Free Summary of Cold War events for IGCSE History

Posted on October 2, 2023 by ofamily

One of our History topics is Superpower relations (ie Cold War period from 1943 – 1972) so as part of our work we created our own little summary of the key events in a table format and in matching cards.

The Summary events in the table format consists of all key events and then we also did separate tables for key events of the Korean War and the Cuban Missile Crisis as well as a table which includes all the US Presidents and the Soviet leaders during this time.

These tables are really just key events and dates and it is just something that we like to do for every section for History that we cover.

We also did some matching cards – the idea is that my daughter can use these to test herself. Can she match the key events with the correct date? (and to check her answers she can just look at the summary table).

These are not fancy documents but they are something that we find useful as your History topics can get a bit overwhelming with all the details so it is nice to have all important events and dates in one place. For those you may also find these useful we are sharing the documents here.

Please feel free to download and print the documents out, you are welcome to share the link of this post but please do not upload these documents directly to your own posts and try to claim ownership of them.

The Cold War Summary Document

cold-war-1-timelineDownload

The Cold War date matching cards

cold-war-timeline-cardsDownload

Hope it helps some of you with this topic

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Rereading fiction books multiple times

Posted on September 26, 2023 by ofamily

Have you ever re-watched a movie more than one, possibly you have even watched a favourite movie countless times. So why do we feel like our teens should not read and reread their favourite books multiple times? How is finding a book (possibly a book series) that you love and then going back to reread it different from finding a movie that you love and going back and re-watching it.

I think as parents we want our teens to be learning and reading new things so we have a tendency to not encourage them to reread their favourites as many times as they want. But when our teens find a well-written book or series (and I do mean well-written), one that they can’t get enough of they are often picking up little details without even realizing it. They are learning about character development, story arches, plot twists, how to create tension, how to get your readers to adopt a character and so much more. And actually it is when they go back and reread the books again and again that these writing tricks really start to come out. On a first reading we may miss some links, some details that hinted at what was going to come or hinted at how a character might turn out, we may miss small writing tricks the first time but on the second or third read we pick these up.

Now I am not saying it is not good to read a wide range o books, I am a bookworm of note. I am always hunting for new books that might be interesting or inspiring and I love watching my teens discover a new character. But as much as finding a new book is exciting sometimes those old ones can be comforting especially when our teens need a break from their studying. Sometimes being able to lose yourself in a familiar story when you know how it will all end is actually what we need,

So if you are like me and have a teen who keeps going back to a few favourites, enjoy it, let them have their comfort reads.

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Edexcel IGCSE History – Superpower Relations 1943 – 1972

Posted on September 21, 2023 by ofamily

For our IGCSE History we selected Dictatorship and Conflict in the USSR and A World Divided, Superpower relations as our two topics for Paper 1. For both of these topics I ended up buying my daughter the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE Books as well as the Hodder Education Paper 1 book and we are using them together. This post is just going to be focusing on the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE Book A World Divided: Superpower Relations 1943 – 1972.

Edexcel International GCSE History Paper 1, A World Divided Superpower relations 1943 to 1972

This book contains all the information that your kiddo needs to know for the Superpower History Topic. Everything is in here. Now this is IGCSE level so there is quite a bit of information and there is no getting around the fact that some of the pages are going to just be a bit text heavy (It is History and at this level you have to accept that there is quite a bit to learn). However I still think they manage to format the pages of text nicely and break it into smaller chunks (I always think tackling a topic in smaller chunks is much easier).

Scattered throughout the chapters they do include quick exam style questions, these are really useful as they are written in the same style as the exam questions so the kids get to practice as they are learning the new facts. We always attempt these questions and I must admit that I feel by the time you have completed the book you have attempted quite a number of these exam-style questions so the kids do start feeling more confidant with how to answer them.

At the end of each chapter they include a summary page which contain 3 blocks – The Recall Quiz Questions, Checkpoint Questions (longer questions) and a quick bullet point summary of key facts. I find this end of the chapter page really useful, we always try the questions on here.

And finally each chapter contains an exam style question but this time they go into detail on how to answer the question in a step-by step manner and they include two sample answers for the kids to read.

We like this book because it contains all the information that we need in one place and we like the fact that they have so many questions for us to practice.

Really if you choose the Cold War as a topic then you can not go wrong with this book.

For those interest here is the Amazon link for this book – A World Divided: Superpower Relations 1943 – 1972

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.

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KS2 Science Books

Posted on September 19, 2023 by ofamily

When my kids where younger (Upper KS2 years) I was constantly looking for good quality Science books that explained concepts with lots of diagrams and illustrations (we like visual books). And I happened to stumble upon a range of Science books that are probably not that well known. They are a range of Science books published by Button Books. The ones that we have discovered are these ones, but there are a few others.

The books are not overly long, normally 50 pages (although the Microbe books is slightly more), they take complex ideas and explain them in a concise manner that makes sense without oversimplifying it. They use lots of diagrams and illustrations to explain the concepts but also don’t overcrowd the pages with way too many words. They really do a good job of making Science visual and something that can be broken down into small manageable chunks (we like dealing with Science in small chunks).

I think they are little gems.

I think one of the advantages of these books is that they do not look like a typical “science text book” but they rather have a format of a fun reading book. They are more inviting to read than your normal science text books and I like that they just cover one Scientific area in one book. I think more smaller Science books are less intimidating than one massive book. And I personally think you can never expose your kids to too many Science books. Really the more the kids are exposed to these Scientific concepts when they are younger the less overwhelming their Science will be when they are trying to get into more detail and study it in their Secondary years.

If you can get your hands on some of these I think you will not be disappointed.

I must be admit I have not spotted any of these books at our local bookstores or our local library but you can get them via good old Amazon – these are the ones that we have.

Discovering Energy

My First Book of Relativity

My First Book of Quantum Physics

My First Book of Microbes

Discover Our Solar System

Like I mentioned above I believe there are a few more in this range but these are the ones that we have and the ones that I have read so I cannot mention or comment on the others.

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.

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Edexcel IGCSE Physics Revision Guide

Posted on September 6, 2023 by ofamily

For my daughter’s IGCSE Science subjects she kept asking for Summary Books – what she meant was something that had the same content as her student books but in a more condensed manner, leaving out extra detail and focusing on the key points. Something that she could read after she had finished a section in her student book. And because I had bought her the CGP Edexcel International GCSE Biology Revision book (and she liked it) I just decided to stick with what was working and got her the CGP Edexcel International GCSE Physics Revision Guide.

Now it really is not as detailed as her student book. They sell it as a Revision Guide so it is a summarized version of the student books. But it does contain all the topics that they need to cover.

Okay I find some of these pages a bit crammed but surprisingly my daughter does not (and in the past this has been an issue with other books that we used). But she does only read 1 or 2 pages at a time and for her this is a reminder of what she has already learnt (in other words this is not her main source of knowledge). We do both like the use of colour to highlight facts and we also like that they write the information in blocks or sections, so you can sometime even just focus on half a page or a block at a time if you need too.

I will say what we both really think that this is a great set of notes. It is quicker to read and refer to than the typical student books so when it comes to just checking a formula or a fact this is often easier to use and quicker to refer back to.

And it includes a chapter at the end Describing Experiments which has some really useful pages on experiments and using graphs and ratios (very useful chapter).

I don’t think this takes the place of the student book (because you need to read the detail) but it terms of a set of Revision Notes or Summary Notes to refer to we think it ticks all the boxes.

For those of you who want Amazon links this is the book mentioned above – CGP Edexcel International GCSE Physics Revision Guide.

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.

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