I completely forgot that I needed to write a May update to our home education blogger diaries! Apologies for that! This month has been fairly busy with over 2 weeks away in Costa Rica. It was an awesome trip and perfect for both fun and world schooling. The wildlife there is amazing!
As you can see, if you read our diary below, we don’t have any curriculum. Learning is simply through life and any apps etc. they choose to do.
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
Science
So a lot of the science this month has been around tropical wildlife and ecology in Costa Rica. From learning which bird calls match the birds, there are some rather cool bird calls compared to at home! Spotting everything from toucans, hummingbirds and frogs. Then of course knowing which trees the sloths and quetzals preferred. Watching territorial behaviour of various monkeys and lizards. There was certainly a lot to see!
The kids were very engaged with the wildlife, enjoying spotting it and identifying. Learning about the different habitats we visited was useful too. From the rainforest to cloud forest and dry volcanic areas. We even explored rivers and mangroves via kayak and crawled through a narrow limestone cave!
In the North of Costa Rica we visited the Volcan Rincón de la Vieja National Park. It was an amazing display of volcanic activity. We didn’t hike up the volcano itself, but we did explore the mud pools, steam filled bubbling water and watched how the heat below the surface affected the above ground world.
Aside our travels we also listened to our usual science based podcasts. These include Wow In The World, Earth Rangers, Tumble and the Mysteries of Science. We had a hire car in Costa Rica, so we could also listen to them on longer journeys around the country.
History
History is always an important topic to the children. We listen to various history podcasts, including Who, When, Wow, Greeking Out and Live at Mount Olympus. A lot of their history education comes from these podcasts.
However, they also learn history from visiting castles and museums around the UK too. We didn’t manage to visit many places this month as we were away for a big chunk of it.
Geography
Obviously being half way across the world helps a little with the kids geography. They now know where Costa Rica is and they learnt a lot about the country’s ecology.
It’s also rather useful having the on-screen map for the long haul journey. We could flick back to the map throughout the flights to check where we were. Which was mostly somewhere over the Atlantic! But also zoom in on different countries and look around using both the video transmitted from outside the plane or the online maps.
At home we still have plenty of maps and globes that are often used to check where different countries are.
Maths
As the kids completed the quest part of Prodigy we’ve now now moved on to Beast Academy. It is a paid programme, but it still has an element of fun to it as well. I think the kids preferred Prodigy, as it was more like a video game, so more incentive to get a correct answer. But we’ll see how Beast Quest goes!
I am also trying to encourage the children to play more games that involve maths. Including games such as Zeus on the Loose and Shut the Box.
Language
The youngest has been reading to us regularly, practising his skills. He can read slowly, but not what I would call ‘fluent’, as in he can’t just glance at the words and know what they are. He still has to decipher a lot of them. But I’m sure he’ll get there soon. I can definitely tell when he hasn’t read to us for a few days.
The eldest on the other hand practically devours books! Whilst away we had his Kindle, where he finished the last two of the Harry Potter series (again), the script of the Cursed Child, the entire Percy Jackson series and a couple of other short books. There is a reason that we don’t bring physical books on long journeys for him! We only took carry on cases for the 2 weeks!
Writing is meant to be weekly, getting the kids to write more in their notebooks. But this has fallen by the wayside with being on holiday. So we’ll need to pick it back up again!
The kids also learnt a few words of Spanish whilst away too. They might not no a huge number of words, but they did try and be polite with the Spanish they did know.
Clubs and Groups
All the kids clubs and groups are ongoing. We did miss a couple of weeks, but were there for the rest of the time. It probably made it more difficult for the youngest as he has a dance show at the beginning of June. So he also needed to continue practicing his dances for the show whilst away. Which he managed to do with a little help from so videos. I definitely need to check dates for shows next year so we don’t go away just before it again!
He’s also taken on lead climbing this term, which is a big step for him. But he’s loving learning a new skill.
Other clubs and groups the kids attend (they don’t both do them all!) include Lego club, chess club, dodgeball, cubs/Scouts, gymnastics, drama, dancing and climbing.
We also managed a lot of swimming whilst in Costa Rica! Something we need to do more of at home again!
The Arts
The kids haven’t been particularly interested in creating any artwork themselves. However they have enjoyed seeing some of the sculptures and architecture at places we’ve stayed in. It’s lovely to see the beautiful art culture in Costa Rica!
Home Education Blogger Socialisation
Whilst away the kids speak to other people in the hotels, or tour guides. But mostly they just tend to chat and play together. Whilst we are at home we often meet with friends, so at least 3-5 times each week we’re meeting with other home educated friends. Plus schooled friends at weekends and after school. And then there are the different groups they attend too. Certainly not lonely over here!
All Our Home Education Diary Posts For 2024
- January 2024
- February 2024
- March 2024
- April 2024
- May 2024
- June 2024
- July 2024
- August 2024
- September 2024
- October 2024
- November 2024
- December 2024
Home Ed Posts You Must Read
Pin Home Education Blogger Diaries – May 2024
