Although the area of flight was a topic T12 would be covering extensively, I thought we’d do a very quick group activity, exploring Leonardo’s fixation with flight and the resulting idea of an ornithopter. Da Vinci always claimed his earliest memory was of a Kite bird swooping down whilst he was in his cradle. It……
Category: Homeschooling
Wibbly Wobbly Weightloss – Losing weight the wibbly wobbly way: Week 2
I can’t tell you what a joy it was to post last week and receive such a lot of wonderful input and enthusiasm! I think as home schooling mums we are in an ideal position to help and encourage each other. The thread which seemed to pass through most of the comments was a focus……
Precious Memories
This week has been a good, albeit busy, week. I’m not good with frenetic busyness and am looking forward to things calming down a bit. We have had last-minute preparations and final rehearsals for the cabaret night the children are singing at on Friday night. Gary is drumming and has needed to be present at……
Project Based Learning: Individual Leonardo Da Vinci Projects
This term we are focusing on Leonardo Da Vinci. We spent most of last week looking through the resources and getting a feel for what each child might be drawn towards. After much to-ing and fro-ing topics have finally been agreed upon and the children have enthusiastically thrown themselves into their work. We have discussed……
Literature Studies: Chaucer – A Retelling of a Knight’s Tale?
The first tale I chose to focus on was the Knight’s Tale because it is the tale from which Shakespeare took his inspiration for ‘The Two Kinsmen’ and ‘A Midsummer night’s Dream’. We will be studying Shakespeare for a whole year and ‘A Midsummer Night’s dream is my very favourite play of his, and probably……
Feelin’ Grotty
Apart from Gary and I, everyone is feeling grotty with absolutely no wish to be photographed (quite understandably!). We’ve done very little this week. Lots of TLC, honey and lemon hot drinks and DVD watching.
Plans for my Littles
Reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmatic We are focusing on the basics this term, much like last. A5’s reading has really taken off and instead of us working our way through one lesson per week she is flying through with between 3- 5 lessons completed each week. It has been heartening to see her reading words (successfully)……
Fizzy Fun: Elephant Toothpaste
This was inspired by Lucinda’s excellent post. I wanted to do it for two reasons. The first was for its fizzy fun factor! It was a perfect addition to our Fizzy Fun science. The second was for the older children to see it happen and for them to design their own experiments using this catalytic reaction……
Project Based Learning: Microbes – Virus
The first thing I wanted to do was revise what makes something living alive. The reason for this is that Viruses aren’t generally accepted as being a living thing, but instead of simply teaching that to the children I wanted them to work it out for themselves. Characteristics of living organisms – movement as an……
Plans For This Term: Older Children
Today marks the start of a brand new six-week term for us, although I’m not certain it’ll be an auspicious start. The girls have been away with their church youth group for the past weekend. This mean multi late nights and exhaustion on arrival home. B2 has had Scarlett Fever and is on a particularly……
Wibbly Wobbly Weightloss – Living The Healthy Life!
Yes, I know. A slightly dodgy title. I had been thinking about starting a new blog just for my weight loss and that was what I had decided to call it. I’d even got as far as obtaining a domain for it. However, when it came down to it I found I didn’t really have……
Precious Memories
The week started off with Father’s day on Sunday. The girls gave Gary some lovely cards, although it was the words inside of both of the older girl’s cards which had both of us quite emotional. There is a special bond between father and daughter which the girls are appreciating and loving more and more……
Mr Men School: Learning Directional and Positional Concepts with Mr Nosey
I buy all my Mr Men books from charity shops at between 25p and 50p each, so it is a bit hit and miss which ones I am able to get my hands on. In this case I owned two Mr Nosy books which I read out to the girls: By some miracle the Latest Mr……
Mathematician Study: Fibonacci and his numbers
When I started planning for our study into Fibonacci, I really struggled. Not with the maths of his number sequence, but with the why’s of teaching them. The whole rabbit problem seemed convoluted fantasy, based on assumptions. Maths, in the main, isn’t based on assumptions but fact. I read our selection of books before……
Fizzy Fun: Exploding Baggies
What we gathered per turn: One small zip-lock bag for exploding Bicarbonate of soda (3 teaspoons) Warm water (1/4 cup) Vinegar (1/2 cup) Measuring cup A tissue for making bicarb time release packets What we did: The first thing we did was make up our little parcels of bicarbonate of soda by placing 3 teaspoons……