I hope everyone’s had a great start to the New Year? We’ve been very busy (as usual!), starting the year still up North at Armadale Bay in Scotland and then a week’s skiing at the end of January in France.
There has been a lot of learning going on all through the month too. Although as lot of learning are oral discussions it’s hard to list everything here! I’ve also begun a home education theme over on my Instagram stories. It’s live every Sunday morning and gives ideas of different activities under a different theme each week. I’ve pinned them in my story highlights too, so you can go find them all whenever you need them.
Anyway, here is what we’ve learnt this month, home education blog UK!
Table of Contents
Science – Home Education Blog UK
The kids have begun watching the Planets series by Brian Cox this month. It’s on iPlayer and I think the eldest has watched it previously, but they’re both enjoying watching it again. Space has always fascinated them, so any space documentaries are enjoyed! We also watched the 7 days on Mars programme with Brian Cox too.
Eldest has been busy creating more Lego trains (from scratch with no instructions) and buildings for his Lego train track in his room. He’s set it out like a model railway with signs typed up and printed on the computer (good for English writing skills!). Lego engineering is something he generally finds easy, but will spend a lot of time perfecting different designs. Machines that move are his favourite thing to build.
Youngest had his 9th birthday in January and it was also his friends too. For his friends birthday they went to a potion making workshop and had great fun making different potions! His own party was at a trampoline park, which you could say was scientific too, working out how to bounce hard enough to get to the next trampoline! Lots of forces and gravity involved in trampolining!
Whilst we were up near Thurso at the beginning of the year we had some rather cold temperatures. This froze all the water, paths and sand! This was a novel event for us as we’ve never been by the sea when it was that cold! So this meant a lot of experimenting at sliding over frozen sand, looking at the ice when lifted off the sand to see the sand grain impressions. We also made a snowman, which was fun to see when it broke and half so you could see the layers of sand and snow. Then we spent a while waiting to see how many waves it took to knock over the snowman. Not typical science, but still experimenting and hypotheses made!
The kids both had a ‘yes day’ each in January. So on one day we went to the Glasgow science centre, we hadn’t been since before Covid! The kids had a fantastic time trying out different physics and biology exhibits for the day. Fantastic place for learning more about science. We also watched the We Are Aliens film at the planetarium. We’ve seen the film many times before, but the more you watch the same thing the more you remember!
History – Home Education Blog UK
On New Year’s Day we went for a walk to look at some old Croft buildings. These were buildings created by a small crofting community that was moved by landlords from good farming land to boggy land by a cliff. It was clear when we visited in the snow just how difficult life must have been. It certainly wasn’t very good farming land! We noticed the hearth in the single roomed buildings and the attached barns where animals would live.
A walk up to the Wallace monument goes past a variety of wooden sculptures. The sculptures take you through the history of the local area of Stirling. This includes things such as the whale bones found nearby to the trains used to build the monument.
The Smith Museum in Stirling is free to visit and worth a trip if you’re nearby. It has several important items that we’ve learned about at the Wallace monument or Stirling Castle. They have whale bones found nearby, parts of Scotland’s first powered flight plane, the oldest football made from pigs bladder and potentially belonging to Mary Queen of Scot’s.
We also visited Stirling Castle again, somewhere we’ve visited many times before. However, we still love to visit and find out something new when we visit.
Geography
As I’ve previously mentioned in other posts, we have maps and globes all over the house. So the children always have some idea of the shape of the continents and countries. They are actually quite good at knowing where different places are and the eldest is particularly good at recognising flags too.
We also visited France this month to go skiing. So the kids checked out Google maps to see where we landed (Geneva) and how close the ski resort was. There was some debate whether this counts as the children visiting Switzerland. But we decided that although they had left the airport we just drove straight out to France, so it doesn’t count! I’ll have to take them to Switzerland another time!
English
Littlest is continuing with Reading Eggs and is definitely getting better. Although he certainly is more of a ‘sight word’ person rather than learning through phonics.
Eldest has spent a lot of time reading the Harry Potter series. He decided at the end of last year to re-read the whole series. So he’s read the 2nd, 3rd and most of the 4th book from the Harry Potter series this month. I think he’s developing into quite a fast reader, taking after me in that department!
We’ve also been reading to both children. The youngest has finished The Thief Who Sang Storms and The Boy Who Met A Whale as bed time stories. My husband reads bedtime stories to the eldest, but I don’t know what books they’ve been reading! I’ve also been reading the latest Train To Impossible Places book to both children some days too. We’re hoping it’s not too long for the next one! I enjoyed it too! I think it’s always nice to read to the kids even if they can read themselves.
Maths
Maths has mostly been via Prodigy maths programme, which the youngest particularly loves. And also using board games, the kids tend to be quite good at most maths tasks when playing board and card games.
The eldest also like to bake, so he spends time measuring and checking times when he’s baking. This month he made a train shaped cake, just for the fun of it!
Both children have also been taking part in a Minecraft Education coding course. They have learnt a lot of different techniques and seem to be getting the hang of it, even though it’s getting more in depth.
Art and Crafts
The Stirling Smith Museum and Art Gallery has a small gallery of art and then another gallery that is more modern, with changing exhibits. We had a look around and chose our favourite pieces of artwork. Although the Tunnock’s tea cake wrapped tiger is always a favourite!
Littlest made a paper fortune teller at Cub Scouts one week. So of course the next day they both made several of their own with silly fortunes! They had great fun drawing the pictures and thinking up ideas for inside!
Clubs and Groups
All the kids clubs and groups (aside chess club!) started back this month. Littlest has been practising for 3 separate shows in March, one for his dancing (tap, ballet and modern), one for the local musical theatre group and an extravaganza for Stagecoach. So this has made our weekends very busy and a lot of music played day and night!
He’s also been going to Cubs, drama, Cubs, gymnastics, swimming and usual dancing and stagecoach classes. The eldest has been going to Scouts and both children go to Dodgeball and have been doing a Lego Animation course.
We of course also meet up with other home educators and the kids have been continuing with their indoor climbing and NICAS classes.
All Our Home Ed Monthly Diaries For 2023
- January 2023
- February 2023
- March 2023
- April 2023
- May 2023
- June 2023
- July 2023
- August 2023
- September 2023
- October 2023
- November 2023
- December 2023
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