ofamily learning together

Desperate for Spring

Posted on February 14, 2017 by ofamily

I think my kids are as desperate for Spring to start as I am. I have noticed they are talking a lot about plants and which ones they want to grow this year and they seem to be a Spring crafty mood as well. We recently received some lovely Spring goodies from Baker Ross and my daughter immediately started working on the flower wreaths they sent (pack of 6). And she has done flower wreath after flower wreath after flower wreath.

She really seems to enjoy colouring these flower wreaths in and I must admit they do look lovely and cheerful when they are finished and she has found somewhere to hang them.

She even tried adding some coloured sand to one of them – “just for Fun”. (We have had these bottles of coloured sand for over 6 months now and they have lasted really well considering how often my kids use them.)

The flower wreaths did not get as much attention from my youngest (although his big sister did manage to convince him to do one – he choose to do his with water-colour pencils and he added some tissue paper onto the flowers).

But he has been loving the Pond sticker scenes. (He has actually asked me if I can buy some more of these sticker scenes for him to do). He likes making up little stories to go with the pictures he creates.

I am wondering what it is about the flower wreaths that have been such a hit with my daughter – is it that it’s a wreath or that it is the detailed colouring on a cut-out piece of card which she can then hang up as opposed to a straight forward colouring page ? I have been searching for something similar that might be as big a hit and I found these birds – they are also cut-out on card and you can hang them afterwards. I am hoping they will be another big hit with her.

If you are also wanting to get into the spring crafting mood here is the range of Spring themed goodies from Baker Ross – Spring crafting

I do get sent parcels of Baker Ross goodies for the kids to use but I also buy from the website on a regular basis.

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Sensory Processing Disorder is kicking my butt

Posted on February 13, 2017 by ofamily

Yip that totally sums it up. Currently this thing called Sensory Processing Disorder is kicking my butt. Because in all honesty it is HARD having 2 kids with sensory issues.

When we first found out our oldest had SPD (around 6 years ago) we dived into the world of occupational therapists, reading books about SPD and just trying to figure out what to do. We have learnt a lot over the past 6 years and we have made lots of mistakes too. Both my kids have SPD but they react very differently to different situations. So most people think I am a total nut when I say my youngest also has it. He has a completely different personality and on top of that he is a sensory seeker whereas my daughter is a sensory avoider so YES they do on the surface look like they could NOT possibly both have SPD but honest just please believe me they both DO.

The past few months have been tough. We have had a series of bugs one after the other and just when the kids have started feeling better I have gotten sick. So we have not been getting out as much as we would like.

Even in their normal routine, going to a normal weekly class, seeing the same kids my youngest still had one of those sensory moments when the world just came crashing down and we ended up having to cover him in my winter coat. (Trying to deal with a sensory meltdown while you are out, waiting for your one child to finish their dance class sometimes means you sit and cover your other child in a thick coat so that the light, noise and world around them gets blocked out – Looks strange I am sure but it worked.)

Yes we are doing all those activities that we can at home – the trampoline is out, bouncing balls are there, our scooter board, our therapy tunnel, sensory tubs, thick warm blankets, routines, oh I could go on and on. We are doing all of that. Everything that normally works but at the moment it just is NOT. And even after my 6 years of learning all I can about the kids, all my chats with their therapists, using my own sensory experience, right now SPD is just kicking my butt.

My husband disagrees. He gets to leave the house and go to work so he gets a bit more distance than I do and he is saying that I am not seen the big picture. He sees the fact that my oldest is finally loving movies (she is highly sensitive and in the past gets so involved with the characters that she would be an emotional wreck after a movie but in the past 2 months this has changed and she is managing to distance herself from the characters and enjoy the story). My youngest is reading, and loving it, he is reading 3 or 4 young stories at a go, he is reading every day and trying so hard. My oldest has gained confidence with her maths and is getting more confident to try new maths concepts and seems to be enjoying them and science they have discovered a love for science stuff. And then the smaller stuff, managing bath time all by themselves, my youngest allowing cream to touch his skin (I admit I cried the first time we got this right), sorting their own snacks and drinks out, helping me with stuff around the house. He sees all the meltdowns that could have happened but didn’t.

He sees my kids new desire to go grocery shopping as a big win. My once a week escape into the world of a grocery buying which I can expertly drag out for a nice break has now become two kids who want to push the cart, want to read my list and find the food, want to use a calculator and work out what the unit cost is and if buying something in bulk is cheaper or not. And Yes for 2 sensory kids who always have HATED shopping this is massive and I know it. But for a full-time sensory mom who does not get many breaks sometimes you struggle to see the positive. Sometimes a sensory mom just gets dragged down with all the stuff that she sees day in day out, the stuff that makes you think you are not making a difference.

And then your sensory daughter hugs you and suggests “Mom why don’t you go and lie in the bath while I put Rio on.”

Yip My husband is Right. We have got this. We are going to continue kicking SPD’s butt because for all the battles we are still having victories, we just have to acknowledge them.

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Posted in SPD | Tagged home ed, home education, homeschooling, parenting, sensory play, sensory processing disorder | 1 Comment

Maths division

Posted on February 12, 2017 by ofamily

We are constantly working on maths in our house. My daughter is not what most would say “natural at Maths” but she is a hard worker and likes to understand concepts. I have found with Maths often it is just finding the right way of explaining a concept to her and sometimes we will try a number of different ways until she finds one way that just makes sense for her. Once she understands something she will then want to practice it over and over again to make sure she “gets it”. She has realised that the more she practices sums the easier they get so every day (most days) she actually asks me for maths practice pages.

This past week we have been looking at division again. Division has been one of the more challenging maths concepts for her. We have looked at division a number of times in the past but she has never been totally happy with the idea. But because of her recent determination to practice more maths we both decided to give it another go. We started off going right back to basics again – with sharing objects. She is fine with this concept when we are dealing with smaller numbers but finds it hard to apply it to larger numbers. But I still wanted to reinforce the idea of sharing the number into equal groups. (In the past we have tried using number lines and showing division as repeated subtraction but she really did NOT like that and got herself very mixed up and that was possibly the beginning of her negative feelings about doing division.)

She has always prefered thinking of division as the inverse of her times tables so this time around we have stuck with that. She started off with dividing numbers by 3 and 4 and quickly jumped onto confidently dividing them by 6 and 8.

And yes we do need to practice them but when she finally looked at me and said “Okay I get it, can we add a page of division sums to my maths practice pages ?” Wow. Happy mom!! With maths we often introduce a concept, work on it a bit and if I can see she is battling we sometimes leave it for a few weeks/ even a month or so and then we come back and retry it later. It seems like this really worked with division. We have tried it a numbered of times, we have made great learning aids together, built little booklets together but she has always been unsure about it. Leaving it, and coming back to it later definitely was the right decision.

She has been making her own maths worksheets lately so I have actually suggested that on Monday she makes a few division practice pages for herself. She likes that idea. In fact she has informed me that once her pack of worksheets are complete she will share them on mommy’s blog.

But in the mean-time I have been creating a division mini-pack myself. So in case any of you would like to use a few pages here it is. It only includes division by 2, 5, 10, 3, 4, 8 at the moment.

division-2-5-10-3-4-8

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Posted in maths ideas | Tagged division, free printables, home ed, home education, homeschooling, maths | 1 Comment

Twinkl Kindness week – membership giveaway

Posted on February 6, 2017 by ofamily

Those of you who read my blog on a regular basis will know how much we love the Twinkl website and how often we use our membership. This week (6 to 10th February) Twinkl are launching their kindness week and are encouraging staff and children to carry out acts of kindness. (Yes yes I used the word staff as in school staff and yes I am a home-educator and my kids have never been to school before but Kindness is a universal concept that applies to everyone). And as part of their Kindness Week activities Twinkl are offering one of my readers a 12 month Platinum-Plus membership (the membership that gives you access to their entire site). All you need to do is comment either below this post or on the link for this post on our facebook page with an idea of how you can show a bit of extra kindness this week – even the smallest act of kindness – just greeting someone in the street, helping someone with a difficult task, maybe baking your some biscuits for someone or if you use public transport helping a mom carry her pram up some stairs (believe me I was always so thankful when someone helped me with this).

If you have never heard about the Twinkl website – It is massive – you can download Maths / English / Science / History / role-playing packs / colouring / book resources and lots more. It has been my number one resource for home-educating for the past 4 years. It can be used by teachers, home-educators, parents, anyone who wants high quality educational resources (and it does not matter if you are UK-based or not).

For those of you who have not seen any of their resources here are 5 examples of their resources.

Dinosaur number matching activity.

Cone People – We Love them – this is their numbered footballer cone people.

We have used their pages in a number of fun learning aids – like making this compound word folder

They have brilliant History resources – like the cone people and timeline

And my daughter really does love their craft pages – I have lost count on how many times she has used these 3-D butterflies

Time to get baking (the kids and I are making biscuits for some elderly neighbours).

I will announce the winner at the end of the week.

The Giveaway has closed. Thanks to everyone who entered

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Posted in reviews | Tagged home ed, home education, homeschooling, Kindness week, Twinkl | 15 Comments

Schofield & Sims Grammar Books

Posted on February 4, 2017 by ofamily

I have mentioned before that we are not huge workbook fans. My daughter often finds that too much is crammed onto a page and she gets very put-off by too many bright colours all over the page. She likes workbooks were one topic is covered on a page, there is space to write (but not too much writing is required) and were the page is not full of distracting images. She did really well with the Schofield & Sims comprehension books that I bought her so when she recently asked me for some new english books I asked Schofield & Sims about their Springboard range – Springboard Book 4 (Book 5 of 9): Key Stage 2, Years 3 – 6. Apparently it is an older range and they informed me that they were bringing out a new grammar range for Key stages 1 and 2. They kindly sent us some to test out and I was blown away with the pack that they sent us. They sent us all the pupil books for years 1 to 6 and the teacher’s guide for years 1 to 6 (12 books in total). Both my kids happily dived into using the books – The photo below is from the Grammar 1 pupil book.

I must say I was thrilled to receive the teacher’s guides. Normally when I buy books for the kids I often just get the workbooks and “figure-out” the teaching bit. But I must admit having the teaching guide has made my mornings a lot easier, as I can just read the blurb from the teacher’s guide, explain it to my daughter or son and they can start working away at the exercise (the teacher’s guide also contains answers for the pupil workbooks – picture below is from the Grammar 3 Teacher’s Guide).

We are still working through our books but so far we are big fans. They are in the same Schofield & Sims format that suit my kids learning style and I am loving my teacher’s guides.

My youngest enjoys the fact that he is working through a book that looks like just like his big sisters. We have found that he can often work on the same topic as he sister is working on. (eg in the Year 2 pupil book he could look at adding comas to a list – photo below – while his older sister did a slightly harder commas exercise in the year 4 pupil book). This works well for me as my kids like working on “topics” together. And it often allows my daughter to “teach” her younger brother which end up being excellent revision for her.

I also really like that there are small revision pages throughout the books. In the Grammar 1 (for year 1) there were 3 revision double pages like the photo below. And after each revision double page there is a writing task.

So most people are probably wondering would I pay for these books ? Yes. In fact after using the books for just a few days my daughter asked if she could try one of the maths books from the same publishers. She choose the Written Calculation Subtraction (Series of 6): Key Stage 2, ages 7-11 (Answer book also available) and I bought it for her. She has just started using it and for someone who is not a fan of subtraction it is going a lot better than I would ever have suspected (I am now seriously considering buying her the division books in this range as well).

We have only just started using the Grammar books so I will write a more comprehensive post about the books once we have had more time to test them out.

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