Logo creating and a new image for the blog.

After spending my time blog hopping in my boredom, I noticed a few things on other blogs and how difficult my blog can be to read, the back ground is quite busy and on top of that I have had the same theme for the past few years, so I fancy a change and thought I would strike whilst the iron is hot and create myself a couple of new logos for this blog.

Now that I have created a couple of options I am really stuck with which one to choose, being a libra star sign I have now really created myself a conundrum, which one do I choose if any?...

Number 1 is bright and sunny...

and Number 2 is more feminine

I do like the font on both of the logos and I love our motto of life is beautiful, what I am not sure about is the images of the sun and the tulips.

Not being any kind of graphics designer and just a doodler, I find that part of making and creating graphics a bit daunting. I am no artist so having a good perspective when it comes to artwork is something I am not confident with. I am 'ok' with editing other pictures either from the web or taken from my own stock of photos.

Although I have run my own business for many years and never had the luxury of being able to afford to hire anyone to create any of my logos, I always give it a good shot despite never being happy with them in the end.

I think you have to have a certain eye for detail and an artistic imaginative flair, which I do not posses much of, but I certainly do enjoy trying.

A lot of the blogs I have read have quite a white theme, with elegant writing and they make me feel welcome. The minimalist feel is something I seem to be drawn to, it keeps my focus on what I am reading, without being too distracted, (which is very easily done with me), so I really like that idea for this blog instead of that busy blurry background that I currently do have.

I am keeping in mind that this blog is so that we have a record of what we do and how we change as a family during our home educating journey, but I am also mindful that there are 'some' people that may want to share in our journey and have a read every now and again, maybe a bit like yourself, reading this, yes you I see you peeking!..... and I want it to be welcoming to you guys, as I love sharing my thoughts in this blog, all be it only every now and again when I get a chance.

So back to my issues, which one do I choose, if any?.... 

I am leaning towards this one though, as I think it is bright and breezy with a little fun mixed in.

The joys of being a Libran... arrrgggh....

Ignorance breeds ignorance

I found myself shaking my head once again at one news report that appears to be circulating and doing the rounds entitled Parents OUTRAGED at curriculum as video emerges of children learning to PRAY at mosque.

There are no comments on this article which of course would divulge the pure ignorance of the article.

This hate fuelling rag often has articles along the line of encouraging hate towards Muslims, but appears to get away with it due to their style of cleverly skirting around the law.

What is sad is that people want to keep their kids in ignorance, surely it is better to understand what others do, with a knowledge of the why and how's, instead they teach their kids to hate something they know nothing about, the reactions of the children having instruction on how to pray in a mosque seems to have unsettled a lot of people and resulted in attacks of the school system for trying to teach an understanding of other religions and cultures.

This is the problem with teaching diversity and respect for other cultures and religions, people are afraid of what they do not know and some are so ignorant they would prefer to carry on hating it rather than understanding it and preserve their ignorance no matter how much it is detrimental to their kids.

Among the voices of disdain are calls that it is indoctrination, but please... give me a break surely it is better to let a child have an understanding of what their parents are hating on so much, rather than be indoctrinated in hate, hate is the ugliest human trait especially when it is accompanied by ignorance.

I will certainly be doing the same and introducing my kids to different religions so they have an understanding of what is wrong with this world, when it comes to hate against other religions and cultures, I want my kids to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

We will be having visits to different places of religious worship so they have an understanding of how other people conduct their faith, Mosques, Buddhist temples, Churches, Synagogues are all on our list of places to visit, we will be looking at what other people believe and the structure of their religion.

The funny thing is, I bet if you asked these people what they 'hate' so much about other religions you will not get any kind of rational answer from them, how can they give a rational answer about something they know nothing about.

Kids need to understand what is happening in the world and why there is so much religious hate and intolerance, understanding what history has shown us and why there are still battles between religions will surely go a long way to making our world a better place.

Even the atheists need to be understood, and the main theme I get for atheists is that there is a war fatigue going on, they are sick to death of the battles between religions, even then there is a sense of ignorance as some do not understand anything about religion by either way of history or culture.

I can forgive those that have a fundamental understanding of religion and then come to the conclusion they 'hate' religions, but for the majority that is not the case, they just hate something they know nothing about, living in their little ignorant bubble of hate and ignorance breeding further generations full of hate and ignorance.

Teaching a child about other religions is not about indoctrination and it is something I hear a lot, 'little Tommy is being indoctrinated because they have learnt about Diwali or little Jane has visited a Mosque so will now become a terrorist'.. It is so sad to hear.

One thing I love about our world is the diversity of culture and religions, these are all to be celebrated as that is what has been at the core of humanity since the beginning of mankind, it has been the primary source of social progress.

Those universal spiritual principles which lie at the heart of religion -- tolerance, compassion, love, justice, humility, sacrifice, trustworthiness, dedication to the well-being of others, and unity, are at the very foundations of progressive civilizations.

At the same time, it must be acknowledged that the perversion of religion has been a primary cause of social disintegration, intolerance, hatred, sexism, poverty, oppression and warfare down through the ages, with the addition of ignorance, surely for the further progression of mankind teaching children about religion can only be a good thing.

I can hear a few reading this saying 'I do not want my child to be indoctrinated into any religion', but that is not what I am saying, what I am saying is that understanding and learning about history does not make one a historian, or learning about art does not make one an artist, but it does give an understanding and goes a long way to enrich life. Visiting a mosque and having instruction on how they pray does not make one a Muslim.

Some parents need to look beyond their own selfish self and understand that their kids are not them, they are growing up in a very different world to them and it would go a long way to help their children prepare for the world that the majority want to live in, a peaceful one, action is what it takes to make a better world and every one of us has a part to play in that, breaking down the cycle of ignorance and intolerance is a good place to start.

Our Home Education Curriculum

Our home education curriculum is designed for the easy going family that we are.

Most of what we do is child led, Olivia is very much the creative type and Oliver is very much the academic type.

Olivia loves to make and create while Oliver loves to read and is always questioning.

Our basic structure consists of Maths and English. For maths we use Khan Academy which we also use for English Grammar, this is a free program but as the twins are both visual learners it is the best program we have found that works for them, they love khan academy and actually ask and look forwards to using it. 

We also use MEP for maths, this consists of downloads so we get to do some writing practice, the kids also enjoy doing those maths challenges and it gives them some backup learning from what they learn on Khan Academy.

We used to use DISTAR when they embarked on their learning to read, backed up with reading eggs and Maths seeds, which they both still enjoy using but more for the games than anything else.

Using DISTAR taught me a lot about how to be patient and how to encourage them in their learning, I would recommend that method to anyone, it has worked for us.

Reading lots of books both fiction and none fiction has made a huge impact on the twins and how they learn, they enjoy and have enthusiasm for most topics that they come across, as they know the book will have a film or a play or some kind of website to go along with it, and it sparks their imagination to learn in different ways and see things from different angles.

History is a particular interest of the twins, this has rubbed off on them from me, they love to learn about different periods and have so far enjoyed 1600's in Britain more than any other, Olivia is a keen royalist and the stories of the royals throughout history from many different cultures sparks her interest.

They both love learning African history as it is part of their fabric and family background, lots of books, films, documentaries, you tube videos, day trips and conversations and web surfing is carried out for the history learning, and we have a book which we use as a guide of where to go next called 'a history of the world', which is religion based but as we are quite a scientific family this is great, as they get to see other perspectives on history, and have a fundamental understanding that history is a perspective and we very much like to view other perspectives when looking at history. 

I also manage to come up with themes, like, how the way people lived in the past has changed, which encompasses all sorts from food to technology and science etc. But I find it easier to work with themes to focus on as it gives us a base to start from, despite deviating quite often which is common with child led learning.

We also cover Geography and science and technology and home economics, it seems easy to say this stuff but in reality it is just daily life so there is very little structure.

I am very in tune with the kids and were they are at with their learning, and I often pick up clues from what they are saying or doing that guides me to steer them in the direction for learning what they are querying.

I often worry about were they are at academically and if there are any gaps in their learning, but you can ask the same question to any home ed parent and they will tell you of the same concerns.. Are they at the right level of learning, in say maths or English?.. but it doesn't matter what level they are on, what matters is that they are learning at their own pace, and really learning and not just remembering or regurgitating facts, but understanding those facts and enjoying them too. 

As home educators we do not have to learn for the sake of passing a test, we are learning to enrich life with a life long skill for learning, life is fascinating and even the best educated child will have gaps in their learning, school is only designed to provide the basics, the rest is up to that individual child and what interests them in life and will help them and enable them to have an enriched life.

Olivia asked if she could have the Muzzy Language program for Xmas, which I did buy her, so we will be embarking on learning one of the languages on the course, she very much enjoyed the French club that we used to go to which sadly stopped due to the teacher leaving for brighter horizons and she is fascinated with different languages, so it will be fun to do together as a family thing. You never know it may end up with a trip to France to test out our French language skills that is something else to aim for.

I wrote in a couple of earlier posts about languages and how we had embarked on a language lapbook, you can find that post here and here.

They also go to Hockey club held by the Oldham Women's hockey team, they both love playing hockey and it brings out their competitive side as they can take part in tournaments, along with St John's ambulance Badgers they get plenty of mixing with other school kids in addition to regular meet ups with their home educated friends. 

They do sorely miss going to stagecoach and I can see that in their eyes and I feel so sad and slightly guilty that I can no longer afford to send them there due to a very tight budget, but I have found an alternative that they can attend at Oldham Theatre Workshop and it is far more affordable for us. My eldest lad went there and he loved it and got to perform at the Oldham Coliseum back in 2004, you can read the reviews here. He remembers well the friends he made from going there and talks about it fondly still to this day, so I think the twins will love it too.

There are so many other things that they do, Olivia enjoys playing the violin and guitar and keyboard and she also loves to sing, singing is her real passion when it comes to music, particularly Opera, although she seems to be developing a style of her own which is a cross between opera and the pop scene, she did ask for singing lessons but from the enquiries I made they are reluctant to teach someone so young as apparently it can damage their voice.

I am quite positive that I have missed things out as they do so much it is hard to keep track of and I am not very good at keeping up with this blog, so I forget a lot of stuff that they do, but for the most part we do not use pre made curriculums, we tend to just follow our own and make it work for us.

Xmas Holiday Boredom Busting Blogs

Whilst it has been a lovely Xmas I am now finding myself feeling very bored, I have abandoned facebook as it is so depressing with all the news of celebrity deaths over the past week and a few facebook friends themselves have met their untimely demise, so I have been doing some blog hopping.

I do not usually have much time to read many blogs but have found myself with plenty of time on my hands so thought why not!.

The kids do not seem to be remotely interested in anything I have to offer, apart from food. They are quite content playing with the things they got for Xmas, although Olivia did invite me for a quick game of snap which was kind of her. Oliver is Minecraft mad in both you tube videos and the game and something called ratchet and Clank so I have only heard a grunt or two out of him for the past few days.

Olivia has commandeered the living room TV surfing youtube videos of all her favourite pop stars, which is a good thing as she is unwittingly having to do some spelling for herself, she even asked where the Michael Jackson book was so she could have a read, which is encouraging as she is not a keen reader.

The cleaning of the house was done before the Xmas holidays, I spent a week going through every draw, cupboard and nook and cranny in the house cleaning and clearing out the clutter, so the housework is done and my January clear out, and I have vowed not to touch any work at all until the 6th, giving myself an extended holiday. (the perks of self-employment).

I picked up a book or two but just did not seem to be able to get in the mood for book reading, I have even tried to devise some New Years resolutions which seemed like a waste of time as they are never kept, although one New Years resolution is to have 'sex' this year, but I highly doubt it with the twins in tow, lol.

I did do a review of my spending habits and I have set myself some goals you can read about that here, Olivia is talking a lot about our camping trip this year, which I have not really thought about much, apart from deciding I want to do a wild camping trip to Scotland, but Oliver is dead set against that idea, Olivia is very much looking forwards to our camping escapades this year, she is becoming a keen camper.

So with all that in mind I have been looking at some blogs to relieve some boredom and was not short of ideas on what I wanted to look for so here are some of the blogs I found most inspiring:-

This one by katewildcamping which as it says on the tin, about wild camping, really inspired me to keep going with Oliver in the hope that he will eventually agree to the wild camping trip this year to Scotland.

 This is something that has been playing on my bored little mind lately, the oven cleaning after all the holidays are over and the none stop use of my oven so here is a great blog with an oven cleaning tip aptly entitled 'How to clean an oven with baking soda and vinegar'

I love this blog post, 7 Frugal living skills you should be teaching your children many of the things mentioned in this blog post I have done with the twins during the past year so it resonates and encourages me to keep going with the frugal education life skills with the kids.

What a great blog Dirty Gourmet is, there are tonnes of recipes by a group of women who did a bike tour across Canada, very handy for some camping meal ideas.

I love this home school country living mommas blog but I particularly like the dehydrating food post, some food for thought for our camping trips and healthy eating frugal plans and I love her post on how to cull chickens when they stop laying she makes it look very easy.

I just love this post Treat yourself like a guest, I always feel great when I have done a good clean and de-clutter, it's like a new me is born for a short time until the piles of clothes start building up and the dishes stay in the sink until dinner time, but I love the analogy of treat yourself like a guest, I think it is the perfect gift you can give yourself and that is why I always do a de-clutter before the madness of Xmas hits.

Love this blog with a list of 18 of the best childrens books of 2016, there are a couple of books on this list that I may investigate for the twins, so they may end upon our book of the week list.  

Frugal Living Goals for 2017

For Christmas I let loose and I was careless with money, I spent what I spent without thinking, after a difficult financial year behind us in 2016 I just lost the plot and thought I would worry about it later when 2017 kicked in and everything went back to normal.

Although 2016 was a financially difficult year, it was also a year of learning a lot of lessons some good and some bad.

I learnt the car was my biggest expense, with crashes and repairs and the cost of general running it works out at my most expensive luxury, a luxury that although seems essential is not essential but it certainly does make life easier although on the other hand is essential for my work.

I get very anxious using public transport and find it difficult to cope with emotionally, I just fall apart, my social anxiety really kicks in, the costs of public transport are shocking to say the least and it is cheaper for us to run a car, the costs that would be involved in getting us to the places we went to last year would have taken the expense to triple what it did cost me to run the car, despite all the extras I had to pay for in repairs and car crashes that I clocked up.

The places we would not have been able to experience is another drawback of not having a car, so although I know that keeping the car running in it's fragile mechanical state is going to cost me again this year it is something that I will have to suck up and work on making cheaper to run and maybe weigh up using public transport vs using the car and parking costs more often than I have done in the past.

My work is also another reason to keep the car running, supplier trips and customer drop off's and pickups are another thing the car is essential for, my business would not run in any effective way without it.

Bills are another thing I have been looking at and only recently decided to do a utility swap and moved to a cheaper electricity and gas supplier which I intend on doing every six months rather than staying in one place paying more than I need to and keeping my heating down to 16 helps my bills an awful lot, if there are complaints it's cold, I usually relpy with 'put a jumper on'. Oh how I sound like my mother, lol...

I have started to dry things on a maiden instead of using the dryer, I have got into a flow with doing that now, usually I empty the washer in the morning when the kids are eating breakfast and throw it on the maiden in my bedroom and take off the dry clothes and put them away whilst I make my bed, it has become a bit of a habit now to do, another load goes in when I go down to wash the kids breakfast things, it feels like my chores for the day are almost done very quickly so it ties in nicely with my cleaning routine.

My 'work smarter not harder' motto from last year will be evaluated at the end of my January accounts preparation, if any of you read my blog you will know I was selling ride on cars and things went a bit pear shaped, there were a lot of returns and faulty items going out that I had to pay to get them back and I lost quite a lot of money, I never made very much profit on the cars in the first place and the returns pretty much wiped me out and some, I devised another method of bringing in income that meant better profits even if it meant working a little bit harder but much smarter on the profit margin level, my real evaluation will come when I do the end of year accounts in April but for now a good evaluation at the end of January will tell me if I am doing the right thing and I can then decide if to carry it on or change direction again.

This xmas has been such a good xmas as far as stress levels go, it is the first year I have not had to work all throughout xmas and could relax with no stress, even xmas dinner went swimmingly, normally we do not get dinner until 6 ish due to the stress I am under with everything in life particularly work, but we were eating at 3ish after an uneventful and perfectly timed execution of the Christmas dinner. I actually really enjoyed the whole season and felt relaxed and stress free so I am definitely working smarter and not harder in that department but financially we will see.

I did a spread sheet of my incomings and outgoings for years but stopped a few years back when the twins came along but I have recently re-started the spreadsheet and that will be my bible this year to keep track of any unnecessary spending habits I may slip into. When I did re-start the spreadsheet last October I noticed how much money we where spending on eating out and coffee which was quite a lot going into the hundreds of pounds so I started to make sure we carried coffee and hot chocolate everywhere with a plastic butty box full of butties, it has saved me a fortune already and something we will carry into 2017.

We already make a point of only doing free or very cheap events and outings although we have gone mad this xmas and boarded the Santa train in bury and attended the Library panto by Hard Graft Theatre which is well worth a visit, we cannot miss it we go every year and I had already paid for the Coliseum panto last year in January so that we got the same good seats again this year, so I will do the same again this year and book next xmas panto early in January so it is one expense I do not have to think about nearer to Xmas and with our in year saving I am feeling no guilt about splashing out on a little xmas fun.

More trips to the charity shops will be done, we have a good little system with that at the minute, whenever we go to Asda shopping we nip into the charity shops, there are four or five all in the same precinct near to the supermarket and we nip in and see what we can find, from household things we need or toys the kids fancy or clothing and even stock for my ebay store and definitely books and educational items, those are always on the top of my list. Stock for my ebay store usually pays for itself in those places so it always pays to pop in and regularly check what they have.

Food is something we have got really good at being frugal with, I have taught the kids the value of good healthy eating anyway so we have very few biscuits and crisps and sweet things along with the dreaded fizzy drinks rubbish in the house, apart from this xmas where we have gone mad, but most of it is still hanging around. Huge savings always come from not having to buy that kind of rubbish. We did quite a lot of baking last year (banana bread is our favourite make) and discovered that it is cheaper to buy many things rather than make them yourself when you factor in the cost of actually using electric to cook it, but we have managed to find ways to make meals stretch like padding spag bol out with lentils, but on the whole we have managed to make good healthy home cooked food for very little and sometimes for far less than £1 each per person per day.

The kids will be having lessons on financial literacy this year, starting with their pocket money. I did introduce the value of money to them last year giving them choices and this year we will be looking more at goals and savings, we had a massive clear out just before xmas and they let their country kitchen go and they still have the money for that which they had planned to spend but I will persuade them that is a good start on learning about savings and see how they fare watching the £40 increase and maybe get them to let some more things go and work on making money from unused items we will be doing our usual camping trips this year so that may be a good target for their savings to have spending money whilst away.

So many of the things we do already are pretty frugal we just have to do a bit more work on the implementation and I will be reading up on a few frugal blogs and websites which I might update and link to here if I find them helpful.

So to sum up this years 2017 financial goals in being frugal are:-

Weight up Public transport against using the car & parking charges more often
Switching Utility suppliers every six months
Use the maiden instead of the dryer
Keep the heating at 16
Work smarter not harder
Spreadsheet monitoring of incoming and outgoings.
More charity shop visits to save and make money.
Frugal foods and recipes
Financial goals and savings education

Lets see how we fare!...

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Book of the Week Scream Street

Scream street is not strictly a book of the week for us but a series of books, this is a series of books that we have randomly dipped in and out of.

They love this series of books and was one of the first chapter books we had ever read. It captures the imagination. The kids were very excited when they heard there was to be a series of scream street made for the TV in the form of a kids program.

This is an excellent long term read for us and the kids love my silly voices and the characters come alive for the twins.

The website gives lots of information about the book that has been made into a tv program and this site gives more information about Tommy Donbavand and his 13 books about scream street.

Sadly he is suffering from cancer but has had the news he is in remission, he is documenting his journey with good humoured witty updates on a blog aptly entitled Tommy v Cancer.

100+ Free Educational Websites

As any home educator will know resources can become expensive both in time and money, the time it takes to find and discover new resources can take valuable hours away from the goal of education while the costs can explode if you do not keep a close eye on what you are spending.

For us we have very little to spend on educational resources but that does not mean that we have to put up with a second class education, we can have the best with the amount of free resources out there on the big world wide web, my moto since becoming a parent of home educators is 'work smarter not harder'.

Here is a list of 100+ Web sites we have found on our travels through the world wide web over the years we have been home educating and the list keeps expanding.

 Educational resource links for lesson plans and activity ideas in  subject category.

Languages

• 13 different languages to chose from Babbel
• French Freeway French  -(Project Happy Child)
• Duolingo  - Learn a language completely free
• Busuu - Free for basic learning and a paid option for more of an in-depth course
• Foreign Services Institute - Though the site is basic, bear in mind that these materials are high-quality, designed by professional linguists with the goal of learner fluency. 
• Memrise - Learn over 200 languages and FREE. This site uses ‘mems’, which are mnemonic flashcards that use your pre-existing knowledge to help remember new vocabulary.
• Futurelearn Languages & Culture - Learn a new language or teach one for free, your choice. 
• Language Exchange - Team up with a Pen Pal and learn a new language.
• Word 2 Word - An incredible array of languages to learn, this directory has everything you could ever want to learn a language of your choice.

Maths

• Great online Maths Games for 3-5 year olds Cool Maths Games
• Maths Activity ideas for pre school aged children Cool Maths For Parents.
• Kidzone Maths for pre school upwards great downloads Kids zone maths
• Bank Of England Educational Resources teaches about money and the history of money, lots of downloads for 9-11 year olds 
• Interactive Tutorials (MEP) Centre for innovation in mathematics teaching
• Math Planet - This is  USA site but as it says Maths is the same al over the world.
• Alison - A whole range of free learning
• Citizen Maths - Level 2 Maths (16 year olds) 
• Learn Direct - Free Maths qualifications from level 1, 2 and 3.
• GCF - Learn Maths for free tutorials like a workbook.
• Khan Academy - Maths for free done via video instruction
• Math Playground - 100's of Maths games to choose from 
• Softschools - Maths Games and online practice
• HSN - Free higher maths notes
• U R Brainy - Free maths resources for year 2 (age 6-7 years)
• Maths for kids - Free for age 6-11
• Maths Genie - Free GCSE and A Level revision
• 11 Plus Guide - Free Maths assessment for children in years 1-6.
• National 5 Maths - lots of resources here.
• Snappy Maths - Free worksheets
• Nuffield Foundation -  Applying Mathematics Process age 11-16
• Bowland Maths - For developing thinking, reasoning and problem-solving skills age 11-14
• MathPapa - Algebra help 
• Prodigy Maths - Free Math Curriculum

Art and crafts

• Some fabulous craft ideas with pictures and printables all kids network.
• Arts for different ages Art for small hands .
• Free Kids Crafts - lots of crafting ideas for most occasions.
• Allcrafts net - Loads of crafts including some great recipes for things like play dough 
• National Galley of Art - Interactive and fun
• Funny Colouring - These are for adults but we used them to find a paining and learn more about it by searching online and have a god go at colouring them in. There are a lot of famous coloring in paintings online specific for kids too.
• Tate on Khan academy - Tate has teamed up with khan academy for this fabulous resource learning about art.
• PPPST - Art history powerpoint presentations from art history to architecture.
• Jan Brett how to draw - some great how to draw videos from a childrens author.
• Hodgepodge - 50 free art lessons chalk pastels, acrylics and video art tutorials for all ages
• Dick Blick - Lesson Plans and video
• Draw Space -  Free lessons 
• Look and Learn - Childrens art competitions

English Grammar & Literature

• A great course on how to teach phonics if you have plenty of time to read Advanced phonics & Early Phonics 
• Oxford Owl -An award winning website with lots of ebooks
• Khan Academy Grammar - English Grammar Lessons
• Teach Your Monster To read - Free game to help your monster read
• Reading bear - 1200 Vocabulary items
• Learn English Today - Grammar and vocabulary lessons
• Grammar monster  - free English grammar lessons and tests
• Daily Grammar - Simplifying the subjects
• Future Learn - Literature
• National Novel Writing Month - Encouraging young writers to write
• The Literacy Shed - Films with comprehension questions to download 
• Braille Resources - What is brail etc.

Science & Nature

• To take part in some real science, hands on Zooniverse is a place to take part in real life science.

• Simple, safe and easy to follow science experiments and science projects can be achieved with everyday materials and recycled items found around your house.  Kids Science Experiments.
• ARKive is creating the ultimate multimedia guide to the world's endangered animals, plants and fungi. the very best films and photographs of the world's species into one centralised digital library, to create a unique audio-visual record of life on Earth, prioritising those species at most risk of extinction. ultimate multimedia guide to the world's endangered animals, plants and fungi.
• Woodland Trust Nature Detectives discover nature great links and downloads and activities for the kids.. Nature Trust.
• Grow your own potatoes sends out a potato kit to make potatoes and the site had educational downloads. Grow your own potatoes.
• Fabulous site on kids health topics  Kids health from Nemours.
• Science with some free stuff Science with me .
• Science in society BBSRC Science for the future
• Free Science Lessons - Free GCSE lessons 
• Bill Nye Science - Also has a you tube channel that my kids adore.
• Open Learn - Free science courses
• Sheppard Software - Games
• Science Museum - Science games
• Explain that Stuff - Free online book that explains....
• Shodor - Science education 
• Scitable By Nature - Science education
• Oh Eddie - Electrical Science
• Science for kids -  Fun experiments and science facts
• Kids.gov - Includes videos and games 
• NASA Kids Club - All things space
• Royal Society of Chemistry - 100's of free downloads and resources 
• Why Not Chem Eng - Lots of downloadables and resources for experiments 
• Practical action - Stem Challenges and awards 
• Tomorrows Engineers -  Activities to download

Culture & Religion

• Worldwide Culture Swap, worldwide cultural awareness for children to take part in. Culture swap.
• Education World - Introduction to religions
• Primary home work help - World religions
• Exploring Africa- An excellent curriculum lead exploration of Africa

Home Economics

• Cookery activities Kids Cooking .   
• Nationwide Education - Financial literacy for kids
• Veganuary - Vegan site with recipes
• Personal Finance Education Group - Lots of downloadable exercises on financial education
• Alison Courses - Financial Literacy Course
• Brain Pop UK - Financial Literacy Educational Games and activities
  

Engineering and Technology

• Learn to create computer code Code Academy 
• Learn to code and in return create code for non profits.Code Camp
• Scratch a creative online community
• Khan Academy Computing including computer sciences.
• Code Conquest - Coding for beginners
• Learn Touch Typing at the typing club
• Institute Of Engineering and Technology -  Resources for age 11-19 years
• James Dyson Foundation - Ideas and resources including the free loan of the engineering box

Music

• Free online piano lessons from Hoffman Academy. 
• Justin Guitar offers 100's of free guitar lessons 
• Zebra Keys - free piano lessons for ages 13 and up

Geography

• 3D Geography  - Resource sand ideas to teach fun Geography
• National Geographic For Kids - They also have a kids club 
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Multi Educational Topics

• Children University with regional centers covering most topics and places to visit and organised classes for 7 to 14 year olds (and 5 to 6 year olds with their families) Childrens University. 
• Donna Young a home educator sharing links and resources Donna Young
• Kids Know It Network with lots of educational free resources, fabulous site covering from astronomy to history and languages and has worksheets, videos, songs, games etc. Kids Know It Network
• STEM teaching and learning resources - Science, Maths, Technology, Engineering National Stem Centre
• Primary Resources free downloads and lesson plans etc..Primary resources
• Tess Largest network of teachers in the world offers teaching resources  Tess 
• Teaching ideas with downloads Teaching ideas
• Play Chess
• Core Knowledge - Curriculum help 
• Saylor Foundation - Offers free courses for everyone
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First Aid Education for Kids

• Red Cross First Aid Education for kids resources.

BFG Book of the week

The BFG, I totally forgot to add this one to the book of the week list at the time we did it.

What a fantastic book, when we did this book we attended a library book group and this was one of the books on the list.

After reading the book aloud to each other and at home, we then watched the film in a group.

For some added fun someone made some home made 'frobscottle', how to make it can be found here or anywhere else if you look on google or you could even make a recipe of your own.

We also took this opportunity to talk about manners and the subject of 'farting' but also covered some biology and found out why we do fart and why it is essential that we do this rather unpleasant thing in the first place.

We watched this great video on why people fart!. There lots of videos on farting explaining the science of farting for lots of different ages.

 There are some great BFG lesson plans and ideas on the Roald Dahl website  and even more if you investigate google.

Hansel & Gretel

This week we have chosen Hansel & Gretel by Neil Gaiman and Lorenzo Mattotti, I am so pleased that I chose this version by this author, you can find his web page here

I started to read the book to the kids and they where gripped from the start, I wanted to stop at an appropriate place to grab a coffee, but no.. the kids insisted I continue right to the end.

We normally take turns reading aloud but I was so transfixed on watching the kids eyes grow like wide saucers I decided to keep going myself, their reaction to the book was beautiful to watch, they where so engrossed in the story.

The book also has some beautiful illustrations throughout which the kids enjoyed looking at and discussing the details.

 This book was actually a bonus book which accompanied another Neil Gaiman book The Sleeper and The spindle which I purchased off ebay, the seller brought it to my attention and I decided to buy it, at £1, certainly I could not grumble, I am so glad I did, we would have missed literary treat if I had decided not to buy it.

Over the week we then discussed storylines, such as the characters and what made them unique and the settings (plot) the language used, we also watched the Opera Hansel and Gretel and the old film Hansel and Gretel

This has been a really nice book to cover, the story is dark but has a few demonstrable points to it, other than demonstrating to the kids of the many different ways a story can be told but also gives them some moral lessons too.

Breakdowns and concerts.

It has been a busy week particularly with work where I have picked up a client that has lots of vintage items that she wanted selling.

My stock room has just been overhauled with new shelving and I thought I had lots of space spare until the vintage treasure trove arrived, I have spent many many hours listing these beautiful items and researching their value and slowly getting through the listing process, a quarter of the haul is listed so I have a long way to go before I manage to get through the lot.

In between listing we managed to get to a birthday party we where invited to in Blackpool which was an adventure in itself as we managed to pick up a flat tyre on the motorway on our way there, my trusty Touran does not have a spare tyre so we had to call out the rescue man who was fantastic with the kids, he even let Oliver lift the car down from the ramp, Oliver has been talking about breakdown rescue for quite a while so it seems he has experienced a life long goal of finding out what a roadside rescue man does, and to top it if he got to lower the car from the ramp, Oliver was so suitably impressed he promised the man he would put him in his book that he is currently writing.

They had a lot of fun on the verge too, running amongst the trees and spotting strange insects including one that looked like a worm with purple stripes...

Although we where very late for the party the kids had great fun at the Sandcastle waterpark and we spent all afternoon splashing around, what a great place, I cannot believe it has taken me so long to get there, we will definitely be going back.

We also managed to get some tickets to see Watoto Childrens Choir at Kings Church in Bolton

What a fabulous concert, those kids are brilliant, so lively and such beautiful voices, they shared  their stories and wowed the audience. The back story of Watoto is an inspirational one, whether you are religious or not it fills you with hope and is a story that demonstrates adversity can be overcome with a little will and a helping hand.

Most of the children have been orphaned due to war and HIV and other disease, the Ugandan Watoto village raises funds by sponsorship of the children and various other fund raising events, the choir being one of them.

The twins have definitely been inspired by the concert, they have listened to the CD non stop all week and have asked for bible stories, so we have started on the Candle Bible Stories that they had given to them when they where christened, they already know a lot of the stories in the bible and enjoyed going over some of the stories they already know and they raised a lot of questions.

Kings church itself is a fabulous church, very lively and very friendly, it is a shame we do not live closer, I would have made it my regular haunt, sadly I have never found anything with the same amount of life in my area and I tend to find myself yawning by the end of session so I gave up a long while ago.

Do you need washing?

I have nothing much to report after a few days of full on work to do so I thought I would leave you with this...

Dinsaurs from Top to Bottom

Today was a very exciting day, we had a trip to Daresbury Laboratory in Warrington, the place is a fascinating place and is renowned for its world leading scientific research in fields such as accelerator science, bio-medicine, physics, chemistry, materials, engineering and computational science. 

We where lucky enough to get tickets for the Dinosaurs from Top to Bottom Lecture presented by Mike Walley, great lecture, Oliver took part in being the biggest baddest T-Rex and asked his questions, the kids really enjoyed it.

The lecture was audience participation based so all the kids really got stuck in volunteering themselves to demonstrate the evolution of the T-Rex through to Dinosaur digestion.

Mike Walley did a great job of sharing the news of great new discoveries in the dinosaur world, he has great experience of delivering dinosaur workshops and his experience shines through.

His websites with details of his palaeontology and everything dinosaur has some great download resources.

Daresbury has an open day on 9th July so that is something else for us to pop in our calender, lots of science stuff to see and do on that day......

Udemy Courses

I have just discovered Udemy Online Courses, I have heard of Udemy on a few occasions lately and finally got round to checking them out as they have a 20% discount on at the moment.

I have to say I am blown away with the amount of courses that you can take and again video based which is great for us.

Some of the courses are free and some are paid, I have my eye on a few music courses for Olivia to try out, these will help her greatly in finding a central place for her self taught music lessons.

They have both been asking for a camera too, which I thought may be something I might do for their birthday coming up, I use a camera daily for my work and also just snapping away at the kids and their daily doings and I am a great lover of photography, I noticed a couple of photography courses I like the look of that we can all do together just for the fun of it really.

I am pretty pleased I found Udemy, Discover For yourself Udemy's latest courses! it looks like we will be spending quite a bit of time there.

Lego, Lego, Lego....

One thing we use a lot of in this house is Lego... I am forever standing on bits of bricks lying around on the floor, the kids play with Lego daily.

Last year we received the Lego Story Starter Pack and it had a great literacy curriculum to go with it, Lego Education have a fantastic array of educational resources to use with their Lego, you can find out more about that here from their Website...

They also have a FREE Lego Magazine, which we receive, Oliver has no interest and leaves Lego to Oliver so he has claimed the magazine for himself, he really enjoys it's arrival.

Oliver and Olivia have decided they want to create a Lego movie, this will be their first adventure into stop motion videos. They love making videos so I have set them a task where they have to make up a script and them present the finished thing. 

This is another task in working together as a team which they usually take on with ease, they fall into the dynamics and spread out their strengths and weakness, but as they are twins it is like a duck takes to water when it comes to working together for those two, thick as thieves they are...ha ha..

Hopefully I will update this post in the near future with their finished film....

Link Find of the month March 2016

Basic Algebra - http://www.mathpapa.com/algebra-lessons/

Exploring Africa http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/

Crash Course Kids https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCONtPx56PSebXJOxbFv-2jQ

Open 2 Study  https://www.open2study.com/

Code Warriors  http://www.codewarriorsgame.com/kai-web-kai

Look and Learn Childrens Art Competition  http://art.lookandlearn.com/

BREAKING NEWS!!!!...

The news today blew me away, I  had an inbox this morning from Conquer Maths that states...

 Boffins recalculate Pi to 3.37

They go on to say,  lengthy study by scientists at the Orbicular Research Institute at the University of Hull has just concluded that Pi is no longer 3.142 (3 d.p.).

The study, which has taken into account such factors as rotational speed of the Earth, the steady geomagnetic reversal of Earth and melting polar ice caps means that maths text books around the globe will need to be rewritten.

Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan announced this morning that the changes will be implemented into the National Curriculum from next September.

ConquerMaths will of course be modifying its lessons to comply with the new rules in time for the change.

Pi: 3.14 not any more!

So does this mean we get more Pizza for our money?

The short answer is ‘Yes’! Before this announcement, if you purchased a 12” pizza, you could expect around 113 square inches of pizza. Under the new rules, pizza companies will need to give you a surface area of 121 square inches, a gain of 8 square inches!

A pizza, yesterday

What else will change?

It’ll take a little longer to fly around the world. It currently takes around 8 hours to fly from London to New York. The changes to Pi mean that this journey is expected to increase by around half an hour.

Environmentalists are concerned that the increased fuel use could negate many green initiatives. Brian Dogood from Greenpeas said: “In this current climate where we’re trying to reduce carbon emissions, it seems ludicrous that the government should entertain such a radical change which will further deplete our fossil fuel resources as well as clog the sky with dirt and chemtrails.”

What do you think?

I am torn… you can’t argue with maths or physics but does that make this decision right? Share your comments with us!....