February Frivolity

Sorry, alliteration is my Achilles' Heel...

Sorry.

Anyway, the weather has been pretty fantastic, so we've been trying to make the most of it! A few adventures, a couple of which I'll blog separately, and of course trips out to the park too - 

Still got the usual things like maths happening - 

Little brother & sister like to join in too, Maia really likes these magnetic foam shapes ("Magnetism Jigsaw Puzzle" according to the box!), and Leo just likes anything he can bang together -

Lexi mixed up a batch of playdough, but this one doesn't use Cream of Tartar!!

Cooked Playdough WITHOUT Cream of Tartar

1 cup flour

1 cup water

2 table spoons oil

3 teaspoons white vinegar

1/4 cup salt

Mix all ingredients in a pan then stir over a medium heat until it clumps together.

Knead on a floured surfaces

Add colours as desired.

(thanks to Nina from the NZ homeschooling Facebook groups for sharing the recipe!)

We decided to head along to the local "Natural Learners/Unschoolers" group, who meet fortnightly for adventures & play, this time at the secluded Titirangi Beach - 

See what I mean about the weather? Brilliant.

February is famous (infamous?) for being the haunt of Valentine's Day, and whilst we don't usually do anything to celebrate it, I thought it sounded like a good excuse for baking.

Lexi made a chocolate brownie from Who's Cooking Tonight? by Tauranga teen Claire Gourley

and slathered it in this obscenely good brownie frosting (butter, chocolate, sugar - the ultimate food pyramid)

and we made some little chocolate hearts with the left over chocolate -

(with not a small amount of muttered cursing, I'll admit)

Eli has started on Grade 1 of the Math Mammoth "Light Blue" series curriculum, and is flying through it! I've found the pacing of this to be really good for my kids, just a little bit challenging, but doesn't labour over a single item to the point of drudgery. Despite being worksheet based - she gives recommendations for manipulative games and web activities that complement each chapter - it uses lots of images and drawing to illustrate concepts.

And Lexi has now officially moved onto the next stage at St John, she is no longer a Penguin and has moved into the Green Cadets group!

It's time for a new uniform!

Of mice & men..

It's best laid plans time.

I'm aiming to make everything simple this year, with plenty of flexibility, but a predictable 'shape'.

Eli has decided that now is a good time to start showing an interest in letters, numbers & writing, so need to incorporate more of that in for him too...

So this is what I'm instituting for Lexi-

Mon-Thurs
* Basic Business - Do these in any order - Math Mammoth (2 pages), Start Right English yr4 (one activity), Spelling City (10min or so)
* Snack
* Reading with mum (or to mum, or listening to an audiobook, depending on my energy levels  )
* Play (while I do housework, woot)
* Lunch
* Quiet time (resting/reading/puzzles/audiobooks/colouring/writing etc)
* One Thing More**
* Outside time

Friday
*Do Something Different - Choose some of these - Life of Fred, word worksheets (these are vocab/spelling/word property sheets), Intrepica, Khan Academy, D'Nealian Handwriting, Mavis Beacon Typing

then the rest of the day proceeds as per the others, from the snack onwards.


**"One Thing More" might include - swimming, art, cooking, topic studies, discovery box (a box full of science experiment stuff), Mr Q's Science, any of the 'Do Something Different' list, science kits, outings, videos, music, sports, Start Right Science, or something totally unexpected!" (this is so I can squeeze all the other stuff in, but the actually content is entirely dependent on my energy levels & how busy we are... trying to keep things as flexible as possible, but still with structure)

For Eli I am starting a letter of the week thing, a sight word program, some basic maths activities, and have a box of various learning games & stuff for him, and for him & Maia I have collected a basket of quiet activities that only come out while Lexi is trying to focus.

I've drawn inspiration in particular this year from the TJed 7 Keys, FIMBY's "Usually, not always" (my fav HE blog! I love that she doesn't try to do everything & is very conscious about what she is willing to let go), and "One more thing after lunch" from Hodgepodge.

Should be interesting!! I'd like to think I could maintain something like this, but time will tell... we're getting off to an auspicious start with our first 'proper' morning being taken over by a routine hospital appointment, but life is full of interruptions after all!

Getting organised!

 We're naturally really, seriously disorganised people!


But with a revolving cast of 3-5 kids around the place, a class of 20-something eight year olds to manage, and all my crafty ventures, being disorganised just was NOT going to work with home schooling!

So I dragged out all our vaguely school related supplies -

 and arranged them into....

generic stationery (pens, rulers, tape, glue, staplers etc), painting, and other art mediums-

(I emptied the dregs of the big paint bottles into smaller squeezy ones, and recycled the empty bottles into containers for our crayons, pencils & pens, they're a fantastic size for that)

folders and notebooks, exercise books, and printer paper & canvases - 

science kits, our discovery chest, maths games & manipulatives, things to keep the little one amused, collage stuff, and kid's craft supplies -

which mostly turned into this, our school cupboard - 

And as for actual work material, we have our rainbow tower-

which currently has another 5 drawers as yet unassigned (but mysteriously full of assorted pieces of kid-paper!). On the top is the cutlery caddy I bought for holding writing & colouring pencils. I used a piece of cardboard to make a little removable cup to fit in one slot, for catching pencil sharpenings, and hot-glued a pencil sharpener onto a piece of string to tie onto the caddy!

For a schedule, I was inspired by this chore chart (which I saw on Pinterest, but can't find the pin!). Ours is just a laminated sheet of paper taped to the fridge, but it's sufficiently pretty to keep our six year old happy!

I found some round, self-adhesive magnets, and printed out little pictures of everything that I could think of that Lexi might do in a day, including a few just fun things!

Thus far we have- maths, handwriting, poetry, art, storytime with me, cooking/baking, crafts, walk/outing, swimming, puzzles, gardening, writing, independent reading, Lego Quest, St John's Penguins, discovery chest, social studies, Intrepica, and science.

No doubt I'll add more as we go, but as we are just easing into our new rhythm at the moment, I think that is more than enough!

This system is good because it gives Lexi a clear idea of what is expected that day, she can 'tick off' completed activities, and it even gives her a lot of freedom to choose what she would like to tackle throughout the day!

So I think that I have most of our HE stuff sufficiently organised, if only the rest of the house was that way....

The Discovery Chest

 In preparation for this year, I bought this book, and it's companion Nature in a Nutshell -

 Because really, how can you go past the "10 minutes or less" selling point?!? Of course you can stretch all of these out to weighty lengths if you like, but they're not inherently time consuming.

Each page has easy to read material lists, procedures, and an explanation for the phenomena exhibited in the experiment. I really wanted to incorporate lots of hands-on science work, so this is perfect!

To make *actually doing them* easier once we start for the year, I put together the Discovery Chest!

It's got everything we need for each experiment (well, almost all of them.. I'm still missing a few things, and I flatly refuse to put live insects or a fish skeleton in the chest!), bar standard stuff like bowls & scissors, in labelled ziplock bags! There's a few spare things in there as well.. Now the kids just need to pick a page from the book that looks interesting, or that is related to something else we're doing, and find the appropriate bag!

There are all sorts of interesting things in there - magnets, balloons, coffee filters, modelling clay, LOTS of cups, funnels, tubing, magnifying glasses, felt pens (markers), rubber bands, LOTS of string, coat hangers, etc etc etc..

If the kids are interesting in repeating an experiment the bits can go back in their bag, and if not, then the materials get added to the spare stuff bag for free experimentation!

Funnily enough while I was still sourcing all the bits I came across this Pin, which is a very similar idea, and she's helpfully shared all the experiments that she used!! I'm going to incorporate some of those to our chest too :-)

The home educators "C word"

Curriculum!

Caveat - One of the big reasons we are home educating is because I'm not very good at doing what I'm told. So that might, possibly, perhaps, have a slight influence on my curriculum choices. Scripted boxed curriculum? Nope. Single encompassing philosophy from one of the plethora of early-20th-century educational theorists? Nah, no thanks.

Over the past 3 years I have been busy reading & absorbing all I can about education, including the myriad theories of Unschooling, Leadership Education, Waldorf, Montessori, Charlotte Mason, Raymond & Dorothy Moore, John Taylor Gatto, John Holt, Alfie Kohn, Piaget, Vygotsky, Bronfenbrenner etc etc etc... and so what we are starting out with is a collage of alllllll the bits that I liked from them. And mostly importantly, the parts that I think will work best for my six year old daughter Lexi!

Reading - She taught herself to read a little while before she turned 4, so we're very fortunate to have skipped the tricky period of learning technical decoding skills! Our reading strategy is basically her dad & I reading to her (and the little ones) a lot, and he's going to bring guided reading level books home for her from his school each week, so we can work on her comprehension skills by reading & discussing them together.

Writing - With a nod towards Leadership Education (aka Thomas Jefferson Education) "Structure time not content", and inspired by Playful Learning, we will be trying out a daily Family Writing Time. The two big kids both have a pouch filled with assorted writing materials, and I have a couple of notebooks, that we will use to sit together & write whatever takes our fancy! Lexi has a basic story book (lines at the bottom & space for a picture above), letter paper & envelopes, notepads, a journal, and a "word detective" notebook (for hunting out interesting words!), and I'll be popping different blank template ideas in there occasionally to try to keep interest up! She's not a confident writer at all, she's scared to attempt words in case she gets them wrong :-( So the more freedom & encouragement we can give her in her writing the better! I'm hoping that having me there as a role model and constant source of assistance will help too.

She's been working through little worksheets from D'nealian Home/School Activities, which is going really well!

Maths- She's got a really good foundation in maths already, and we've just started working our way through the Math Mammoth Light Blue Series grade 1

Poetry - Once or twice per term (we have 4x 10 week school terms here), Lexi will choose a poem that she would like to learn from one of our books, copy it into her own poetry book, then each day we will spend a little bit of time memorising it. Once she's happy with it we will record it to share with family :-)

Science - We have the cute Science in Seconds and Nature in a Nutshell books, and I'm building up a stash of supplies, so the kids can choose an experiment from those & have everything ready to carry it out! I'll be encouraging Lexi to gradually start recording the experiements, whether through writing, drawing, or by dictation.

Art - We will be using the Come Look With Me series for our art study, choosing a picture that is interesting, discussing it, then exploring the medium or techniques used in our own art projects. We have a small selection of instruments here, as well as learn to play books for kids, so I'll be offering lessons to Lexi for some of those, one at a time, for a minimum of a term. Performing arts are NOT in shortage in our house!

This is getting long, and it is getting late, so I'll continue later!