Having fun writing poems

Posted on October 11, 2018 by ofamily

We are making a big effort to do more writing but we are trying really hard to find fun ways to work on the writing.  My oldest has gotten into writing book summaries for all the books she reads and even character descriptions of the main characters (the ones she likes) but my youngest is never really keen to try that.

I have noticed that he loves creating little rhymes and changing the words of songs so I thought possibly some poems might be something fun to do with him.  Now I must be upfront about something, as much as we read (and we do read lots) we don’t really do lots of poetry, at all.  So I decided to start with some Acrostic Poems – poems where the first letter of each line spells out a word.  Acrostic poems can rhyme but they don’t have to so I hoped it would be a good starting point for us.

I printed out a few templates from Activity Village and the kids honestly jumped right in. My son started with a spider poem – he loves spiders – he calls them the king of creepy crawlies, so it was a great starting point for him.

Writing a spider Acrostic poem using the spider template from Activity Village

While he was busy with his spider poem his sister had a go at a Rainbow Acrostic poem.

writing a Rainbow Acrostic poem using the a rainbow page from Activity Village

I actually think the Rainbow Acrostic poem is a brilliant one to start with.  It seems to naturally lend itself to a writing activity as the kids can write about all the different colours of the rainbow, how it appears after rain, even the gold at the end if they wanted.  Both of mine seemed to really enjoy the rainbow one and had so many ideas of things they could include.

Writing a Rainbow Acrostic Poem

With this poem writing – I was really just wanting to encourage a fun writing activity so I did not make a deal about handwriting, punctuation with my youngest as I know that would just put him off.  I really am just wanting to get him writing more and writing in a fun way that he enjoys.

Rainbow Acrostic Poem written using the pages from the Activity Village website

The kids also had a go at writing an Autumn one.

Autumn Acrostic Poem using a page downloaded from the Activity Village website

I really did not know what to expect when I suggested we try writing some Acrostic Poems but both my kids seem to really enjoy the idea and sat for well over an hour creating multiple poems.  My youngest is keen to try a few more of the animal ones and apparently this time he wants to see if he can introduce some rhyming.

The pages that we used are these ones

Spider Acrostic Poem

Rainbow Acrostic Poem

Autumn Acrostic Poem

Important to Note – we did have a bowl of popcorn on the kitchen table that the kids were snacking on while writing their poems – my son tells me this is necessary for good poem writing.  And I must admit after the lovely afternoon we had I am definitely going to put out more popcorn next time we try to write poems.

writing Acrostic poems while eating popcorn

Update this has become one of my son’s favourite writing activities he is loving all the animal poem templates

Snake Acrostic Poem from Activity Village

Three of his favourites are –

Snake Poem

Crocodile Poem

Meerkat Poem

Acrostic Poem Templates from Activity Village. A fun way to encourage writing.

 

 

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Side-steps are Good

Posted on October 10, 2018 by ofamily

I often worry are we doing enough ?  Are the kids making enough progress / improvement?  Sometimes it feels like instead of 3 steps forward 1 step back it is 5 steps in a totally random different direction that has no bearing on where I wanted us to go.  I call those side-steps.

Since we have started down the home-ed path I have come to see time and time again that often a step to the side is just as good as a forward step.  A step to the side, a step down a different route is not a backward step.  It is movement.  And yes a side-step is normally always unplanned on my side and most of the time (100% of the time) a side-step is made by one of the kids, as they branch off into a new interest.  Any movement that the kids are making, any progress is always actually a forward step for the simple reason that they are not standing still, they are directing their own learning.

One of the most significant things that I remember from my entire schooling career was a talk with a guidance counselor.  She said when you come to a decision in life and you have 2 options.  What is better –  to stand still, worrying about which is the correct path and to not do anything because you are so worried you are going to take the incorrect route or just go for it.  And what is the worst that can happen – you realize you choose the wrong path and then make changes to correct it.  But you if never try, if you just stand still with worry you will never get anywhere, you will never learn anything.

It is something that really spoke to me.  I would much rather make a wrong choice than let my whole life go past because I am too scared to choose.  And it is something that I have chosen to apply to our home-ed life.  Sometimes we take the “scenic route” to get there but at least we are still moving, we are always learning.  Sometimes we end up learning about something that is not considered part of  traditional kids education, sometimes we take what must seem to outsiders looking in a very BIG side-step down a strange path.  But if those side steps are following the kids interests then they are learning.

My son spent ages looking at airport designs, what the signs on the run-ways mean, learning all about different planes – and yes I totally admit that would not be what some people would consider an educational topic.  But while he has been doing all of this he has read LOADS, he has created all kinds of aeroplanes, even spoken about a business model for owning his own aeroplane business and how he would cost seats outs, maths, measurement, drawing and so much more.  Yes a lot of people would see this as a side-step because it is not part of the national curriculum.  But Side-steps like this are normally when my kids learn the most and when I look back those side steps are actually MASSIVE steps forward.

So instead of standing still worrying that we are not ticking all the correct boxes and doing everything everyone else thinks we should be doing, we are going on our side-steps, our scenic routes, enjoying learning about topics that the kids find interesting.

 

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Free Measurement Dominoes

Posted on October 6, 2018 by ofamily

We have been talking quite a bit about metric units for measuring length and how you convert from mm to m, cm to m or mm to cm. We did lots of hands on examples where the kids walked around the house and measured items in cm and then mm but I still wanted to find a way to practice moving between cm, mm and m.  Both my kids love using Maths dominoes so I had a quick look to see if  I could find something useful on the internet.  But after a quick search I could not find what I wanted and I did not feel like spending ages searching so instead I decided I would try to create some of our own dominoes.

Measurement Dominoes. Free to download in either black or colour

Nothing fancy but just a way for the kids to practice and hopefully to cement when they need to divide/ multiple by 10, 100 or 1000.

I kept ours straight forward with just black font for everything.  And I tried to mix in a combination of easier examples with some harder ones.

free to download meaurement dominoes. Converting between cm and m

However 2 other home educating moms said it would be useful to have a colour version which the younger kids could use if they wanted.  The idea being that the colours would help the kids – so 600 mm and 60 cm would be 1 colour and then 90 mm and 9cm would be in a different colour.  So I also converted my exisiting dominoes into a colour version as well.

Colourful Free to download Dominoes. Converting between cm amd mm

Measurement Dominoes. Fee to download in either colour or just black

Here are the dominoe sets that I created for the kids.

Changing between cm and mm

Converting cm into mm

Converting cm into mm colour version

Changing between cm and m

Converting cm into m

Converting cm into m colour version

Changing between mm and m

Converting mm into m

Converting mm into m colour version

I still want to create a complete set where the I mix converting between km, m, cm, and mm in one set – hopefully I will get that done soon.

Free to download measurement dominoes. Helps kids to practice converting between cm, mm and m

 

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Magical Myths and Legends Review

Posted on October 4, 2018 by ofamily

When I first heard about the Magical Myths and Legends book I immediately asked if we could review it.  Two reasons really, firstly Michael Morpurgo – really that is enough for us.  We are HUGE fans of his work and he selected the stories to go into this book.  And secondly we seem to be circling around Myths at the moment.  Without much planning we just seem to be reading and learning about them throughout our other learning activities.  Greek/ Roman and Norse Myths just seem to come up over and over again so any quality book containing some good Myths is going to interest us.  Oh and thirdly (yes I know I said two reason but I forgot about the third one), I knew the book included a version of the Legend of Robin Hood and my son recently read a version which totally put him off the story but I really think if we found a good version he would enjoy it.

Magical Myths and Legends as chosen by Michael Morpurgo

Now I must also admit something I was really looking forward to receiving this book but when it arrived I was blown over by how nice it looks.  Yes I know we are not supposed to judge a book by its cover but in this case the cover and the inside pages are just soo stunning, the colours, the glossy pages, it really impressed me and I immediately thought this would make a stunning present.  A Really Stunning Present.

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The Stories are simple versions, very child-friendly and a great way to introduce some of the classic Myths and Legends.  Before each story starts they have included a little introduction about it – which I really liked.

Age wise –  My 7-year-old loved them and happily sat and read story after story.

Reading the Magical Myths and Legends book chosen by Michael Morpurgo. A stunning collection of Myths perfect for kids

My ten-year old also enjoyed them, she does normally read more complex stories but there were a few Myths in here which she had never read before (I think due to some apprehension about the stories) so reading these versions, was a good way of introducing her to them without a scaring her.

The stories that they have included are the following –

  • Mulan
  • Icarus
  • Finn MacCool and the Giant’s Causeway
  • The Giant of Mont Saint-Michel
  • The Lambton Worm
  • The Legend of Robin Hood
  • Thor and the Stolen Hammer
  • Vulcan and the Fabulous Throne
  • Hercules the Hero
  • Gawain and the Green Knight

They are well-told with language that suits the kids and the illustrations are stunning (and in places a bit funny).

Both my kids and I recommend this book.  We think it is a real gem of magical stories that is sure to capture many other children’s imagination.

You can get a copy of this stunning book from Amazon Magical Myths and Legends

As I mentioned above we were given this copy of the book.  All opinions expressed are mine and that of the two little reading testers of the house.

I do include Affiliate links in my posts. 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

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Using Readers for History

Posted on September 29, 2018 by ofamily

I have mentioned a couple of times lately that my daughter is very interested in learning more History.  And the wonderful thing is she is not picky about which time period, she just wants to learn about anything and everything that happened in the past.  She finds it totally fascinating learning about how people lived, the events that occurred, who was in power, what they ate, anything really she finds it all interesting.  And as much as we do History projects, History reading together, looking at events, working through activities, watching documentaries she is still wanting to read more by herself.  But she is still a sensitive kid and can find some topics cause nightmares (the black death is something she struggles with). So we have been trying to find a balance between giving her that independence to read more History by herself but taking into account that certain bits can be upsetting.

One of the ways we have found around this is be using readers – yip that is right – readers.  We have found that the BIG CAT reading series has a number of really good Historical titles in their collection.  She loves them.  They are perfect for her.  She reads them by herself and then finds a topic that she wants to learn more about and comes and tells me what it is and we start researching it in more detail.

reading the Sisiter Queens BIG CAT reader at home. Great way to introduce History topics

As much as the readers are working for my daughter the surprising thing for me is how much my son has also enjoyed then.  My son is NOT a fan of History.  Really he is just not that interested, so I have to try to find an angle with him – normally it is an engineering / invention angle.  However he will sit and read a History reader as well.  Which totally blew me away the first time I saw him doing it.  He has informed me that the readers are “Bite-size history sessions”.  So for him the reader contains just enough information and manages to keep it interesting.

He LOVED the Vikings in Britain book and has since read and really enjoyed the How to be a Knight and How to be a Tudor books – both of which he says are “way better than the History books from the Library”. (That is him in the photo below with the How to be a Knight in ten easy steps reader open while he tries to make his toy knights historically accurate)

Using the How to be a Knight in 10 easy steps book.

When I first started home educating the kids I always thought of readers as just that reading practice.  But as I started to explore the different series of books that you can get I realized that readers can be more than just boring reading practice.  Some readers can be entertaining and the kind of book that the kids will want to read over and over again.  And some readers can be brilliant topic starters, ways to introduce something new to the kids and find possible areas of interest that you can expand on.  For us the Historical readers that we have been using have been just that (and so much more).  They are readers and they tick all the right boxes in terms on introducing new vocabulary etc but they are also informative and a great way of opening the kids eyes to a new possible topic.

BIG CAT readers. How to be a Knight in 10 easy steps and How to be a Tudor in 20 easy steps

The Books that I mention in the post and that are in the photos are these ones

Sister Queens: The Lives and Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth: Band 15/Emerald (Collins Big Cat)

Early Kings of England: Band 14/Ruby (Collins Big Cat)

Vikings in Britain: Band 14/Ruby (Collins Big Cat)

How To Be A Knight: Band 09/Gold (Collins Big Cat)

How to be a Tudor: Band 14/Ruby (Collins Big Cat): Band 14 Phase 5, Bk. 16

Collins BIG CAT readers include lots of Historical titles

Roman Life in Britain: Band 12/Copper (Collins Big Cat)

The Life and Times of William Shakespeare: Band 18/Pearl (Collins Big Cat)

Discovering Tutankhamun’s Tomb: Band 15/Emerald (Collins Big Cat)

I have included 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.

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