ofamily learning together

I love Pinterest, I love looking through the broads and finding fun things for the kids to do. I recently came across this post about teaching shapes from Prekinders.com and in the post they had a Geo board and some geoboard dot paper. This immediately got me thinking about doing some patterns on the paper for the kids to try and copy. I printed off the paper from their post (don’t you love it when you find something for free on the internet), made our patterns and laminated them.

Once I had laminated the patterns I actually cut them into strips so that there where only 2 or 3 pictures in a strip. I used the medium size geoboard paper to make patterns for Blue and used the smaller size for Pink (but they ended up doing both so not sure that it mattered).

These geoboard activities are always aimed at Prek / reception aged kids but pink who is now is year 1 (UK school system) did not get all the patterns correctly the first time so I actually think it would be a good activity for all kids in Key Stage 1 as you can make the patterns as hard or as easy as you like.

She has informed me that she wants to try some of the patterns again later tonight, so in our books that makes this activity a winner !!

Posted on June 24, 2014 by ofamily | 1 Comment

Number word writing in English and Afrikaans

Posted on June 22, 2014 by ofamily

We have been working on Pinks handwriting lately. She loves writing little notes for us but she does not always get the tall letters verses the small letters correct. I have in the past made her some spelling pages and she told me that she wanted more as she liked having the lines to help her. So I made her some to practice writing her number words (sorry photos not the best).

The first page has the number word written and then she has to read the word, write the correct number and then rewrite the word. The second page has just got the number and she needed to write the word. I am attaching the document below please feel free to download and use.

numbers 1- 10

I have done the exact same pages in Afrikaans for her. I have found that doing the same page in Afrikaans after doing the English page helps to re-enforce the two languages.

numbers 1- 10 Afr

As always please feel free to send me a message if you have any ideas for some writing pages – I am hoping to make some more over the summer months.

Posted in Afrikaans, free printable / worksheet, Homeschooling, ks1 English | Tagged Afrikaans words, home ed, homeschooling, ks1 english, sight words | Leave a comment

Dear Zoo – sight words and stick puppets

Posted on June 19, 2014 by ofamily

On a recent trip to our local library Blue selected the Dear Zoo book. Pink never really liked this book, until now that is. When I started reading it to Blue she realised that she could read most of the words and got excited and joined in.

So I thought we would try and use this to practice some reading. I found a great colouring page here : Dear Zoo Colouring page.

I wrote the animal names and the descriptive word for each animal (as per the book) on some self-adhesive labels.

I got the kids to colour in the pictures and then we cut them out (Pink and I had to help Blue with the cutting as he could not manage all the curves).

And we stuck them on some lolly sticks with some tape.

Pink then had to stick the correct animal name on each lolly stick

And after that she had to try and match the descriptive word with the animal. We turned the lolly sticks over and stuck the labels on the other side so that the two labels lined up.

And of course the bonus was that afterwards the kids got to play with the stick puppets. My kids love stick puppets we have used them before with other stories, always to great enjoyment.

If you do not already have a copy of this fab book you can get one from Amazon here – Dear Zoo

Posted in Book Ideas, Homeschooling, ks1 English | Tagged home ed, homeschooling, kids books, ks1 english, sight words | 1 Comment

Lets label the house

Posted on June 17, 2014 by ofamily

I have seen a number of different posts about getting the kids to label different items within the house so I thought I would give it a try. I wrote out a few words over the weekend and left them on the desk. Nothing fancy.

Pink noticed and asked about the pieces of paper, so I said I have been writing labels for the house. And without anything else she was off, running around trying to find all the items.

So simple yet a great way to practice reading some words. I started making some Afrikaans words for her to use over the weekend when her dad is here, but as is often the case, I got distracted by the kids asking questions about earthworms and we ended up going to look for some in the garden. So maybye once the house is asleep tonight I will re-try making the Afrikaans labels for the house.

Posted in Homeschooling, ks1 English | Tagged home ed, homeschooling, ks1 english, label the house, sight words | Leave a comment

Marmalade Cake

Posted on June 16, 2014 by ofamily

Pink loves baking so it was no surprise when she discovered the Cbeebies show I Can Cook, that she just loved it. She recently watched an episode where they made marmalade cake and asked if we could bake some. When I told her I did not know the recipe she informed me that all the recipes from the show are on the website. So I searched and she was correct.

Recipe for marmalade cake

I have to admit that this is a very easy recipe to make with kids and it was so simple that I let each kid make one loaf/ cake for themselves

And bonus it was actually very tasty, I have no doubt that hubbie will be finishing the left over when he gets home from work

The kids did battle when they tried to cut slices as it just crumbled but that in no way affected their enjoyment of making the cake and gobbling it all up.

I had a look around the recipes on the Cbeebies website and we will be trying some more in future – there is a very yummy looking one with bananas and toffee that I am sure will be loved by all in the family !!!