Home Education journal July 2016

Just through the other side of the busiest few weeks for birthdays and it feels great to finally be able to sit and breathe for more than a minute. So leaving out the four birthdays and our wedding anniversary, here are some of the other things we have been doing over the last few weeks.

A zoo visit gave us some chilling out time, especially as they had a new attraction in the play park... bouncy pillows. We had to return to this part of the park several times to bounce as it was a huge lure to my young bouncers. Another high point was the pooping bird video! ... A striated Caracara bird of prey was chatting to my son and I thought it looked so cute that I should try to film it to preserve the memory. However as soon as I had started to film, the bird stopped talking and pooped much to the amusement of the children.

Around this time the elderflower had come into bloom, we love elderflower cordial very much and make some every year. Spurred on by a twitter chat we decided to make extra this year and freeze some for the up coming birthday parties as a special treat.

It is very easy to make and very delicious, if you would like to make some you can find our recipe here.

We have been for some wonderful country walks and hikes through our local nature reserve, the children love to document changes in the wildlife and plant life at various locations throughout the year.

It's especially nice to find fields full of daisies and other wildflowers whilst looking for a place to eat your picnic... the butterfly, bee and insect action going on in this field was amazing to see.

The children's interest in science has continued to grow and they have been studying various aspects of geology. Some of their experiments have included making two different types of lava to compare and using sugar cubes to study erosion.

They spent some time plotting volcanoes around the ring of fire in the pacific ocean to give us this giant map amongst other activities.

We were lucky enough to get the chance to buy a couple of boxes of fruit,  plums and peaches, for just 7 pence a punnet, so we jumped at the offer. This meant quickly processing it before it went off ... so we got down to making batches of both peach and plum wine, both types of jam and a few cakes for tea.

It was a very busy few days but not a single fruit was wasted... the above photograph is my upside down plum cake which was the very tasty end of the last punnet of plums. I may share this recipe in the Autumn when the plums are in season. So that covers a few things from our daily lives.... until the next post.

not back to school days out

As a home educating family we usually plan quite a few trips out in September as all the parks, zoos and museum suddenly become much emptier with the return of the school year. Also this time coincides with the heritage free open days when many museums and other heritage sites open their doors free of charge for everyone to explore, naturally we take full advantage of this.

This year we started with a trip to a zoo containing wildlife from south America, this was a wonderful experience for the children to back up some of the things they had been studying throughout the year. South America had sparked their interest earlier in the year and we have been on a wonderful learning journey from it's history, geology, botany, ancient civilizations and wildlife to mention a few things. The advantage of the emptiness of the zoo is that the children got to watch the animals being fed at close range and ask the keepers a million and one questions about everything.

We managed to fit in quite a lot on the free heritage days, we visited three museums, two very old churches, one of which had an ongoing archaeological dig and a photography exhibition.

The three museums covered so many eras between them it gave the children lots to think about. The castle had armour to be tried on and siege engines like the ones we made earlier in the year. They also spent a lot of time looking at the art gallery and studying the different styles of two of the artists exhibited there.

This is one of my favourite exhibitions at the museum about the history of our city. It is a replica of an old chemist, I could stand here for ages looking at all the old jars and books.

There are also lots of drawers to open here containing herbs and other ingredients to look at or smell. This museum has many things to touch, smell and try on, the children really love to be able to interact with things and it is very beneficial to the learning process. All these visits have sparked much more interest in a number of things we can continue to explore further during the winter.

We still have more days out planned to enjoy the rest of the autumn days and quite a few crafts inspired by some of our activities. This is always a very busy time of year for us will all the harvesting and preserving too.

The Zoo, Birds of Prey and the rest of August...

As home educators things here quieten down in August, it is the school holidays and all the places we love to visit become very busy. We have found lots of places put the entrance prices up in August and we think you get far better value for money and everywhere is much less busy in September. So usually we harvest, forage, preserve and the children do some work on various projects and crafts close to their heart or current interests, we also plan and look forward to all our Autumn adventures. This year, however, to take advantage of spells of good weather we have made a few day trips, my son has had the time of his life at a bird of prey display.

We sat in the front row and had some very close encounters with a number of very beautiful birds, a common buzzard stopped to eat on the fence just inches in front of us, looked us directly in the eye and then flew off over our heads wafting our hair with it's wings. My son was in raptures... he had never been this close to the birds he loves so much, little did he know a large vulture was weaving its way through the audience. It made me jump a little when it came under my seat, around my legs and looked up at us...but it was such a thrill to see up close and gave my son a day he will never forget. The photograph below is of a larger vulture than the one which passed through the audience, a ruppell's griffen vulture.

At the zoo my daughter was very eager to see her favourite animal, the giraffe and we had to race all the way around to their enclosure first. They have had three giraffe births this year. It was the first time she has been to a zoo, that she can remember, we have recently been to a sea life centre and a reptile park so it was more than a little exiting to see much larger animals. She was quite disappointed to find she wouldn't be allowed to cuddle or stroke the giraffes but we bought her a soft toy one from the gift shop at the end of the day to bring home and love. A keeper in the reptile house also brought out a bearded dragon for the children to look at much closer and to see what it felt like, which brought many smiles to their faces.

In the farm area they enjoyed looking at the animals and posing on a tractor before milking a fake cow, this was obviously a very enjoyable activity as I think they half filled the bucket. So I expect we'll have two very willing volunteers if we ever get a goat.

The excursions are still being talked about here my daughter had a 'great day' and everyone is now looking forward to the Autumn days out... we have a really full itinerary with lots of suggestions for many places to visit.
All of the above photographs were taken by my lovely husband.