Subscribe!

Subscribe to our newsletter to get updates on all our latest blog posts!

Monkey and Mouse

Home > Monthly Diaries > Home Educating Family October 2024

Home Educating Family October 2024

by

October has been such a busy month, with the build up to Halloween and the 2 week school holiday! Although as a home educating family we don’t use schools, a lot of the kids clubs and groups revolve around the holidays, so we end up using them as a break from routine. This meant we had one ‘quieter’ week at home and then a busier week visiting France and then family in Scotland.

Read More About Our Home Educating Family

History

The children have watched a fair few Horrible History episodes this month, they are a great way of getting kids into history. We have also been listening to more of the Who, When, Wow podcast and the new Live From Mount Olympus Season (It’s all about Pandora this season!).

If you’ve been watching my Instagram stories you will notice that we visited the amazing Puy du Fou theme park. It’s located near Nantes, France and is the perfect place to visit with kids. You’ll find dozens of historical themed shows, which often leads on to discussions about other history topics. The kids particularly loved the roman and Viking shows. There were also medieval and later villages to explore, watch crafts people work and see how people used to live.

We also visited the Scottish Crannog centre at the beginning of the month for a home ed group trip. It was fantastic and the kids had an awesome time learning about life back when crannogs were in use in Scotland. The village is currently all on the land, but progress is being made on building the first crannog (the previous one burnt down).

Geography

Travelling to France in the October holidays gave us a little time to discuss where we were going and the flight change from Amsterdam Schipol airport to Nantes in France.

There has also been various discussions on geography topics such as climate change and weather.

Science

Science always begins and ends with podcasts. The kids love listening to podcasts in the car and science ones include Wow in the World, Tumble and Mysteries of Science. Great for learning about a range of scientific topics and discoveries.

The children have also watched a few David Attenborough documentaries about animals and the affect that human populations have on animals. Plus the eldest has a watched some more of Brian Cox’s space documentaries.

English

The eldest is working his way through several different book series at the moment. Including the Skandar series and the Percy Jackson series’. He seems to be getting through 2-3 books a week. He’s also still working on Night Zookeeper English program.

The youngest is practising reading with me. Although he is also particularly enjoying audio books too. Working his way through a couple of audio books a week.

I still read to both children in the evening and the youngest at bedtime (their dad reads to the eldest at bedtime). We’ve been reading through the final Strangeworlds book by Lapinski and are now onto the latest Montgomery Bonbon book. The littlest is enjoying listening to me read the Harry Potter 5th book.

The kids have also been practising some writing, I’m hoping to make it neater and more legible!

Maths

Both children have been working on the Beast Academy maths program. It seems ok, but definitely not as fun as Prodigy maths is! Unfortunately they completed the game on there.

Other maths activities have included various board games too.

Clubs and Groups

Although we had two weeks off from clubs and groups, there was still plenty going on! The children have had two weeks of their usual groups, including gymnastics, drama, dancing and Scouts for the youngest and Scouts, dodgeball and Lego group for the eldest. We’ve also started a new home ed board games club, which went well!

The kids also had various park meets with friends, including one on Halloween where they dooked for apples and ate doughnuts without their hands.

In the holidays the youngest took some extra gymnastics sessions too.

Socialisation

We’ve seen friends plenty, at least every day there is something going on during the week, so the kids have plenty of time to play with their friends. Socialisation also includes meeting and talking to other people, from shop workers to doctors. Which the kids can, and do, talk to as well.

Art and Music

Although the children haven’t really done much art. They did watch various craft people at work in Puy du Fou, the glass making was particularly interesting. They also crafted their staffs/scythes for Halloween.

Both children have played around with the keyboard at home. The littlest and I also went to the local theatre to watch the teenage cast in SIX the musical. It was amazing and now we have many of the songs being sung repeatedly (including the inappropriate parts!).

Physical Education

We’ve been on plenty of walks, whether it’s around the pumpkin patch or walking along the new path network on Gigha. There was also a significant amount of walking at Puy du Fou!

The kids already have busy weeks, running around with their friends and doing very active clubs. So this is something that is easy to cover for my two.

All Our Home Education Diary Posts For 2024

Pin Home Educating Family October 2024