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: 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

Our Week: Lego, Pets and WWI

This week was the last in our 6 week term. The children spent time finishing their current projects. Nathanael completed some Lego challenges...

 

Putting the Lego bricks into alphabetical order.

 

Making a symmetrical Lego design.

 Nathanael was inspired by this news report about a container full of Lego shipwrecked in 1997 off the Cornwall coast. Since then, Lego has been washed up on beaches in England, Wales and even Ireland. Nathanael wrote his own newspaper article based upon this.

 

Tabitha and Abigail made an e-book based on last weeks visit to the garden centre.

 

They finished off their projects with some explanation writing, giving their opinion on what they think is the best pet to have and why.

 

 We thoroughly enjoyed watching Over by Christmas, described as a choral commemoration in Cheshire's railway stations featuring words and songs of the Great War. It was a very moving performance, remembering those who lost their lives for our freedom.  It was also a fitting end to our studies on WWI.

 

 

We also took a trip to Bury Fusiliers Museum where they have a section dedicated to WWI, the children's favourite being the reconstructed trench.  

Nathanael with a WWI soldier!

 On Friday we had a special time where we laid out all the work the children had completed over the last 6 weeks and invited Daddy and Granny to come and see what they had done! We had a piano piece by Nathanael and watched some of the videos they had made. We also had cake, which was the highlight of the celebration for the children! 

 

We are having a weeks break before returning to our formal studies and will be starting projects based upon the weather and seasons.

Our Week: On the farm, shapes, bridges, lighthouses and home education group.

This week the children had the opportunity to each spend a night away on a farm in the Peak District with their Granny.

 

Nathanael especially enjoyed his stay, spending time trying to restore an old tractor in the children's play area and searching for ancient artefacts at the site of an archaeological dig!

 



 

Using the iMovie software on the iPad he made a short video about his time on the farm.

 

 

Back at home, our maths focus was shapes this week and we had a 3-D shape hunt around the house.

 

 

We also revised the names of  2-D shapes and made people out of wooden shape blocks

 

 

and Abigail made a circle, square, triangle and rectangle on the peg board.

 

 

We finished off our unit study on the Little Red Lighthouse with a lesson on personification,

 

 

and enjoyed learning about different types of bridges; beam, arch, truss and suspension. We also found out about some of the worlds most famous bridges, our children's favourites being London Bridge, Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia, Moses Bridge in the Netherlands and Henderson Waves Bridge in Singapore.

 

  

Whilst Nathanael was enjoying some time at the caravan, the girls and I had a morning out at a local soft play centre and enjoyed an ice cream after.  

 

 

On Friday we had our monthly Manchester Christian Home Education group and the theme this time was the human body. The children sang together, played games, had a picnic lunch and participated in arts and craft activities.

 

A game where the children had to collect letters out of a tub of shaving foam and spell out God made me.

 In one of the activities the children drew around themselves and had to stick their different organs in the right place. It was good revision for the Human Body project we did last year.

 

 

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!