One of my goals of home schooling is to end up with independent learners. I LOVE working and learning along side my children. It is one of my greatest pleasures. And it is one I am loath to give up. However, I do want to move the children one more step towards independence. I have been…
Month: April 2013
Nature Study: Our One Year Pond Study Week 6 (The Ecosystem at Last)
I think this has to be one of my most favourite photos I've ever taken. Isn't he a beauty? Welcome to week 6 of our one year pond study. For the rest of the posts in this series please see here The goals this week were for the children to: Understand pond ecology Be able…
Young Artists at Play: Coloured Foam
When my two little girls were even littler I used to put shaving foam in a zip lock bag for them to play with. It never held their attention for a huge amount of time, but then I had never thought to put food colouring along side it. It was this which gave me a seed of…
Marco Polo and the Mongolians
Picture Credit This week we have taken an unplanned detour. We neglected to cover the Mongolians during our ancient history studies and I wondered where it might naturally fit in. Here, is the answer! As we are reading Polo's memoirs the 'Tartars' are the one people we have no knowledge of, and given they played such…
Preschool Easter Adventure Box: Mr Men
On a Friday we have a time when all five children are doing school together. I use the term school loosely due to the age differences, however the older one’s are still learning. They learn their needs come secondary to their little sisters. They learn to put aside their wishes for a couple of hours…
Incr-Edible Science: Soda Bread Science
We left our last science lesson making hypotheses concerning substitutes for buttermilk in the baking of soda bread. L10 postulated that a milk and lemon juice mixture would work just as well as buttermilk. We decided to test this. First she made up the substitute buttermilk. I asked her how she would do this. Her…
Are You Scared?
When the children were six I had them memorize 'The Road Not Taken' by Robert Frost. That Christmas they proudly recited it to my mum and brother, who had tears in their eyes. My dad had just died and this was our first Christmas without him. This is my most favourite poem of all, and is…
Young Scientists at Play: Coloured Balls of Fizz
This week was our final week playing with Bicarb and vinegar. Next week we'll be having fun with home made paint. A few days ago I made some Bicarb balls. I didn't follow any recipe, simply added food colouring to water and added the water sparingly to the Bicarb until I was able to create a ball. I…
Young Artists at Play
A few weeks ago I started what was to become affectionately known in our house as 'Young Scientists at Play'. This was one hour on a Monday for my two younger daughters to play at being scientists. The theme was colour and the learning was open-ended and all about discovery. Well, during these one hour slots,…
Nature Study:One Year Pond Study Week 5 (Ecosytem, or maybe not!)
Click here for the previous weeks pond study Today, week 5 of our pond studies, we concentrated on ecosystems. At least that is what I had planned. All the great plans of mice and men.... It started off well enough with Gary doing a teaching session on ecosystems. There's something you should know about Gary- he…
Marco Polo: The Beginnings of a Great Explorer
It seems Marco Polo will be taking us longer than first thought (ahem, how very unusual for us!). His travels are a much larger, not to mention interesting, subject than I first thought. Fortunately, the freedom of home-school allows us to chop and change as often as we like, so I'm just going with it!…
Incr-Edible Science: Transfering Knowledge
The whole point of Incr-Edible science is that L10 learns the why of cooking, as opposed to the simple how. I want her to be able to take knowledge about one set of ingredients and apply the same principles to another set. I want her to understand substitutions and suggest some of her own. And…
Simple Hand-made Mr Men Puppets
One of my goals this Easter was to test the waters and see if the Mr Men theme was likely to hold my younger girls attention each Friday next year. When I realised that they would I wanted to start making some play things to put in the littles Mr Men and Little Misses box…
Incr-Edible Science: Quest based science
Last week we made some rather revolting lemonade. If I'm honest, calling it lemonade is a stretch. It was fizzy and it has lemon in it. 'Nuff said! I set the children two Incr-Edible Science tasks. The first was to design a method which would use the chemistry we had learnt to produce more palatable lemonade. …
Young Scientists at Play: Concoction Lab
This week during our hour of Young Scientists at Play I created a concoctions lab, enlisting the help of one of my twins: I made up a tray full of bits and pieces from the kitchen: And then we let the fun begin! We are always as hands off as possible during preschool science. This…