Sprouting seeds

Like most people this time of year, we have been planting out seeds to grow some vegetables in our garden. 

We’ve talked before about “roots and shoots” etc and have watched time lapse videos but I wanted to be able to show him in a more hands on way.

We planted runner beans in cotton wool and clear plastic cups. 

Every day Michael watered them and observed their change. It worked really well. He could clearly see the beans, roots, shoots and leaves and was able to watch the order in which they appeared. He sat and drew them; this is the diagram he drew...

One bonus that we hadn’t expected was that one of the bean’s shoots couldn’t find its way up. We talked about how plants need sunshine and made a channel in the cotton wool to help it up. The shoot had taken too long however so it scrapped that shoot and sent up a new one. This was a brilliant example of nature solving problems for Michael to see!

We also sprouted mung beans and have enjoyed eating them in our wraps and meals.

London

My husband has been working on a project in London recently. Michael struggles with his absence and worries that he won’t come home. Even though he has been adopted for some time now, he still finds it hard to believe that “we will love him forever”. Often children who have been through the care system have these issues. It’s heart breaking! So we decided to take a trip down to London to see where Daddy was working, stay in his hotel and visit a few museums. It was brilliant!

We got up at 4:30am to catch the train. The boys were so excited! Michael tells everyone “we got up in the middle of the night and had breakfast on the train...in the night!!!” I love the way children see things.

We dropped our luggage at the hotel and then walked to where my husband was working. He builds television studios. Michael loved being able to have a good look and asked lots of questions. He loves to know how things work and why.

We then jumped on the tube (thank goodness for baby carriers!) and spent the whole day in the Science Museum! We had planned to visit a couple of museums that day but the boys both loved the Science Museum so much that we spent 7 hours there!  As I said before, Michael loves to know how things work and why so this museum ticked that box beautifully.  Steven particularly enjoyed the sensory garden as there was water play and things to bang!

We got the chance to sneak into a bubble show that was being run for a special school. Michael charmed the teachers into letting us in too. It was excellent.

We stayed one night. The second day was spent at the National History Museum and British Museum. The British Museum was a little too “do not touch” for my boys so we ended up chasing pigeons at the park instead.

The National History Museum however was great! We've been before, but that didn't seem to matter. Michael hired one of their explorer packs. It’s a backpack with clues inside (and cool binoculars and hat!), you have to work out what creature the clues are from and find it from somewhere within the museum. Michael had the “long-horned cowfish”.

It was a wonderful trip. It helped to ease Michael’s fear about whether Daddy was coming home, and gave us lots of learning opportunities. It was also a good opportunity for him to do a bit of train spotting; his favourite subject!!!

Solar Eclipse

On the 20^th March 2015 we had a solar eclipse. After a fairly failed attempt at making a viewer using cardboard we blacked out Steven’s (south facing attic) bedroom and put a pinhole in the black plastic. The results were brilliant. We had a very clear projection on the wall. One of Michael’s friends was off school that day so was able to join in our discussions which was really nice. Michael has been quite interested in our solar system lately. His understanding has reached the point where he realises there is more out there than just the town he lives in. I love being able to be there while he learns and has his “aha!” moments.

Box day!

After spending a lot of time researching the internet and chatting with friends (many of whom have taught their children for years and have tried everything!) we decided to purchase a Sonlight curriculum. www.sonlight.com

As home educators, there is no set curriculum we have to follow. What I really like about Sonlight is that they choose really nice books. They are child friendly clear factual books (“Twaddle free” as Charlotte Mason would describe them!). It’s a literature based curriculum. Michael loves reading, and as a family we read a lot together, so this style of teaching really fits us well. Being new to home education, I in particular felt I wanted a curriculum that covered most subjects and gave me everything I would need on a plate. Sonlight have provided a weekly timetable as a guide, but we intend to pick and choose a bit to find what suits us, so for the time being we’re not following this. We expect this “1 year curriculum” will probably last at least 2. As Michael is only 5, we believe he shouldn't be doing the kind of formal education that schools here in the UK are teaching. There is too much pressure put on our little children. Children are naturally inquisitive and we should be nurturing this, not forcing standardised “factory like” education on them (in our opinion!). I think the majority of his learning should be through play and led by his own inquisitive mind. I/we provide the environment (both at home, and through many many outings and groups we attend) and resources to nurture this and his natural desire to be a sponge for knowledge does the rest.

We have been following the readers (books he reads to me) and the read alouds (books I read to him/them) that Sonlight provided (this is obviously alongside plenty of books we choose too!) and read together several times a day. We were able to pick and choose our curriculum to suit Michael’s abilities. Michael is a very competent reader so we have grade 2 readers (grade 2 is the equivalent to year 3 in UK) but he struggles with writing so we bought their “Handwriting without tears 1”. The handwriting programme was developed by occupational therapists and is a “developmentally based handwriting programme”. I will do a separate blog post about this as I've been SO pleased by the results we've had so far! We also chose to follow Singapore maths (it seemed the best in my opinion and seems to follow on well from what he's already done at school) and try to do a little maths and writing every day. We play a lot of maths games together, but again will save this for another blog post.

It was very exciting the day our curriculum arrived (Sonlight call this “box day”)! Michael had lots of fun unpacking it all! Even the boxes themselves were exciting because they were printed on the insides to become a castle and a space shuttle!

We’re really enjoying this new phase of home ed life and look forward to continuing to learn more and more together.