Another Around the World Idea

Posted on April 4, 2008
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In doing Around the World in 80 Days I have been looking for a way to print pictures of the children in front of the major landmarks we ‘visit’.  I think this will look really neat in their travel journal.

fotoflexer image

I have found a great way of doing this - for FREE !! FotoFlexer is a great piece of online software that allows you to manipulate photographs. You can merge two, add different affects, make posters and cards - even decorate photos with stickers.

I am sure we are going to have fun with this. I tried to think of some other great ways we could use it in home education but I havent had enough coffee yet!! Let me know what you come up with…

P.E. lessons (the Home Education way!)

Posted on March 31, 2008
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This weekend we were slacklining! 

Slacklining is a bit like walking a tightrope – only lower to the ground (and the line is slack not tight). It isn’t easy to learn so you may need a bit of ’stick-at-it-ness!’ but it is quite addictive!

Slacklining Slacklining Slacklining

Exercise wise, it is reputed to help core balance, mental concentration and smoothness of motion. I think it would improve strength and agility too. You will need to invest in a slackline – we would recommend a ratchet system (like Gibbons or Singing Rock) - they are easy to put up and a little wider than a normal line. This will cost around £40. You also need somewhere to put the line up – two trees are best.

My tips for starting – keep the line fairly short – about 10 meters. It is best to start off in the middle – NOT at the end of the line. Stand next to the line and step onto it with your strongest leg. Use your other leg to keep the line steady (or it will wobble!). Lift the second leg onto the line behind you. The harder you push down the more you will be able to control the wobble. Now – just practice standing on the line on that leg. At first it will seem impossible – but you will be amazed at how quickly you improve. Once you have mastered that – try sliding your front leg forward – or you back leg backwards. You are walking the line!!!

There are lots of great videos on Youtube showing tricks – and for the more sedate, why not try slackline yoga!

Homeschool Burnout !

Posted on March 25, 2008
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Sometimes, even with the best intentions, you need to stop and give yourself some space in your home educating routine.  This is a home educating idea I use occasionally when we are extremely busy, during holiday periods, or when we have homeschool burnout!

homeschoolburnout

Home Educating in an Hour!!

I choose to cover 6 subjects for 10 minutes each - one quick hour of home educating, then on to other things. It may not sound like much, but you will be surprised about how much a regular 10 minutes of a subject adds up.

The key to this is to make the hour as fun as possible. I use an oven timer for each ten minute slot - and make sure there is a big change between subjects - one hour of sitting at the table doing different worksheets would be fairly miserable. I usually arrange it so that when the timer goes off, we need to jump up and move around - to the sofa, or PC - whatever will give us a feeling of being hurried.  If you have several children you will need to find subjects they can do together (exercise, read-aloud) - and overlap the others (while one is on the PC, you can work with the other)

Of course, this does need some planning to work smoothly. I usually begin by deciding which subjects to cover in the hour, then finding an easy way of studying them in 10 mins  -examples are :

One thing you will need to consider is what happens at the end of 10 minutes if everyone wants to do more on that subject. Do you stick with it (because everyone is interested?), or do you move on? In approaching this, I usually stick with the subject until interest wanes. By re-arranging the order of the subjects every day, we usually end up covering at least several of them!

I don’t usually use this method for long (a week or two) - but sometimes it gives us a well needed change of pace. We don’t normally have a very structured routine, so this helps us try something new. It gives me an opportunity to evaluate what is important to us and plan where to go next. I think if you have a very structured routine, this idea would keep things ticking over for you while you take a break. I like that by focusing on 6 subjects, for only 10 minutes, you really have to think about what you are trying to achieve with your children.

Free Online Educational Game - Questionaut

Posted on March 20, 2008
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Am sorry to just keep posting links, but I absolutely could not resist this one -

Questionaut is the most beautiful point and click adventure game. As you click through the story you’ll come across unique obstacles and quizzes that you’ll need to click about to get through.

Its on the BBC website under KS2 so I think its for ages 7-11 (but I think the younger ones may need some help with some of the questions).

Free Hidden Picture Puzzles

Posted on March 17, 2008
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Found a great site for free hidden picture puzzles - you know - the sort you have to hunt around the picture to find the hidden items! They have printable hidden pictures, or you can play online.

The site is HighlightsKids. The rest of the site is worth a look too - I liked their science in action section!

Make your own comic

Posted on March 11, 2008
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make your own comic

Have you ever wanted to  make your own comic? Thats what we have been looking at this week (its a great way to encourage children to read and write!).

I found several ways to make online comics. The first is from  Makebeliefscomix. This one is aimed specifically at children, and you can print or email your finished version. It was also interesting trying to create a ’storyboard’ in only three steps!

Two other sites I found were Comiqs and Pixton but these are not aimed at children so some of the humour was a bit adult - watch out if you are letting your children look at other peoples examples.

Book Review- How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World

Posted on March 7, 2008
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 During a recent conversation, the children lifted this book down from the bookshelf to re-examine it. And so I remembered to tell you about ‘How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World’ by Marjorie Priceman.

This is a short picture book about travelling around the world to buy ingredients to make an apple pie (the market was closed!). The illustrations are lovely.  But the wonderful thing about this book is how much discussion it can spark.

There is a map at the back of the book to help with the geography. And there is so much science! After reading this book we began to try to make an apple pie like the character. Not by going around the world(!) but by evaporating salt from sea-water, grinding flour (we went to a mill) and churning milk to make butter. There is even an apple pie recipe in the book!

With imagination, this little book can be a starting point for a lot fun learning - and I thoroughly recommend it.

Engineering for kids

Posted on March 3, 2008
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This week we have gone from  geography, to paper car building, to engineering for kids (via building a cardboard Elizabethan theatre!) - what a fun week!

Engineering was kicked off by a link posted on Early Years HE Yahoo Group for this free bridge building game. We downloaded the 2006 version and  much discussion ensued!!! In the end, we had to go and look at some examples (under records on the website) to get a good feel for design concepts.  I think we ALL learned a lot about engineering and bridge building . For kids to enjoy it at the same time is brilliant!

When I later suggested we build a Geodesic Dome model from newspaper, the children jumped at the chance.  This is a really fun project to do, although you definitely need team work. If you are think you would like to have a go at this, then here are my tips!

  1. Newspaper - We used the Daily Mail (ahem! I get it from my MIL for the guinea pig cage!). It really wasn’t big enough to make the required length posts and we had to overlap two sheets.
  2. Equipment - my stapler really wasn’t up to it  towards the end - a heavy duty one would be better. We ended up having to tape some sections.
  3. Stability - ours is pretty good but it would have been stronger if we had used several layers of newspaper per post instead of a single layer. You really would have to tape it together though!
  4. Its HUGE!!  We had planned to build it in the kitchen and move it into the playroom. When we built the base it was obvious it wasn’t going anywhere.  Make sure you have a bit of space for this one.

We finished off engineering by building some models from  Lego Contraptions.   The projects in this are quite tricky to follow, but work cleverly.  We also plan to see if we can make a swing-bridge from lego - but thats for another day!

« go back — keep looking »







Maths No Problem - The Singapore Maths Program
Click here to join HE-UK
Click to join HE-UK
Fun to Solve Map Mysteries





We are listening to :

Anne of the Island
Anne of Green Gables

We are reading :

Myths and Legends retold by Anthony Horowitz


From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler



ASK Magazine




Recommended Resources :


My Review
Teach your child to read in 100 Easy Lessons



The Pre-schoolers Busy Book




Doing the Days




My Review

Favourite Home Education Books :

Free Range Education





John Gatto