It’s time to move onto December and as always we’ve had a very busy month! November has been full of fun times with friends, learning and some pretty shocking weather! But that means even more to talk about, as weather = geography lesson!
Table of Contents
Read More About Our Home Educating Family
- Our Home Education Philosophy
- Best Books For Home Educators and Home Schoolers
- How Do You Teach Kids Without Formal Lessons
- The Cost of Homeschooling in the UK
- Educational Activities For Kids
- A Letter To The New Home Educators
- How To Teach Your Child To Read At Home
History
The weather has been awful, so we haven’t visited any castles this month. Even though I would really like to go and see a few more this year! Hopefully we’ll find some time in December.
We have listened to various history podcasts, including Who, When, Wow and Greeking Out (via YouTube). The kids have also read various fiction books that are based in historical times too. The kids often talk about Ancient Greek myths and history or Viking history as part of games/play, so I think they have a good understanding of these.
Geography
As I mentioned earlier, the weather has been awful and this had led to many discussion about weather phenomena, water cycle etc. too. Although we’ve never gone into detail about any of these things, the kids have picked a lot of it up through general chats and observations.
We also have all our usual maps and globes around the house, so the kids are always exposed to world geography. It’s interesting that one child is much better with their geography than the other, even though the child good at geography is much happier staying at home!
Science
Science is always an easy one to cover, the kids are always interested in learning about science experiments and discoveries. We listen to science podcasts almost daily, with a new one introduced this month – The Rest is Science. It’s a new podcast and it’s made for adults, but easy enough for older kids to understand. As it’s aimed at adults it’s more of a discussion on a different scientific topic each episode, great for kids who love science or just interesting facts!
We also visited the Glasgow Science Centre for a home education workshop run by the National Space Academy. The kids learnt a bit more about the Artemis project, tried some different experiments and even made their own card rockets to fire into the sky!
As usual, the kids have been building Lego, a great STEM activity. They’ve also had a day of making different types of marble runs down the stairs using sheets, card and tape. Which was a bit messy, but fairly educational when you’re trying to get the marbles to land in a specific box.
Maths
Both children have been continuing with Beast Academy maths, just to make sure they understand all the basics. Which makes it easier for them if they choose to sit maths iGCSE’s in the near future.
We’ve also played various board games that involve handling game money, logic, addition and multiplication. So that’s always helpful too.
Language
The oldest has been constantly reading, as always. Although he doesn’t have a good series that he’s into at the moment. So is instead re-reading books he likes or reading shorter graphic story books.
The 11 year old has been listening to a variety of audio books including the second last of the Hunger Games series and the beginning of the Northern Lights trilogy. He’s also had weekly lessons with a trained dyslexia tutor, to help him improve his reading skills in an appropriate way. This is the only tutor we’ve ever used, but I think it’s useful as I’m not trained to support dyslexia and he needs a bit more support with reading fluency. I’ve managed to get him to the stage that he can read most things successfully, but the speed of his reading is still slow and many words need to be sounded out, so this should help him.
I’ve also found a new tool to help the youngest with the speed of his reading. It’s putting the lyrics on songs on Apple Music, so he can attempt to read them whilst singing the song. As the words are only there briefly it’s helping him with the speed of his reading.
Both children have been practising their joined up hand writing (not cursive!). And it’s finally seeming to become more legible! Which is all I wanted really, neat hand writing for whenever they have to write things down.
Clubs and Groups
The usual clubs and groups have been on this month. With gymnastics, drama, panto rehearsals, dancing, choir and climbing for the youngest. Then both have had Scouts and dodgeball.
The youngest has also had a ballet exam, a stage show at the Tolbooth and an extra concert to help raise money for two people from his theatre group.
Socialisation
The kids have had plenty of time socialising this month. Almost every day they see friends, and if not friends they will be around other adults in shops etc. too. We had a great bonfire night at a friends house, watching the fireworks explode above the house and then collecting the used cardboard from fireworks in the garden afterward.
We’ve usually have 2-3 planned social home ed groups each week. And once a month the kids have an adventure day with their friends and an organised forest school company. They really enjoy it and have the best time exploring without parents around.
Art and Music
At the end of the month the new Wicked movie came out, so we went to see that. Twice for the youngest and I! And of course that has meant the music has been playing or been sung in our house ever since!
We also had a home education workshop at Jupiter Artland. Where the children learnt more about the art work on display and made some natural art of their own.
The youngest has also enjoyed making loom band bracelets with a kit he was given at Halloween from his dancing. He’s run out of loom bands now, so will prob need more at Christmas!
Physical Education
The children are always running around, wrestling, climbing trees and playing outside. They may be older, but they still love to have fun outdoors! In addition to this they play games at scouts, do dodgeball, the youngest dances, does gymnastics and climbing.
We also have been on various walks in the area too. Although nothing particularly exciting!
