Maths Games and Painting Patterns

Surprisingly we've had a bit of a maths day today.  Eldest and Middle both seemed to have got stuck in sections of MathsWhizz that involves rapid basic addition/ subtraction, so I've been thinking of ways to boost their confidence and make it fun again.  We have a book of photocopiable Maths games which include one that uses number bonds.  I figured it was worth a go, so printed off one to laminate and re-use with non-permanent pens - plus a few extra paper-only copies as the boys all wanted to colour in the 'treasure island' borders... Eldest even added a few extra details to make the game more interesting.  Middle particularly enjoyed playing it with me, which surprised me a bit: I hadn't expected much enthusiasm, but he loved it and really got into it.  So that's a thumbs-up from us for the 25 Super Cool Math Board Games book.

Youngest meanwhile is still fully enamoured with MathsWhizz.  I keep expecting him to hit a wall as he's so young (in my mind anyway) - but no, he's loving it.  Actually his brothers were the same at his age - Eldest used to love playing simple adding games in the car, before he ever started preschool even.  One of the things that upset me in school was seeing their natural love of maths being destroyed - it's so lovely seeing that returning - and hopefully Youngest won't ever have his natural enthusiasm curbed.  Today he had the cuisenaire rods out again... something I associate with the classroom, he just loves playing with. I love it!

Other than Maths, we had a lovely art moment today.  I was flicking through my Pinterest board and spotted some lovely paint and oil pastel animal patterns that I showed the boys.  They all wanted to have a go, and came up with their own ideas for what they wanted to do - and quickly overtook me with their enthusiasm.  I have to admit, I kick myself sometimes for giving them ideas but not being prepared.  So there we were: me trying to slow them down while we put the cloth on the table, got the paints out etc; the boys trying to mix paints in the tray before we had paper out to paint on.  They certainly weren't interested in waiting for me to demonstrate what to do, so I had to try to help Youngest and Middle to hold their templates still while dabbing paint around them, and I ended up doing mine last, while Middle had fun with more arty stuff...

"Whales" by Youngest

 "Bats" by Middle

"Slugs" by Eldest

 "Dolphins" by Mummy

"Magical Swirls" by Middle

"Complicated" by Middle

 "Spotty" by Middle

Oops

another week passed with no blogging... oops!

Last week was really busy - lots of lovely meets and other good stuff.  Then of course this weekend saw the return of some serious snow, so everyone in the HE community has temporarily resumed hibernation.  I do love that we can do that, by the way... so thankful for not having to get up even earlier to allow extra time on the school run for defrosting the car and getting everyone bundled up against the cold etc.  Anyway, the hedgehogs obviously have it sussed... no sign of them emerging from hibernation yet - I should have known spring was still a way away: wild animals always seem so much better tuned in to the seasons than us!

Anyway, we've had a lovely 'snowed-in' pyjama day today: Reading Eggs followed by lapbooks followed by "Absolute Genius" (CBBC Programme about Vincent Van Gogh) followed by an attempt at painting some Easter cards.  I won't post them here as we want them to be a surprise for the family members who receive them, but we had fun - and made a lot of mess!"

Our big news: the end of this week will mark our first anniversary since we left school and started our home ed journey. So much has changed in that year - mostly in my head as I have re-educated myself, but also in the boys' behaviour.  Eldest has calmed down considerably, and my relationship is better with him, because I am less busy and have spent more time with him, and I feel I've got to know him again - we're able to focus on shared passions (eg wildlife) rather than stressing over his incomplete homework, and as we are together more I am much better able to spot when he is losing the ability to cope - so I can help him to apply 'calming-down' techniques more quickly.  Middle has beome again the happy, affectionate, funny little boy that he was.  His confidence has returned, and just recently I have been marvelling once more at how very bright he is - how quickly he grasps concepts etc.  He had lost so much confidence that he totally believed he couldn't do anything.  It's just such a blessing to see him restored to the little person he was created to be!  Youngest has probably changed the least - but then he had only had two terms in preschool, where he quite enjoyed bossing the other children about (that's just how he is).  I am glad we took him out as well though - we did wonder about letting him stay, but he is such a boisterous person, I'm sure there would have been conflict down the line if he had stayed... plus we felt that it was important for us as a whole family to be sharing the journey.  It's a matter of pedagogy now: I totally believe the best way for my children to learn is at home (and out and about), following their own interests and passions, not in a 'one-education-fits-all' establishment.  And Youngest is making good progress with his reading and motor skills - and is such a bundle of energy to have around, we really have no regrets.  Nope, none at all.

I'm hoping to write a porper "First Ediversary" post soon, but we've got a lot on for the next couple of weeks, so we'll see.  Either way, I'm really looking forward to the next year of Home Ed - I'm just so excited to see what it will bring us... and a year of experience under our belts means I have less trepidation entering the second year: I know it works, I know how fab it is, I wouldn't miss it for the world. 

OK Days are Good

We had a real job to get going this morning.  We had arranged to go and visit friends, so no chance of a pyjama day today - not that the boys minded in the slightest, for once.  However, our usual routine seemed a bit stale today, so rather than nag them to do their 'work', when they finished their Reading Eggs(press) we had a day off lapbooking, and did some creating instead.  I asked Youngest if there was an art project on my Pinterest board that he would like to try, and he chose a lion painting, originally posted by John Post - so we all happily sat down and mixed paints, chose brushes (it's SUCH a big deal to get the right brush!?) and got started.  Youngest hadn't gone very far at all when he decided he'd rather do his own thing.  "Are you experimenting?" I asked.  His eyes lit up: "YES!", and he promptly splashed paint about, squished it between pages of paper etc, all the time checking that I could see how well his "experiment" was going... very cute.  Eldest, Middle and I dutifully finished the project originally chosen by Youngest!

 Eldest's Lion

  Middle's 'Vampire Lion' (hence the red teeth)

 Mummy's Lion

 Youngest's 'Experiments' (above and below)

Middle decided that part of belonging to his club (based in the fort, now happily situated in their bedroom) was to involve a "taste test", where everyone tries four different items of food and rates them 1-5. He wanted to make all four items at once, but as they were all dessert items (that's my boy!), I persuaded him to spread it over four days.  Today the boys wanted to make lemon and lime cheesecake from CBeebies 'I can cook', but as we had no limes, we did lemon and orange cheesecake instead.  Unsurprisingly enough, I was the only one who really liked it (it was very citrus-y), but at least they tried it!

Over lunch we watched a DVD on explorers from our Now You Know-About DVD set.  They were engrossed in the tales of Captain Cook (though Youngest wasn't impressed at his being killed by the natives) and Columbus.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: we find TV can be sooo helpful when it comes to sparking new interests.  Obviously we love books and I do strew them often - but I also love having the odd DVD up my sleeve for times when the boys feel the need to just veg out.

So today was OK!  Of course, if you just go on what I've written above (the "edited higlights" so common to blogs), you could think "wow, they do so much, I wish we could do that well" - and I'm tempted to think that myself when re-reading.  However, things have been a bit stressy here with various issues going on, and my patience level has definitely dropped.  Today hasn't been all bluebirds tweeting and harmonious laughter... there was also a fair amount of runny noses, arguing in the car, freezing temperatures and loads of mess to clear up after the 'creating'!  Anyway, just sayin': Our 'higlights' can look pretty impressive (and they do encourage me: after all, that's mainly why I blog, because it helps me to see written down what we're getting up to), but on balance, yes, today was OK.. and that's a good thing.

PS If you visit John Post's blog (follow link above), check out his "teaching philosophy" pdf - I found it quite inspiring.

Farty Arty

We've all been missing doing some art, and today we seized the opportunity.  Middle and Youngest couldn't wait, so first of all they grabbed the glue & glitter and had fun making a huge sparkly mess!  This led to much fun later, as Middle has started a tradition (apologies for this, but he is a boy!)  One day he decided that as Mummy is so joyful I must fart glitter!  I was so happy to be seen as joyful that I passed over the less refined (and physically impossible) aspect of the statement.  Anyway, since then, whenever he (or his brothers) see a pile of glitter in our house... well, you can guess the inevitable conclusion that is drawn!  After today's arty activities the glitter was positively heaped up, all over the kitchen, and trailed through the house... cue ecstatic laughter!  sigh.

Our art continued with some oil pastels and watercolour paints.  Previously the boys had mostly just used poster paints, so it was nice to experiment with something a bit different.  Eldest as always had a very clear idea of what he wanted to do - and he made one of my favourite ever pieces of art by him...

 Middle experimented for a while and came up with a couple of signs for his "Best Club In The World"...

 Youngest just had fun experimenting with colours, and producing his version of "modern art"...

I had a go at something that I had seen something similar to while browsing on the web the other day. Unfortunately I can't remember where I saw it, so apologies for the lack of link.  It's not how I wanted it to look,  but I've learned what to do for next time...

The rest of today was spent largely on Reading Eggspress - and in helping Youngest who has decided that he wants to do an 'Ocean Creatures' lapbook like his brothers (inspired at least partly by the glowsticks that they chose to reward themselves with for completing their lapbooks).  He is not one to procrastinate, so I spent much of the morning trying to help him find a level of activity that wasn't beyond him - and something that he could complete in a couple of days, so that he doesn't get too discouraged.  In the end we went for a simple folder that we stuck 26 flaps into (one for each letter of the alphabet) - in each flap he chose an ocean creature that began with the corresponding letter sound (the older boys and I helped with the more obscure ones like 'I for Icefish'), then I found clipart of said creatures to print on to paper, and he cut them out and stuck them into each flap.  Tomorrow we are going to write each letter onto the fronts of the flaps - and then he'll be done!  It looks great already, and he's really chuffed to have made a lapbook like his brothers!

Yesterday was much the same too - Mathswhizz, lapbooking, watching Eldest's Horrible Histories DVD over lunch at Youngest's request (hmmm, not stomach-churning at all.....) The enormous cardboard fort that still resides in the front room (blocking the view of my lovely, new, & organised shelving unit, mumble mumble) didn't get much of a look in because the weather outside was so lovely!  We were so happy to see the sun out - it feels like spring has been a long time coming this year!  We all spent as long in the garden as we could.  We didn't get to craft club again as Youngest is fighting off yet another bug, bless him, but fortunately he was well enough to get out in the garden and bounce for ages on the trampoline with his brothers - so although he can't move too far away from a toilet, his energy levels don't seem badly affected. 

Today was sadly not so warm again, (not that that stopped Youngest stripping off and streaking around the garden briefly), and we have been stuck in the house a lot more than I like lately - but no matter: we had a lovely bit of creativity together, and spring is definitely on the way!  The evenings are getting lighter, the noticeboards on facebook are starting to fill up with park visits and woodland rambles... I feel like our season of hibernation is coming to an end - hooray!

Loving Lapbooks

It's such a relief having a sense of direction again!  The house is a complete state (owing to my back not cooperating with my need to tidy), but I'm still enjoying the week because we're having such a positive time!  Even when the car broke down on Tuesday, preventing us from going to our lovely craft club, the boys bounced back from the disappointment much quicker than they would have done otherwise, as they have been enjoying working on their lapbooks!  I know!  Project work actually gripping them with enthusiasm!  Even Middle who usually has an allergic reaction to anything that looks remotely work-like!

For those who don't know, lapbooks - as far as I understand them - are a kind of topic-based scrapbook/ folder with all sorts of flaps, pockets and interactive treasures.  It is much easier to show what they are than describe, so I will show you Middle's shortly (he finished his first one today), but there are lots of different ways to make them too.  Eg Eldest has one on the go that is a lot more of a book than Middle's folder.  There are some helpful ideas on Squidoo, and also on page 10 of this issue of EOS  (Education Ourside School).  Some parents make them for their child to interact with (especially those with preschool children); some get downloadable projects online for their chld to assemble - we love the Homeschool Share  website for great resources; some (especially those who are familiar with the concept) just let their child loose to completely wing it - make their own folder/ notebook/ scrapbook put in whtever they like.  Middle's first lapbook was based on his suggestion on Saturday that he wanted to learn about growing - he drew some pictures and diagrams, and I suggested we could make it into a sort of 'lift-the-flap' book (if I had called it a lapbook at that point he would have not understood what I meant and just refused on principle).  As we have gone along I have called it his lap-book, and he now associates the term with something fun, like making your own lift-the-flap book!  I have done lots of searching online for ideas to suggest, and found lots of great resources on the Enchanted Learning website.  He hasn't gone for all the suggestions, but the finished result I think is really impressive for a first attempt!

So here it is - pause for proud Mummy drum-roll - Middle's first lapbook:

front cover

inside front cover

 

middle 'page' (he's not a fan of colouring, but he was happy to do some with Mummy helping)

 inside back flap

back flap (final page)

"I want to be a dad like my Dad"

I simpy love it!  He s really proud of it as well.  Eldest is still working on his - like I said, it is a lot more of a book than folder - and his has more text and photos, with fewer flaps... but as far as I'm concerned, it's not about copying somebody else's idea of what a good lapbook looks like - it's about finding what inspires your child, and encouraging them in it.  So I will be equally proudly displaying Eldest's lapbook once he has completed it, too.

The older boys haven't just been working on their lapbooks this week - amongst other things they've been keeping up with their online curricula, watching interesting TV Programmes ('Your Paintings' recorded from BBC2 being a particular favourite of Middle's), and doing our own artwork... today's art was inspired by Van Gogh's "The Starry Night".  We looked at our Smart about Art book on Van Gogh, and then I showed the boys the Happy Hooligans link of a Van-Gogh inspired piece of art using paint and melted wax crayons.  We pretty much did as directed on the blog post - but I have to say, the first bit (using our fingers in the paint) was a lot more fun than the second bit which gave my hands cramp while grating crayons.  I think I preferred my painting before I added the crayons too - but the boys were all happy with their finished art, so it was all good!

 Eldest

Mummy

 Middle

Youngest

Once we'd done our art, Eldest and Middle were on Reading Eggspress and Youngest decided that he wanted to go on it too! So after a break of several months, Youngest got back onto Reading Eggs (snuggled up with me, playing it in my laptop). Given that he took a break because it got a bit hard from him, he absolutely whizzed through the pages. Proof yet again (as if we needed it) that times to rest are just as important as times to work.  After he'd had anough for the day he was still looking a bit lost, with his brothers doing their lapbooks.  He says he wants to do one, but every time we sit down to do it he loses interest immediately - so I'm not going to push it.  Anyway, he was enthusiastic about baking chocolate muffins with Mummy, so that's what we did... just in time for lunch, yummy!

Not-so-boring Routine

We're fully into our "normal" routine now (if there is such a thing as normal).  That said, we didn't make it to to craft club yesterday:  I just couldn't get the boys all ready in time. Well... I probably could have, if I'd reverted to the Sergeant Major alter-ego of our school days, hustling them and barking orders to get them all up, dressed, fed & ready in time.  But the truth is, I really don't like the shouty version of me - I'm trying to lay her to rest!  And anyhow the boys are usually up and ready in time, so I guess there must have been a reason for their lethargy yesterday morning - most likely how cold it was outside (I found it hard to leave my duvet too!)  Once we were all up, there was the usual MathsWhizz for the older two while I played a Maths game with Youngest.  This time we played Bus Stop, helping him to master counting skills, spotting the patterns of dots on a dice, counting on spaces as he moved around the board, recognising the plus and minus symbols etc - and he got Mummy to himself, which always goes down well!

After that it was time to pop to the local shops for a few bits, so we got wellied-up, hats & ski-gloves on etc, and off we went.  There's something about snow that just transforms a normal 'boring' walk; they loved it (again).  Once home again, it was Youngest's turn to do some baking: gorgeous choc chip cookies...

 

 ...and then we got the paints out to do some snowy paintings inspired by our wintry walk.  We started with these Easy winter landscape instructions, that I had bookmarked a few days ago, and added a few extra bits of our own, using strips of cardboard to make the trunks & branches, and lastly adding falling snow by dipping paintbrushes in watered-down paint, and tapping the paintbrushes - another tip found on the Deep Space Sparkle website.

Mummy's snowy landscape

Eldest's snowy landscape (using a brush to paint the trees, not cardboard strips)

 

Middle's snowy landscape

 Youngest's snowy landscape

(he wasn't inspired by the snowmen, so he painted a red snail with a scarf instead.)

After that Eldest was still in full arty mode, so took himself off to do some sketching...

"Winter at Night"

"Robert the Owl"

Today we had a bit of reading with Youngest while Eldest and Middle were on Reading Eggs. Eldest was pleased to find a book to read on there today about three hedgehogs.  He's also very happy that he's collected 58 out of  214 printable animal collecting cards on the program.  Middle's favourite at the moment is the 'Quote Quest' part... well, anything that looks like a game is a winner for him!  After that we had another wintry walk, this time round our local park, to feed the ducks and geese (with peas out of the freezer - bread is really not good food for them when it's this cold).

 

      

 

Then we came home for the obligatory mugs of hot chocolate, while watching recorded episodes of "Got to Dance" (Sky) - because the boys love it, and it shows a great cross-section of different dance styles - followed by "Winterwatch" (currently showing on BBC2 each evening this week) which I had recorded last night.  There was a sad bit where a baby seal died (or was about to), but the boys coped OK - they're getting more used to the harsher side of wildlife documentaries, I think.  They loved the shot where the humpback whale breached behind the guys on the boat, who were all looking the wrong way.

At home we have our own mini-version of Winterwatch too... we were hoping for some visitors to find our new nesting box, and this morning we had our first one (as far as we know).  He had a good look round, and we even got some video footage, although unfortunately it picked up my calling one of the boys (by name) to have a look, so I can't post it here.  I can show you a couple of stills though...  it's very exciting!  It is too soon for them to be making a nest and getting broody, but still, it's nice to know that they've found it!

   

So we may be back into our "routine", but it's anything but boring.  We're having lots of fun - long may it continue!

Mini-Structure and Pop Art

I love Facebook.  I was in a conversation on it the other day, and identifying with that familiar HE struggle between the heart's love of the unschooling philosophy, and the head's need for a degree of structure, for sanity's sake.  This term, although we're only a week in, I feel like we've struck a balance that works for us.  Every day that we're home, the boys (particularly the two older ones) do half an hour (or more if they like - they sometimes do) of Reading Eggspress and MathsWhizz, while I do some reading or maths games with Youngest.  He stalled on Reading Eggs last term, and is still consolidating the skills learned and building his confidence to be able to go back to where he left off.  Also, most days we do an activity of Mummy's suggestion (the boys have the power of veto) - from a list of ideas.  Eg yesterday we played Middle's brilliant new game (another Christmas present), Scabs and Guts.  It's a board game with lots of questions on the body, healthy living etc - it seemed that every other question involved poo, snot & other not-so-refined topics... the boys loved it, of course, and Middle was particularly delighted when one card asked him to do a demonstration of someone with food-poisoning... his acted-out vomiting was very convicing - yeuch!

So other than half an hour of online curriculum in Maths or English, and one activity from Mummy's "what shall we do today" suggestion box, the boys are free to explore, watch, play etc as their interests dictate.  If the TV goes on they watch something that we have recorded (from BBC2's Learning Zone, or CBBC and CBeebies).  Horrible Histories is a particular favourite of Eldest's, and the younger two are currently enjoying William Whiskerson (geography) and Curious Cat (design & technology), which we recorded last term. There are a few great programmes on the internet too (we really like Grid Club) but more often than not, they're just off creating or having fun - not so much evidence of screentime this term ('hooray' says Mummy!)  Sometimes they need/ want my involvement, often they are happy to just get on with whatever it is.  It certainly all seems to be working so far :)  People who are purely unschooling may well suggest that we're not doing it properly by having any structure, and those who are fully structured may be horrified at my doing "so little" with the boys - but it works for us.  At the moment, anyway.  When it stops working, we will find what works better, and adapt.

So yesterday our learning (that I was aware of) looked something like this: Eldest and Middle were on Reading Eggspress while Youngest and I read a few small books from the Oxford Reading Tree - him sounding out & blending the simple words, me reading the ones that he couldn't/ didn't want to read - and of course, having fun chatting about the illustrations, to keep it fun (given the choice of 'sharing a story' or 'practicing reading', I know which seems more appealing!).  Middle baked some smartie cookies, but somehow they all got eaten before I remembered to take a photo - oops; Eldest read his new book, "Predators" (Steve Backshall); we all played the aforementioned delightfully disgusting board game, 'Scabs and Guts', and then Eldest (and Middle) played camera challenges where I had to give them a challenge of something to take a photo of  (eg something with a triangle in it, something with spots/ stripes, something shiny etc.   All in all, a lovely day!  Like I said though, that was just the learning that I noticed - so much of a person's learning just cannot be quantified.  They were off playing and creating for hours - who knows what they were absorbing while enjoying themselves!

And today? Well, we've had MathsWhizz; Horrible Histories and William Whiskerson on TV; Youngest has been further exploring the CBeebies website; Middle counted the bones in his foot (then we looked it up to check the "real" answer); and Mummy's contribution was to make some Pop Art.  I showed the boys Andy Warhol's 'Marilyn' prints in our book, "Famous Paintings."  Eldest remembered it from the from the Art programme they watched last term (recorded from the BBC's learning zone), and they were all keen to get the paints out and have a go at our own version.  I looked online to see if there were any instrictions to follow (I'm not totally confident when it comes to teaching art), but as I couldn't find any, we worked it out as we went along.  In case you fancy a go, this is what we did...

Pop-Art Self-Portraits

We wanted to do four colour variations - and four x A4 would have been too big I felt, so I folded an A4 page in half, to give us a smaller starting area each.  We each drew a basic head (and shoulders) self-portrait.  We are blessed with a photocopy function on our printer, so I made three further A5 copies of each self portrait.  If you don't have access to a photocopier, you could just trace the simple outlines.

   

Next we mixed six colours of paint (I only keep paint in the primary colours plus black and white at home - partly because of limited storage space, partly because it provides plenty of practice at mixing colours).  We decided the best look would be to limit ourselves to using five colours each.  We laid our four identical self-portraits out in front of each of us, and started painting.  It worked better for us to do a kind of production line: rather than completing one self-portrait at a time, we each did all four faces first (making sure each was a different colour), then each mouth etc...

   

That was as much as Youngest could handle really (ie just colouring his faces in with different colours on each page).  With Eldest and Youngest we looked at Warhol's colour variation and talked about how they weren't all uniform - in some of them the eyes and lips were the same colour; in others it was the lips and hair etc.  As we went along we tried to not only vary the features that were the same colour on each self-portrait, but also make sure there was a balance of colour across all four pieces. 

When we had finished filling our faces with colour we looked at how Warhol used colour to make bolder backgrounds than just leaving them white - so (with the exception of Youngest, who declared his to be finished), we assessed our faces so far and looked at which colours would work best as backgrounds to tie the four mini prints into one work of art (that sounds more pontificatory than it actually was).  Most importantly, it was fun, and we're all really happy with our completed "artwork"

 Mummy

 Eldest

 Middle

 Youngest

And then this afternoon we had a play date with the boys' old school friends at a soft play area - so now they're all nicely exhausted and happy from another lovely day.  And what's more, it's now the weekend, so we get Daddy at home too - hooray!  I'm off to enjoy the weekend - hope you have a good one too!