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 Week: A Few Days Away

One of the benefits of home education is that you can get some cheap holidays in school term time! We have just come back from a few days away in Fleetwood, on the Lancashire coast.

 

 

There we explored new parks, had fun at the circus, stayed up late to see Blackpool illuminations and enjoyed the time we spent together as a family.

 

 

"This is the day which the Lord hath made;

we will rejoice and be glad in it."

Psalm 118:24