GCSE / IGCSE Prep Work

Posted on March 29, 2022 by ofamily

I have mentioned a few times recently that I am already doing what I call prep work for my daughter’s GCSE / IGCSE’s and I know some people have wondered about that. So let me explain

My daughter is in Year 9 and she is aiming to go to University so we know Exams are in her future. We already have a good idea on the subjects she is going to do (there are 2 that we are still deciding on) and we have had discussions on how she wants to do her Year 10 and Year 11. She wants to stick with our current model of home education where I am the main facilitator, she is not keen on online schools or using lots of external tutors (there is one possible exception for one subject which we are still discussing). I am happy to continue in this way, I am confident that my husband and I can manage the subjects she is taking but I am aware that some subjects I am naturally stronger in than others, I know helping her with Accounting will be easy for me as I am a Chartered Accountant, likewise I am actually not too worried about History because we both LOVE history (my daughter and myself) and both of us tend to do a lot of research and reading on History just because we enjoy it. And I knew that we were doing History as one of her subjects about 3 years ago so we have already been working on how you structure History answers and this past year we have even covered GCSE History content.

But there are some subjects where I feel like I need to do some prep work. Biology is one of those. My daughter wants to do an IGCSE in Biology, she really enjoys Biology but it is not one of my subjects like History is (before anyone panics and worries, my husband is my backup for Biology – it is one of his subjects, I always preferred Physics and Chemistry). But that being said I am still confident I can do Biology with her. I do need to go through the course work, look at past papers and make sure that any questions I am unsure of I can figure out. It just means I need to (want to) do the work now so that come September we are all set. So for me that meant finding a good quality text book, one that covers all the course work for IGCSE Biology, one that is logical and has everything set out. This past year we have been using a lot of Hodder Education resources for Maths and Science so they were one of my first choices as I knew from past experience I liked their text books and I found this one – IGCSE Biology Book from Hodder Education.

Now I got this book early so I could pre-read it before September but as often happens with good intentions, things change. We had actually finished our KS3 Biology work and my daughter being the kind of student she is, wanted to do more so we started looking at the Body lessons from Theater of Science and then after doing the Heart lesson we dipped into our IGCSE and read the heart pages. It was not planned, I had no intention of using it early but when one of my kids wants to learn I don’t refuse. But I can now say we liked the explanations. Yes, there are longer paragraphs than KS3 text books but that is to be expected because it covers more detail. After reading our heart pages my daughter actually sat and paged through the whole book, looking at what sections it covered and she said she is excited to start using it (that is a good sign). And bonus all answers for all the questions in the book are free to download and they even have a suggested SOW for schools – which I am thinking may be useful but I have not looked at that properly yet.

The other subject I am spending quite a bit of time doing prep work on is English Language. My daughter enjoys the fiction side, especially creative writing activities but non-fiction not as much and unseen poetry well that was a big No. I knew we had to up the poetry side of things, so after Christmas I actually changed our planned English activities and we have spent the last few months working on poetry activities and I have to admit we have made some good progress and she is no longer intimidated by the thought of unseen poetry questions. But I did still feel like I need to up my game some more so I have been reading anything on GCSE/IGCSE poetry that I can get. And yes my daughter is doing an IGCSE English Language exam and I am using GCSE resources as well as IGCSE resources for English language. I know they are different exams but there is a lot of overlap in the type of questions and the content used, so in terms of giving ourselves a good foundation we are using resources for both GCSE and IGCSE English. And I have to say I have found the GCSE English resources from the Twinkl website great for this. I have been able to download and read through so many sample questions and pages on tips and suggestions on how to answer the questions. I also have to admit I am loving these AQA Revision cards that I was given. It is so easy to slot one card in during your day – just one question that we discuss together and over time all those single questions will adds up.

So yes English Language is one where I am still doing lots of reading and collecting resources but I am starting to feel like it actually might be fun.

English Literature is the next one in my list. My daughter has actually selected Macbeth as one of her Year 9 set works and we are starting it after Easter. So as part of that we are actually going to work through this GCSE workbook. I am really looking forward to starting it because she finds Shakespeare interesting and I like the way this workbook is set out (I will write a proper review on the workbook once we have used it).

I am not too worried about her English Literature because we have already slipped in some GCSE content when we read Romeo and Juliet and Pride and Prejudice and both times she managed really well. So I think it really is about selecting the books, and then getting good quality linked resources. And just like I am doing with English Language resources when it comes to using resources that are marked as GCSE I am not being put off. The one play we know we are doing is An Inspector Calls and there are lots of great resources linked to this play that happened to be marked as GCSE, but we are still using them, because they discuss the play, the characters and give us practice questions. I am not going to avoid a good resource just because it is missing an I before the GCSE.

I found this really good GCSE Revision guide for An Inspector Calls from the Twinkl website which is perfect for our use and I also downloaded Twinkl’s lessons on An Inspector Calls.

So yes I am slowly prepping myself for my daughter’s Year 10 and Year 11, and I still have some way to go but I am giving myself time and starting early so I can do it properly and feel confident when we start in September.

Admin – the IGCSE Biology book and the English language cards were both review items given to us.

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Bug Muldoon and the Garden of Fear

Posted on March 27, 2022 by ofamily

I was recently offered the opportunity to review one of the Rollercoasters stories and since we have already read a number of the these books, used their Free to download resources that go with the books and have always enjoyed them, I jumped at the opportunity to review one more. And I must confess I already knew which book I wanted (I have been eyeing this book out for a few months because I was just convinced my son would love this story) so I immediately asked for Bug Muldoon and the Garden of Fear by Paul Shipton.

As soon as the book arrived I read the first 2 pages and I was chuckling and just knew this book was going to be a hit. I had meant to do it with just my son but my daughter heard us reading the story together and quickly joined us on the couch because she loved the way Bug Muldoon spoke (it reminded me of a 70’s detective show). And honestly all three of us LOVED this story, both kids did not want to put the book down and were totally drawn to the writing style, the characters and the whole concept of this little beetle living in someone’s back garden and working as a Private Investigator (my son has started coming up with some of his own scenarios completely inspired by this author).

The story is a fun adventure/ detective story with wonderful characters (we loved the horse fly who is addicted to sugar and shakes), and there is nothing scary or gruesome in here. The book is aimed at the 11 – 14 age range (so KS3) but I used it with my son who is Year 6. And content / reading level it is definitely fine for a Year 6 student.

As a home educator one of the reasons why I love reading the Rollercoasters books (and they do have a good range to choose from) is the fact that they have FREE to download resources linked to these books. All of the resource packs are slightly different but they always contain a summary, lesson plans and activities (worksheets). We have worked through a few of these packs and depending on the book we do them differently – sometimes we do every lesson and stick to the recommended pages for each session and other times we read the book at our own pace and just do a few of the activities (both work). With this book I choose to stick very closely to the suggested lesson plan – mainly because I wanted it to be my son’s main English activity for 2 weeks. So we actually only missed one of the suggested lessons and we did the rest.

I really liked the way they broke down which chapters to read each day (it was roughly 2 chapters a day) which I felt worked really well and for each lesson there tended to be 2 activities. The activities were varied – they included some general Grammar activities (which I really appreciated as my son enjoys having his grammar linked to stories)

and they included some really great writing activities – things like thinking about your characters, planning a story, writing a newspaper article. The writing activities were brilliant for the simple reason they were tied to this story had this story and the characters really inspired my son so he happily sat and wrote and wrote and then wrote some more (which made me love this book even more).

We LOVED this story. We Loved everything about it and highly recommend it as a brilliant, engaging story for ages 10+. We also recommend having a look at the Free to download resources, they are a great way to practice some English skills and for us practicing English is always easier when the activities are linked to an entertaining book.

Admin – As I mentioned above we were offered a free copy of a Rollercoasters book and I chose this particular book as I had already read a bit about it and was convinced my son was going to enjoy it. We were not paid for this post and all opinions expressed are those of my readers (my son and daughter) and of course myself.

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Live Like a Hunter Gatherer

Posted on March 23, 2022 by ofamily

A few years ago my kids went through a massive Stone Age craze – they read everything they could find about what life would have been like all the way back then so when I saw this new book – Live Like a Hunter Gatherer I was immediately intrigued.

And it is a stunning Stone Age resource, one that I wish we had been able to get hold of years ago when we were deep in the Stone Age learning.

It really is packed with lots of facts and I love that they also debunk a few of the myths about the Stone Age. There are lots of interesting diagrams explaining the different concepts (we really enjoyed the page showing how they used very little bit of the deer) and every few pages there is a sweet fictional girl who talks about her life in the stone age (I love it when she described going fishing and the hunting party). It is written in a easy to read manner and they include some great activities which the kids could try out themselves – like building their own bow, making a fat lamp or making a few Stone Age recipes.

It covers a lot (who knew there was so much? Can’t believe we did not think of covering things like medicine when we did the Stone Age) so I thought I would show the contents page so you can exactly how much is in this little Stone Age gem.

After reading through the entire book (and learning some new interesting facts) I really did feel like the authors knowledge on this topic comes through so I had a quick read up about the author and it turns out she undertook a five-month stone age immersion experience in the US. Five moths of living without all the modern gadgets that I honestly could not survive without, no wonder there are so many useful and logical points about every day Stone Age life.

Admin – I requested a review copy of this book because I was just intrigued by it and wanted to see what it covered.

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 love.

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AQA GCSE English Language Revision Cards

Posted on March 22, 2022 by ofamily

We know my daughter is going to write some exams at the end of her Year 11 so I have started collecting resources that I think are good quality, and these English Language cards have already impressed me. I know these were written as a revision tool (and I do think they would work really well as that) but I like them as a “where are we going” tool. By reading through these cards, looking at the type of questions and answers you get a very good indication of what your goal for English Language over the next 2 years is going to be. They give you an idea of how best to structure your answer so that you practice the correct format right from the very beginning of your Year 10 which means by the end of Year 11 you will hopefully be finding the questions a lot easier.

There are 80 cards and each card has a question on the front and the answers on the back. The cards are broken down into the different questions for Paper 1 and Paper 2. And I have to confess I really like that this is done in card format, they are just easy to digest, bitesize pieces of information, that focus your attention on key skills.

When I first saw this set of cards I immediately thought these will be great for the Reading Questions but I was a bit sceptical about the Writing Questions. How were they going to assist with those questions? And I must admit I have been really impressed with the writing Question cards, they guide the writer on all kinds of things like structure, word choice using figurative language and so much more.

Oh and the Reading questions are also brilliant, I read a number of the cards, looked at the suggested answers and I was already feeling a lot more confident about how we are going to tackle English Language over the next 2 years.

I know these are Revision cards and I do think they would be a great revision tool, the kids could select a few cards at a time and work through the questions, try and answer them and then look at the suggested answers. I love the card format instead of a workbook format, so yes they would be an excellent revision tool. But I think that is only just one way of using these cards, if you are a parent/ home educator who is wanting to help the kids structure their answers these cards can guide you on how they should tackle the questions, they can give you tips and hints so you can assist your kid. I think they are a brilliant tool showing what you are aiming for so you can help the kids pick up the right habits at the very beginning (after all it is much easier to start it on the correct path than to try and correct bad habits later).

I am really looking forward to using the cards.

For anyone interested you can get the cards directly from the OUP website (AQA English Language Revision Cards), or from Amazon – AQA English Language Revision Cards.

Admin – I was sent a few resources from Oxford University Press for review purposes, all resources were resources that I selected and wanted to use.

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 love.

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Year 6 Times Table Workbook

Posted on March 16, 2022 by ofamily

I discovered this little gem last year, it was the perfect book for my son.

My son is actually quite good at Maths and could always work out the times tables in his head but I know that actually being able to repeat the times tables quickly is something that does really help with older Maths, so I was determined that he would learn them. I tried a few different ways and nothing was working and then I spotted the Year 4 version of this little book and thought why not, so I bought it and we started to do a double page every day and very quickly I could see that his ability to answer times table questions quickly was vastly improving. And I must admit by the time we had finished the Year 5 workbook I was not sure if we needed to get the Year 6 workbook but after a bit of thought I decided to try it as it just might help to reinforce the times tables while we progress with his other Maths.

And I have to admit I am as big a fan of the Year 6 Book as I was of the Year 5 Book. It is quick and easy to do a double page, in fact he sometimes does 2 double pages in one go. He is practicing some “building blocks” maths, I don’t need to worry about finding him examples to print out, I really love the puzzle questions and it only cost me £4.99 when I bought it.

So quick explanation of how this little workbook is set out. It is written for school kids. So there are 36 double pages – which means 36 “workouts” (the idea being that you do one workout for each school week). They go as far as labelling the workouts Autumn Term, Spring Term and Summer Term. We actually don’t stick to their suggestion of one workout a week we tend to do a few and just whiz through the book (I think it is a great starter maths activity and we often do a double page and then move onto something completely different)

Each Workout is broken down into three sections. Section 1 is the Quick Fire section which is just basic times table, division sums that the kids need to answer. Section two tends to 3 or 4 story sum type questions and then Section three is the Puzzle – which is slightly harder but it is a great thinking activity where the kids see how knowing the times tables help with other Maths. I have also noticed that the questions do get harder as the book progresses.

Oh and there are answers at the back.

I have really enjoyed using this little book with my son, it has definitely helped us speed up our times tables and I do think it was worth the price I paid for it.

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