Ignite the Spark of Classical Music

I guarantee there will be a piece of music they will fall in love with - you just have to keep looking for that first spark that excites them... 

Even if it's just movie themes like Jaws, or from adverts [Hall of the Mountain King - Alton Towers, Flower Duet ~ British Airways for eg], or even the beautiful O Fortuna [Carmina Burana ] from X Factor. Or for girls ~ Barbie Swan Lake/Nutcracker animations, for boys James Bond themes. Everyone will know something from Disney's Fantasia, or Saint Saens' Carnival of the Animals. Ignite that spark people!!! 

grin emoticon Best of all get along to a concert. Its a whole lot more exciting than watching YouTube.

Expose Children To Classical Music Whether They Like It Or Not  says Nicola Benedetti

Then do some SQUILT with your children.

 What is squilt? Check out this link. 

 It is a method designed by a HE mother to encourage children to listen quietly to music and to jot down how it makes them feel, dynamics, tempo, and instruments heard.  Simple!

The whole package has a small charge though some elements are free, but we just use the free Squilt worksheets and do our own thing.

Follow this with reading up, and some notebooking/worksheets about composers, maybe take a look at the whole era of the time, and the country he is from, and you have yourself a unit study.  See 'Our Favourite Books' tab for help in choosing resources. 

Free Worksheets

What is Notebooking?

Some Music to Help You On Your Way

Using Gardening As An Educational Tool (Pun intended)

Its been a loooong winter here. Not so much low temperatures, but damp and windy. Crisp frost enables you to wrap up warm and go see the beautiful outdoors, all sprinkled in a sugar coating, but the wind and rain - not so good.

In anticipation of Spring we are planning our fun veggie patch.

Here's the children's brief for this year -

M & M’s Gardening Project Feb 2015

Find out the last date of frost for our area  -  gardenfocused.co.uk

Work out a planting schedule for the seeds that you have chosen, bearing in mind the last frost date.   Print off a blank calendar to show this. 

Use the on-line tool to make a planner for the raised beds. — gardeners.com

    Find out about organic fertilizers that we can use.  

Make a vocabulary list of new words

    Recycle pots, newspapers (use pot maker) and egg boxes into seedling containers.

    Make a plan of the whole garden on graph paper, with room for all the elements that you want to have. Stride out the garden and make an accurate scale plan.

Plan out your Pizza Patch on  paper, then say how you will mark it out in the garden.

Paint the ‘name stones’ of your plants 

When the time is right, set out a ‘Tee-pea’ of bamboo.

Make notes and keep a weekly growing diary, recording  insects that come into your garden.

HAPPY PLANTING!!!

Books::-

Grow it Eat it

Roots, Shoots, Buckets, and Boots

New Year, New Book

''Rather than filling our child’s educational plate and saying, “Eat up. Trust me. This is what you need,” we hand them the menu and say, “Order something that looks good to you.”  

Where have we been since October's post? Christmas extra-curriculum activities and social events mean that spare time has not been available in too much excess. But that's what we love, isn't it? Or we wouldn't be ''the wizards'' we are, at ''conjuring up learning experiences.''

Then there's the post Christmas period of mellowing into an existence, less galvanic, and more human, after being overwrought with excitement and anticipation... and that's just mum! 

So with a ginormous cup of coffee, I flopped into the comfy old armchair, resolving to become engrossed in a Christmas present I was given - a book, written by author Lori Pickert. Project ~Based Homeschooling. This is an approach that we slid into by accident rather than by design, when writing for writing's sake was taking it's toll and left each of us feeling like the hamster in it's perpetual wheel, and asking ''What for??' 
I was thrilled that this method of 'ours' was recognised and even had a name, and someone far more qualified and reputable than me, was flying the flag for Delight Lead Learning!
 Hurrah!!

Choir concerts and extra rehearsals, parties, Nativities, plays, and home made present making days, employed us fully throughout the Christmastime. 

Decorating the community village tree

Making Christmas cake gifts

Pinterest

I want to quickly introduce Pinterest. Its become a great resource for all things. 

Take a peek My Pinterest Boards here.

Pins are visual bookmarks for useful things that you find anywhere around the web. Just 'pin' it to your chosen subject board for later use. 

Bee Amazing

My children have always had an infatuation with watching science and nature programmes.  Essentially they grasp knowledge by the experience. 

Recently it was National Insect Week here in Britain, and the good old BBC had been showing a programme about beekeeping. This sparked a passionate engrossment with bees. And a long home school project...

Querying our local Entomology Group, I found local Green Project, whereby members of the community can help to rear fruit and vegetables and take home the harvest. The managing director of the project, kept bees! It really is a small world after all, and happened, to turn out to be a friend of a friend who agreed for my family for a closer look-see.

We observed a bee check, where the whole hive's health is monitored. Its important to know that the queen is there, first and foremost, and that she is laying. Checking for disease and that there is enough room for the brood as well as that the bees are producing honey. To be involved in this was the highlight of our school year! By observing the bees' activity in the hive and have their behaviour pointed out to us, the children learned far more than from a book or TV show. The beekeeper wants to put the girls forward for Young Bee Keeper of the Year! What a privilege! 

We would like very much to have our own apiary one day... For now, we have offered to adopt a nest from environmentally friendly pest control company, who relocate bees nests.

Keeping Bees - Vivian Head

Home Run - Summer Term

Apologies for the absence of posts over June. We had such a wet May, that once the clouds cleared, we downed tools and went to chase the sun.

Wonderful hot days on the beach, made way for pleasant evening bike rides. We have to take the warmer, drier days when we can, British weather is known the world over for being changeable and often wet, I'm sure!

We have a flower farm by our neck of the woods. They make essential oils and wonderful soaps and bath salts.

We harvested the lavender, having waited for the right weather for it to be done

We took a lovely little impromptu educational trip for the girls one sunny morning. Chatting to the distillery guy and the pharmacist guys, who were only too happy to help and stop work for an informative chat and show us how the oil is produced with frankincense and myrrh from Somalia. 

Back home researching where myrrh and frankincense comes from 

They gave us some pieces of myrrh and frankincense. Love fun days like this when everything falls into place and the family can make memories and be educated at the same time. They have asked us back as a HEd group to help with the harvesting next week. We are looking forward to being able to be a part of that! 

Cream teas, coconut shires, picnics, and petting zoos at the village fete made us realise that Summer is actually just around the corner. It has felt out of reach for many, many months.
At this time of year, as passionate a homeschooling mum as I am, I inevitably look forward to storing away the workbooks and winding down till September, and taking on a leisurely pace without deadlines.

 Nature diaries, maybe a little notebooking, a Summer reading list, 'brushing up' on our art techniques, and a plethora of days out will take us through the holidays.

Using Literature for Language Arts

Living books, Charlotte Mason called them...

Superb, satisfying pieces of literature that have stood the test of time over decades, to still thrill and enlighten the reader generations on. Except now we can sometimes use these works as historical fiction, to show us attitudes, dress codes, and problems of the day. Feelings and emotions missing from textbooks. There is a distinct connection between literature and social studies. 

We visited a stately home where we were able to dress up in costumes. They had filmed Pride and Prejudice here.

How do we use literature to benefit our family homeschool?

Firstly by reading aloud to the children, books like Beatrix Potter, who needs no introduction, (See the page on Unit Studies) and classic children's poems by poets such as Christina Rossetti, Mary Howitt, Alfred Noyes, and TS Elliot. In our family, these have well stood the test of time and are in the hearts today of our grown children. Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories are nice to read aloud.

Visiting a stately home, the girls were able to act in a Shakespeare play

The girls' Dickens project

Then there are some wonderfully illustrated, but also unabridged versions (which may be of importance to some families ) of the classics such as Secret Garden, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Chronicles of Narnia to introduce the child to in due time.

Shakespeare's works are available for all ages and abilities, some are very child-friendly and colourful and we have found them to be the perfect introduction. (see the Shakespeare post)

Talk on William Wordsworth at the local museum

We can't talk about classics without mentioning Dickens. The epitome of the classic novelist.  Again available in most key stages to suit age and ability. Good study guides are also available. 

Such a lot of literature is available for free online nowadays, and study guides too. Sparknotes is a particularly definitive list: Sparknotes

We visited Jamaica Inn

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Shakespeare for Children

Oliver Twist for Young Readers

Spider and the Fly

By Sun and Candlelight - Compilation of poems

The Highwayman - Illustrations may upset younger children in this edition

Aesops Fables with Scripture References

Gift of the Magi - Lovely illustrated version

Sense and Sensibility - Abridged - There is a workbook available to accompany this book

We went to see Alice in Wonderland ballet

There are modern classics that you may want to explore, such as Goodnight Mr Tom, Number the Stars, or Tom's Midnight Garden. All have good guides to accompany them. For reading aloud to children, the iconic Enid Blyton always uses good English, though I have yet to discover a study guide. (wink) Paddington Bear is still special in my heart from hearing it read as a child. The Shoe stories by Noel Stretfield or Phoenix and the Carpet, Bedknob and Broomsticks, Five Children and It, Mary Poppins, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, or Charlotte's Web are all family favourites. Robin Hood, and Anne Frank's Diary are even available in cartoon style.

Being Poldark fans we made a trip to the mines

The opening scene in  the Poldark series

Number the Stars Guide     

There are many worthy literacy guides for various key stage levels. These may differ in style, so one may actually be the piece of fiction that will give a glossary for each page (The writing tends to be large print and maybe abridged for the child's confidence. I have never found abridged versions to be detrimental to progressing to the unabridged version later on, quite the opposite. It can light a spark) to the full play, with study guide, character analysis and historical context. 

Importance of Being Earnest  - Full play and summary guide

Treasure Island - younger children vocabulary building version

CGP Guide Macbeth KS3

CGP GCSE Twelfth Night

We have found good text books that include literature excerpts for study.

This is the project the girls did on Narnia. We even made Turkish Delight

Learning Language Arts Through Literature, available by grade, is a year long Christian program, available in the UK from Christian home education suppliers Ichthus, Rainbow and Conquest. (links available on the resources post) 

Secular text books can be useful too. We have found many a living book excerpt. 

Letts Literacy Guide Yr 4 - uses exerts for comprehension. Collins does a similar one called
Focus

Literacy World Essential Texts Stage 3 - available with Teachers Edition Worksheets and Student Skills Book

Have lots of fun discovering your family favourites!