Life Lately

Autumn has been very mild so far this year; we have enjoyed had some beautiful walks in the country. At home, we have come to the end of our weather and seasons project. The children have learned, through hands on activities, about day and night and shadows

 

and have drawn what they have found out in their books.

 

 

They have written some sentences on sun and rain

 

 

and have discovered some of the different cloud formations.

 

 

We did two mini unit studies on the books A New Coat for Anna (seasons link) and the Little Red Hen (windmill link).

 

The children did some paper weaving

 

and inspired by a visit to the Stockport Hat Works, they designed A New Hat for Anna.

 



 

 Little Red Hen activities included bread baking, making windmills and acting out the play with masks.

 

The Vikings came to Stockport Market last weekend, so we went to visit them!

 



 

Nathanael had the opportunity to fire a cross bow at a Knight.
 

We also had a lovely morning out in Manchester this week to see the Halle Orchestra's interactive children's performance of the book Giraffes Can't Dance.

 

 

We celebrated Reformation Sunday at church, with the children performing a short drama and song.

 

 

In History, the children have been finding out about the Reformation, John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, Anne Askew and Thomas Cranmer.  

 

We are moving on to a two week study on ancient and modern China and finding out about Hudson Taylor and Gladys Aylward, missionaries to China.



Our Week: Autumn Days

We started the week with a lovely walk in the country, collecting colourful autumnal leaves to bring home to identify, and armfuls of apples that we made into apple pies.

 

At home, we printed trees from our handprints and then decorated them with finger paints to represent the colours in spring, summer, autumn and winter.

 

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I used these prints to make bright covers for the children's topic books.

 

 

We made prints with the leaves we found on our walk,

 



 

measured and identified them. We revised the names and order of days of the week, months and seasons of the year.

 

 

As we hadn't done any sewing in a while, the children enthusiastically worked together on an autumnal tree, taking turns to sew on buttons to represent the leaves.

 

 

Miriam, age 3, enjoyed wrapping some yarn around these cut out leaf shapes.

 

 
 
We investigated some of the products that come from trees and the children were particularly interested to find out that rubber and maple syrup does! They decided what their favourite season was and had to give reason for their choice. Winter was the clear winner!


In our daily Bible time we have been singing the Harvest hymn We Plough the Fields and Scatter.

 

"All good gifts around us, are sent from heaven above,
Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord
For all His love."

Our Year in Blog Posts!

I have really enjoyed my first full year of blogging. It is lovely to be able to look back at what the children have achieved over the year and all the different places we have visited.
Here is our year in blog posts!

 

 

We welcomed our fifth child, baby Elisabeth into our family just before Christmas last year.

 

We got out and enjoyed the snow in January and I blogged on some of our favourite things, Postal Bible School and Morning Bible Time.

In February we completed our House Project and I blogged about the children's favourite lesson of the week, history with their Daddy!
 

 

 

Nathanael turned 6 in March and we celebrated with a trip to Legoland Discovery Centre. He also had fun making a lapbook on Cowboys.

In April we worked on our Spring project

 

and in May we completed our science unit on the Human Body.

 

 

We had a lovely family day in June to the beach in North Wales and this inspired a mini project on Jellyfish.

 

 

Miriam turned two in July and we enjoyed our best day out of the year to Formby beach. Daddy and Nathanael spent some special time together on a Father and Son camping trip.
 

 

Tabitha was very excited to turn 5 in August and she competed an All About Me lapbook and Abigail made an ABC lapbook. I also posted on our Curriculum for 2013-2014.

 

In September we had a few days away at a Christian Home Educators holiday in Wales and when we returned the children started a new Ancient History unit and we had a trip to the Ancient World's Exhibition at the Manchester museum.

 

In October we had a Windy Day, completed a project on Autumn, took Paddington to see the sights of Stockport and I wrote a post on days out in and around Manchester with children.

 

In November we started our science unit on Water and I blogged about sewing with young children.

In December Elisabeth turned one and Abigail four. I attempted to write a post a day on Christmas crafts, and failed miserably!
 

 

What a year! Not every day has been blog worthy; we have had our ups and downs and challenges along the way, but God has been good and we are very blessed.
 Looking forward to 2014.





^"It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him."
Lamentation 3:22-24

 



Autumn Activities - Part One

Over the last month, while we have been out and about, we have been spotting signs of autumn and collecting conkers, acorns and apples.

 

 

In our Bible time, to tie in with our autumn activities, we have started to learn God's promise from Genesis 8:22 " While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."

 

We talked about the differences between deciduous and evergreen trees and the changing colours of the leaves. Our first autumn based art activity was colour mixing. I gave each child a palette of the three primary colours, and we experimented by mixing them in different ways to try and create oranges and browns and different shades of red and yellow.

 

 

When each child was happy with their autumn colours, they painted onto a sheet of leaves.

 

 

Finger painted autumn leaves

 

 Using sticky back plastic and collage materials, the children made some sun catchers to brighten up our kitchen windows...

 

 

 

...and a simple sewing project.

 

To supplement our art and craft, we are currently working on some autumn literacy activities - to be shared at a later date!

 

 

^"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat,

and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." Genesis 8:22