Science Fair - Water Project

Today we have taken part in a home education Science Fair. In preparation for this we decided to revisit the water project that we completed over a year ago.

The children made their own water wheel following these instructions.
 

Last week we spent a fun afternoon visiting Quarry Bank Mill where there is a working water wheel. Following this visit, Nathanael made this short video about Hydro Power.

 



 

At the Science Fair there were lots of other interesting exhibits to explore and learn from.

 



 

It was an enjoyable morning and the children were thrilled with the medal they were awarded for their hard work.  

Brazil Unit Study

 

We have thoroughly enjoyed another virtual trip to the other side of the world! For the last four weeks we have been studying Brazil and various themes connected to it. The children started by locating Brazil on our map of the world, discovered its capital city and made its flag.

 

 

We got out a big pile of books from the library on the subject of Brazil and read them together. In them we found out lots of information about the different sights and landmarks and after this the children stuck pictures of the different tourist attractions on a map of Brazil. We "visited" the landmarks on our Google Earth app! Using tissue paper, the children collaged flags of Brazil and found out what the different colours and symbols represent.

 

 

Nathanael did some writing on Brazil's tourist attractions.

 

 

We found out about the foods they eat in Brazil and had fun making and eating Brigadeiro, a chocolate sweet like a truffle.  

 

 

The children wrote simple sentences about the weather in Brazil

 

 

and drew pictures of Samba dancers and percussion players. We watched some videos of Samba and tried to dance the box step!

 

 

One of our favourite parts of the project was finding out about the Rainforest. We started by making some rainforest jigsaws.

 

 

We discovered the different layers of the rainforest and the creatures that live in them.

 

 

We were amazed at all the different animals that live in the rainforest, some of which we had never heard of before. We watched various YouTube videos about them.

 

 

The children were especially interested in all the beautiful varieties of birds, so vastly different and unique. We decided to design our own birds to live in the rainforest!

 

 

 We looked at some of Henri Rousseau's jungle paintings and the children created their own rainforest artwork in his style using oil pastels.

 

 

The children were interested to find out that chocolate and rubber come from the rainforest! After watching this video on how chocolate is made they made a flow chart, documenting the process. They then thought of all the different things that were made of rubber after watching this video on how rubber is made.

 

As a writing activity the children pretended they were rainforest guides and used what they had found out to describe to visitors what they might see, hear and experience in the rainforest. They also wrote acrostic poems using the word Brazil.



 For other ideas on things to do for Brazil, here is the link to my pinterest board.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

The theme of this month's Christian Home Education meeting was World Book Day. For those who wanted to, we could choose one of our favourite books to review and dress up as the characters from that book. We chose Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and in preparation for the meeting we reread the book and completed our book review.

 

The front cover of our book review

The children wrote their own summaries, used adjectives to describe the main characters and chose their favourite part. They gave it a star rating of 5/5 stars and said what lessons they had learned from the story.

 

 

All dressed up and ready to go!

 

 

At our meeting the children presented their book review.

 

 

 

 

We designed packaging for Wonka bars to give out after our talk.

 

 

As an activity for the other children we brought Willy Wonka play dough for them to design their own sweets and edible delights!

 



Our family really enjoyed listening to the other children's presentations.

 

One of their favourite activities was making Gruffalo biscuits. Yum!

 



Life Lately - Christmas, Birthdays and Space Project

My updates are becoming less and less frequent, but I see that as a good thing, because life is very full and busy! I do however wish to keep a record of what we do as a family and our home education journey, so I am determined to keep posting whenever I get the chance.

 Before Christmas the children took part in our annual church nativity service.

Our baby turned two (she is still our baby!) and we celebrated with breakfast at Krispy Kreme 

doughnuts followed by a game of bowling.

A few days later our middle child Abigail turned 5!

Her birthday treat was a trip to the cinema to see the Paddington Movie followed by lunch at a family favourite, Pizza Hut!

In between birthdays we had a quiet family Christmas and kept our focus on Christ and His birth.

On New Years Eve Abigail was in hospital undergoing a Bronchoscopy under general anaesthetic to assess any changes in her airway restriction, caused by her double aortic arch.

We were really proud of how brave she was.

At Christmas we had a week off from formal lessons, but we were back the week after and have started a new project on Space. The children are thoroughly enjoying it and so am I.

Each day we set aside time to play puzzles and games. I found a lovely 3D Solar System jigsaw at the charity shop that ties in well with what we are studying.

For my Birthday (yes another one!), we had a family day at Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre. The children were very excited to see the Lovell telescope up close.

 Looking forward to another home schooling year in 2015!

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.