ofamily learning together

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.

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged educational resources, English Literature, english resources, free printouts, home education, homeschooling | 2 Comments

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.

Posted in Homeschooling | Leave a comment

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.

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged educational resources, English Language, GCSE, GCSE Revision, home education, homeschooling | 1 Comment

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.

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged educational resources, home education, homeschooling, ks2 maths, Maths resources, times tables | Leave a comment

Code-Cracking for Beginners a Twinkl story

Posted on March 10, 2022 by ofamily

I am spending more one-on-one time with my oldest (we working through some poetry activities) so I wanted to find a learning unit that my son could complete by himself. And as the Twinkl book activities have always been a hit with him I decided to try their World War Two story (which happens to tie in nicely with our World War Two history topic) Code-Cracking for Beginners. We happened to have the actual book (it was sent to us last year sometime as part of the Twinkl book club but if you don’t have the book you can download the story in eBook format) and I went a bit crazy printing off all kinds of related worksheets and activities for him to do.

Then whenever my oldest and I were working on her English he would either read some more of the story or work through some of the activities. It worked out perfectly. He really enjoyed the story and he powered through the activities. I have to admit English is probably the subject that we need to work on with him – he just tends to enjoy Science and History and Maths comes easily to him but English is just a bit more challenging for him. But in the past whenever he have worked through one of the Twinkl eBooks and done the related activities he has always enjoyed it and he never seems to complain if the English activities are linked to an interesting story. So for me it really is a win all the way around.

My son read the book completely independently but I did notice that on days when he only needed to read 2 chapters (because the linked activities dealt with those 2 chapters) he would often actually read 5 just because he was enjoying the story. So I decided to read the story myself just to see if it was as good as he seemed to think and I must admit I thought it was a really enjoyable World War Two story. The characters were lovely and interesting (both the good and the bad characters), there was some suspense and adventure and there was even a plot twist at the end which I was not expecting. I love the fact that the Twinkl stories have linked activities but even if you are NOT planning on doing any of the linked activities this is still a sweet World War Two story for the kids to read. And I REALLY liked the descriptive words and phrases that were used – I feel like the whole book was a good example to my son on how to write an interesting account of events and people.

And there are lots of activities. As always there are guided reading questions and a comprehension, which we always tend to do just because I like getting my son to practice reading a piece of text and then being able to answer questions on it (really a good skill to develop).

But they also included a wide range of Grammar and Punctuation activities which I really appreciated because these are the activities that my son often finds a bit dry but which he does need to practice a bit. And he even found the Dictionary activity interesting (which is a first), he thought the words that they used were interesting.

Linked to this story we found a great drawing World War Two planes activity which my son loved (in fact he did comment that he wished they had included a wider range of ALL the world war two planes to draw – but they he really likes learning about weapons).

And he also really liked the Morse Code Activity (and yes we have tried to use a torch to flash our own messages like they did in the book and yes he is wearing a home-made cape while he does his work).

I am a huge fan of the Twinkl orginal books and their activities. We have read and worked through the activities for a number of them and really enjoyed almost all of them. But I have to admit this one is possibly one of our favourites, although it is hard to decide which is our absolute favourite as we have enjoyed so many. (But for anyone wanting some other suggestions we can also recommend – The Pack of Pompeii, The Birds of Flanders Field, Victorian History hackers and Wyrmstooth Crown).