ofamily learning together

My 5 Top 2018 Finds

Posted on December 11, 2018 by ofamily

Last Year I wrote a 5 Favourite New home-ed Items (2017) post and lots of readers really liked seeing which were my absolute favourites so I thought I would write another one for 2018. This post is NOT sponsored – it is a combination of items I have bought and have been given. So here is my Top 5 for 2018…………….

For those of you who read the posts regularly my first pick is not going to be a big surprise – It has to be the How To Train Your Dragon Collection – 10 Books. Out of all the resources I bought the kids and the ones we were given, this set of fictional stories sparked the most learning and the kids interest just did not die down, book after book my two loved the antics and adventures of these very colorful characters. As far as good fictional stories go I really rate these books because the author does not shy away from using unusual, descriptive words and she paints such vivid pictures with her words. But these books did not ONLY serve as brilliant fictional reading books these stories have inspired so many of our learning activities throughout the year. The fascination with Vikings and their traditions has resuted in the kids searching for other fictional Viking stories to read (we recommend this one Riddle of the Runes ) but they have also learnt a lot about the Real Vikings. The stories inspired art and crafts – like our Viking Name necklaces and TinFoil Longships, the number of dragons that have been created both in drawings and written about has been amazing and they were instrumental in our current map craze .

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The one issue I have with these books is what do I follow-up with ? Really I am stuck !! I am still searching for another set that is going to be such an amazing springboard for my kids and I just cannot find anything.

Staying with books my 2nd great find this year has been the use of the Historical BIG CAT readers as a starting point for our History learning. My daughter LOVES History but my son is, well, not so keen, well not unless I find the right angle to get him into a topic. What I realized this year was using a good quality reader like the Collins BIG CAT books for his History meant he was getting these high quality bite-sized sessions, so they were not overwhelming him and putting him off. But the books actually encouraged him and he would often want to then go and explore what we had read about in further detail. These little readers have been an answer to my History dilemma of still covering the same topics with one child who loves History and another who is a bit more resistant to the subject. For us it really has been about finding the right resources for him that spark his interest and then he ends up loving the History as much as his older sister. (Examples of some of the BIG CAT readers we have used are here – Tutankhamun, The Life and Times of William Shakespeare, Victorian Railways, Mary Anning)

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My third big find was buying a family years membership to the Wonderlab at the Science Museum in London. My son has a naturally interest in Engineering type projects and is current fascinated by Space but his sister has often struggled with our Science outings as she finds the Science venues we go to very overwhelming. From a sensory point of view the Science Museum has always been the one Museum that she really struggles in which means we have learnt to go there for short sessions. For this reason I have kept putting off buying a ticket for the Wonderlab because I was worried she would be totally overwhelmed and it would be a total wast of money. But this year we bought an annual ticket and we just went for it.

When we first arrived at 1pm (this time was recommended because of the school groups) we still found it very busy and she really struggled, I had to find her a quiet spot and help her calm down. But then we went into watch a show – which was brilliant and by the time we came out it had calmed down and she was a lot happier. The biggest hit with her was the Gas Bar – she loved watching them work with chemicals, mixing and seeing the reactions. (I also must add that when we went to watch the show which had loud bangs in it, the staff were very quick to hand out ear defenders and before each loud bang they always gave us warning so the kids were prepared – from a sensory mom point of view I was very impressed with this.)

We still need to do manage the wonderlab (ie the time we arrive etc) but by buying a years membership we can do just that we can go as often as we like and just go in the quieter periods. (If you are visiting the Museums in London we highly recommend that you go the V&A Museum for a picnic lunch – they have a stunning courtyard with a water feature that the kids can wade in – it is one of our warmer weather favourites and it is perfect to combine with a trip to the Science Museum or Natural History Museum).

One warning about the Science Museum the shop downstairs is amazing and it is very hard to walk through without wanting to buy some incredible science goodies for the kids.

The fourth item was one of the kids Christmas presents last year although it kind of feels like it was my Christmas present aswell – their climbing fame from CostCo. This climbing fame has been brilliant. In the warmer months the kids are out in our garden every day and they spend ages climbing and playing games in, on and around the climbing frame (we discovered that if you add some sheets to the climbing frame it makes a great den). The reason why I said it feels like it was a present for me is because of the time it has given me. I have been trying to do more of my own activities – like writing some guest posts at Activity Village or my accountancy work, and having this climbing frame in our garden has given me a LOT MORE extra time to spend on my extra projects.

My fifth one has to be our Insect Lore. Wow. This was incredible. We did both the Butterflies and the Stick Insects this year and the whole family loved it. We are definitely going to do it again next year.

Disclosure – As I mentioned above this is NOT a sponsored post in any shape. If I had to choose our Top 5 items from the past 12 months this would be them. I bought the How to Train Your Dragon book set from the Bookpeople, I bought the Wonderlab membership, the Climbing Frame and the Insect Lore. We were given the BIG CAT readers by Harper Collins and they have really been one of our favourite new resources over the past 12 months. I was under no obligation to include any of these items in my list.

Also I did not have a nice clear photo of the Chemistry Bar so I emailed the Science Museum and they kindly the sent the photo that I have included.

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged children's book, educational books, educational resources, History, home ed, home education, homeschooling, science | 1 Comment

Mary Anning

Posted on December 9, 2018 by ofamily

A few years ago we went to a Dinosaur talk mainly so my kids could meet Nigel Marven (which they did and my son thought he was amazing) but while we were there we also listened to a talk about the Fossil Lady (ie Mary Anning) and I was totally fascinated. So with my daughter’s desire to learn more about famous Historical Women I thought she might be someone interesting for us to investigate. I started searching for resources on Mary Anning and was thrilled when I discovered that Collins had a BIG CAT reader Mary Anning Fossil Hunter: Band 17/Diamond (Collins Big Cat) (the historical BIG CAT readers have ALL been very popular in our house). So I requested a review copy and once again it did not disappoint.

The book itself is well written, it tells the story of Mary Anning’s life from her childhood through to her legacy but it is not just about Mary Anning they include a lot more in the book. I like the way they include lots of background information which sets the scene and gives a good insight into her lifestyle – they talk about how her family was Dissenters and the impact that had on the family, they explain the area where she lived with the cliffs and the harbour which made fossil hunting so popular. These background bits help the kids to understand more about her life. We also really liked that they included some fossil facts in the book together with a short explanation of the other people mentioned.

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And even though we have read a lot about dinosaurs in the past both my kids loved learning about how the discoveries were made and how she had to piece the different pieces together to create a skeleton. You also realize how much she really discovered, it was not just ONE fossil, she discovered multiple fossils and she did not just uncover the fossils, she studied them and was instrumental in a lot of the understanding about how they fit together and what some of the fossils actually were.

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One of the points that come across very clearly in the book is how she was never given credit for her work for the simple reason that she was female. My son kept reading sections and they would come to me and say, “another man reported her findings and never mentioned she was the person responsible for the discovery.” It was a big eye-opener for him and something that really made an impact.

The other thing that thing that came across strongly was how they would have to draw the skeletons to keep a record of what they had discovered. And they loved the fact that Henry La Beche created a picture of how he thought the dinosaurs would look – this really appealed to mine because the picture although very famous is far from perfect.

And this seemed to really encourage both of the kids to draw their own dinosaur skeletons and dinosaur pictures.

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Both my kids were really inspired by this story. And I now have a mountain of dinosaur pictures which are “artifacts” so need to be stored very carefully. My son found that if he drew an outline of a dinosaur and then filled in its skeleton it was a lot easier than just trying to draw its skeleton. So he informed me he needed to practice some dinosaur drawing. We found lots of great Dinosaur drawing pages on Activity Village – they have a great Learn to Draw Dinosaur section, as well as grid copy pages and these complete the Dinosaur puzzle pictures.

We also found some great Mary Anning pages on the Activity Village website.

There is a wide selection of pages that you can choose from including a comprehension and lots of writing pages But I think my daughter’s favourites were the Mary Anning interview worksheet – she really like the idea of being able to have a chat to Mary Anning and ask her about how she managed to achieve so much –

and the Booklet – she loves these little booklets and has quite a collection of different ones.

The Mary Anning book was given to us by Collins but you can get it from Amazon – Mary Anning Fossil Hunter: Band 17/Diamond (Collins Big Cat)

The Mary Anning and Dinosaur worksheets are all from Activity Village and part of their paid for subscription which is around £10 a year

I do include Affiliate links. If you follow an affiliate link and go on to purchase that product, I will be paid a very small commission, however your cost will remain the same. I only include affiliate links for products that we use and love.

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged activity village, children's history, Dinosaur fossils, home ed, home education, homeschooling, Mary Anning | 3 Comments

Christmas lanterns from Twinkl

Posted on December 6, 2018 by ofamily

My kids love displaying decorations on our window ledges. There is just something about Christmas that makes them want to full up all the window space with Christmas decorations. This year we spotted the Christmas Lanterns on the Twinkl Resources website and thought they would make a good addition to our Christmas window decorations. They have two different versions on the website (we used both) – the Christmas Nativity Mindfulness Lantern and the Simple 3D Traditional Christmas Lantern. Both Lanterns are part of their paid for Classic Collection.

The kids started off with colouring in the Nativity mindfulness Lanterns. When my son (who is 7) first saw the colouring he did comment that it was going to take him ages because it was detailed and the pictures were quite small, but once he got started he realized it was not that difficult and he finished his lantern in one go.

The kids were also keen to create their own versions of the lanterns. So we printed out a few copies of the Simple 3D lantern template and then I also printed out some of the Nativity Story Stone images. The story stone images are not an exact fit for the lantern but it is very close and both of mine did not mind that a few of the images slightly overlapped the border of the lantern.

In fact my son liked the fact that he could add 3 wise men to his lantern.

The kids also wanted to include a star and I remembered a star image included in these Christmas Colouring Pages – I printed our star image at 20% to get the correct size for the lantern. And I must admit I really liked their idea of combining the star image with some of the story stone images.

My son also wanted to try one lantern with something hanging in the middle. This was slightly more tricky but it worked. We cut out the white sections of the Simple 3D lantern and then stuck all the sides together to get our lantern. Then he cut out and coloured in one of the star images (coloured it on both sides) and we managed to hang in inside the lantern with a bit of sellotape – (I did have to help him with this).

But he really loves the end result.

And I must say all of our Lanterns really do look good.

Disclosure: Twinkl Resources have given us free access to their website so we can use their resources and share our favourites with you. All Links and References to the subscription packages are correct at the time of me writing this post.

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Posted in Art and Craft Ideas | Tagged children's craft, Christmas, Christmas activity, home ed, home education, homeschooling, Nativity, Twinkl | 1 Comment

Discover Our Solar System Book

Posted on December 4, 2018 by ofamily

After our amazing trip to the Planetarium over the summer my son has become very interested in learning about our solar system and beyond. He likes discovering facts about the different planets, how they move, what makes them similar and what makes them unique. Unfortunately we do not have a good selection of books on the topic and our local library has not really been able to provide us with suitable material (either too basic or way tooo complex). So I was excited when I saw that Button Books had a new book out called Discover Our Solar System. I saw a few photos and I was very interested so I requested a review copy.

The book arrived and my son loved it. It is set out in a really easy reading format yet it contains lots of interesting bits of information. He really likes the two page spread for each planet.

And the What’s inside bit at the bottom of page was a massive hit with him. At our talk at the planetarium they had mentioned the Rocky Midgets and the Gas Giants so we liked that he could now see a more detailed breakdown of how each planet is made up.

And yes we have paged through and compared planet after planet to see the different layers of each planet. (I must be admit I find this very useful as I can quickly check back to the diagrams when he is talking about the differences).

They also included lots of other interesting bits of information like the different moons – again my son really liked this as he is fascinated by the different moons and how many moons each planet has. And the sections on how moons and rings etc got their names has been discussed in such detail in our house.

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And although we have mostly been reading and re-reading the sections about the different planets the book contains more.

The book starts with the Big Bang and some history about how the Solar System was discovered. Then onto the Sun and the planets in our Solar System. After Neptune it goes onto the Dwarf planets, Asteroids, The Space Race (I found this very useful), bits about Space Rockets and Space exploration today.

For our family this book has been a great addition to our limited space knowledge and we have found it very informative and interesting. It definitely filled the gap that we needed – a book that was not too basic yet not too complicated for my eight year old (and his mom) to understand.

Disclosure : As I mentioned above this book was sent to me by the Publishers. All opinions expressed are that of my son and myself.

You can buy this book from Amazon here – Discover our Solar System

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged children's book, educational books, home ed, home education, homeschooling, Science books, solar system, Space | 1 Comment

Fun Christmas Cone People

Posted on November 30, 2018 by ofamily

The past week we have all been very slowly recovering some flu and have not done a lot of our usual activities, instead the kids have started with all their Christmas crafts. One of the ones we worked on this past week were these lovely Christmas Cone people from the Mrs Mactivity site.

You print the template out and then the kids do the colouring, cutting and sticking so it was the prefect starter Christmas craft for us as we did not need to venture out and buy anything extra.

One of the things I really liked about this set is the flexibility it gave the kids. Each cone person / cone toy comes with its own set of extra “add ons”. In the picture below my daughter is working on the angel and you can see the main angel cone and then there is a second page with extra wings, a halo and arms.

So the kids could just stick to the main cone if they wanted or they can add these extra bits on.

And the kids don’t need to add all the items if they don’t want too. My son created 2 elves (using the same template) but he did not add all the same items to both elves and he choose to cut part of the top off one of the elves. So even though it is the exact same template he did end up with a different effect.

The angel and the elves were our favourites but the set also includes a sweet Father Christmas and a gingerbread man.

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In the colder months the kids often come and sit in the kitchen while I am baking or cooking and work on an arty/ crafty activity. And these are perfect for that because they can colour and chat away while I am cooking. So I have also printed out the lovely Nativity set and I am leaving it in our Christmas crafting pile for when the kids want something to do.

Disclosure – both sets I have mentioned are part of the Mrs Mactivity subscription package – they come in a colour and black and white version – which is currently just under £10 a year. All links and references to external sites are correct at the time of me writing this post.