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

 



Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas from the Young Hosannas!

(Filmed at Staircase House, Stockport.)

"Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, 

and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us."

Matthew 1:23

Life Lately

Afternoons spent exploring... Staircase house

and Stockport Air Raid Shelters.

Winter walks at Tittesworth Reservoir,

Marple Roman Lakes

and Etherow Country park (where we spotted a Heron and 3 male Mandarin ducks.)

A family meal to celebrate the December birthdays.

Girls and their dolls!

The children enjoyed acting out the nativity story in our church carol service 

and we celebrated Abigail's 4th birthday.

Happy Birthday Ab, we love you so much and are so thankful to God for you.

One

Today our baby turned one. Where has this year gone?

The older children opening Elisabeth's presents, while she enjoys playing with a balloon!

To celebrate her birthday, and Abigail's upcoming 4th birthday, we had a very special breakfast at Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.

Can you spot who's got glasses?

 Then we went onto the Sea Life Centre in Manchester, a birthday present from Granny. We managed to book in advance and get a big reduction in ticket prices as we are home educators. 

We all thoroughly enjoyed  our time there and it linked in very well with our current science unit on water.

The children were especially fascinated with the jellyfish, after the project they had worked on earlier this year.

We then had a quick trip into the neighbouring Trafford Centre to enjoy the mock Ancient Egyptian architecture, to tie in with our current history topic.

And here is a short clip of the birthday girl walking.

Happy Birthday Bis, we are very blessed. 

"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord:

 and the fruit of the womb is his reward." Psalm 127:3

Water Absorbency

As part of our current science unit on water, we had a lot of  fun testing the absorbency of different materials. 

I chose a range of papers and fabric from around the home and the children tried to predict whether the material would absorb the water or not.Then we poured 10 ml of water on each one, watched and waited,

and recorded the results in a table.

The children thoroughly enjoyed testing the absorbency of one of Elisabeth's disposable nappies. We were amazed to learn that it could hold 600 ml of water!

They had fun playing with water beads, which start off really tiny and expand in size when put in water.

We reminded ourselves of what we had learned in our spring project, about how plants absorb water through their roots, and they drew and labelled a flower and made note that plants need water, sunlight and soil to grow.

Whilst out on a lovely winter walk, we found a great example of a tree with some of its roots exposed. We talked about how God designed the roots of a tree to hold it up and take in water and nutrients.

Finally we have left some celery stalks in water and food colouring and we are hoping that we will be able to see how the water has been absorbed into the stalks and up the stem. 

Christmas Crafts - Felt Trees

Another simple sewing project for children... 

...felt Christmas trees.

Cut the shapes out of felt and sew on lots of buttons!

Stitch together with a running stitch and add some wadding and a ribbon hoop to hang.