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Teachit Primary Resources

Posted on March 16, 2018 by ofamily

One of the websites I have recently been using is the Teachit Primary website. It is still a fairly new website for me but I am enjoying the range of worksheets. They have a Free account which allows you to download the PDF documents and they have a paid for version – I currently have a FREE account so I am going to share a few links for some of the Maths and English pages that I have found.

There is a LOT on this website (including a Science section which I have not looked at yet) and I have only recently started using them so this is just a taster of what they have but it should give you some idea.

ENGLISH WORKSHEETS

At this stage we have used some of the Grammar pages with my youngest like the Full Stop Thief page

and the Question Words page

I also liked the different homophone word pages (always useful to make sure the kids know the difference). They have a few different pages for homophones. The search function at the top of the page works quite well if you input key words like homophones you end up with a nice list of activities. The search function does bring back the free resources (always PDF docs) and the paid resources but I did not struggle with this. You just need to make sure the link has a circle at the bottom with PDF in it before you click on the link. This means you don’t end up clicking on link after link looking for free pages.

here, hear, there, their

And a verbs – when I searched for verb tenses I found 64 different resources. One example is this Verb tense page

MATHS WORKSHEET

We do lots of maths practice, so I am always looking for different pages to use with the kids. My daughter likes these maths pages because they are not cluttered and she also likes the way the have grouped activities into tables – eg the +1,+10,+100, +1000 page

And the way they use colour suits her (not all pages are colour quite a few are black and white), but the colour is not overpowering. An example is the decimal ordering page.

Other pages we have used

Pyramid Addition

Multiplying and Dividing by 10 and 100

If you have not already had a look at the Teachit primary website I highly recommend you go and have a look.

This post has nothing to do with the Teachit Primary website. This is just me mentioning a resource that I have recently starting using because I think other home educators might find it a useful website.

Inky’s Great Escape

Posted on March 11, 2018 by ofamily

This has to be one of my new favourite story books that I have discovered – Inky’s Great Escape is all about an octopus escaping from an aquarium and is based on the true story of an octopus in New Zealand (with some creative magic included).

Inky is an octopus who shares his tank with Blotchy (a slightly grumpy octopus) and the two seem to enjoy their days playing card games and telling tales. But Inky is an escape artist and after a while he gets bored in the tank and decides he needs some adventure. So he plans his escape……………….

This is a magical story and I think most kids will love it. My son enjoyed the story especially the conversations between the two octopus friends and the idea of an octopus escaping out of his tank really captured his imagination.

The fact that it is based on a real story was just the icing on the cake and we had some fun looking for clips of real octopus escaping through small gaps (unfortunately the actual event that this was based on was never caught on camera).

We both thought the story was well written and loved the stunning illustrations.

For a fun story book this ticks all the boxes and as a home-educating mom I think the story could be a great starting point for some fun sea creature learning activities.

I thought this Octopus Anatomy page from Education.com was great.

They also have this fact sheet. (Education.com do have a subscription but you can also create a free account and download a limited number of free worksheets each month – I think it is 10 free ones a month).

And if you have Activity Village membership (think it is currently £15 a year) we liked the Sea Creature Word scramble. I like using the word scramble pages as a fun way for the kids to practice their spelling.

And the Label The Sea Creatures pages.

I really liked that there are three different versions of this page – one with just a few letters of each word missing, one with only the beginning letter of each word and one where there is just a blank line.

And they also have a Learn to Draw an Octopus Page (as well as a number of other sea creature drawing pages). And an Octopus Acrostic Poem page.

I was given a copy of Inky’s Great Escape by the publishers but the book is now available from Amazon Inky’s Great Escape.

I have included an Affiliate link. 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 Book Ideas | Tagged activity village, children's book, home ed, home education, homeschooling, Inky's Great escape, Octopus | Leave a comment

Peacock Times Table

Posted on March 9, 2018 by ofamily

It’s no secret I like using colouring pages for learning activities ( the flower number bonds and doubling and halving butterflies were made using colouring pages), they just seem to add a bit of fun to something that can sometimes be a bit boring. A little while ago I noticed that the peacock colouring page from Activity Village had 12 feathers (excluding the center one which is obstructed by the peacock’s head). And when I find something with 12 items/ objects on it I always start wondering if it can be used with times table/ division.

As my son has been learning his 5 times table I printed out 2 copies and thought we could use them but we were beaten to the activity by my daughter.

She thought it would be best if she tested out a page first (ie I think she was wondering why she did not get to do peacock times table pages when she was learning her times table) so she made a 9 times table version as an “example” for her brother.

He liked the idea (anything to do with animals is a big winner in our house) and happily made his own 5 times table peacock.

It really is nothing complicated, the kids just wrote out the times table sums on the different peacock feathers. But for kids who are just learning a new times table like my son it is good practice.

And he actually asked if we could pin-up his 5 times table peacock on our maths notice board (just a board in the kitchen with some maths posters on it).

He even suggested that I should create a peacock with mixed up 5 times table sums on the different feathers for his Monday maths. I liked his idea so I have already made one for him.

And I even made a division version up for his big sister

I have a strange feeling with we might end up with a board fill of Peacock Times Table pages (he just walked in and informed me that he needs to create one for the 2 times and 10 times which he already knows).

Posted in maths ideas | Tagged activity village, home ed, home education, homeschooling, ks1 maths, maths activities, Times table | 1 Comment

Mother’s Day colouring goodies

Posted on March 7, 2018 by ofamily

During December we discovered a new website – Mrs Mactivity – some of the pages are Free (need to create a free account) and some are part of a subscription (currently it is just under £10 for the year). The pages are mostly suited to younger kids but they have some sweet colouring activities. So when my daughter asked if she could download something for Mother’s Day we had a look on the Mrs Mactivity site and she found a few goodies.

The colouring cards are Free to download and seemed to be popular with my two – although they did seem to stick to 2 of the designs (there are 6 different cards in the set).

And my daughter even had a go at adding a few craft jewels to the center of the flowers.

They also liked the idea of the Heart shaped folding card (this is part of their paid for package – they kindly gave us a copy to use). When you print this out you get two separate pages, you just need to cut and glue the center circles on top of each other and you have a super cute card. The idea is that the kids write descriptive words on the bottom hearts. So each top heart gets folded back and there is a word describing their mom. My daughter LOVES this idea and has declared that everyone in the family needs a card like this (they do have a version where there are no words in the center so you could easily adapt this card to suit anybody and possibly write the person’s name in the center).

They also have a lovely Spring / Easter flower basket page which my daughter loved and has printed out but has not yet attempted (also Free to download).

The site is still new but so far we are really loving their printable paper craft ideas and colouring pages.

And for those of you with younger kids learning their letters – they have a name writing page and some CVC word cards that you might find very useful.

Posted in Art and Craft Ideas | Tagged colouring cards, free printables, home ed, home education, homeschooling, Mother's Day, Mrs Mactivity | 3 Comments

Viking Fiction makes fun learning

Posted on March 3, 2018 by ofamily

One of my son’s Christmas presents was a the set of How to Train your Dragon books written by Cressida Cowell. I must admit that I when I ordered the set I was not sure if it was going to be right for him, I was concerned about the reading level but I had that parent-gut feeling that he was going to love the stories. So when I found the set on special I just ordered them. They are currently a bit on the difficult side for him but we “family read” books so we decided to try these and………………….Wow what a HIT.

My daughter (who is normally highly sensitive about what she reads) sits with us as we read, totally engrossed in the story. My son does find the reading a bit tough going but he tries hard to follow and when he gets a bit lost he sometimes takes a break from following and then when he is ready to rejoin, asks where we are.

We have been ploughing through the stories (reading for an hour or longer at one go) and although we still have a number of books to read (there are 10 books in the set) the books are already spurring on lots of fun chats, chats about new words, viking boats, the weather and how could you survive with such primitive tools and of course the imaginative side – the dragons.

The dragons have been a great source of creative fun in our house. Both kids have been creating their own dragons, with special powers and unique quirks. A few have even made into art work.

And we have had also had a few Viking boat pictures

One of the things you are constantly aware while reading the stories is the harsh weather and rough seas encountered. I love that my daughter had a go at trying to create a more expressive painting showing a stormy sea.

And yes theses are fiction books, filled with imaginative creatures and places but the stories have captivated the kids to such an extent that it is so easy to swing the conversation onto Viking Longboats, Scandinavia, invasions, anything remotely linked is listened to/ watched with great interest.

As much as I love these books, oh boy do I love this series because of how it manages to inspired so much creativity and because the Hero is the kid who everyone would least expect to be a Hero (as a mum of two kids with sensory processing disorder this is amazing for my kids to read), the home educating mom part of me could not resist trying a Viking craft. There are a number of different examples of the Rune alphabet on Pinterest so we choose one and we had a go at making some Viking necklaces.

The kids wrote names on some tin foil (sharpies work really well on tin foil) and then we cut out some card, stuck the tin foil on the card and wrapped it around the card, used a hole punch to create a hole and attached some string. Really one of the easiest, simplest craft activities that we have ever done but such a hit. (You can now only enter the Viking village, which is a room in our house if you are wearing your Viking necklace).

And writing in Viking Runes did not stop there. After my daughter had made necklace after necklace she started writing out sentences, just for fun.

These books have been one of the best sets we have bought. Yes the writing is a bit difficult for my son at the moment, but he is trying hard to follow as I read so I know he is learning and I am convinced that at some stage he is going to go back and re-read these books to himself.

You can buy the How to train your Dragon books directly from Amazon here – How To Train Your Dragon Collection – 10 Books

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 Book Ideas | Tagged Best kids books, dragons, English Ideas, History, home ed, home education, homeschooling, Vikings | 11 Comments

ofamily learning together

Teachit Primary Resources

ENGLISH WORKSHEETS

MATHS WORKSHEET

Inky’s Great Escape

Peacock Times Table

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Viking Fiction makes fun learning

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