Merry Christmas Everyone!

Cathy Come Home

One of the perks of being a home educator is the annual Into Film Festival. We usually go to see a whole host of films, but this year we have picked only four. This isn't because there aren't the usual number of great films to see, but rather because this is the last year that The Girl will be HE (most likely) and so the focus is on other things - like college courses, IGCSE work and music lessons.

Anyway, today The Girl and I went to the Showroom in Sheffield to see Cathy Come Home, the 1966 play directed by Ken Loach. It was followed by a Q & A with representatives from the South Yorkshire Housing Association and Roundabout, a charity working with homeless youth.

It's amazing to think that this play, released 50 years ago this week, influenced attitudes to homelessness and the housing crisis so much that it caused laws to be changed. I remember seeing it as a child and the impact it had on me then. It was interesting to see what impact it made on The Girl today.

I really want to  take her to see I, Daniel Blake now. I think there will be more interesting conversations to come.

Cathy Come Home is available to watch on YouTube or Amazon.

A different group every day

This week has been BUSY with home ed groups.

On Monday morning, Boykin went to his Bronze Arts Award group at the library. Progress was made on the Lego stop motion animation that he is making with three of his friends there. I'm very much looking forward to seeing it when it is finished.
He then went back to his friend's house afterwards where they spent the afternoon trying to complete a Lego bridge building challenge. I love how home education can be shared with other families :) I'm very grateful for it.

On Tuesday, The Girl finished her volunteering at the local library which she was doing as part of her D of E. They gave her a glowing report and a card and box of chocolates as a thank you :) We love our libraries!
In the afternoon, both children enjoyed playing Laserquest with a group of other home ed families. They had a great time and I got chance to chat to other parents and have a cup of tea :)
In the evening, we went to the theatre as part of a home ed trip to see Attached, a circus show. It was funny and clever. Boykin wants a Velcro suit now.

Yesterday, The Girl was at college. me and Boykin spent the day at our local themed session. This month it was Disney & Animation. Activities included a Disney timeline game; a Peppa Pig game; a pin-the-tail-on-Eeyore game; icing mickey mouse on digestives; stop-motion plasticine animation; creating animated figures using plastic cups; Disney animal related parachute games and decorating Gingerbread Men on biscuits made by one of the older girls :)

This morning, The Girl and one of her friends went to their music theory lesson whilst Boykin went to the ninjitsu group. We raced to town this afternoon to go to a tour of a small museum in the local university where we are hoping to attend some workshops over the coming year.
It was a lovely session. They got to see behind the scenes, handle artefacts and play with a gigantic computer screen-thingie.
Afterwards, The Girl went shopping with her Nana and Boykin came home to spend some time on his latest computer project.

I think we will all be glad of a quiet day at home tomorrow :)

Still adjusting....

....to all the changes that go with The Girl doing one day of college a week. I didn't think it would have as much impact as it has done. Boykin is also out of the house for almost a full day a week too, but on a different day. He's taking part in a Bronze Arts Award group and then goes to his friends for a few hours afterwards. I'm juggling tutoring on one of those days and on the other there are two lots of music lessons to fit in as well.

I'm trying to ensure that The Girl still gets some positive HE group experiences in this last year at home so have organised a few theatre trips and a museum takeover day in the next couple of months on top of the usual groups that we do. I'm finding that she doesn't want to go to all the groups anymore because she has so much studying to do for upcoming IGCSEs and music exams. This can be a bit tricky when Boykin does want to go, depending on where it is and how long we will be out for, of course. Tuesdays were our at home pyjama day for a while but so far, it doesn't seem to be happening that often anymore :( I think our pyjama days will now be tied in with school holidays and I think we're really going to appreciate those holidays this year.

Despite all the nearly-daily activities that they do, we still had time to take a day out to Lyme Park in Cheshire as part of The Girl's studying of Pride and Prejudice. It's the stately home used as the exteriors of Pemberley in the BBC series that starred Colin Firth. It's well worth the visit. We'll be going back again because we didn't get time to see much of the park and when we were still only halfway round the house there was a fire drill.

Boykin was given a trail sheet to take round the house which he enjoyed and which encouraged him to look at things in more detail. There's a wonky fireplace; a secret panel so that the family could spy on their guests; a library where you can sit and read books; a writing desk where you can write letters that they will post for you; a butler's pantry where you can have a go at cleaning the floor; a nursery where you can play with the toys and rearrange the dolls house and a school room where you can play a piano and leave a message on the blackboard. As usual, we took our time and made the most of everything :)

We enjoyed the gardens and then went to the playground. It was pretty late in the day so we had it all to ourselves which was fun for me because I get to climb up the towers and stuff too ;)

SWAK toothbrush

I love to learn about businesses run by other home educators. and was delighted to be offered the chance to review a SWAK toothbrush and support another Home Ed family :)

Well, to be honest, I didn't really know what one was when I agreed to try it. I suffer from sensitive teeth and have to use Sensodyne toothpaste regularly or else my poor old teeth start to hurt. I wasn't convinced that this toothpaste-less toothbrush would be any good for me.

Anyway, the SWAK toothbrush arrived, looking longer and thinner than I'd expected with this funny little round head. I began to use it as per the instructions with a small dollop of sceptism. I have to say, I was really surprised how easy it was to use although it took a bit of getting used to; not having to apply any pressure was a bit weird at first. After I'd given it a good go, I can confirm that my teeth felt smooth and clean afterwards, although I missed the minty taste that I associate with newly cleaned teeth.

I love the convenience of being able to clean my teeth anywhere and not being tied to the bathroom sink. Both Boykin & The Girl have requested one and, as they are both over 7*, I have agreed to buy them. One of the things that we all like about them is that the little wooden heads are replaceable but you keep using the same plastic handle for ever, potentially. The Girl has recently been impressed by the Zero Waste Movement and this totally fits in with the philosophy of reducing our plastic waste.

You can buy your own toothbrush here. There are a selection to choose from and they also sell tooth oil and tooth salt too.

* Under 7s need full parental supervision with SWAK toothbrushes.

Changes Afoot

Well, it's feeling like Autumn here as the pavements are starting to grow a layer of leaves. I always find Autumn inspires me to start new projects and dust down the old way of doing things. My two youngest children seem to have inherited this feeling.

We spent Monday afternoon devising new schedules. Each person organised their own days in the way that suits them best. I've recently come across bullet journaling, and even though I know I will NEVER be so organised, I have found it helpful to use some of the ideas from it.

We took a trip to IKEA and bought 3 magnetic notice boards, one for each of us. Each board came with 4 hooks and 3 magnets. We've used some of the hooks to hang the boards one below the other. The rest are hanging from the bottom board.

Having an "it'll-come-in-useful-one-day" nature, combined with a "I-hate-throwing-things-away" streak, means that I have had a big jar of bottle tops and a roll of magnetic sticky tape. Perfect for making personalised magnets. A couple of episodes of Star Trek later, we had a couple of handsewn drawstring bags to hold any unused magnets. These hang neatly from the hooks at the bottom of the bottom board ;)

So why have we found the need to try to become so super organised? Well, The Girl is entering her last year of Home Ed *sniff* and will be taking a few exams this year along with some more music grades. She has just enrolled at a not-so-local college to take GCSE English and will inevitably have homework. With one GCSE under her belt (she passed her maths :) Hooray!!!) she has realised that time management will be quite important if she wants to study for two more at home.

Boykin is 'attending' Hogwarts this year and so he has made a simple timetable that will cover all his morning studies. I love how he's managed to put maths under Magical Theory and Physics under flying ;)

And me, well, I have to be on hand for any studying that The Girl will be doing at home whilst also pretending to be Professor McGonegal with Boykin. On my board, I've also included housework, prayer time and all my work tasks - from the latest lapbook to maths & geography tutoring to blogging and updating FB groups ... and everything else in between. I'm not quite sure where my organising local HE stuff fits in really - it's not quite work cos I don't get paid for it, but it sometimes feels like it.... in a good way, of course :)

Wild Animals Session

This month's theme at our local HE group was wild animals.
There were about 5 families who are all regulars. It was a lovely sunny day so much of the time was spent playing out.

Activities on offer were making paper elephants....

....finding where in the world each animal lived on a giant world map...

...play 'Which animal am I?'. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the lovely lift-the-flap poster that one of the other mum's made with a series of questions using a tree diagram to find the answer.

Outside, they could meet with some real ducklings and learn about wild ducks...

...listen to a story & play a team general knowledge game using Brainbox Safari.

If you want to know how to make paper elephants too, they were inspired by this video.



Other resources for studying wild animals:
masks
spotter sheets
NGkids
Animals on Activity Village
Elephant unit study and lapbook
BBC Bitesize variation - the variation worksheet has a simple tree diagram

Games Expo

Yesterday, we went to Birmingham NEC for the Games Expo.

I am very fortunate in that Number 1 Son and his fabulous girlfriend organised the whole day for us. They booked train tickets, sorted out travel times and tickets to the event too. All I had to do was get me, Boykin and The Girl up at 6am to get to the train for 7.30. Luckily, I did it :) Just!

It was our first games expo and I was surprised at how many people were there. I didn't realise that board games were so popular. We were also surprised at how many people were there dressed up in sci-fi and fantasy costumes. After having recently spent a fair few hours watching The Big Bang Theory on Netflix, I half expected to see Sheldon et al at any moment ;)

It was fun playing giant versions of games we'd never played before, Yeti was a favourite. I quite liked the look of giant Ticket to Ride as well :) There were so many different games that I reckon I could've found a game to go along with every project we have ever done or could possibly ever do :)

Personally, I love all the wooden games and wooden storage systems and I think that dice rolling towers are a fab idea.

We decided that we all want a games table with cup holders and a cover so that you can keep your games out to finish later - there'd be no piling up of papers on that!

If you like playing games, its well worth going, Family tickets aren't that expensive and the train station is just a few minutes walk away. Plans are already afoot to go next year with costumes and more money :)

Games we liked

Harry Potter Day

Every few months at our local themed session, we hold a vote as to what themes to cover in the next few sessions. The kids choose some and the adults choose some. This month, by very popular demand, the theme as chosen and voted for by all the children was Harry Potter :)
There was lots of role-playing outside involving various Harry potter characters. There were cloaks, wands and a cloak of invisibility.

Activities included Sparkly magic pictures...

...potion making....

...making The Monster Book of Monsters...

....Create your own Spell...

....Herbology....

....and various Harry Potter themed games.

You can download a copy of the 'Create Your Own Spell' activity sheet (designed by Boykin) here.

The Radish

After keeping an almost daily blog for a month, it seems like such a long time since I've posted ;)

So, what have we been doing in the last 6 days?
We ignored April Fool's day by accident and  went to a local Home Ed craft group where Boykin tried his hand at reverse glass painting. He was very pleased with his efforts. It's quite tricky in that you have to paint first the parts of the design that you would usually paint last. I remember that we did something similar with a chocolate kit that we had once....

On Saturday, The Girl started her Duke of Edinburgh volunteering activities at the local library. I'm really impressed with how well organised they are. She came home with forms to sign, information about what is expected of her and how they go about supporting D of E volunteers at all levels. She has a lovely mentor in one of our local librarians and I'm sure she will get a lot out of it :)

We had a couple of easy going days spent mostly at home. It involved some maths, some movies and some music. Oh, and lots of Agatha Christie.

Tuesday was book group day. Hence the abundance of Agatha Christie in the previous few days. I really recommend The Double Clue . It's a collection of four short stories featuring Hercule Poirot. We none of us guessed whodunnit. We took the Cluedo Board Game to book group to play, in keeping with the theme. I'm glad we did too because the local library was pretty noisy with a craft workshop going on. I'd forgotten that things like that happen in there during school holidays. At one time we'd have been there joining in, but they're both a bit big now really :/

After book group, Boykin went to his friend's house for a birthday sleepover. The Girl treated me to a splendid evening of games, chocolate and a film and I treated her to Chinese takeaway. We played Ticket to Ride Europe and Scrabble  . We decided to watch Slumdog Millionaire while Boykin was away because he is too young for it. I think I'm too young for a lot of it too. It's a good film but I found parts of it are very distressing :( You can read about it on IMDb

Today, there was more music practice, more maths and lots of shelf building and I cooked dinner for a change :)

Maths involved surds and tricks :)


Oh, and do you remember that Boykin was observing seeds germinating? Well, one of them survived and produced a leaf as well as a root. He planted it in a plant pot yesterday and today it had nicely perked up. The Radish :)

Challenged!! - Days 29, 30 & 31

Well, I almost succeeded in blogging every day for a month :)

The last couple of days have flown by with me doing a lot of work which meant they've taken full advantage and have caught up on lots a little screen time. No.1 Son bought Boykin a subscription to Marvel comics which means he has access to 17,000 of them online. Consequently, Boykin has been catching up on his reading ;)

He did fond time for a bit of maths. He's still working on transformations and did some tessellation.

The Girl has been getting back into the swing of things with maths, music practice and Marvel comics. She's still cooking all the meals but hasn't been able to continue with her garden project due to weather, visiting and visitors.

We've had visitors every day for the last three days. There's been lots of playing out for them and cups of tea for me. It's been lovely seeing old friends again :)

Tomorrow, we're going to a local Home Ed craft group, so things are starting up again after the Easter holidays. It feels weird though that we have another week at least before all their non-HE classes and groups start up again. Although, it is quite nice having more days at home to be able to be more relaxed about life, just like when they were little :0)

Challenged!! Day28

A pyjama day.

They decided on our activities for today :)
We played City of Zombies, had a talent show, watched Avengers Assemble, played Disney Infinity and ate lots of chocolate.

An Easter extension day :)

Challenged!! Day 27

Easter Sunday.
Church, chocolate, egg hunts and family. Not necessarily in that order :)

Happy Easter!!

Challenged!! Day 26

It's been a very sociable day today.
Boykin was on Skype with local friends making Mad Libs and playing Minecraft. The Girl was in town with one of her friends, shopping and having smoothies.
In the afternoon, Boykin and myself went to a cheese and wine do at the house of friends we met at his old dancing class. Turns out their boy is hoping to start at the same drama place that I've just signed Boykin up for :)
The Girl and her friend came back here for tea and the three of them have spent the evening playing NintendoLand.
It's now time for bed, in light of the clocks going forward and there still being an Easter egg hunt to set....
G'night!

Challenged!! Day 25

Good Friday.

We went to the children's Stations of the Cross service at our local church. It's very interactive with activities at each station ranging from drawing lots to considering grieving mothers of the modern world. It ended with an egg-and-word hunt round the church. They had to work together to rearrange the words into a few sentences that summarised the Easter story.

Following on from plot generators, Boykin found a Mad Libs generator. He typed in his own story and decided which words would be added by other people. He had to identify adverbs, adjectives, verbs and nouns. I had a go too and its not as simple as I thought. I forgot to take plurals and tenses into account so it didn't read quite as well as it should've done, but it was still funny.

I recommend having a go with your own children. It's a funny way to help learn grammar, practise spelling and encourage creative writing :)

Challenged!! Day 24

Boy! Have I been tired today :/ I had a broken night's sleep which is never conducive to calm, patient take-it-all-in-my-stride home edding. Grumpy groo mum :(

I got up and worked for a couple of hours before they got up. There was an extra one here today as one of their friends stayed over last night.

The Girl got on with her Arts Award stuff straight away and finished her music theory homework.
Boykin, me and Friend played 'City of Zombies' for maths practice today and read the next bit of his science book.

After lunch The Girl did some more algebra. Then the three of them played Mario Cart for a bit and made up some more stories on the plot generator that they'd been using yesterday.
They went to choir and watched The Simpsons when we came home.

Now it's bedtime.
G'night xx

Challenged!! Day 23

I've not actually seen that much of them today because they spent most of the day with their dad.
In the morning they did some maths, The Girl did some more work on indices, then moved on to algebra which she much prefers. Boykin was working on ratios of 3D solids.

When he finished that, he watched the next bit of the Mystery Science project he's been doing about plants followed by some guitar practice.

We had visitors just before lunch, which was lovely and very timely as I had just that been thinking that I needed to invite them round because we hadn't seen them for ages :)

The Girl made home-made burgers for lunch. Yummy!!

Apparently, they had a lot of fun at their dad's and played lots of music together.

The Girl went to Arts Award where they had a new leader who they found very helpful and supportive :) The Girl did some more music practice when she got home.

They've spent the evening having fun with a story generator with one of their friends. It's involved using nouns and adjectives according to Boykin :)

Challenged!! Day 22

Today I got up in good time and cracked on with a new lapbook I am making. Boykin woke up first for a change and sat down to watch Horrible Histories while I finished what I was doing. By the time The Girl woke up, we had finished breakfast and had started maths.
Today he was continuing with enlargement, scale and area. We only did the lesson plan activities and will complete the page tomorrow. He really enjoyed it today. He had to use a map and measure distances between two points then convert that measurement to actual distance in km. From there he stretched and enlarged a boat on squared paper and then converted  lengths on a plan of a field to actual lengths according to the scale. He also used formulas for finding the area of the field.
The Girl was revising powers and roots.

Boykin then went on to the next lesson in Mystery Science which built on the work we had done a couple of weeks ago on pollination.

The Girl continued working on her Photoshop challenge from yesterday and Boykin did some artwork while I read The Story of the World: Volume 2 to them. Today, we read about Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan and the Mongol Empire. The activities suggest learning the opening of the poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge so I went off to see if I could find a copy. Instead, I came across Hysterically Historical poetry book , which nicely added to the bits of British history that we touched on last week (or was it the week before?) I'll definitely be using this again, the poems are chronological and funny - which always helps :)

I love how life sometimes ties things up neatly for our learning. This appeared in my Facebook newsfeed after lunch which links nicely to Mongolia, so we all watched it :) And then we watched a few more of the Mongolian music videos by Mathias Duplessy. Free-flowing from history to geography to music :)



Boykin decided to watch a documentary about aliens on the moon which he declared very fake, so he watched one about Stanley-something-to-do-with-Marvel-comics instead.

The Girl is currently working on her Arts Award stuff and has been to sort out her D of E volunteering today. Boykin is currently playing on Portal and it will soon be time for tea.

It's been a busy day really :)

Challenged!! Day 21

Monday.
It was a bit of a funny old day today, mostly spent in pyjamas. The morning seemed to pass very quickly without any real sense of achievement. Both kiddos did maths. Boykin has been working on enlargement, congruent shapes and area which he quite enjoyed, especially as it meant getting the pattern blocks out.

The Girl was revising Standard Form.

There was some music practice and cooking on their part and some washing up on mine.

They listened to the next chapter of The Story of the World: Volume 2 which introduced the Jewish Diaspora.

There was a new Photoshop game happening whilst listening to SOTW. Boykin asked us all to put two crazy ideas for images down on slips of paper. These went into a hat along with each of our names. The person whose name was drawn had to create a PSD using photographs and Photoshop edits to depict the image suggested on the other bit of paper which had also been drawn out of the hat. There are still works in progress :)

Boykin also did another section on Mystery Science   and did the next lesson of his Udemy course.

Then it was guitar lessons, singing lesson, tea and an episode of The Waltons - Season 2. Early nights all round tonight :)

G'night Xx

Challenged!! Day 19 & 20

Another cheat post :/
Yesterday, they spent most of the day with their dad. Me and Boykin went to the theatre in the evening to see my dad in a play. It was really very funny :)
Today is Palm Sunday so we went to church where Boykin did some activities about Easter. We came home to a most delicious lunch made by The Girl. We had sausage casserole and crusty bread followed by ice cream which we ate in the garden in the glorious sunshine :)
Afterwards, we did some gardening together. I so love this time of year - the bulbs are up and the birds are singing but the trees are still pretty bare. The bareness allows lots of light into the garden and it seems so full of promise.
I took Boykin to the park so that he could ride his bike around and I got to admire the newly mulched beds and bulbs coming up there too :)
The Girl did some music practise and Boykin began to learn how to use Photoshop :)
Such fun :)

Challenged!! Day 17 to 18

Ok. I admit it. This is cheating a bit, but I couldn't get online properly yesterday so was unable to post.
They have been with their nana again a for the last two days. For maths, Boykin continued to work on translations and The Girl was working on bounding. They did music practice and The Girl went to her music lessons.
They went to have tea with their cousins and then went to choir. That was yesterday.
Today they have been to Cannon Hall Farm and looked at the newborn lambs and piglets.
The Girl has gone out to a gig.
While they've been having fun with nana, I have been looking to my own learning. I've just completed a three day course to become an accredited Godly Play Storyteller :)

Challenged!! Day 16

Today my children have been with their nana and this is what they told me they have done.
They both did maths and music practice. Boykin says that his maths was boring today. He has started looking at translations. The Girl read some more of Pride and Prejudice .
They all went to games group where they played board games with their friends. They didn't tell me which games they played.
The Girl made chicken stir fry for tea and now they are watching Zoolander.
I am on a course :)
It's been a very long day and now I must sleep.
G'night xx

Challenged!! Day 15

This is what Boykin has been making on Scratch :)


Puntastic ;)

Challenged!! Day 14

Boykin began his day by working on a Scratch project.

Then both Boykin and The Girl did maths. Boykin is working on symmetry which meant it only took him about 10 minutes to finish his page of MEP today. I didn't use much of the lesson plan because we've looked at symmetry a few times before in various projects so it was mostly revision for him. In the meantime, The Girl was working on ratios in her GCSE Maths  book.

I read the next part of the So You Really Want to Learn Science Book 1 to Boykin and he answered the questions at the end. Today it was all about classification. Again, this was mostly revision as we have looked at this in a few different literature-based unit studies that we've done over the years.

We went into town this afternoon to do a couple of errands and then they went to their guitar lessons. The Girl also had a singing lesson and she made tea when we came home. I must admit, I'm very much enjoying that she has taken on responsibility for doing most of the cooking. She's learning so much more now than before when she made an occasional meal or did a bit of baking. There's lots of planning involved as well as the actual cooking process. It's not just about being able to follow a recipe, she also has to juggle the separate dishes so that they're all ready at the same time and still be hot :)

Challenged!! Day 13

How lovely to see sunshine today :) Everything feels so Springish. We all worked in the garden this afternoon. The Girl particularly worked hard on levelling ground and digging out a new raised flower bed that she is building. Even the rabbit joined in with the hard work by doing a little grass cutting ;)

They went to Sunday school in the morning where they learned about the importance of Fairtrade. And then we went to a completely different kind of service in the afternoon at a different church where we thought about miracles and transformation. We also all learned how to make paper pompom flowers.

Challenged !! Day 12

No lie in this morning. We had to get up and out of the house pretty early for a Saturday morning to go and host a stall at the local Scout coffee morning. It's a big group with beavers, cubs, scouts and explorers. I'm not sure how much money was raised altogether but there didn't seem to be many people there. Such a shame :(

Ah well, it's a good opportunity to practise business skills and customer services :)

After lunch, we popped into town to do a bit of shopping. We walked along the canal tow-path for a change just to have a look at the boats. I bumped into some old friends who are living on a boat down there. They happily showed us the inside of their boat and answered all the kid's questions about life on a boat.

We went to the library where there was special event. They both made tiny books and learned how to turn books into hedgehogs.

We did some shopping, came home and did a few jobs before tea. We started watching the film version of Animal Farm but they were so disappointed with how different it was to the book that I don't think they watched more than 10 minutes of it. So now we're watching Pan .

See ya!

 

Challenged!! Day 11

We started the day with sewing. The Girl made another square for her patchwork quilt and I worked some more on the sewing machine cover that I am constructing. There were some new machines to try out today so The Girl got stuck in with those, exploring the fancy stitches and learning how to make buttonholes. We both had a go on the new overlocker and were both very excited about it. It's ace!

Afterwards, in the library, Boykin did some independent research on Queen Victoria and The Girl arranged a meeting about volunteering as part of her D of E. Boykin has downloaded a free app called Wobble It - Shake a Photo and he's been having great fun with it. The librarian thought his photos were hilarious, but I could've done without him showing her the one where he's made my nose look like a long pointy circling finger. It is funny though ;)

We came home and all made lunch together. They made dessert of banana and blueberry milkshakes for themselves and banana and blueberry yoghurt for me.

We read a chapter of The Story of the World v. 2 all about John Lackland and the Magna Carta. One of the activities is to make your own Magna Carta for your 'land' aka your bedroom. They both thoroughly enjoyed coming up with laws for their rooms and Boykin used Photoshop to make it look like his Great Charter was written on aged paper and old-fashioned text. The Girl did the same in Open Office.

Me and The Girl went outside to do some more work on the garden while Boykin did the next part of Mystery Science. He very much enjoyed the time lapse photography of plants sending out roots and shoots and confidently answered all the questions about why plants need light. He's obviously taken in all the stuff about photosynthesis that we looked at last week.

After tea, he decided he wanted to have a go at turning his phone into a hologram projector as shown in this video.



I have to say, it works really well. One bit of advice though, make sure the pieces of sellotape are very thin at the corners so that they don't obscure the image in the centre of each panel. It was a good opportunity to talk about shape (isosceles trapezium) and light (reflection). It's well worth giving it a go :)

Ooh! Boykin has just informed me that he has found an app to make your own hologram videos to go with his little viewer thingy. It's called 4vu(tm).  Gotta go and have a play methinks.

G'night xx

Challenged!! Day 10

I got up this morning at a much more appropriate time for all the work I have to do at the minute. I really enjoy the quiet of early mornings but I could still do with getting up a bit earlier, especially knowing that it won't be too long before those clocks spring forward again. I'm so looking forward to lighter evenings and warmer weather :)

First off was maths (compound growth and decay for one and more angles for the other). While The Girl had her Music Theory and cornet lesson, me and Boykin did the next part of his So You Really Want to Learn Science Book . He really enjoyed it today and we made a good guessing game using the branch/spider key activity in chapter 8. I think he's quite happy to move on from plants now.

After lunch, The Girl went out with Nana to meet her cousins and go to choir. Boykin got on with the next part of his Photography for Kids: Project-Based Beginner Photography The challenge was to take pictures of household objects. Here are some of his photos.

And my personal favourite :)

Later, he spent some time playing online with some friends from the village.

The Girl has been retrieved from choir and now it is time for supper and bed. We finished reading Animal Farm last night which lead to some interesting discussions on the various political standpoints. Both children got quite enraged at the behaviour of the pigs and the stupidity of the other animals. Poor Boxer! :( We also discussed propaganda past and present; Russian history; what might have happened next and what Snowball should have done.

I'm also reading Emil and the Detectives to Boykin, but he's so far not very impressed at all.

Right! I'm off to make supper now.

G'night xx





Photography for Kids: Project-Based Beginner Photography

Challenged!! Day 9

Today has been another busy day. We went to our local home ed group meeting. It's a themed session that we've been attending since just before Boykin was born.

This month's theme was books. There were five families there, accounting for about a dozen kids ranging from age 2 to 15. Most of them came dressed up and all of them brought books to recommend. The list included  Spooks, Garth Nix books, the Otto series, Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, a series of books about a girl called Lulu, a Charlie and Lola book, Shade's Children, the Mortal Instruments series, The Diary of a Wimpy Kid and two boys brought The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Two Arthur Dents and one Otto.

Activities included making as many words as possible from the letters in "World Book Day"; knitting and crochet for the world famous wool shop in the Otto books; making comic strips like Greg in Diary of a Wimpy Kid; tasting food from books (think green eggs and ham, Turkish delight, lambas bread etc.) and making your fantasy fiction menu; making flickbooks and making our own version of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

They also decorated up the lounge and created Club Pandemonium from City of Bones from the Mortal Instrument series. They only had a phone for music so The Girl made a speaker out of glass jugs (to increase the volume), tin foil (to reflect the sound forward) and a wooden paper towel stand (to act as a soundboard). It worked surprisingly well, the music was quite loud :)

Improvised speaker.

It was a very wet day so there wasn't much playing out but we did see that the crocuses that we planted in the flower border have all come up nicely :)

After the session, we popped home for a while before The Girl went to her Silver Arts Award group. In the meantime, me and Boykin went and bought hay for the rabbit, had tea out together and bought a dozen packets of seeds. Lots of planting to be done. Yay!

Now it's time for more Animal Farm and bed.

G'night!

Challenged!!! Day 8

Today has been a very constructive day all round methinks. I managed to get  a good bit of work done before they got up which I wrapped up while they had a go at a new game.

Boykin moved on to the next page of angles which introduced the beginnings of bearings. The Girl worked on compound growth.

After that, I took The Girl to her auntie's where she worked some more on her Silver Arts Award project. It's very nearly finished now , it needs sanding and waxing. She's obviously really enjoyed herself and has decided that she wants to do more woodwork for the skill section for her Silver D of E. Such a lovely opportunity for her to hang out with her auntie and learn some stuff at the same time :)

While she was away, me and Boykin read the next chapter of his Galore Park science book, which reminded him of one of the lessons we had previously done on the Mystery Science website. I logged on there and we did another section. It's not a bad site, aimed at 7 - 10 year olds and available for free until the end of this school year. After watching the relevant section, we completed one of the suggested activities, making a root viewer from an old CD case. There is also an accompanying recording sheet where he had to draw a detailed sketch of one of the seeds.

The science bug had got hold of The Boy and he started off the Grow Your Own Crystal Garden kit that he got for his birthday. Both these experiments are currently set up with a video camera on them doing time lapse photography. I'm looking forward to seeing the results :)

After all the science, we had a look at the Photography for Kids course that I bought for £6 on Udemy.  He watched the first two lectures and declared it "amazing". That was just the introduction to the course and a brief potted history of the camera. Each lecture lasts no more than 20 minutes by the look of it and practical activities start on the 4th lecture (I think).

I collected The Girl, admired her woodworking skills, and then sent her off to strings. While she was there, I made a small child's shopping bag, intending to sell it on the stall we'll be holding at the Scouts coffee morning on Saturday. I learnt that tacking saves time - or at least, it would do if I had bothered to do any :/

Now it's time to have supper and for me to read the next chapter of Animal Farm to them.

G'night xx

Challenged!!! Day 7

Phew! I've made it to the end of the first week :)

Today we did maths. Boykin was practising measuring angles and calculating angles in a circle using a clockface and a compass. He was also introduced to the names of the different types of angles and learnt how to spell them. The Girl was practising working with percentages.

Boykin went off to play at his friends house and I had an unsolved car mystery. His friend lives up a track so I left my car parked on the road at the bottom. When I got back 20 minutes later, my car was no longer parked neatly at the side of the road. It was sprawled diagonally across it, blocking it to all other traffic. (Fortunately it's a very rural road and there was no other traffic.) The car had not been bumped and was not damaged in any way. The door was locked and the handbrake was on. So, thinking my handbrake must've gone, I went straight to the garage where my lovely garage man tested it out up and down the slope. Apparently my handbrake is splendid and works fine. Absolutely no idea how my car ended up across the road like that.

While I was away, The Girl had begun a sewing project and upcycled a pair of jean :) When she'd finished she took me out for tea and cake at a local cafe as my belated Mother's Day treat :) It was ace!!

Then it was guitar lessons all round. I went tutoring (more percentages) and then to singing lesson.

Now we are all tired out and will shortly be having, supper, stories and bed methinks.

G'night xx

Challenged!! Day 6

My day started very happily with breakfast in bed. Boykin makes a mean cup of Earl Grey these days ;) I received a handmade card, some posh chocolates and a bottle of cocoa gin from Number 1 Son. Splendid presents from splendid people :)

The Girl went on a 10 mile hike with scouts as part of her Duke of Edinburgh training. She came home wet and exhausted having tramped through deep snow up the tops. Snuggling in front of an open fire with hot chocolate soon put a smile on her face again :)

Boykin has been working on some online game thing that involved him having to watch Back to the Future so that he could put the film characters into a Hunger Games setting.

Personally, I've managed to do some work and upload a new lapbook up to Currclick. So much for Sunday being my day of rest :/

Get 30% off the NEW Linked Lapbook ~ Ice Age Animals.
Valid for one week only :)

Challenged!! Day 5

Today The Girl did some maths - this will be an everyday occurrence between now and exams. They decided on maths-free weekends (as in Curriculum not life maths) a good while ago now, but needs must and all that....

My lovely Number 1 Son and his equally Lovely Girlfriend took them both shopping. Both sons went off on a train in one direction to shop for games and comics, while Lovely Girlfriend and The Girl went off on a train in the other direction to shop for clothes and general girly teenager stuff.

Game & comic shopping is a much quicker mission than clothes, so I got to spend a large chunk of the afternoon playing games with my boys :) Number 1 Son loves games and regularly introduces us to new and interesting ones. Today was no different.

We played two co-operative games - Codenames and Hanabi - both challenging in different ways.

Codename is listed as a party game at IQ Gaming and is the no. 1 Party game at Board Game Geek, ranking no. 19 overall. Basically, you have a 5x5 grid of word cards laid out and the clue-giver has a card with a grid on that tells him which words he has to give clues for. Each word card represents one of your operatives, the enemy agents, innocent bystanders and an assassin. The guesser has to try and correctly identify the words without revealing enemy agents and innocent bystanders or, most importantly , the assassin. It's not as easy as it sounds, but it was good fun.

Hanabi was even more fun. Again, it's a game where players give clues to each other. This time the aim is to build a firework display by playing cards of the same colour in rising numerical order. Sounds easy? The twist is that you can't look at your own hand and have to deduce what you have from the clues that other players give you on their turns. Only one clue can be given per turn and some turns, you can't give a clue because all the clue tokens have been used. It's a good game and I reckon that because there is no reading involved it's a game that can be played with younger players. In fact, younger players would probably find it easier than I did because I kept forgetting what I knew about my cards :/ I would really recommend this as a family game. Hanabi is rated no. 21 Family Game on Board Game Geek and no. 173 overall. It's a compact game that you could slip in a bag for travelling, although I really like the look of the German version in a tin for that purpose :) There is no text on the cards so the only problem would be that the rules would be in German but you can find the rules in English here

Challenged!! - Day 4

Today we sewed, it snowed....

.

...and they sledged.

Challenged!! - Day 3

Here I am on day 3 of  Boykin's challenge. I almost forgot.

Today both children did maths as usual and The Girl did some music practice. Boykin still hasn't practised his guitar since his lesson on Monday so I'll be chivvying him along with that tomorrow.

A friend's little 3 year old boy came to play today for an hour or so which meant the old wooden garage and cars came out. Much fun was had by all concerned. The Girl did some more gardening and sent some time with said little boy digging and playing with the rabbit. It's been a while since we last saw this little boy and he's gotten so articulate. Such a sweetie :)

After lunch it was dental appointments all round. The dentist has set Boykin a challenge. He has to find some healthy, sugar free desserts so that she can tell her other patients about them.

Both children went off with Nana then to visit a museum and to play in a park while I went tutoring. More maths for me ;)

Then it was choir, home, supper, another episode of The Waltons, the first chapter of Emil and the Detectives and bed.

Goodnight Boykin! Goodnight Girl!