ofamily learning together

I Must Betray You – A book about living in a communist regime, a must read for all teens

Posted on January 30, 2024 by ofamily

I have been searching for good historical fiction books that deal with what life was like living under a communist regime but that are also suitable for my teenage daughter (so not to graphic). That may sound like a strange thing to be searching for but we have covered the USSR under Lenin and Stalin and the Cold War as her IGCSE history topics so I wanted something that she could read that would give her a deeper understanding of everyday life. I tried a few books but I could not find a book that struck the balance between the nitty gritty of everyday life without totally terrorizing her. And then I discovered this one – I Must Betray You and Wow, I was sucked into the story and blown away with the details they included. And now after finishing it I must say I wish all teens could read this so they could understand what living in those conditions were like.

The story is set in Romania in 1989, and is covering the period of time when a number of the former Eastern Bloc countries rebelled against communism. Now we actually don’t cover this in our Cold War module that we studied but the author does such an incredible job of describing life in a communist state that it makes this story so worthwhile for anyone learning or just interested in this period of time. They really push home how you are living in a state of constant worry, worried about being spied on, worried that someone might betray you, worried about food, about medical needs, really just worried about absolutely everything.

The story revolves around a seventeen year old boy and his family, we get to really join the family life as he even explains things like how a family of 5 are managing to live in a small one-bedroom apartment, he talks about things like the fact that the electricity is constantly going out so no-one uses the lift in their apartment block in case you get stuck in there for hours, how they all take turns waiting in lines for food and often waiting for 3 hours can result in only getting a can of beans, a can that expired 2 years ago. He covers their barter system (a bribe system), how they sneak around to watch illegal films and try and find illegal books and articles to read, how listening to a radio is their one way of finding out what is going on, and the constant fear that everything they do will be discovered, even the small act of drinking a can of Coke would get them in trouble. The author really does an excellent job of weaving all these everyday realities into the story.

Okay the actual plot, Cristian (the main character) ends up being blackmailed and forced to become an informer, and while he is living through this (he really struggles with that he has to do) he realizes that there are more than one other person informing on him, in fact he discovers that someone in his family is informing on him, but who it ends up being is a twist that I honestly did not see coming (really well written, kept me guessing about his family members). Christian turns out to be an amazing character and a truly inspiring one who does have a happy ending (I think it would have been a bit to much if he had died).

This is truly one of the best teen books that I have read in a LONG time. The writing was brilliant, the plot was excellent and all the historical facts and events that were woven in really does make this one of those MUST READS for all teens.

I found this book after searching through lots of lists, and some trial and error reading, it is NOT linked to any publisher, in fact we got our copy from our library but all of that said, I want to say I really do RECOMMEND this book, read it, give it to your teens to read and then please have a good discussion with them so that our teens can learn from what happened.

Admin – 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 recommend.

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged Cold War, home education, homeschooling, IGCSE History, Romania, USSR, World History | Leave a comment

How Biology Works – book review

Posted on January 23, 2024 by ofamily

I have recently been searching for extra Biology books for my daughter to read – books that may just explain some of the concepts that she is learning about slightly differently, or books that may contain informative diagrams to help explain the concepts. Now this is no reflection on her main student book that she is using it is just the way that we like to learn. We like to be able to read “extra material” about the topics that she is learning about (sometimes reading a sentence that is slightly differently worded or phrased just allows everything to slot into place.

Anyway with that in mind, I happened to spot that our library had a copy of the DK book - How Biology Works, so we borrowed it and she has been dipping in and out focusing on pages which either interest her or on pages which deal with topics that have been a bit confusing (we are NOT reading this cover to cover). But using it in our way we are finding it really good. We love the visual feel – the stunning, eye-catching diagrams which help to explain ideas and the easy to read format. (I want to stress this is NOT a student book, it is an extra explaining book so please don’t think it can take the place of a main book).

The Book is divided into 10 main categories (these categories are split into smaller subsections which are normally 2 pages long).

What is Life? (eg Kingdoms of life, biosphere, viruses)
The Chemistry of Life (eg Nutrients, enzymes, photosynthesis, respiration)
How Cells Work (eg parts of a cell, cell transport, cell division, nerve cell, muscle cell, blood cells)
Reproduction and Genetics (eg asexual and sexual reproduction, stem cells, genomes, inheritance, mutations)
Evolution (eg adaption, coevolution, extinction)
The Tree of Life (eg prokaryotes, eukaryotes, protists, fungi. algae)
How Plants Work (eg roots, stems ,transport)
How Animals Work (eg circulatory and digestive system, nervous system, sensors, response)
Ecology (eg ecosystems, biomes, feed webs, breeding strategies)
Biotechnology (eg selective breeding, DNA testing, gene therapy, cloning)

Thoughts about the content – everything is in here. It covers all the core Biology concepts that the kids look at in their school years and it presents everything in a very easy to understand manner (for us the visual feel of this book is why everything seems so easy to understand).

We like the page layouts and well, really everything about this book just suits us.

Like I mentioned above we borrowed our copy from the local library but you can get it directly from Amazon with this link – How Biology Works

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged biology, educational books, home education, homeschooling, IGCSE Biology, KS3 | Leave a comment

2 Websites we are using for IGCSE Biology and IGCSE Physics

Posted on January 11, 2024 by ofamily

There are lots of websites for IGCSE Biology and IGCSE Phsyics that you can use but I have found two that we are using every week. So I thought I would share these two websites with you.

The first one is Cognito. I actually can not remember how I discovered this site but somehow we ended up here and we are actually using it for Biology, Physics and some Maths. To use this website we did set up a free account (there is a paid for version which we have not used yet – we might at some stage). This is what it looks like if we log onto our Biology.

Each subject is broken down into the different topics

The Topics are then broken down into mini-lessons

Once you have completed the lesson the bar underneath it will show either green (for all the questions you got correct) or red (for the questions you answered incorrectly). Oh and the kids can go back and re-watch the lessons and redo the questions if they want.

My daughter works on this site completely independently. She logs on, watches the lessons and answers the questions herself. Nothing needs to be printed and she can go at her own pace. She can skip lessons, she can jump around and she can redo any lessons that she wants.

The actual lessons are a short videos explaining the concepts and then afterwards you have to answer a few questions on the video. These lessons are not that long but we have found the explanations good and we like the quick questions at the end to check that you understand.

I want to stress this does not take the place of our student book (text book) this is an extra that we use and although she does answer the questions on this site these are NOT the only questions she answers we are also practicing with questions out of her student book and a separate workbook (I just want to make this clear).

You can do all the lessons on here or you can just choose the ones that you feel the kids need extra practice with. it really is up to you as to how you use this site.

The second website is called Physics and Maths Tutor. This was actually recommended to us by a Physics teacher and I have to admit I have since found it very useful. We are currently using it with both our Physics and Biology.

Again this breaks each subject down into the different topics (this is the Biology).

But this site it is not a “work on the computer” site this is more of a “print it all out” site. Under each topic you get some flashcards, you get summary notes (we have found these useful) and then the main thing about this site is you get lots of questions (all of which come with answers).

The question and answer pages are what we really like about this site. They have lots of questions, the questions are varied and I really like the fact that they group the questions into the type that you can expect to fins on Paper 1 and the type you can expect to find on paper 2.

We use this mainly for the practice at answering questions. Something which I think it vital for site mainly for the fact that they have so many good examples of the types of questions that you can expect. Think of it as an extra exam-question workbook (well to be honest with the amount of questions on here it is probably the same as an extra 3 workbooks).

These two sites are very different and we use them in very different ways but we are finding them both invaluable for both of IGCSE Biology and our IGCSE Physics.

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged home education, homeschooling, IGCSE, IGCSE Biology, IGCSE Physics, KS4 | Leave a comment

City of Spies

Posted on December 15, 2023 by ofamily

I am a massive fan of good historical fiction. I think reading a fun story based in a time period that the kids are learning about not only always adds extra knowledge but it also brings that bit of history to life. So I was immediately interested when I heard there was a new Historical Fiction book out by Iszi Lawrence (she happened to write Blackbeard’s Treasure which my son really enjoyed) and I quickly asked if we could get a review copy so I could see for myself what the story was about.

City of Spies is set in New York in 1780, during the American War of Independence. It is based around twelve-year old Aiden who is working in New York and struggling with the fact that although he is a nephew of a very wealthy, noble man because his father was not the eldest, their family is now poor and destitute. Aiden starts off as a young person who is desperate to get the acknowledgement from his family that he is worthy, young person loyal to the British crown but slowly he starts to discover things about people, their way of life, hardships that are not fair and slowly he starts to understand why the patriots are fighting for independence.

It is a sweet story, aimed at kids in the 9 – 12 age range (there is no adult content, nothing too scary or gory). There is an adventure, a bit of a mystery involving codes, and there is lots of great scenes where the kids read about life in America at that time. Scenes which talk about every day life – like the fact that young kids drank weak beer, the food that they ate, general life stuff. But it also includes some interesting information about how books and papers where published, how it was normal for young kids to work in jobs and the slave trade. There are lots of informative pieces of information woven into the story so the kids are constantly learning about that time and what living in America was like while they are reading the story.

I enjoyed this story and I felt like I walked away having learnt some interesting facts about this time period (the author does include information about the real characters that she mentions at the end of the book – so you can check what is fact and what is fiction and I must admit she did really well including these real characters in a her story). And the coded messages, I loved that this was included in the story and it all really happened – that is something that I think will appeal to lots of young kids. I think it is a great read for KS2 aged kids learning about British colonies and the American War of Independence. In fact even if your kids are not learning about this part of history it is still an interesting read and one which will help them gain an understanding of why this event happened.

I recommend this book.

For those of you looking for Amazon links here it is – City of Spies

Admin – like I mentioned above, I did get a free review copy of this book, however I was not paid for this post.

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 recommend.

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged children's book, Historical Fiction, home education, homeschooling, Ks2 English | 1 Comment

The Story of the World Vol 2 – the Middle Ages

Posted on December 7, 2023 by ofamily

I love this series. Love it. I did write a post about the first volume a LONG time ago so I thought it was time that I wrote something about Volume Two. This series is perfect for anyone to use as a primary aged History resource. It is written in a very easy to read manner – when you read it, it sounds more like a story than a History book. Both of my kids read this series and both commented on how easy they were to read and understand, and yes after reading them my kids definitely did learn quite a bit about World History. And that for me is one of the reasons why I love this series so much – because it is WORLD history as opposed to just European or Western History. I have always felt like the History that we are encouraged to cover in the UK is very much a Western based History (it is UK, Europe and North American mostly) and I wanted something that could weave all of that in with events that were happening elsewhere in the World. So that we could really get a global idea of how everything occurred in different areas of the entire World. And for us this series did that.

Vol 2 is a continuation of Vol 1. It starts with the Fall of Rome and continues through to the end of the Sixteenth Century. It does cover the important events and important figures of the time but there are going to be some events and some people that you may think have been missed just because there is no way you could fit everyone and everything into this one book. Having said that I was very satisfied with who they choose to include and which events they highlighted (I think they did an excellent job in deciding who to include and who to exclude – I would hate to have to be the one deciding that).

I honestly feel like I could gush about this book and go on and one about how easy it is to read and how it makes History into a story and how every household should have these books on their bookshelf but I am going to try and point out a few details about this book so that I do not sounds like some crazy woman.

Four main reasons that I am a massive fan of this book (apart from the fact that it is the easiest History book who will ever pick up and try and read).

It is World History. And I really do think they did an excellent job linking the different events and characters in the different areas. I loved how they used a flying carpet and would say “now if you climb back onto the carpet and you fly past ………………….. where so and so was doing whatever you will get to a place………….. and here someone called xyz was in power” and they they would go onto describe what was happening in this part of the World. I really appreciated the way it was all linked together and the way they take the kids on a journey across they globe so the kids understand how the areas and people are linked. Really well done in this aspect.
I liked the inclusion of the maps. Again I think it helps to explain how the different areas are linked and it also helps the kids to understand that when you talk about something like the Mongol Empire where would that empire fit onto our current globe (I think it is vital that the kids understand where these old Empires existed so yes it is a bit of Geography included, but it is vital to understanding the past). These little maps are key to helping the kids visualize the areas.
I also enjoyed how they included stories and legends of the time. And I will admit I know not everyone likes that these stories are included but I think they help the kids to understand the culture and the thinking of that area at that particular time. I enjoyed these stories and I will admit that even as an adult I had a “lightbulb” moment when I read one of these stories and I finally figured out where one of our traditions originated.
I also really like how they describe the everyday life of the people. She weaves in details like how certain art work was created, how books where made, what stages a young boy would go through to be a knight or even things like the fact that the Mongols would drink the blood of their horses to avoid starving. Again even as an adult reading this book I totally admit I learnt some interesting facts about different cultures and the things that they did. And I will also say that it is these interesting facts that fascinated my son when he originally read this book.