Our Week

Our second week of term has flown by. On Monday we discovered that white light is made up of lots of different colours.

 

Experiment using candle light and a CD to show the different colours of the rainbow.

The girls are enjoying their projects on pets and have been carrying out simple writing activities and puzzles.

 

 

Nathanael has been working on his lego project and has made a flow chart documenting how lego is made, researched lego through the years and has been completing lego challenges.

 

 

His lego challenge was "What can you make out of 50 lego bricks?"

 

A Monster of course!

On Wednesday Daddy took the Geography lesson, while I had a morning out. The children spent time finding out about Haiti, where a missionary family live that we support. 

 

 

Daddy also helped the children harvest some potatoes and rhubarb from the garden.

 

 

In Little Keepers Club, Tabitha and Abigail made fridge magnets to send as gifts to their Great Granny and Auntie Margaret.

 

 

On Thursday in music, the children worked upon their production of Oliver! Using iMovies they made a trailer for it. They hope you enjoy it! 

 

 

In the afternoon the children made collages of the book of Genesis using the Picture Smart Bible curriculum.

 

 

We had a morning out on Friday at Staircase House in Stockport, a restored townhouse with a rare Jacobean cage-newel staircase. They enjoyed writing with quill pens

 

 

and exploring the rooms that were decorated as different story books.

 

Goldilocks and the five bears!

We have built marble runs

 

 

and tried to make our own stringed instruments using boxes and elastic bands in our technology lesson.

 

Summer

As you can see from the previous post our three week summer break is over.  A lot of cleaning, organising and planning happened in that time. Here are some of the children's highlights of the summer...

 

Stockport Carnival where we had a church stall.

 

 

A lovely family day at Peveril Castle in Castleton.

 

 

Can you spot the children?

 

 

 

Playing new games: Pop For Sight Words and Money Bags.

 

 

 

A morning out to Manchester airport to watch the planes take off and land.

 

 

Tabitha had her 6th Birthday on the same day as my mum's 60th so we celebrated with a trip to the cinema

 

 

and lunch at Pizza Hut.

 

 

We continued with our visits to local libraries and Nathanael made himself a jet pack, following instructions from a library book.

 

 

 As an end of summer treat we went to Froggatt Country Show.

 

 

Punch and Judy

 

Nathanael in spy glasses that he won as a prize in a game.

 We have officially declared summer over and the children are  counting down the days until Christmas!

Our Week

 After a three week summer break in which I did a lot of planning and organising, we started back to homeschool this week. Our days have been filled with reading lessons,

 

 

piano practise,

 

 

and workboxes

 

 

which include maths, literacy, spelling and phonics activities.

 

 

On Monday we started our Science in the Beginning textbook with a lesson based upon light, taken from Genesis 1:3 "Let there be light."

 

 

The children carried out some light investigations

 

 

and had fun finding out in the dark cellar that light travels in a straight line and discovering

 how to reflect light using a torch and mirror.

 

 

Each day after lunch the children have had project time.

 

 

Nathanael is working on his chosen topic of Lego.

 

 

and the girls are learning about pets.

 

 

On Wednesday the children designed a new park for our local area.

 

 

On Thursday they practised some songs from the musical Oliver! and worked on organising props for a play they are producing. We also started our Picture Smart Bible Curriculum, which the children thoroughly enjoyed.

 

 

On Friday we made percussion instruments out of plastic cups, pasta, rice and lentils. Next week we are going to try to make some stringed instruments out of cardboard boxes and elastic bands.

 

 

Having an organised schedule has made this first week back a success.  We still had lots of time for fun at the park

 

 

and keeping fit!

 

 

Free play time is scheduled in half hour sessions throughout the day.

 

 

They are even learning to enjoy helping with household chores (most of the time!)

 

It has been a good first week back.

Curriculum 2014-2015

For Nathanael 7, Tabitha 6 and Abigail 4 (years 3, 2 and Reception) 

and any of the younger children who want to join in!

Bible

 

 

Morning Bible Time and related projects

Read aloud missionary books

Memory Verses and Hymn Singing

K-3 Picture Smart Bible

Postal Bible School

Walk thru the Bible

Time Travellers Club

Maths

 

Heinemann Maths

Maths Games

iPad apps including IXL, Primary Maths Skill Builders ages 4-8 or Maths  3-5 and 4-6 from EuroTalk apps.

Real life opportunities to use money when shopping, measuring and weighing in baking, collecting data for projects etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reading

The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading and lots of library books!

Phonics

Sound Phonics by Schofield and Sims.

Ladybird I'm Ready.. for Phonics!  app on the iPad.

Games such as Pop for Sight Words.

Spelling

Look, cover, write check method using Schonell's Essential Spelling Lists.

Spelling 1 and 2 by Schofield and Sims.

Handwriting

 

 

Schofield and Sims Handwriting Practice 1 and 2

Various workbooks and worksheets

Copy work from the Bible, poetry and in relation to current project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

English

Lots of different projects and lapbooks, using the children's own interest as a spring board. Past projects have included Cowboys, Houses, The Human Body and Genesis.

Five in a Row.

Poem memorisation.

Literacy - Nathanael

Letts Key Stage 2 Activity Book

Galore Park Junior English Book 1

Bible studies

Literacy - Tabitha and Abigail

Nelson English Books

Letts Key Stage 1 Activity Book

Science

 

Science in the Beginning by Dr Jay L. Wile

365 Science Experiments, Big Book of Science things to Make and Do, No Fuss Science Photocopiables, Junior Illustrated Science Dictionary.

Geography

Having researched and completed mini projects on the four countries of the United Kingdom last year we plan to broaden it out to some European Countries and look forward to discovering more about the main geographical features, food and culture. We have also bought a large map of the world for the wall in the living room which is providing a great amount of discussion and learning about world geography.

 

History

 

 

Weekly lessons of History are going to continue with Daddy for the next 6 weeks on their WWI project and then returning to their project in on Ancient History. Resources are  Story of the World, activity book one Ancient World, Lost Civilizations - Time Life Books and various internet and YouTube videos.

Lots of visits to museums and historical buildings, drama, art and technology activities.

German

Rosetta Stone.

Simple oral activities such as numbers and greetings.

Music

 

 

iPad Naxos My First Classical Music app, My Orchestra app and The Carnival of the Animals.

Peter and the Wolf YouTube videos, both orchestral and ballet.

Recorder lessons from Recorder from the Beginning

Nathanael has Piano lessons from Tunes for Ten Fingers

Music theory book Theory made easy for Little Children.

Hymn singing.

Art and design

 

Katie books, A Children's Book of Art, Usborne Art Sticker Book, You can Draw, visits to Art Galleries and lots of opportunities to create their own art.

Simple sewing lessons and woodwork.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ICT

iPad apps, this year we are looking forward to creating e-books using Book Creator for iPad app.

BBC Touch Typing

Lessons in how to use Microsoft word.

PE

 

 

 

Lots of walks in the country, games in the garden, visits to our local parks and swimming pool.

Home Economics

Baking, cooking and cleaning lessons. Little Keepers and Contenders, The River Cottage Family Cookbook, Kids' First Cookbook.

Nature

We have enjoyed some lovely walks lately and spent time identifying birds and wildlife. I intend to build upon this, visiting the same country park every month, to document in their new nature journals the changes in season, birds spotted, flowers identified etc.

RSPB Wildlife Explorers Club.

Sounds like its going to be a fun year!

"And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD;

and great shall be the peace of thy children."

Isaiah 54:13

Robin Hood by Nathanael