but did not review this. This might be ideal for families where the mother is having to be split in several directions during work time!

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5 days of learning about England: introduction

Welcome to this five day series on learning about England. I hope it will be useful for those of us who live in England and want resources to help our children learn more about their native land as well as those from abroad who may want to visit either in reality or virtually.

Today, I've collected together some introductory resources.

First, some terms are sometimes misused.

England is part of the United Kingdom which has four countries:

• England
• Scotland
• Wales
• Northern Ireland

The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy. 

Great Britain is the main island comprising England, Scotland and Wales.

The British Isles includes Great Britain, Northern Ireland and Eire.

The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy.  

Information about the Royal Household and Parliament is found on these two sites. It is possible to visit Parliament and educational materials given out on these visits explain the function of Parliament clearly for children.

The capital, of course, is London. This is the official visitor site. I haven't looked at every page! If you plan to visit London then Transport for London is a must visit site. I do find this site slightly irritating as they don't always include what would seem to be the most logical route.

England is divided into counties. This can be a slightly vague concept. Some of the counties are linked to local government areas although this isn't always the case.

The Visit England site has links to places and things to do. I haven't done many of the things listed and there are some that I have no intention of trying out alongside others that I would love to try.

Do join me tomorrow to learn more about my fascinating country.

Some of my fellow Schoolhouse Crew members are also taking part in the 5 days blog hop, this week. Do visit these blogs
Ellen @ Grace Tells Another Story ~ Making Homeschooling Fun!
Marcy @ Ben and Me ~ Helping Children in Uganda
Wendy @ Simplicity Breeds Happiness -- International Meals
Melanie @ FinchNWren ~ Finchnwren's Fabulous Family Movies
Sarah  @ Delivering Grace ~  learning about England
Victoria @ Homemaking with Heart ~  Connecting with the Creator through Nature Study
Joanie @ Simple Living Mama ~ 5 Days of Charlotte Mason Preschool
Gwen @ Tolivers to Texas ~ A Happy, Peaceful Home
Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses ~ Homeschooling 4 FREE resources
or click on the banner for even more topics.

If you enjoyed this post you may like to follow Delivering Grace by Google Friend Connect, G+,Facebook, Pinterest or e-mail.

Bird watching with children

We had a ticket to use at a Royal Society for Protection of Birds (RSPB) reserve so the two younger children and I went to try out Rainham Marshes.

Rainham Marshes is a nature reserve on the North Bank of the Thames, close to the Dartford crossing. It has been used as an army reserve in the past and still has buildings from this use. The building with numbers on the roof was used for gun practice. Small targets were placed on top of each number.

We had a warm and rather polluted day although that didn't cause us any problems.

Rainham Marshes are designed with board walks over a two and half mile round trail along which are various hides and places to sit and watch. It was flat, easy walking although very close to the water. I was glad that my youngest is five: a couple of years ago, this would have been seriously scary. 

There were various members of staff around who were enthusiastic about the animals to be seen. One let us use his binoculars to look at a nesting lapwing and explained the loud noises that I wouldn't identify were the marsh frog. 

For the children, the highlight was seeing a nesting swan.

I was pleased to have seen a little egret. Sorry-no photos as my camera really isn't up to smallish birds at a distance.

We didn't just see birds; there were plenty of butterflies, bumble bees, teasels

 and bullrushes. We were probably too noisy but other visitors saw grass snakes.

So bird watching with children? 

These are my thoughts:

• Younger children aren't as quiet as adults and have shorter attention spans so it isn't possible to see quite as much as in an adult group.

• On a similar vein, I've always found hides a bit nerve racking. It is difficult to keep little children completely quiet and they tend to be filled with people looking like retired headmasters. Plus, hides often have ingenious methods for opening windows which are just asking to be tried. The latter was true at Rainham but the retired headmaster types were friendly and it is easier to keep a five year old quiet than a two year old.

• My seven year old loved the trip and said that it was so much better than she had anticipated. My five year old was happy to be outside but less excited about the things that he had seen. I suspect there is a maturity factor.

• The proximity of water would have been a problem with toddlers.

• If a child doesn't seem interested, check their sight. As a child, I could never understand why anyone would want to watch black dots in the sky. Being able to see properly makes a tremendous difference!

• Carrying a sticker book with common wildlife helped keep up interest.

Do you have any recommendations for bird watching with children?

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Captivated DVD-a review

On line communication is something that affects all our lives so I was interested to have the opportunity to review Captivated DVD by Media Talk 101.


Captivated is a documentary about the media and its use. The slogan for the company is Teaching Media discernment in the light of following Christ.
Captivated is a film which poses the question  Do we have a technological utopia or a virtual prison?
I guess that is a question that is relevant to all of us. Like many parents, we have been a bit overtaken by technology. When we were first married, almost 25 years ago, we didn't have a computer nor mobiles. Just before our first child was born, over twenty years ago, we acquired a computer to use as a word processor. We didn't have internet access and didn't have mobile phones. In fact, having mobiles seemed worldly and unnecessary. Of course, working as a doctor and with other people looking after our children, I rapidly had to change my mind about a mobile. Later, we discovered that we needed the internet. Up to this time, we were rather pleased that we didn't have a television and we continued TV free but our children learnt how to access BBCiplayer and on-line programmes. Yes, we didn't have a licence so couldn't watch programmes as they went out but that didn't stop the children watching many other programmes. Somewhere along the line, they discovered computer games too.
The process continued: Grandma moved in with us plus television and of course, a licence. So now, the children could watch live programmes. 
Lets be honest, I struggle to manage as a carer, cleaner of a large family home and gardener of a large suburban garden. Yes, I do involve the children but there are parts where they can't be involved and yes, the computer is a useful babysitter. Like most families, our children's technological abilities have outstripped those of the parents.
Over the years, I've become uncomfortable with the amount of time spent on computer games and programmes and less keen for the children to watch unsupervised. Yes, we have rules and computers in public ares of the house. I had reduced the younger children's screen time fairly dramatically, with a fair amount of work, but then Grandma was in hospital and subsequent to this we have had multiple professionals come to see Grandma and me. Particularly at these times, I have been grateful for educational computer programmes but this has also tended to mean that in breaks the children drift into more TV. OK, generally fairly innocuous but I certainly haven't had time to supervise all this.
On a more positive side, modern media means that I can go upstairs or to church and know that if Grandma falls I can be contacted.  My husband works from home for a virtual firm. This just wouldn't be possible without the internet. If one of the children is ill and we miss a service, we can watch the live stream.
So Captivated seemed an important film for me to see. This film is primarily aimed at adults but would be suitable viewing for the whole family. I watched it on my own. 
The 107 minute film draws out various facets of the media and concerns about them, for example, the multitasking, the content of media and its potentially addictive nature. It makes the important point that the aim of many films, particularly, and other forms of media is to change worldview. Obviously, this is something for us all  to consider and an important concept to introduce to our children. It points out that angry music, for example, becomes addictive and encourages angry thoughts.   The film includes interviews with ministers and others who have a view on the media and also with people who have confronted their relationship with the media and reduced it. This reduction in the use of the media has often been via the use of a media fast. This was voluntary in most cases but there was an example of a boarding school where the children had to give up their phones.
My Thoughts on the film It seemed a little ironic, that this was the second film that I had watched this year (the first was a documentary on CS Lewis).
The first portion of the film came over as quite negative. In many ways, the media age is something that can be positive or negative, from a Christian point of view, in much the same way that the printing press can be positive or negative. There really wasn't discussion,in the main film, about the positives: God's Word going out on the internet, the Bible having access to places where it would otherwise be forbidden and talking to isolated friends and family. 
The parallel between excessive media use and gambling was both interesting and compelling. Yes, addiction probably is the right word to use.
The best part of the film was at the end where there was discussion about how to manage a reduction or more discerning use of media. This was helpful and extended beyond the sledge hammer approach of a media fast which really isn't of value if the family income depends on the internet. This latter portion made the point of stating that each of us must consider, before God, our use of games, programmes and so on.
Positives

• Encouraging thought about the right use of social media.
• Challenges about whether the programmes/films/games that we watch are God glorifying.

Negatives

• Not considering the positive uses of the media. Media is a vehicle but the problem is the content. For balance on this it is worth watching the extended interview with Dr David Murray in the extras.
• Over reliance on media fasts which would be impractical for many families. A boarding school was shown where children have to hand in their phones. As a parent, I would struggle having a child away at school who was unable to use their phone to contact family.

Cost

Captivated DVD is available at $16.95 (about £10.22).

Overall
I would recommend this DVD for parents to watch and consider. I don't agree with every detail but the right use of media is an issue that needs to be considered, both individually and as families.

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Spring days

We are coming up to our Easter break so I thought that I might write about home education in our family, over the last few weeks. Mainly, some of the things that have worked well for us, some books and some thoughts. We aren't a typical family- who is? What works for us may not work for you but other people's ideas have often been a springboard for me to find something that works for us.

What has worked for us

• Studying the Georgians with my younger two. They have particularly enjoyed some of our trips. I'm hoping that we might fit in another one or two over the next few weeks.

• Middle Son has been studying history with Northstar Worldwide over this academic year. He finds this a fair amount of work but has learnt new skills particularly around extracting information from sources. He is currently studying the First World War. Interesting for me, as I hope to reach the First World War with the younger two in the autumn which should, of course, tie in well with the centenary events.
• The younger two have enjoyed some hands on science with Supercharged Science (review coming soon).

Pressing flowers

• Middle Son has just starting using Conquer Maths. He was using a textbook but didn't like either my explanations or those in the book so Conquer Maths which has videos seems ideal. So far, so good!
• Going outside, of course.
• Ice skating, well, perhaps not for me. I've still got to pluck up my courage!

Books

• I was reminded, recently, by Home Education Novice's post about the Christian Focus Lightkeepers books so pulled out Ten Girls with talents to read with Younger Daughter. This is a fascinating book and there are biographies of women that I have never heard about interspersed with famous people such as Sarah Edwards and the Countess of Huntingdon. These, of course, fitted very well with our Georgian studies although that wasn't by my planning.
• My younger two have been loving the Usborne sticker dressing books. They have Kings and Queens and Knights. I haven't seen the others in the series but have appreciated the standard and information in those that we have.
• My husband read and recommended The Adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg. This is subtitled The biography of a language. I've just started it. This will be a long read for me but looks fascinating.

Thoughts

• Spring is a time to start planning for learning in the autumn. I love the unpressured nature of planning a long time in advance. There are plenty of decisions to make although there are some things that work well for us and I hope to continue. Galore Park maths books were something that I used for Middle Son. I'm hoping to start Younger Daughter on Junior Maths 1 in September.
• Planning physical exercise so far, much of the children's exercise has been informal: runs in the park, going to the playground and so on. They do ice skate and swim but I'm wondering about some more formal sport. There are several possibilities!
•  I'm tired by the end of term and this time, so are the children. We've had minor illness this last week. I'm hoping for some outdoor time and rest over the Easter break. I shall probably need some thoughtful but not too challenging books. Any suggestions?

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Pinterest and planning

Pinterest is an on-line pinboard. Members have boards for different interests, can follow other people's pins and have their own followers. My Pinterest boards are here. 

Pinterest is useful for collecting my ideas in one place and for storing inspiration for the future. I find it far easier to link to an image than put a website or page in my favourites. A particularly useful feature is being able to search my own pins; this is a quick way of finding something that I know I've pinned. 

It saves so much time having resources in one place when the time comes to detailed planning. Resources can be collected gradually over the months prior to learning about a topic.

I tend to pin either as I read blog posts or as I research.

Storing information (I have linked to some of my top boards):

Five in a Row

Learning to read

Science

Books

Home education for older children

Home ed for little ones



Top educational pins from Delivering Grace

Five ice activities

Modelling blood cells

Modelling the nervous system

Saving money on educational trips

Six free maths activities

Ways to save on home education resources

Finding information from other pinners

These are some helpful people/groups to follow for home educating parents:

School House Review Crew

Shecki B

Young Hosannas

Kathys Cluttered Mind

Ben and Me

Chareen {Every bed of Roses}

Sarah @ Frugal Fun for boys

If you are on Pinterest please leave your link in the comments so that others can follow you.

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