ofamily learning together

Stick Puppets Everywhere

Posted on November 8, 2016 by ofamily

Since last week the kids have been going on a stick puppet craze. I initially thought it would last a day but it did not. I have now lost count on how many they have made and I am just sitting back and watching in amazement at all the activities that they are doing over and over again to create their stick puppets.

I printed out all the templates in black and white so the kids have had to colour them all in (and when you are now looking at over 100 stick puppets that is a fair bit of colouring in). And my youngest who often only half finishes his page has sat and done page after page without a single complaint, in fact once he has finished he normally comes and asks me for more.

After the colouring in comes all the cutting – and it is not straight forward cutting out either but both kids are so determined that they have sat and concentrated really hard and cut out detail that I never thought they would have managed.

And then the cut-out needs to get stuck onto a craft stick

Now if I am totally honest all of that would make me one happy home-ed mom. As the entire stick puppet town which is fast growing in the sitting room is 100% their doing, their idea and their work. I just printed off a few templates that they asked for.

But that it not all of it.

The have also been using the templates that I printed for them to create their own. My daughter realized that she could place a piece of paper on top of the templates and trace over the shape of the animals. So instead of having one lion and lioness they now have multiple prides of lions.

And if you want a pride of lions you need cubs. However I did not print off any templates for lion cubs. So my daughter fetched one of her animal drawing books and drew 4 lion cubes for herself and then after her brother saw and asked her very nicely she also drew some tiger cubs for him.

And then the stories came. The kids made up all kinds of stories with the stick puppets and acted out a bunch of scenarios. And even wrote a few done in the new stick puppet book.

The stick puppet templates that the kids used are from Twinkl they were the – Family stick Puppets (part of platinum pages) and the animals were from the Noah’s Ark Stick Puppets and the Crocodile themed stick puppets also part of their paid for pages.

Save

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged children's craft, Fine motor skills, home education, homeschooling, stick puppets, Twinkl | 1 Comment

Handwriting Pen

Posted on November 6, 2016 by ofamily

One of the questions I am often asked is which pens and pencils do the kids use. I have often mentioned the STABILO pencils that we use and LOVE (The Woody 3-in-1’s and the Easycolour) so I thought I would share the pen that my daughter has been using and loving. No big surprise it is also STABILO.

Maybe you are wondering why we are such big STABILO fans ?

Well it started years ago when I was searching for pencils for my daughter. At this stage she was really battling with her pencil pressure (part of her SPD – a light touch for her feels hard so when she was pressing down with the pencils she thought she was pressing hard enough but in reality it was very light). I bought a bunch of different pencils for her and she hated all of them. Then a friend mentioned the STABILO 3-in-1’s and I bought our first pack and they were an instant HIT. My daughter found them comfortable, she could get decent colour without having to stress about how hard she was pressing. And the more she used them the more confident she got. For the first time she started to enjoy using pencils. When she started writing letters we actually used the STABILO 3-in-1’s. She loved them. (These fab pencils can write on laminated pages and windows and they just wipe off.)

So when she was a bit older I bought her some STABILO easycolour pencils (they have little groves where your fingers go) – again a big hit. By this stage she had naturally gotten better with her pencil pressure but she still sometimes complained when using other pencils that they felt to hard, the Easycolour pencils sat nicely in her hands, she did not complain about the feeling on her skin or about her hands getting sore. So we stuck with these and around this time STABILO saw some of the blog posts I had written and kindly sent us more goodies for the kids to use. All of which have had great grips.

So when my daughter started using my ball-point pens and complained about the way they wrote I went back to a STABILO product and she now has an Easyoriginal handwriting Pen.

It is brilliant. It is soft and super comfy to hold and has the finger places moulded in (very similar to the EASYcolour pencils).

My daughter finds them very comfy to hold and easy to write with.

Her younger brother who is almost 6 has also tried her pen and loves it.

It is a definite winner with both my kiddies and with me. They are not cheap but for us the price is worth the fact that my daughter will happily sit and write, she has started writing stories and all kinds of extra goodies, without anyone prompting her and without any complaining.

In case you liked the sound of the pencils / pens above I bought ours from Amazon here are the links

STABILO EASYoriginal Handwriting Pen for Right Handed – Light/Dark Pink (these do come in different colours so make sure you select the colour you like)

STABILO EASYcolours Ergonomic Colouring Pencil for Right Handed – Assorted Colours, Wallet of 12

STABILO Woody 3-in-1 Multi-Talented Pencil – Assorted Colours, Wallet of 10

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.

Save

Posted in Home education resources | Tagged Handwriting pen, home ed, home education, homeschooling, pens and pencils, STABILO | Leave a comment

Building Block themed number cards

Posted on November 4, 2016 by ofamily

Sometimes I find something and we use it over and over and over and over again. These building block themed number cards have been just that with my son. They are number cards with the number represented by building block (Lego) tower(s). Straightforward, not complex but as far as number cards go they just appealed to my youngest.

We started off using them as a basic number representation exercise. I would lay out the number cards for him (or he would choose some random cards from a pile).

And then we would build towers for every card (correct number of Lego bricks as per the number on the card).

Simple but when my son was younger he thought this was a great way to practice his numbers.

He also used the cards to build number lines (at the time he was copying his older sister who was ordering cards from smallest to biggest).

As he got older we still used these cards (when you find something that is a winner I vote for sticking with it and adapting it). So when I was explaining that numbers over 10 are made up of 10 and then some ones we grouped our building blocks into towers of tens and loose ones and he grouped his bricks to represent the number on the card. Again really simple but it helped him understand numbers over 10.

And then today when his older sister was using some big number cards (in thousands) to write out great then and less than sums he asked if he could do his own sums. So once again the ever popular building block themed number cards were fetched and he had a go at writing his own greater than and less than sums.

The number cards that we have been using are the – Build tower 1-20 building block number cards from Twinkl (part of their paid for package) I printed ours out over 18 months ago and have just noticed that they have since added a 1-30 version (also part of their paid for package).

I have been asked about the laminated cards that we make and use. I tend to print onto some thin card that we have, laminate the pages and then I cut them all out.

The card that we use is this – Lightweight White Card for Children to Use in All Types of Crafts 160 gsm (Pack of 100).

Laminating pouches I tend to look for bulk value deals and then stock up (I have used lots of different brands – whichever has the best deal)

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.

Save

Posted in maths ideas | Tagged building blocks, home education, homeschooling, ks1 maths, numberlines, numbers, Twinkl | Leave a comment

Including nature in your home-education life

Posted on November 1, 2016 by ofamily

There are a number of things that I have changed since we first started on our home-education adventure (4 years ago), some things have changed naturally as the kids grow older and can manage more activities in their days and others are things which I have actively made an effort to change. One of the things that I have changed is making sure we fit our nature walks in. And I do not mean going walking when the kids are bored and have nothing to do I mean making them a priority. Sometimes this means I will re-arrange our week so that we can fit some “nature time” in . So you might be wondering why is it so important to us ? The Simple answer is after being out in nature everyone is just happier. The kids are in a better mood and tend to play together, they are more patient with each other, more open to learning and they also get very talkative and all the untold stories start pouring out.

But apart from that (although to be honest that for me is reason enough) I have come to realise more and more how much learning happens while the kids are out in nature. Both kids have gotten better at identifying the different birds that we find and also have started noticing the difference between the birds (which birds have webbed feet, or bigger beaks, which birds stay in the trees and which ones come down to find food on the ground).

They have also become interested in the different types of trees and plants – to be honest this is also a big learning area for me so we are learning about this together. They like noticing and commenting on how the different trees change with the seasons. And along with the types of trees they have figured out for themselves that often the area under large trees is just soil as other plants can battle to live there. They have witnessed how different plants like to live in shade and others want to be out in a field of sunshine.

They have observed the weather and are starting to notice the different clouds and how different clouds are linked to different weather. They enjoy going out in the colder months and seeing the webs with all the dew drops on them. And have noticed how the different animals (including insects) behave differently as the seasons change.

And that is not even taking into account the physical benefits – all that walking up and down hills, climbing, jumping, marching, rolling down hills, balancing on logs and running oh the running. There is something about being out in the open and the kids just want to run, just for the fun of it, to feel the breeze on their faces.

So if we are not at home there is a good chance we are out at one of our favourite spots, watching the animals (did I mention we are near a deer park as well), enjoying the seasons, walking and chatting and yes learning together.

Save

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged home ed, home education, homeschooling, nature, nature walks, sensory play, sensory processing disorder | 2 Comments

Simple Machines Activity Set

Posted on October 31, 2016 by ofamily

When our Simple Machines Activity Set first arrived the kids unpacked the box and were already exploring the different items and figuring out how everything worked before I even had a chance to read the instructions. They both seemed really taken by the different items so I purposely put the instruction down and let them play around with the bits and pieces. They quickly figured out the pulley system and my youngest loved this ( I actually spotted him using the pulley a few days later as an elaborate means of lifting some knights out of his toy castle.)

Learning Resources Simple Machine Set. Great toy which encourages kids to explore how basic machines work

Learning Resources machine set encourages the kids to explore how basic machines work

The set comes with – a pulley with rope and hook, a wedge, a lever board, 4 barrels, a cart (the wheels are removable), an Archimedes screw and 10 activity cards. Very simple items but items which when combined together can be used to create lots of interesting outcomes (espically if you add extra bits like Cheerios / water / beans).

A few days later I did eventually get around to the reading the instructions and my husband actually suggested to the kids that they sit and go through the cards together (the set comes with a number of cards with challenges on them). The kids happily sat and I was very pleased to see that by just spending a few days before hand playing around with the different bits they had figured out most of the answers for the challenges already.

The two things they had not figured out for themselves was how the Archimedes Screw worked or that the wheels of the cart could easily be removed and reattached. My husband showed the Archimedes screw to them and the both thought it was fascinating. Simple bowl of Cheerios and both kids had a blast at getting the Cheerios to move up and down inside the screw.

Learning Resources the Archimedes Screw in action

They also had a blast at using the lever board on the wedge as a way of catapulting some Cheerios through out sitting room.

Learning Resources Simple Machine set - flying cheerios through the house

My kids do love mixing their different toys up and combining different parts together in new ways and this simple machine set has been a great addition to their way of playing. The simple parts can be used to create some interesting ways of moving toys from one point to another or up and down

Learning Resources simple machine set moving barrels onto the cart