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.

Home education journal - A busy time

It's been a while since I have posted an education journal entry as we have just been so busy, but I have picked out a few things from the last few weeks to record here. We have started to go swimming again for an hour or two each week which the children have enjoyed immensely and it's a very important life skill. We had a short break over winter to allow my daughter's new ear piercings to heal but at least nobody forgot how to swim.

We have continued to spend a lot of time at our local nature reserve, so that we can observe the seasonal changes in wildlife there. Also taking the time to explore the ruins of Trowse Newton Hall found in the reserve.

With the commencement of spring, plant experiments start all over the house and garden. The one pictured above is to see if various plants can find their way through a maze to find the light... the children tested beans and potatoes.

They have also continued looking into plant anatomy in much more detail including flower dissection and labelling.

Another science project had them looking into energy and motion, they made straight roller coasters and bumpy ones to test how much energy was needed to get the marbles over all the bumps amongst other things, which proved very entertaining.

We have spent some time exploring the directions on a compass and made little signposts to have in their rooms to enable them to know which way our house faces and also the windows. They found which way to position the signpost using a compass. Another part of the Mystery science course was to plot the sun's passage over our house using a little plastic dome.

We also took part in the RHS school's gardening project to grow rocket seeds that had been in space. 

We had to plant two packets of seeds, one from space and the other a control, to see how each packet grew. Each seed had to be planted independently in it's own compartment in the seed tray, so it took quite a lot of time and patience. 

The children took one packet each and all our results are being recorded on a very large chart.

That covers just a tiny fraction of the things we have been doing and some of the science projects the children have been experimenting with. It's been very busy here sorting out the allotment, plants and various other activities. Hope to be back really soon.

Pond Dipping

 

   This year we went pond dipping twice, the children love spending time with nature and we have spent a lot of time exploring this as a part of our everyday life this year. The possibilities for learning are endless and so is the fun. We went pond dipping in the Spring and again in the Summer, this post is a little late as we were going to go again in the Autumn, to record any seasonal changes, but time just seems to be flying by and the weather has been really bad. As you can see above my daughter caught herself in the net, by the look of the big smiles this was also fun!

   We chose a spot within walking distance of where we live, which just happens to be a country park, nature reserve and educational centre. This little bridge seemed the perfect spot, so we used the same place for both trips. Don't worry no creatures were harmed and all were returned safely to the place they were found. well, apart from the tiny red worm... which got eaten by the demoiselle larva... but that's just part of a natural life cycle.

spring

   Above are a sample of the water creatures we caught on our Spring pond dip. we didn't catch as much in spring but I have put on a photograph of some of the bigger things, a demoiselle and a true damselfly larva.

summer

    As you can see the summer pond dip caught many more water creatures than the spring one. Still the same sorts of things just many more of them. More larva and definitely more snails. On the summer excursion we also noticed that there were many empty skins of the larva on the bridge, where they had left the water, shed their skins and flew off.

    My son has really been enjoying all the time we have spent in nature this year, it is one of his biggest interests, so we intend to continue with more time spent exploring nature and the natural world around us. He has picked up so much this year, as it is a subject he loves so much, not just about the creatures and their life cycles but also food chains / webs, evolution, environmental science and habitat conservation, plus so much more in between. We intend to start a nature journal in the new year, to record as many things as possible from our area as they change throughout the year. A record to keep forever.

here we are...

    I made the decision to keep this journal many months ago, mainly as a memento for the children to look back on in years to come but it has taken a long time for me to actually write something down. I didn't really know how to get started or how to introduce ourselves. So... I've decided not to do a formal introduction, (as this is primarily for our family and we know who we are), you will get to know who we are as we go along, if you choose to.

    These pages will hopefully help us to remember the fun times, the laughter, the magic, the trials overcome and all the little things that make you smile but sometimes get forgotten in the speed that we live our lives nowadays.