ofamily learning together

Fun, Easy, Colourful Paper Pictures

Posted on April 20, 2019 by ofamily

We have been having a super chilled few days and had some fun playing around with some new colourful paper that we bought.

We started off with a few colouring pages (simple colour pages are easier) and we selected the paper that we wanted to use. (The example below used this Turtle colouring page)

We turned the colouring page over and shaded over the lines. Then we selected our colorful paper and traced over the shapes that we wanted – you end up with a faint outline of the shapes.

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Some cutting and glueing and 1 colourful turtle emerged.

It was such an easy art project and the end result was so cheerful so we selected a bird colouring page (this Kookaburra Page ) and did the exact same thing.

And then we tried another version of the bird (my daughter actually wants to use the two kookaburra’s for some cards).

And one last one a scarecrow (this is the colouring page we used for this one – Scarecrow page).

It really was such an easy little project but the pictures turned out super cute and I do agree with my daughter I think all of these pictures would be perfect on some home-made cards.

The colourful paper the we used was bought from local crafting stores and all the colouring pages that we used are from the Activity Village website.

On the Map Board Game

Posted on April 15, 2019 by ofamily

Last year the kids were given the Predators and Producers board game and I was so impressed with it that I wanted to try another one. Oaka Books have three different Science Board games for Key Stage 2 and three different Science ones for Key Stage 3 and while they all look good (my aim is to eventually have all of them for revision purposes) I was very keen to try their geography game. Now the game is aimed at Key Stage 3 years and my kids are 10 and 8 and I must admit we have not spent a lot of time on countries and capital cities so we changed the game slightly and made it more about learning/ discovering places on the map than revision. Although after playing the game our way I really do think we will continue using it and it will evolve into a really good revision game.

The game is divided into two separate versions – The UK and Europe and The Rest of the World. Inside the box you get a double-sided playing board and 2 different groups of cards depending on which version of the game you want to play (I really like that it is 2 games in 1).

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It is dice based – so you throw the dice and that determines how many blocks you can travel. The aim is to win/ own as many blocks on the map as you can (ie as many different countries as you can). You win a block/ a country by answering a question if you get the question correct you can place one of your markers on that block denoting that you now own it. If someone else lands on your country afterwards and wants to challenge you for that country then the challenger and the existing owner have to answer a Quick Fire Question, which is all about capital cities.

Now if you are playing this game as intended ie as revision then the player answering the question should look away from the board but if you have younger kids you can alter that and allow them to find the answer on the board (this is what we did). We challenged the kids that if they thought they knew the answer they should try to answer without looking but if they did not know they could use the map to find the answer and that was okay – so for us it really was more about the kids discovering new places on the map and learning as opposed to revision. Both my husband and I felt that the game worked really well in this way – we used all the question cards and when necessary stopped to explain something but most of the time the kids really enjoyed searching for places that they have not heard of and were also very proud when they could answer a question without looking at the map.

Also the UK and Europe version does include a number of UK-based questions which I really liked as it is something that we need to learn more about.

We really like this game. And I do think it works just as well as a discover/ learn about the map game. My eight-year old who is not normally NOT a fan of board games actually asked if we could play it again this coming weekend so he could practice what he had already learnt and try to learn some new countries and cities. That right there makes it a WINNER for us.

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Admin Bit – We went sent a parcel of goodies from Oaka Books earlier in the year. It was up to us what we used / how we used it / when we used it and what we thought of it.

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged Board games, home ed, home education, homeschooling, kids geography, KS3, Oaka Books | 4 Comments

Relaxing with Audio Books

Posted on April 11, 2019 by ofamily

We often go through phases with certain activities – we will have a period where we do a lot of art or spend ages gardening and then it will switch and whatever it was that was occupying so much of time will suddenly seem to fade away for a bit. The past 2 weeks our love of audio books seems to have come around again.

It started by accident, I mistakenly reserved the audio Viking Boy book instead of the actual book, so we ended up borrowing both from our local library and I am so glad we did. The audio book really captivated my son, he loved the voices and the way in which the story was retold. He loved it. And after listening to just the first disc I noticed he was trying to read his books with more expression and some cool voices. I really loved this because my son has a tendency to read and speak quickly but when he is tries to use more expression he slows down.

The success of the Viking Boy Audio book prompted me to dig out our Michael Morpurgo audio book collection and we started to listening to some of those gems. And they really are gems. Both my kids have enjoyed listening to them and I must admit so have I.

I actually LOVE the audio books for the simple reason that I get to sit back and enjoy the story with the kids. And I must admit it has become such a peaceful session for me, I really find it relaxing sitting there just listening, in a way it is so luxurious for me because I don’t need to do anything but sit and listen.

And while we are listening to the stories the kids will often work on a drawings or a colouring page – oh I really do love these relaxing little sessions.

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged Audio Stories, children's book, educational resources, home ed, home education, homeschooling | 1 Comment

Battle of Hastings

Posted on April 5, 2019 by ofamily

We have covered the Anglo-Saxons all the way up to Edward the Confessor so it was only natural that we moved onto the Battle of Hastings. And it just so happens we were given a Battle of Hastings pack by Oaka Books so we dived right in. The topic pack came with a Topic Booklet, Write your own Booklet and a Revision map.

We started with the Topic Booklet. My daughter and I read through it together and I must admit I thought it was really well set out. I liked that the booklet started with a mind map of all the events.

Then it explains why the Battle of Hastings actually occurred – that Edward the Confessor died and there were 3 claimants to the throne. It goes onto setting the scene for the events that followed.

Onto the first invasion and battle at Stamford Bridge followed by William’s invasion and subsequent battle. My daughter commented on how she found the pictures really helpful for remembering the events – the images of Hardrada dead, of Harold refusing to listen to his brother’s advice to rest his troops and of Harold with an arrow in his eye, were very effective. The images are in no way scary, they have a cartoon feel about them but they were effective and key in helping my daughter remember the order of events very quickly.

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The Topic Pack ends with a 2 page summary of why King Harold lost and Why William won – a really good wrap up.

After going through the Topic Booklet she wanted to give the Revision Map a go. We have never tried one of the History topic revision maps before and I think they are genius, very simple but so effective (and I don’t mean simple in a critical way I mean that as a compliment, we are not fans of pages that are crammed full of distracting images that overwhelm the kids).

As the kids work through the revision map they add the character cards that come with it to the map (they also give you plastic stands as seen in the photos below).

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My daughter also thought the character cards were a useful tool on their owns – she has since used the character cards to retell the entire story of the Battle of Hastings.

My daughter LOVES these revision maps and has very excitedly informed me that a similar one is included in the Spanish Armada Topic Pack and I had a quick look on the website and it looks like the Battle of Waterloo Topic pack also has a revision map activity.

My daughter and I recommend this Topic Pack !!

Admin Bit – We went sent a parcel of goodies from Oaka Books earlier in the year. It was up to us what we used / how we used it / when we used it and what we thought of it. One of the reasons I was happy to get the parcel in the first place was because we have already used 2 of their Key Stage 2 Topic Packs and played one of their games before and I liked the style so I was expecting more of the same.

Posted in History, Homeschooling | Tagged Battle of Hastings, British History, History, home ed, home education, homeschooling, KS3, Oaka Books | 1 Comment

Frog Diary / Frog Life Cycle

Posted on April 3, 2019 by ofamily

I mentioned how much my son is enjoying the Animal Diaries and we now have a third one – Frog (Animal Diaries). And it is just as good as the other two.

It is written in the same format – so the book is essentially the Frog’s diary and he is writing about the events that happen to him. It includes some fact clips which are inserted as if the frog has stuck clippings into his diary.

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The book covers topics like the frogs habitat, what food the frog eats and who likes to eat the frog. As well quite a bit on the life cycle and the fact that the frog has a “cold-sleep”.

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I also really liked the bit about the frog getting netted (ie kids pond dipping) as it reinforces that the kids need to be very careful and gentle with creatures that they might discover. Oh and the little section about the frog getting cut on some glass also great as it started a great discussion about how litter can really hurt animals and it even made my kids think about toys that they might leave out in the garden over night.

The book actually inspired us to revisit the frog life cycle – I was honestly not planning on doing anything this year as we covered it quite a bit last year when the kids got frogspawn from a neighbour. But my son decided he wanted to make his own life cycle poster – he initially wanted to make something to go inside the animal diary that he is writing but then decided he would rather make a poster (and yes you did read that correctly these animal diary books that he has been reading have encouraged him to write his own animal dairies but that will be a different post).

For his poster idea he selected these sequencing cards from Activity Village and he did the rest.

I think the cards worked really well as a home-made poster and he even inspired his sister to make her own poster.

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If you do have an Activity Village membership you can also download their Frog Life Cycle Poster (which is also good, although the mom in me prefers our home-made versions – totally biased I know)

And if you do manage to get your own frogspawn (my kids are hoping like crazy that our neighbour is going to give us more this year – he has a pond in his garden and normally ends up with a crazy amount of frogspawn), then this diary booklet might come in handy – and yes if we do get some I am totally going to print this out and get the kids to write about them.

Admin Bit – this is not an ad. We discovered this range of books (the Animal Diaries) at our local library and my son loves them so I am borrowing as many as I can.

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.