Another month passed and despite it being a mild winter, with very little snow, we’ve still had great month. This included beginning the month in Lanzarote for a lovely week of sun and culture with the kids.
As mentioned before we most closely align with an autonomous style of education. The children choose what to learn and when, I offer possibilities they may be interested in. We don’t do much written work as they aren’t interested in that at the moment. But instead we learn through many other methods.
Table of Contents
History
History is a huge part of the kids interests at the moment. They have found this love of history few several different podcasts including History Storytime for Kids, Greeking Out, Who When Wow! and Homeschooling History. We keep finding more and more podcasts that the kids love, but then they binge listen to them and we have to wait for the next series to come out!
Both Who, When, Wow! and Homeschooling History are new to us. Who, When Wow! is great at telling the kids about different people from history who have been mostly forgotten, mostly people who are black or women (or both!). So it’s good to hear about less known people getting discussed in history too. Homeschooling History is by one of the writers for Horrible Histories TV series and was on during the UK lockdowns. So it’s not been updated since 2021, which is a shame. It’s a great series!
The kids have also spent a lot of time playing with Playmobil Vikings and Greek gods. Setting up different imaginary scenarios based on their knowledge of the myths. They’ve also had great fun playing with friends and being different historical characters too.
We had a lovely day out with friends visiting the Wallace Monument. It’s the first time we’ve been back since Covid and it’s great to see it all upgraded inside. The staircase is narrow and spirals all the way to the top for great views across Stirlingshire. But the kids favourite parts were making shields on the interactive computers and watching the short film about the Battle of Stirling Bridge.
Aside all this we’ve also read various history books. This includes a book about Titanic that my eldest chose to read and various books we have at home.
Geography – Home Education UK
We begun the month in Lanzarote, where it was lovely and warm! A perfect break from our wet winter in Scotland. It also meant a good reason to talk about the Canary Islands and where they were on maps. They could also recognise the shape of the island on the maps too, which is great.
Whilst on Lanzarote I didn’t have anywhere to place my phone in the hire car. So the kids had the job of helping to navigate using Google Maps. Fortunately they were quite good at telling me when to turn off far enough in advance so we didn’t get lost!
With the war currently happening in Ukraine we’ve also been discussing the location of Ukraine and the history of the Soviet Union. So the children understand that the world map is often changing and new countries can be made. Discussing how donations are travelling to Ukraine also opens up discussion on the countries surrounding Ukraine.
Of course, just having maps around the house helps with the children’s ability to understand the world around them.
Science – Home Education UK
Science also begins with podcasts, the kids favourite science ones being Tumble and Wow in the world. They have learnt a lot from them and will happily listen to the same episodes they enjoy over and over again!
I bought a few new science books this month, Science Quest. The eldest quite likes them, it’s simply answering science based questions to take you to a different part of the book. There are also maths and history quests too, I might need to try and get a hold of those!
We had a day at home recently and chose to spend it doing the Pawprint Amazon Rainforest badge. It included watching the Amazon episode of Green Planet (we’ve also watched all the others in the series now!), making terrariums, making tropical fruit smoothies and rainforest cupcakes!
We were also lucky enough to see 2 White-tailed Sea Eagles on the Scottish Isles. Great to show the kids some amazing wildlife up close!
Maths
Maths is probably not the kids strongest subject, but we have definitely spent more time on it this month. The eldest is particularly good at logic, so he has been enjoying doing Sudoku with our wooden Sudoku game. Recently both children are getting very interested in chess. As they had a quick chess session online and they enjoyed learning a bit more about the basics. The eldest also had a further chess lesson online and is quickly getting good at playing.
Whilst his little brother is busy at groups on a Saturday the eldest has been trying out Prodigy Maths. It’s a game where you have to attack baddies with magical spells. But to use the spells you need to first complete a maths question. He seems to quite enjoy this and has quickly got the hang of various maths skills including reading graphs and long addition.
We also spend a fair bit of time each week playing board games together. Most of these have maths involved, including Sleeping Queens, Life and El Dorado.
English – Home Education UK
The eldest has spent a lot of time reading this month. He’s read through various books or likes to sit and read different magazines too. He’s also been reading some of his favourite books out loud to his little brother too.
I read to them most nights during the week, plus part of a story in bed too. We’ve read Ballet Shoes, The Hobbit and The Ice Whisperers. All different to each other, but individually interesting books.
Outdoor Time – Home Education UK
The kids have managed over 100 hours outside so far this year. This includes about 50 hours in one week whilst on Lanzarote! Clearly good weather is what we need to be outdoors for longer periods of time.
In Lanzarote there was plenty of time at the beach, pool, walks, cycling and playing at the park. As well as sitting outdoors for lunch and dinner!
Back home in Scotland we enjoyed a couple of days of snow to play in. Plus plenty of playing with friends at parks, in the woods and around the town. We also had some lovely (but windy walks) on the West coast, and even saw 2 White Tailed Sea Eagles up close!
Clubs and Groups
The kids have been busy with their usual classes and groups. For eldest it is dodgeball, climbing and Cubs (soon to move up to Scouts!). The youngest does Beavers, climbing, drama, dancing, gymnastics, dodgeball, theatre class and swimming. Yes, the littlest does a lot more than his brother, but that’s his choice. He wants to do lots of groups and his brother chooses to do just a select few. They both have very different interests!
All Our Monthly Home Education Blog Diaries 2022
- January 2022
- February 2022
- March 2022
- April & May 2022
- June 2022
- July 2022
- August 2022
- September 2022
- October 2022
- November 2022
- December 2022
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