Aboriginal Art

Having just written a huge blog post I thought I'd better stop where I was and do a new one on what we actually did today.  Now we have  rediscovered our groove, I wanted to share our day as it's been lovely.

It started with me reminding the boys that it was time to do Maths Whizz.  Youngest found a maths workbook that he wanted to do instead, so of course I said that was fine.  Eldest promptly went to find a workbook as well and chose to do two pages.  Again, fine.  Middle had to have a look for one, but came rushing back enthusiastically clutching a cursive handwriting book.  Well, I wasn't going to say no, just because it was supposed to be maths day (especially because he is usually a most reluctant writer), so he had handwriting practice instead.  All happy, all good!

Then I said we needed to go into town, but Eldest reminded me that we hadn't read their Bibles together today, so first we read from Youngest's Jesus Storybook Bible (which is totally lovely), followed by Middle's God and Me daily reading book (a bit young for him I think, but he loves it), with Eldest reading the passage that Middle's book referred to, from his Explorers Bible.  Today wasn't strictly the allocated reading for today's date, but Middle wanted to read one of the missed ones from previous days as it was about hugs.  We all appreciated that subject - plenty of opportunity for practical experience!

Then it was time to go into town.  We had a parcel to post as we have been taking part in a Culture Swap.  We'd not done one before, so started with a mini one, where we had to include three or four things that represented our summer here in the UK, and send it to our swap partner (this time in Germany).  Obviously there were a lot of outdoors things involved from us: seashells from the beach; a bug viewer and British bug ID sheet, sticks of ice-cream flavoured rock, and a recipe for Eton Mess (best if made with fruit from the local PYO farm).  We posted our parcel off this morning, and the boys were thrilled when they turned the TV on later to find that the Lingo Show (CBeebies) was in German today.

While in town we also popped into the bank to pay in a cheque, and I was thrilled when the cashier commented on how well the boys were behaving.  I confessed that the promise of a doughnut as reward for good behaviour was doubtless part of the reason - but still, it is always lovely to have people comment on how lovely the boys are (I mean, I know they are, but it's nice to have others notice too!)

When we got back we had an art 'session', planned the previous evening.  I didn't want to get paints out as the only available table was the one in the study (we try not to get paints near the computer), so I found some examples of aboriginal art and got our pastels ready.  When I showed the boys the art examples, the conversation went via a quick history lesson (convicts and the British colonies), followed by geography lesson (look at the globe, talk about the difference between northern and southern hemispheres, native wildlife), and then we got creative.

First we drew an outline of our chosen Australian creature (Youngest - snake; Middle - lizard; Eldest - great white shark; Mummy - lizard), and cut them out.  We chose a second piece of paper (contrasting colour) and decorated our creatures with pastels.  Then we glued our creatures to the backing paper and got busy with pastel dotted outlines.  All three boys needed a break in between 'dotting' but were happy to come back and finish their pictures without my needing to prompt them, and they were all happy with their finished pictures, so that was a real success - great work!

 Youngest's 'Snake'

 

 Middle's 'Lizard'

 Eldest's 'Great White Shark'

 Mummy's 'Lizard'
(if I had known Middle was going to do one too I would have done something else so as not to
put him off, but as it was he was quite happy to do the same as me)

This afternoon it was too hot for the boys to go outside, so they stayed inside in the cool and took turns playing Minecraft while I wrote my blog.  Oh, and Eldest and I watched a programme recommended by Daddy on finding the Giant Squid: a fascinating and strangely beautiful creature.  All in all, that was a lovely day!

PS While in town this morning I bought myself an 'academic year' diary (because it was the only sort available), so I can note down a quick summary of each day's educational exploits.  It really helps me to have a record of what we've been doing!

Educating More than One Individual

It's been a really nice season lately - we've been pretty laid back about all the ebbs and flows of our home educating, and I'm increasing in confidence at our methods (or lack of method).  I don't even care much about all those who dictate that theirs is the one 'best' method to do this funny thing called Home Education.  It may be best for them, but I believe I am most qualified to judge what is best for us!

There's just been one cloud in the otherwise sunny sky... and that is the fact that I am educating three very different personalities at home (and elsewhere).  I was about to say three "little" personalities, referring to their age and size comparative to me, the big grown-up - but the truth is, their personalities are every bit as big as mine, and certainly more demanding at times!  Anyway, one of the many reasons why people, including us, turn to home education is the opportunity to tailor the learning to the needs, styles and abilities of the individual.  Only when you have more than one individual with different needs, abilities etc, that's when it can get more challenging.

Educationally speaking for us, it's not too bad: all three boys do Reading Eggspress and MathsWhizz with varying levels of enthusiasm on different days - and on the whole, that presents no problems, other than making sure they each get their turn on whichever computer is in use.  They also all enjoy doing project work and creating lapbooks, in their different styles: Eldest likes creating books with multiple chapters, doing a separate page for each sub-topic, researching information on the web, typing up what he has discovered and finding photos to include - he learns as he creates, but rarely looks at them once finished; Middle likes a simple envelope file with lots of fiddly bits and interactive pop-out bits, he will read books about his subject, and loves me to print off resources so he doesn't have to do too much writing - but he re-reads his lapbooks a few times after he has created them, learning more from them after the process of creating is complete; Youngest loves his lapbooks and takes them every bit as seriously as those of his brothers.  I am a lot more involved as he's not yet up to doing much research (he is just reading, but not fluently yet) - although this week he announced that he wanted to do a lapbook on Alligator Snapping Turtles, based on information he had learned from "Octonauts" on CBeebies.  He told me what he wanted to include - and I typed it up, found the pictures, and drew the dotted lines for him to write along.  He has only just started to learn to write, and I was so proud of him today - he really concentrated and his letter formation is already looking good, for a beginner! *Lapbook photos at the end*

Their further individual preferences are fairly easy to cater for as well: Eldest likes computer games (Grid club a big hit), taking photos, drawing, writing his diary, making up cartoon-strip stories - he needs little input from me as he is older, other than liking to share his findings with me; Middle likes anything creative - baking, art (especially collage), modelling, gardening etc - he positively glows when he gets to do things with me;  Youngest also loves computer games, imaginative play, investigating everything (whether it's his or someone else's - hmmmm) - he is quite independent by nature, but needs a fair amount of supervision still: if he goes quiet somewhere I still need to track him down.  There is a lot of overlap too - they are all happy to do science experiments, make cakes, explore nature, have a go at an art project, make up games together... and today they spent a good couple of hours all playing "Spin 'n' Groove" on Gridclub - a music sampling mini-program where they get to compose their own music from given samples.

So, as I said, educationally things are OK.  Yes I'm busy - there are occasions when one has to wait while I finish with one brother, but it's OK, we seem to have settled into a groove that works for us to make sure everyone is getting on fine, and nobody seems to have to wait for too long.  Part of the reason why this works I think is because we keep most of our mornings free for them to be at home, exploring whatever has their interest at the time, doing the more obvious "learning" - and we are all comfortable with that routine. 

So if not educationally, what is the issue?  Well, it's largely social.  Eldest is a proper people-person.  He loves playing with friends, and not infrequently mentions that he misses school - largely because he misses seeing his best friend every day - although he is always quick to add that he doesn't miss it enough to want to go back.  Middle however is more introverted.  Where at a social gathering Eldest will play with many people at once (the more the better), Middle tends to just make one good friend and focus on having fun with them - he doesn't handle big groups so much.  He is really very friendly to anyone, he doesn't hang back anymore like he did when we left school - but he is much less confident that people will want to play with him, and if he has a discouraging experience it puts him right off going back.  Meanwhile Youngest is mr. independent.  Totally happy playing by himself or with his brothers, he is happy for people to play with him if they want, but he doesn't go out of his way to invite them, and at the moment, wouldn't care if we never went anywhere social.

So my problem is always this: where can we go to 'socialise' (for Eldest's sake at least) that isn't too academic (the range between an eleven-year-old and a four-year-old is really quite a stretch and usually leaves at least one of them uninterested), that is on in the afternoons (to protect our little routine while it is working for us), and doesn't threaten Middle, confidence-wise.

We do have craft club - which is so lovely we make an exception to the 'afternoon' rule.  As it's on Tuesday mornings it follows pyjama day (which is set in stone: the boys are passionate about protecting PJ Day at home), and they boys physically need to get out fairly early. Heather who runs it is lovely and flexible, happy for the boys to do their own thing, which they often do, and there are always children there to play with after they have finished creating.

Other than that, there is a sports group which we used to go to and Eldest loves.  Youngest is ambivalent, but Middle had an off-putting experience when I encouraged him to have a go at something he wasn't sure about, it didn't go well, and he was crushed - I didn't realise how badly until he refused to go back.  I don't see the point in forcing him back - he's the sort of child who needs to be allowed time to be ready himself - if you force him, you just set the process right back.  However, I really need to find another place for Eldest (and his brothers) to have the opportunity for socialising in larger groups (we frequently have playdates with friends in their houses; socialising in general isn't an issue).  Happily for us, a friend has had the genius idea of setting up a fortnightly nature group.  I mean, what could be more perfect for us? (I can't believe I didn't think of it myself!)  So we have our first outing planned next week, and a few more ideas for following that.  I am very excited.  So watch this space: here's hoping it goes as well as I foresee...

Finally, before I leave you with Youngest's lapbook, I was introduced to this blog post today, from tutorspree blog, and am sharing it for anyone interested in reading more about educating individuals.

And now (if you've stuck with me thus far, thank you - that was a bit of a mammoth post!)... Youngest's lapbook.  I admit, it's not a subject I would immediately have thought of suggesting, but bless him: he knew everything he wanted to say, and he did a great job!

I need to read this again if I wobble...

It was a funny day today.  We had a delivery coming from Ikea - the shelf set we bought a few months ago worked so well, we ordered another one to try to bring order to the study.  Therefore I needed to spend most of the day sorting things out of the study so that we can get the shelf unit into it once assembled... and then filled of course.  Consequently the kitchen table is now buried under study stuff & there has been no space anywhere for the boys to 'do anything much' - except of course watch TV, draw pictures, play on the computer, pore over photos, tell each other stories, do a bit of baking, read books, make masks, and play games in the garden (and that's just the bits I noticed)!

It's something I have really appreciated about this 'term' - we've had so many interruptions to the rhythms & patterns we had been in, but in each of those interruptions, every single time I have just been easily able to spot the blessings of unstructured time.  We do usually like a little bit of structure - it works for all of us; but I am now so chilled about days without structure when needed - they are still so rich, just in different ways.

So I thought I'd share some of today's lovely little highlights (in between moving books, boxes etc)...  While the boys were watching 'Absolute Genius' (about Brunel), there was quite a bit of footage of the Clifton suspension bridge, and I was able to tell them about an ancestor of ours on my father's side who tried to kill herself in the late 1800s by jumping off the bridge, but her crinoline skirts opened up like a parachute and she floated harmlessly down to the mudflats and was rescued.  They were happy to hear that she seemed to cheer up afterwards, and lived to be an old lady.  She had a poem written about her and even has her own page on Wikipedia... The boys were enjoying the TV programme as it was, but even more so after they realised we have family links to the bridge, and such a great story too!

I also uncovered our wedding album, & had a lovely few minutes looking through it with the boys.  They loved looking at all the family twenty years ago & working out who everyone was.  There is such strength in knowing you're part of a big, supportive structure like a family - it was lovely to be able to share that with our boys today.

This afternoon I realised it was teatime and I hadn't prepared anything, being preoccupied with the study contents.  So I hastily grabbed some home-made hidden-veg sauce from the freezer and we all made our own pizzas.  We didn't have any mozzarella cheese handy, but we're all perfectly happy with cheddar - and they worked a treat.  Eldest's 'boomerang' pizza turned out particularly large, but he was happy to eat every last crumb, so no problems there! 

 top left to bottom right: Youngest, Middle (heart-shaped), Eldest, Mummy

 Afterwards we enjoyed the chocolate brownies that I had made with Youngest as a distraction from something the older two were doing earlier that was leaving him out.  Whenever one of the boys gets left out of a game I always find baking is a very acceptable consolation!

Oh, and of course we had the camera trap photos to explore.  There was quite a mystery attached to last night's photos.  The camera trap is triggered by motion, via a PIR sensor, so every time anything goes past, it is set to go off & take a quick succession of 3 pictures.  Well last night we know it was working, because first we had several lovely shots of our resident fox - and then there was a gap of an hour before another photo was taken.  Nothing unusual there - there are often gaps between creatures passing by.  However, when we checked the next photo, which seemed to have no visitor in the frame (it happens occasionally that the photo is taken a split second too late), a large number of the peanuts that we had sprinkled on the ground had mysteriously disappeared!  What a puzzle: we were baffled by how something managed to take the peanuts without triggering the camera trap.  A mouse was suggested as the culprit, but we know mice do trigger the sensor as we have a few photos of mice (well, photos of their eyeshine, anyway - they're too tiny to make out otherwise).

 

this is where the peanuts disappeared...

 and a visitor in daylight today... muntjac deer!

in fact not just one, but two!

Finally, as promised, I managed to take photos of Middle's fabulous lapbook that he completed the other day.  We used a combination of the excellent Homeschool share volcanoes lapbook templates (Middle loves the ready-printed ones), and some that we made ourselves. He is rightly proud of his work, as am I, so I'm glad to be able to share it here...

Going with the (slow) Flow

It's been a slow day today - for no reason that I can see particularly, except that we've just had a fairly busy weekend.  It doesn't really matter though - we just go with the flow - and seeing as we all felt fairly sluggish today, a slow day it was.

We started off with MathsWhizz.  This time it was Eldest's turn to have problems logging on.  For some reason it wasn't working on his little notebook laptop, so I had to log on through mine - it worked fine on mine, but that had slowed us down.  Middle was logged on to the main PC in the study but somehow managed to turn the computer off three times, in the midde of an exercise!.  So he came and logged on to mine to finish his afte Eldest had finished.  Youngest has lost the privilege of going in the study at the moment, due to the chaos created (and things broken) when he has been in there recently - so he had to wait his turn on my laptop as well.  Consequently, by the time they had all finished MathsWhizz, about 2 hours had passed, instead of the usual forty minutes that it takes them on average when doing it simultaneously.

Youngest and I had some fun with words while waiting for his brothers to finish - we got out our magnetic boards and letters (I got them from Amazon years ago for a teaching resource - but I bet they still do them)... I made the alphabet and we sang the song together; Youngest made up his own "alphabet" of random letters that he read out to me; we had a 'quiz' where I said a word and Youngest tried to spell it; finally he was inspired by something he spotted out of the window, and had a go at spelling that too (I helped with the tricky bits)...

Once they had all finished their Maths (and letter fun), we had a game of Alpha Animals.  Youngest and Middle play with us, but they use the simpler version of the game while Eldest and I play the full version - and Middle was thrilled to win.  They were even more happy that Mummy lost (due in part to some impressive bluffing on the part of Eldest who steered me towards a certain answer on the card... I thought he was helping me; it turned out he was playing me!)  Youngest also showed significant prowess in the con stakes... on being asked for an animal (or bird, fish etc) that began with the letter H, he announced "hamonite".  When given a quizzial look from Mummy and protestations from his brothers, he totally brazened it out, saying "Yes!  It fights things with its hands, and lives in the Savannah!"  It was so funny, we couldn't help but laugh - he loved it.  Every now and then afterwards someone would mutter 'hamonite', and go off into fits of the giggles again.

This afternoon the boys watched "My Genius Idea" (CBBC), a programme encouraging creativity and inventiveness, and then I asked Eldest and Middle if they'd like to do some more on their lapbooks.  Eldest finished another page, and then decided that was enough - he just wanted to flop about.  Middle had a go at a 'Volcano' acrostic, coming up with some lovely ideas (such as the line "Lava pukes on the ground") - but got stuck on the 'O's, and was getting discouraged, so he put it away for another day.  The younger boys wanted to get crafty next - more specifically, doing their own crafty thing, as opposed to Mummy's suggestions - so I got the craft box out (the big one with stuff in that they can help themselves to without my nagging them not to waste things... well, that's the plan anyway, since the lesson learned last year in Craftboxes and Cocktails), and they had fun just experimenting with the contents.  I love the fact that they are still small enough to be excited by glitter and shiny things.  Eldest seems to have grown out of that now - but he was feeling too flobberly to get up to much by this point in the day anyway.  I sat with the younger two and had a play as well - Middle very generously told me I should put mine in an "art museum" (gallery)! 

by Youngest...

by Middle...

by Mummy...

So it may have been a slow day - but it was slow and peaceful (mostly!) - and any day with glitter in can't be a bad day.  Over all, that's a nice way to flow.

Maths and Modelling

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I do love Mondays! 
As tradition dictates, we've had a lazy start to the morning with no expectation to leave the house... of course, if that was the case more than one day a week it would drive me slightly potty: I need to get out & enjoy the fresh air most days - but just one day a week of lazing indoors is kinda nice!
Today was a bit more work than I expected though, as I had to sort out issues with MathsWhizz.  Youngest now has his own account - he's only four (they say to start at age five), but he loved doing the test exercises on their site, so I thought I may as well sign him up and just see how far he gets at his own pace.  Well he loves it - not least because he gets to be like his big brothers.  Every morning he asks "can I do Maths today please?" You'd think it would be music to my ears, but I'm still getting over how weird it sounds!  Anyway, he loves it - so it didn't take us long to discover that is new account had been randonly deactivated (as had Middle's, though he wasn't as disappointed about it as his younger brother!)  So I've been phoning and emailing, and it's sorted again, to Youngest's relief!So other than MathsWhizz (eventually) Eldest and Middle have also been working on their lapbooks, and watching "Animals at Work" (recorded from CBBC), which they're really enjoying.
We wanted to do some arty stuff too, but I didn't have the energy for cleaning up afterwards, so painting was out - then I remembered something I'd pinned to my Pinterest board, from the Imagination Tree, inspired by Alberto Giacometti's sculptures.  We had a roll of kitchen foil handy, so had a quick look at Giacometti's work, and talked about how long and skinny they were - "like someone has been stretched to the size of a giant", said Youngest - and then we had a go.  We didn't have any modelling wire or wooden skewers to add stability, but it turned out fine, because we used plasticine to stick the models to the kitchen table, and then experimented with our figures until they stood up.  Some worked better than others, but it was a good 'hands-on' type lesson in proportions and balance etc.  So that was our day's highlights (we've also had housework to share and letters to write etc, but I'll spare you the details and leave you with our Giacometti-inspired artwork...

 

 

 Mummy's 'Handstand'

 

Eldest's 'Gorilla'

Middle's 'Ballet Frog'

 

Youngest's 'Cat'

 

 

Choosing the Right Resources

We have decided that we want to learn about rocks. To be honest, this is mostly my decision, but based on things that I've seen the boys get enthused about lately (volcanoes, mountains, pebble collections, crystals etc).  I'm not expecting a project of deep and thorough academic investigation - just enough exploring every now and then to hopefully capture their innate sense of wonder in the world around them (and then stop before it gets boring for them... well that's the plan, anyway).  So I've been trying to prepare myself with at least some understanding (I know almost nothing about geology), in order to be able to help the boys learn. 

First I picked up a project book called 'Rocks and Minerals'  by Dorling Kindersley.  Given that it's aimed at ages 8-12 I wasn't anticipating too many problems, but oh my!  Did I feel thick after reading it...?! (yes I did).  I was really disillusioned and immediately felt that it was going to turn out to be too boring to be a fun project.  Fortunately it's not the only resource out there (although I'm sure those of you with children who like workbooks etc may find it really helpful).  Happily for us I also found the National Geographic book on the subject from the 'Everything' series... loads of photos and small amounts of text on the page are brilliant for Middle, my visual learner.  And my interest was re-ignited too!  We also found an 'Earth Science' DVD from the Rock n Learn series - the boys loved the Human Body DVD we had from the same series - and they all learn really well from watching TV, so I had high hopes for this DVD, although at £15 I hesitated to buy it without seeing the contents.  I'm glad we did though - another success; they loved it!  To be honest, it doesn't do much for me - but it's about what works best for them rather than myself.  Oh, and a friend recommended a lovely book called Geology Rocks, which has lots of ideas for little experiments the boys can do (eg sand sculpting, making glass out of sugar etc), that Eldest and Middle have already been through, sticking post-its on all the pages with experiments that they fancy doing.  'Hands on' projects are always a success - and memorable too.  I think we're all kinesthetic learners at least in part!  Of course, as this project was partly inspired by seeing how fascinated the boys were with the rocks on the beach while we were on holiday, I do really want to build up our own little collection - you can't beat being able to touch and handle things in order to learn!

With that in mind, we had a couple of 'hands-on' moments today, to see if interest would spark... and it did!  First we did an underwater volcano experiment from Middle's Booms, Bangs & Fizzes kit that he was given for Christmas.  Chemical reactions are always fun to watch!  Then we broke open some geodes that we had bought for just over £1 each online.  It's a lovely activity because the boys needed to exercise patience, and then finding out what was inside each boring-looking little rock was really exciting for them.  I found a lovely page on the web that explained a bit more about them too, without going into excessive detail.

the hammer and chisel (or in our case screwdriver) method was preferred over putting the geode in a sock and smacking it on a chopping board... safety goggles a must, though!

 The boys were all thrilled with their findings... obviously I had to share all of them on my blog!

 Eldest's findings

 

 Middle's findings

 Youngest's findings

Starting a new project has made me think again of the importance of finding out which learning styles most suit each little learner - they may not be the same styles as our own, of course - and they may all be different from each other too.  Having explored a few options now, I'm happy that the variety of resources we have should be enough to get us going... and then if their curiosity really takes off, we'll follow their interest wherever it leads!  If not, I at least have already learned things that I didn't know before, and we've all had fun - so that's got to be a success!