October Home Education Diaries 2021

I’m honestly unsure of what happened to October, it went by so fast and we don’t seem to have done much at all! However, fortunately for us learning is everywhere, even if we seem to be doing very little!

We also had an unprecedented amount of rain in the last month (our garden was a swamp for a good part of it!). So this meant some outdoor activities weren’t on or were a bit shorter than normal, due to everyone get soaked to the skin!

We still managed to fit in a few things, although I was feeling a bit sad we didn’t go ‘away’ anywhere. But we did sort of make up for that the month before!

Table of Contents

Science

Science in October has included various documentaries including the BBC’s Mating Game and Wonders of the Celtic Deep. We’ve also been listening to our regular podcasts, Wow in the World and Tumble, both have some new episodes out which is great!

We also had some fun pumpkin science with the good old bicarb and vinegar chemical reaction. The kids loved making the pumpkins be sick down the muddy slope! Fortunately the heavy rain washed it all away quickly.

Both children have been playing with Lego again this month. It’s such a good tool for STEM skills, the building of different items from instructions or their imagination is perfect for engineering skills! It also helps with reading, following instructions and maths.

We tend to read quite a few books throughout the weeks. Both children particularly enjoy the scientific and factual Usborne lift-the-flap books. Littlest has asked for the Usborne book on atoms and the periodic table a few times. They are great learning resources for primary aged kids.

We had a trip to Blairdrummond Safari Park at the beginning of October for their Halloween event. It was great to see all the animals at the park. Although the children particularly enjoyed seeing the birds of prey. Some of the birds appeared to be chatting to each other, which the kids enjoyed watching and listening to. We also got to see a young owl flying, which was lovely too!

History

The kids are still enjoying reading the ‘You wouldn’t want to be’ book series. Particular favourites for eldest are the WW2 books. He enjoys learning about the history, in particular the aircraft and tanks that were used at the time. We also started reading the story of Marco Polo more in depth (they know the basics of his journey already). It’s definitely an interesting story and makes me personally want to travel along the silk road!

Inchcolm Island

We’ve also visited a couple of castles this month. The first was Inchcolm island in the Firth of Forth, an old abbey stand on the small sandy island. It’s actually a great place to visit with so much still intact and fantastic to explore. You can also visit the wartime tunnels and gun placements that defended the Forth and Edinburgh.

Huntingtower Castle

We also headed to Huntingtower Castle for a home education meet. We had a good walk around the castle and learnt about the painted ceilings and walls, as well as the story of the lady who jumped between the two towers to pretend to her mother that she wasn’t with a man in the other tower!

On the trip out to Inchcolm we also had commentary on the boat about the history of the Forth bridges. It was quite interesting and we all learnt some new facts about the bridges!

Smith Art Gallery and Museum

At the end of the month we spent a very wet day warm and dry inside the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum. The museum has lots of particular interesting items. We were excited to see some of the items we had heard about elsewhere. We had learnt about the world’s oldest football at Stirling Castle, where it was found in the ceiling of the queen’s bedchamber. So it was great to see it in person.

We were also excited to see the whale bones that were found on the carse of Stirling. This story was covered by the sculpture trail below the Wallace monument. The youngest was excited to read that there were even blue whale bones found near Stirling! The bones could have been there from when the sea level was higher or from when a tidal wave hit the area. The tidal wave story is one we learnt from the video at the Kelpies museum (the kids have watched it many, many times!). The video at the Kelpies tells the history of the area, starting way back with hunter gatherers and a tidal wave that covered the East coast of Scotland.

This is one of the reasons I love how we learn, everything fits together piece by piece and linking all our learning from everyday life and museums/castles.

whale bones from carse of Stirling at the Smith gallery and museum

Geography – Learning is Everywhere

Geography for us is usually the form of looking at the map above the dinner table and the globes and maps throughout the house. The eldest has a good knowledge of where countries are and which flag belongs to the bigger countries. We’re now working on capital cities by playing games whilst eating dinner.

The youngest prefers to listen to the national anthems on their interactive globe. He definitely is more musical than visual!

I’ve also put a photo of the Forth bridges below, there are an important part of Scotland’s geography connecting Edinburgh to Fife. We visited the Forth bridges recently and it’s good for showing how different parts of Scotland are connected.

English – Learning is Everywhere

The eldest is reading through various books now. He still enjoys those with images, so has been going through quite a few of our old Phoenix comics too.

Quite often he reads the DOg Man books to his little brother too, which is really nice. He seems to be quite good at reading aloud to him!

Both children have being doing Reading Eggs again and it’s definitely helping the youngest get better at reading short words.

Maths

We’ve begun the next Life of Fred book, which the kids like. They’re less keen on the questions at the end of each chapter, but they do like the story. However, most of the kids maths has come from playing games.

Logic games such as code breaker and chess are great for tactical movements. We’ve also played various other games that include bits of maths, such as Kingdominoes, Trekking the World and Sushi Go.

Music and Arts – Home Schooling UK

We’ve been lucky enough to be invited to several different seasonal events this year and one of the first was the light show at Hopetoun House. Wondrous Woods is a fantastic show with various fun and entertaining displays to enjoy. We particularly enjoyed watching the display over the loch and the rubix cube colours changing in time to the 80’s music.

We also decided to head to the Smith Art Gallery and Museum in Stirling on a VERY wet day. The art was particularly interesting as they had an exhibition by an artist who used foil sweet and biscuit wrappers to cover his sculptures. The tunnocks teacake tiger was particularly fun!

There was also the normal art work, such as these mussel collectors at a beach, a variety of scenes featuring local areas and boats. It was interesting to see these alongside the more modern foil exhibition.

art gallery Stirling Smith child in front of painting of mussel collectors

We’ve tried a few bits of crafts including some Baker Ross Halloween kits. Although the more successful artwork was probably scooping out and carving their pumpkins for Halloween!

Exercise – Learning is Everywhere

The children have been very busy playing with friends and walking various places. We’ve been to parks and forest group with friends, visiting others at different parks in the area too. They also both go to dodgeball and littlest also enjoys dancing, gymanstics and swimming lessons.

I was very pleased to get back tot he swimming pool with the kids too. Eldest stopped swimming lessons after the summer and so we had been meaning to get to the pool together instead. Annoyingly I was struggling with the booking system, but now it’s sorted we managed to get to the pool for an hour each week too.

Clubs and Groups

Both children enjoy their different clubs and groups that they do. There was 1 week off for most groups due to the October holidays. But aside that they continued with their usual classes. The 7 year old likes to do lots of things (and wants to add more!!), these are Beavers, drama, dodgeball, gymnastic, swimming and dancing. He also has panto rehearsal at the moment too. The eldest chooses to do Cubs and dodgeball (much more manageable!).

We also go to a weekly informal home education forest group, plus a Historic Scotland meet up once a month too.

I’m personally finding all the clubs and groups that littlest is doing at bit draining on time and energy (and my purse!). So although his theatre group have another show to start rehearsing for at the beginning of the year, I think he might sit this one out. We need a bit of time at home where we’re not rushing to one thing or another!

October Home Education Diaries 2021

Science