Educational Link Find of The Month (September 2015)

• To Scale: The Solar System

 https://vimeo.com/139407849

This one that will excite Oliver, anything to do with space he loves, so this will be a good one to watch when we get five minutes. I have seen this mentioned by people a few times and everyone gives it a high recommendation.

• 25 Maps that explain The English Language  

 http://www.vox.com/2015/3/3/8053521/25-maps-that-explain-english

I love this one, I can use this for so many things to include in our English and Geography lessons and a few other subjects can be devised with this too.

•  The Chronicles of Narnia

 http://lastingthumbprints.com/free-chronicles-of-narnia-resource-unit/

This looks like a good find for us, as you can guarantee at some point we will read The Chronicles of Narnia and this little link will come in handy for when we do.

•  Periodic Table Game

 http://teachbesideme.com/periodic-table-battleship/?utm_source=redtedart.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pubexchange_facebook

 This is a brilliant way to teach the periodic table whilst having fun. We have a big periodic chart on our wall so they are familiar with it, but playing it this way is a fabulous idea for them to become familiar with it without thinking about it and also having fun at the same time.

• Mystery Science

 http://mysteryscience.com/

Oh my word this has to be my favorite of the month, a science curriculum, which is free for the remainder of this school year. I signed up to this a while ago and had a reminder in my email about finishing the signup, we will be using this daily, it looks great.

• The Science of Chocolate

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt7tzEzEg5o

A great video giving us some science facts about chocolate

Halloween Dilemma.

Ok so Halloween is coming up quite rapidly and I have nothing planned, work wise or entertainment wise for the twins.

When the twins were younger I could just wing it and no matter what I did they enjoyed the occasion. Now they are older they can see through me like a newly cleaned window. I have no creative bone in my body whatsoever, so occasions like this fill me with dread.

For those that have read some of my blog will know that I like to work with themes and whatever we do is based around that theme, be that cooking, crafts, worksheets, reading books, etc, as long as it has an educational edge, I am on it like a car bonnet.

Obviously Halloween is a big theme in the annual calendar and I have searched on-line and found oodles of ideas and I have a Gothic themed tour of a library coming up arranged for them, but I still can not make a decision on what to do.

So I am asking my readers for help.......

How can you help? I hear you ask.

Well you could come to my link up party!.... I found this great idea around sharing blog posts so I thought it would be a great idea to see some of your favourite Halloween themed blog posts, to give me a dose of inspiration, then I can share what we get up to throughout Halloween with the ideas that you guys give us..

So what am I looking for? Anything Halloween.. Children's Book and activity suggestions, recipes, games, craft ideas and so on..

I know a lot of you are amazingly creative and I think you guys will provide me with some amazing inspiration to fill our Halloween with lots of joy.

So here goes

An InLinkz Link-up

Diatameceous Earth

Well who would have guessed that a bit of dirt could be so good for so many things.

Since my journey of becoming an owner of chickens I have discovered this little gem of a powder and more and more uses for it are cropping up all over the place.

My initial interest in Diatamaceous earth started because I heard it was a good natural wormer for the chickens and having two dogs and kids that like to play in mud and eat dirt, I know how important keeping worms under control is.

Part of our health routine is to regularly worm both the kids and the pets, and this stuff sounded great as it can be used in both humans and animals and is relatively cheap compared to commercial wormers.

What is diatomaceous earth?... in short it is simply the cleanest dirt you can get, or if you want a more in-depth knowledge of what it is then this Wikipedia entry will fill you in and start your discovery of diatomaceous earth off.

I have wormed the kids regularly since they where small and one thing I noticed is that not many people talk about it, you can find a lot of forums on the net talking about how difficult people find it to have a remedy that lasts, due to worms being so infectious with kids being kids and liking nothing more than a good chew of their fingers including all the bacteria and goodies they pick up throughout the day, and then becoming re-infected, it is a something that comes and goes regularly especially in this house.

I would say that everyone gets them and it does not mean one is dirty, although my impression of the reluctance to talk about and admit to worms and talk freely about experience and remedy, you would think it was.

They can be picked up very easily from a door handle or anywhere that you go throughout the day, checkouts are probably a great breeding ground for worms especially on those pay consoles and cash points, so adults are just as susceptible to pick them up and pass them to kids as kids  are susceptible to pass them on to adults, especially with their mouth exploration of toys and particularly in communal places such as a playground.

We can wash hands as much as we like but sooner or later one of those little blighters will get in and start wreaking havoc on our peaceful nights sleep.

I never really had the issue with my elder two, only once or twice do I remember worming them due to an infestation, but these two especially Oliver has a regular dose, despite all my multiple reminders about hand washing and hand or object to mouth contact, some days I think I should get an old tape recorder and play it on loop to save me having to be on hand sanitisation duty all day.

Anyway back to the diatomaceous earth, this stiff seems amasing on so many levels, it works by drying out the little blighters, I initially thought and it does seem a common conception that it cuts the little blighters up, but I prefer the drying out version as this seems to fit with the scientific research on how it works that I have found.

The (what I will call DE from now on as it takes too long to type) DE also works on other parasites and bacteria found in the intestine that we probably have no idea where there in the first place, I have seen and heard many a story on how it helps improve and even eradicate food allergies, how true they are I have no idea as I have no way to verify as we are fortunate and have no food allergies that I know of, so not something I will even be testing out but it is worth a mention.

There is a long list of uses and it is a far cheaper way of dealing with these issues, for me to worm the kids every few months it costs quite a bit to treat us all, and as I am not one to wait a while for a doctors appointment and get prescriptions for this kind of thing I just nip to the chemist and buy it despite the kids being entitled to free prescription for this stuff. 

There are varying reports on how much to take from half a teaspoon to two full table spoons a day, so I will experiment with that and see what differences it makes.

It seems though that most of my ills can be cured with this DE, here is a list of what I know it can be used for in our family

Dental health

Worms and parasites (both humans and pets)

Skin conditions such as eczema and acne

Fleas, ticks, mites, bedbugs, insect eradication on animals and around the home.

Joint pain

Stomach bugs 

Candida

Better Sleep and concentration

So not only is it a pesticide it is health remedy too, the list is actually endless for what you can use it for, so go and have a peek and see what it could do for you.

I hear a lot about the dangers of using DE on the lungs and caution of using it so I did my own research and found yes the pool grade is not to be breathed in at any cost but food grade is relatively safe, what I found was this.

In a rabbit study, researchers found no health effects after applying diatomaceous earth to the rabbits' skin five times per week for three weeks. In a rat study, researchers fed rats high doses of diatomaceous earth for six months. They found no reproductive or developmental effects. In another rat study, the only effect was more rapid weight gain. That study involved 90 days of feeding rats with a diet made of 5% diatomaceous earth.

When guinea pigs were forced to breathe air containing diatomaceous earth for 2 years, there was slightly more connective tissue in their lungs. When researchers checked before the 2-year mark, no effects were found.

A very small amount of crystalline diatomaceous earth may be found in pesticide products. Long-term inhalation of the crystalline form is associated with silicosis, chronic bronchitis, and other respiratory problems. The bulk of diatomaceous earth is amorphous, not crystalline. The amorphous form is only associated with mild, reversible lung inflammation.

Reference:- National Pesticide information centre click to learn more..

  

So for me I am  confident that there will be no ill effects or exacerbation of existing conditions through using or breathing in this stuff.

I have to say I have looked and looked and looked and can still find nothing but positive stories about this stuff, no negative threads on forums giving gruesome details on how it ruined their families lives or killed their cat or anything whatsoever, I am still to find anything that is negative towards DE.

I have actually thought how on earth can I only just know about this stuff, how did I get to my age not discovering this wonder of natural pesticide years ago.

So my simple regime with DE earth has  now kicked in, I put a little in the chicken water along with the apple cider vinegar (which is another story) and dust some in their coop each morning and when I have my coffee I have a teaspoonful to mix in, I can hardly tell it is in my coffee in the mornings, although you can tell it is there it it is not unpleasant and anyway between morning breath I wouldn't be able to tell anyway, I might notice a difference if I brush my teeth first before that first coffee.

I thought I would give myself a whirl with it for a few weeks before administering it to the kids, and see what effects it has on me, so far there has been very little to be honest, I have been waiting for the bowl eruptions to start, as many reviews give this graphic detail commonly when first starting out on DE. I also noticed people saying that due to the body detoxing you can feel as if you are coming down with a cold or flue type symptoms so taking activated charcoal (yes another story) can counteract these effects.

I did buy some AC and intended on taking that at the same time I started DE, but silly me (god knows what I was thinking) bought a 10g pot for some strange reason, which is probably about as much as you would get in a small pot of powder eye shadow, so not enough to even ingest for one dose.

Anyway aside from my inability to understand weights of things, I will give DE a try and also dust the dogs and give them a few mixed feeds with it and see how we get on.

If I use it regularly and have no infestations of worms around the house then, I will know that it really is a miracle cure, but the jury is still out on that one at the moment, hopefully I will update here on any effects that occur through its regular use in a month or two and see if this DE is really as great a remedy as it seems.

The words if it is too good to be true, it probably is, comes to mind, we will see if this is one of those cases. which leaves me leaving this blog post with a little something for you for a sing song.

Enjoy...

 

My changing attitudes through home education......

I thought I would write a little about a phenomenon that has occurred since the light bulb moment that came on about being able to home educate and discovering that home education was even a option.

I never imagined it would enrich my life, I had no idea about the effects home education would have on me and my attitudes in life, I went into it with the ideas that it would just be a matter of keeping them off school and learning the basics at home.

I remember when I first discovered and had recovered from the shock that I was expecting twins, my first thought was education, why I have no idea, but just the thought of school filled me with dread even before I was into my 3rd month of pregnancy.

I came across the concept of home education by sheer accident, I had heard of someone's child who was educated at home away from school, but not as a home educator, they where still enrolled in school but had been excluded and did lessons still registered with school, but worked on-line towards their exams and had a tutor that over saw their work.

I was just being nosey and being bored one night whilst suffering a craving of pepperami onto my 6th stick (yes errrr) and looked it up and google being google came up with home education stuff which I quickly grasped onto and thought 'bingo', this is the answer to getting rid of my dread about school.

I quickly looked into groups to ask questions and came to a yahoo group, then a facebook group, which back then there where very few of, I learned a lot in those few months especially as it was in the badman era, if you do not know what the badman era was then look it up or click here to get an idea of what it was all about, it was a historic moment in home ed terms.

What first took my attention about the home ed community was the activism that goes on to protect the rights of home educators, and after talking to a few and starting to understand a little of the home ed world I just knew I had found the right place for me.

I was guided by some of the home edders on the laws and learned about the home ed world and the more I learned the more I saw schooled education as a strange thing to do.

Sure I knew then I would have to make sacrifices and face a lot of negative criticism but, who's life is this anyway?, who do I have to answer to?, the only people I owe anything to are my children, and as a parent who wants to let their children down?, not  me, but that is what I felt I had done with my eldest children. 

I had an underlying determination that the mistakes I had made in life bringing up  my other children where not going to be repeated and education played a big part in that, things had to be different.

I had no idea at that time what a profound change in me that home education would have.

Prior to the twins I was a clubber and enjoyed life travelling, nice clothes, a nice car, house and lots of the finer things in life where a priority. 

But as soon as the light bulb moment of home education came on I started to make the change, I knew it would not be easy and I knew things would take a dramatic change, including my priorities, yes normal priorities that you make when you have kids anyway, but I seemed to go further than that, I started to look at myself morally, and started to see the world in a different way, partly because of the people I started to communicate with in the home ed world, they seemed to open up a word I had never seen before and never even considered existed, they forced me to look outside the box

On the surface it looks like pure parental indulgence, a sacrifice of oneself to your children, in a totally over protective and selfish way, but it could not be further from the truth.

Home education the way we do it is a total lifestyle choice, not an easy lifestyle choice, you have two options, that is go with the flow and do what is expected of you, something that pays the bills and fits round a weekend.or doing something in life that interests you and gives you a passion for life. There is a third option of doing both but not many get to live that dream... 

I never imagined it would change my life to the point that I look forwards to every single day with enthusiasm and joy and wonder at what is going to happen that day, things to look forwards to and knowing that you will learn something new today, my life had been so devoid of anything meaningful for a long, long time and looking back now on the surface I was happy but I was so deeply unhappy deep to my core, something was missing in life.

Through home education I have found that gap filler, that thing that always seemed to be missing is now no longer a feeling of something missing, my life is as complete as it possibly could be and life is now worth something, I have fulfilment in life, no money sadly, but fulfilment seems to be worth so much more.

Being in accountancy you tend to always be researching and keeping up with things and I had always had an interest in learning, mostly for work related stuff and not for the sake of knowledge but I learned quite quickly that the term knowledge is power is a real thing, and that the world is shielded from much of that knowledge for a reason, what you think is not important actually is very important, I started to learn a lot about the way the world really does work, politically and morally I started to sit up and take notice, I started to be inquisitive.

Looking at things for the kids to do educationally, quite easily starts to make you think about things in a wider way. You see the education system and learn the bits they miss out that are actually far more important than the things they do teach and include, and it looks strange when you are removed from the institution completely.

I started to question why, which led me to question more and more which lead me to learn more and more. 

I actually stared to see the world in a way I had never seen it before, so this home ed journey is not just about the kids at all,  it is also about me...

It has actually given me strength to walk though this world feeling positive and feeling grateful and I actually walk in awe most days seeing the people who are actually trying to make a difference in life not just for themselves but for others, in the home ed world and out of the home ed world. They actively try to make the world a better place, fighting for those little bits of knowledge that are suppressed by the powers that be and making injustices face themselves.

They take punch, after punch, after punch so they do not upset the wheels in motion but they get up and keep going, I find that one of the wonders of the world.

This whole world of activism I had found really did open up my eyes and it keeps them open, open very wide. It also enabled me to find myself.

Being of Sudanese descent I always had an interest but never really learnt anything of my heritage, something that in western education is devoid, I grew up and was taught that Europe is the be all and end all and they where pioneers etc etc ect, I felt a pang of sickness to my stomach when I started to learn that actually there is a very different story, my new love of learning has taught me so much about my values and how to decode the world I live in, my morals and view of the world and attitude towards life has changed beyond recognition, I have evolved.

I think without discovering home education I would still be that dead man walking I feel I once was.  I live to learn now and find the world a wondrous place to be and to be able to do that alongside my twinnies feels like something that is worth fighting for, something special, something that is a basic human right to bring our children up as we see fit, to see the world as a place we belong and not just a place we happen to be. 

We have our children for such a short space in time, why should I give up those few childhood years to someone else to change my children to something unrecognisable, I find it abhorrent to think  I would be required to hand my child over to complete strangers who want to shape them into their ideal, to fit into an ideal world designed to keep us in check for the equilibrium of society.

I think my children will not be any different than any other child that goes through the state system of education, in fact I know they will be no different, I have seen it over the past few years with my own eyes, they will either fail in societies eyes or they will succeed. 

Depending on their attitude when it comes to their future as functioning adults in the big wide world they will have the same choices to make, exam or not to exam, either way they can flourish in life, whatever they decide to do, they have the same choices, college or not to college, to follow a certain career or wing it, to fly and discover new places or to stay put. 

Just because our choice of education is different and affords us more freedom than an institutionalised one, does not make it better or worse, it is just a choice I choose to do it the way that fits us as a family and brings us enrichment in life that schooling can never do.

To live separate parallel lives as a family, learning and growing separately, or share our first 15 odd years together as one unit, learning and growing in our journey through life together as a family, the latter is the choice I choose because the former option did not and will not work for me, but home education has changed my life for the better and it keeps on getting better every day, I watch the twins flourish and grow into their own personalities and watch their love of learning grow by the day, I have no doubts we will make it......

Chocolate...nom nom nom..

I arranged a chocolate workshop fully intending it to be a 'not back to school' trip to kick us off for the year, I couldn't think of a better way to start the new academic year, but due to some needing the date changed because of clashing events it got pushed forwards a few weeks and has become just another workshop, we replaced it with our camping trip instead for our not back to school celebration, but boy oh boy it will be a good week covering chocolate topics following the workshop.

I had intended to do work surrounding chocolate before the workshop but the stone age took precedence, but now the stone age can take a back seat and it will be chocolate all the way for the next week.

I kicked off our morning before the workshop with a quick video about chocolate, where it comes from and what it is..

We visited our fabulous book shelf and pulled out Charlie and the chocolate factory to read over the next week and searched online for a free streaming of the wonderful film version, feeling rather sad actually after discovering the west end musical version is currently running, which we would have loved to have gone to, but funds are tight so trips to London to visit the West end are obviously out of reach at the moment, sadly.. but their resources may come in handy at some point over the next week, I will store them here and maybe re-visit them when I am over my devastation of not living in London right now to get to the show.. click the picture if you dare!....

With all the joy that chocolate brings and the fun we can have with it, there is also a dark side of chocolate which I will be bringing to the twins attention which I hope raises questions for them and starts a discussion which will lead to an awareness that our western privilege can directly impact others suffering and misery, but also a focus on some of the human rights work that goes on.

I have struggled to find a child friendly video to demonstrate the horrors without it being to graphic for them, there are plenty of educational documentaries for adults to watch but not very much to bring awareness to children, such as this one...

 

The only suitable video I can find to introduce the issue is via this video which just tells the stories of a couple of children working in the cocoa farms. This should spark conversation, so if you know anything in child friendly language that covers child labour I would love to see it.

It is disappointing not to be able to find anything suitable for children although, I do understand, kids need to be kids and kept away from the horrors of the real world, but my attitude is slightly on the side of  'if kids are contributing to the misery in the world, they need to be aware of those consequences' even if that is just an awareness and not an actual full understanding, for instance the twins know if they eat too much chocolate, it will 'splat' on their heart, all consequences of unhealthy eating, so why not human costs too... 

Especially as you consider children are the biggest consumers when it comes to chocolate, they should be aware of their actions. We tell them they should eat healthy or it will be detrimental for their health, so why not also inform them of the detrimental effects to other humans too, after all those other humans are just as important as we are. and not only are we responsible for our own health but also responsible for others too in a collective sense..

Hopefully this will give them something to think about.

 

We have a theme of Doctor Who this year to spice things up a bit so I have dug out the old episode of The Happiness Patrol, while not strictly chocolate based it does incorporate candy, the story itself has roots of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (especially the film version). in it so I can use this to devise a few Dr Who Themes Chocolate worksheets for maths and english.

Here is the episode if you wish to take a peak, see what it is all about.(click the picture). or you can just click here to find out the synopsis from BBC without watching it, if you just can't bare to watch Dr Who...

Fun Fun Fun was had at the workshop, a lovely lady named Louise Newton from a company called Chocolate Collective (find her website here) ran the workshop for us, do check her out and if you ever do want a chocolate afternoon full of fun then she is definitely the lady to go too.

It was an afternoon of pure heaven, I made Truffles and the kids both made chocolate lollipops, of course Olivia ate hers before it even set.... Oliver took pride in his and it seems like he wants to frame his but I am sure big brother will not allow that to happen.

The chocolate making was a messy bit of fun and we had an educational talk covering what chocolate is and where it comes from and a bit of its history in Europe and Africa.

It really was a good afternoon in great company of other home edders and everyone had lots of fun.

I found a great website that covers chocolate, definitely worth a look and is playing a big part in our learning about chocolate Exploring Chocolate

I found a lot of resources for chocolate to cover, I devised a great 'checklist' of what we have learned about chocolate from some of the information that we had gathered during the week.

I have turned this into worksheets for us to file away. I will share them when we have covered everything we need to, as it will be altered throughout the week to fit what we find.

Changing times..

I was looking back through the blog and noticed I had written in an earlier post about how the twins do not draw very much and are just not interested, well how things do change..

They are now both very keen drawers and have blown me away with some of the drawings they are coming up with.

After our trip to the Dr Who Experience Oliver spent a lot of time stuck in his book, they both have books they always seem to carry round with them that are used for whatever they want really, and he has started this drawing of a Dr Who theme, he keeps wandering over and showing me what he has got up to and he is very dedicated to this drawing, I am blown away at what he has done through memory and not copying, he had written 'Police' on the top of the box and I asked him what it said and he said 'I don't know' and I asked him did he copy the words and he looked at me like I was mad and said no, it's what is written on the top of the box, it's always there he said... so he had remembered the letters but not what it said, I obviously did tell him and he was quite pleased he had remembered all the letters correctly.

Olivia is keen on drawing figures and her technique is becoming really good, with this new found love of art they have come up with we looked at some you tube videos on how to draw simple figures like Minni Mouse and other characters like Spider man, the videos are quite good and quite simple for them to follow, but it has certainly ignited a fire and they now do a lot of drawing and they are  (yes I know I am biased) very good at it...

Here are a few of their wonderful artworks....

Our new adventure of keeping backyard Chickens

We are now proud owners of 6 chickens.

It hasn't been cheap setting up the chicken run and coup and gathering all the necessities to keep chickens but I have to say after only a week of having the girls grace us with their presence I can firmly say the expense has been worth while.

There is nothing more yummy than brand new still warm eggs in a morning for breakfast.

The girls are great they lay every day and we are starting to get a nice stock of eggs.

Our run is a large 10ft x 15ft fox proof enclosed run and our hen house is 8 ft in total with a run.

 

We did a lot of research before we embarked on our backyard chicken keeping journey.

We have learnt about the type of feed that is best for them, we have chosen pellets and supplement with some cracked corn, along with the grit to help them 'chew' their food. (although they do not chew as they have no teeth) and of course there are plenty of yummy bugs for them in the earth to forage on.

They have honored us with six eggs a day since they arrived, we are beginning to have quite a stash.

The kids have been keen even to the point of trying to physically give  them an ash bath. I had to gently explain that ash baths are something that they do naturally themselves and we do not actually have to physically literally pick them up to give them an ash bath.

On our camping trip we saved a lot of the ash that we made whilst making our daily fires and have given the chickens a tray full of ash mixed with sand, this apparently keeps mites away and is a natural thing that the chickens like to do. We have purchased some diatomaceous earth which we are still waiting to arrive but when it does we will put some in their ash bath to help keep them nice and clean and put a little in their feed which apparently keeps them worm free.

The grass has completely disappeared now and I will start to introduce some more chipped bark into the enclosure to give them something interesting to forage in.

It has been great for the twins and me, I never even knew that chickens only produce one egg a day and it takes up to 20 hours to produce, we even learned how the chickens produce them through a you tube video.

I have picked a lot of handy tips up on keeping the chickens, including if the eggs are coming away from the nest dirty then there is a worm problem, so diatomaceous earth is a remedy and deterrent for this, and can also be used by humans as a parasite cleaner and useful around the home in deterring insects in the house. A very useful tip and also using lime in the chicken coop which historically was ordered and required by farm landowners for any farmer renting his land to wash the livestock walls with lime to keep infestations at bay at least once a year.

The girls are so pleasant and great fun to watch, they are easy to keep. Their nesting habits where a but of a surprise, I expected them to use the nesting box to lay eggs, instead they tend to poop in the nesting box removing all the straw and pushing it into what I assumed would be their pooping and perching area, they use the pooping and perching area as their nesting box and not much perching goes on in there....

Their nature is so gentle, they are curious and inquisitive and I expected them to be quite noisy but other than a noisy morning until about 12 when they lay their eggs you do not hear  a peep out of them all afternoon.

The first few nights we had to physically put them into their coop but they seem to have settled down and make their own way there in the evening.

The kids take great pride in collecting the eggs and get quite excited when they see what we have been kindly given by the chickens, I am sure this will not last, but for now the kids are enjoying going in each day and spending time with the chickens in the garden.

All in all there is not an awful lot to keeping chickens, they are very easy to keep, the most important thing is to keep them cleaned out properly to avoid any infestations of mice and rats and unwanted smells or diseases and ensure they have clean food and water daily.

Even the illnesses that they can come down with are pretty straight forwards so it seems, but we will cross that bridge whenever it comes.

In addition to learning about the chickens we have started to learn about things like composting which we have started to do  because of the spent chicken poop and bedding, so the world of chickens really has opened up our horizons and given us a new lease of life in the garden world, I expect this time next year we will be growing a few veg too.

2nd year in with a bang!..

Well it is officially our second year in to home education and we took the first year easy, we concentrated on the basics and mostly had lots of fun along the way.

This year we are getting a little more serious but no too serious, we started our year off with a bang and we took a couple of educational trips for a bit of a well earned break, we went camping and had a focus on History.

The first of our camping trips this year was to Wales, this was more of an advanced birthday trip for me, being a super fan of Dr Who we decided to take a trip to the Dr Who Experience in Cardiff which was amasing and is part of our theme for history and Science this year. 

Yes we are using Dr Who for our base theme for History and science, he mixes the two quite nicely and it makes for a great way to spice things up in these subjects for the twins and we also had fun watching some old episodes where they end up captured by some stone age people and forced to make Fire... which fits in nicely with our stone age history project and rock science discovery project which we are kicking the year off with.

We also fitted in St Fagans Open Air Museum which is a fascinating insight into how houses have changed in Wales and how people lived in the past right up to 80's. You can find out more about the place here  St Fagans National History Museum it is well worth a visit if you get a chance.

Our History this year is very mixed as there is a focus on how people lived in the past and how things have changed and a small focus on why, but our main project to start the year off and the reason for gathering so much material with the focused trips is the Stone age/ice age and Iron age, but an introduction to the Kings and Queens of UK hence why we ended up at Cardiff Castle on this trip. It just seemed like a fun thing to do and also to fill in a few gaps they will need later on in their learning journey.

The beach came in handy to think and talk about fossils and rock formations which started off our rock science project nicely along with filling in our love of fossils and talk about the work of paleontologists and archaeologists.

Our second camping trip we entitled 'Not Back to School Derbyshire Archaeology Trail Camping Trip'.. A great celebration of not returning to conventional school.

  We visited a fabulous farm called New House Farm in Ashbourne Derbyshire, this farm is a little special as it is situated on an archaeology trail with fascinating finds, the farm owners have put together a small trail with explanations of  what has been found and what we can see now, camping on this farm was pretty special, no showers or anything fancy and only a tap and compost loos, we had a fabulous time living in our tent amongsts the Geese, horses, goats and sheep..

We talked about burial mounds and ancestors and talked about the harsh weather the miners must have endured and saw some great examples of archaeology, it will be interesting in the future to track down the artifacts found here that are now kept in the London Museum .

 

I also dragged the twins to one of my favourite childhood places named Manifold Valley, this is a magical place and is home to a cave named Thors Cave, we talked about the cave and who must have lived there and the valley how it was once covered in sea and how the limestone is made from sea creatures fossils..

We also spent some time at Creswell Crags and had a couple of cave tours, and found out some interesting facts about the place. 

It felt really good to be bringing our topics to life for the twins, not just talking about the stone age but actually going to places that can tell us a lot by just being there..

Now we have lots of material for our Stone Age project and all we have to do is now put it all together.

On our return from our wonderful archaeology trip we picked up some chickens.... We are now proud owners of 6 chickens, I will share what we learn about chickens in another post.

In the meantime here are our girls..

 

First Official Year Of Home Ed

Wow, it has been a while since I have updated this blog.

What a year it has been.. I fully intended to record our first year in great detail, but... that has not happened, time has been short and filled with many wonderful things with just no time to share.

Our journey this past year has been packed full of fun and wondrous things, clubs and groups and learning new and exciting things and meeting new people and discovering new places..

On the work front we have concentrated on Maths, History, English, Science and general random subjects that come up as and when.

We have had some fantastic outings and the best for me was the Birmingham Big bang Science Fair, we had so much fun in that place, made all the more fun by the other home ed families we spent the few days with.

They are now regular climbers at the climbing center, to the point I have even done the belay course myself.

And horse riding lessons...

We have had so much fun with all the different groups and regular clubs they now attend, the social aspect is well taken care of.

On the work front they have still been using reading eggs and have moved onto reading simple books such as biff and chip and Hello Kitty and other books alongside the DISTAR which we are working through very randomly.

Maths is now covered by Khan Academy at the moment along side other online free downloads but they are doing well and show lots of interest and retain much of the information so being repetitive is not as much of an issue as it once was. In later blog posts I will share what we get up to if I get round to it.

Science is very random and is often mixed in with History, they ask a lot of questions and we cover what they are enquiring about at this point with no structure but we do have a focus on certain topics, such as the stone age and we tend to cover rocks as it seems to tie in nicely.

Anyway this is sadly not a greatly detailed update as there is just to much to put in one post but I will make more of an effort for myself really to document what we get up to on this educational journey.

I know not many people read this and most people do not even care so this blog is more for me to remember and look back on so I will be making an effort to get myself into a writing mode of thinking.

We do so much and it is difficult to remember everything or even track our progress so more of an effort has to be made on documenting our journey and I thin this blog is the way to do it..

So hopefully I am back although I am making no promises to myself at this point, lol....