Advanced Practical Life: Following Instructions

I purchased a mini green house for the garden. This time I didn't build it, instead I left it up to Little-N to read the instructions and build the green house. Reading instructions and following them is an important skill that everyone needs to learn. Unfortunately I know too many adults that dismiss the instructions and go ahead assembling something. Usually they end up with a lot more work, if not a total disaster. Thankfully Little-N followed the instructions and did really well.

Twig Sculptures

In order to make our climbing frame fit in the garden we had to cut down a few branches from a tree. I decided to keep the branches and allow the children a chance to play with them and see what they can create. Little-N and his cousin used elastic bands to hold the branches together and started creating vertical structures. They spent a lot of time working out where to put the branches so that the pressure on the structure will be just right. Having introduced Little-N to words like force and pressure, it was really nice to see him use the words in this contents.

Once the structure was complete, it stood for a whole day and the boys were very happy. The next day Little-N took it down and built another one.

Planting Vegetables

Last year I was envious of my mother in-laws garden. Every time we visited her we had salad freshly picked from her garden. This year I am growing my own. Here are some pics of Little-N planting seeds.

First he filled the recycled tub with compost. [Can you see those little cat ears? totally cute]

Then he made to grooves in the compost and sprinkled the seeds.

Next he covered the seeds with compost and watered it.

And of course he wrote labels to make sure we know what's growing. The seeds will be kept in a mini green house until their ready to be moved to the soil.

So far we've planted:

-Lettuce

-Broccoli

-Cucumber

-Radish

-Aubergine

-Carrots

Little-N is 7

Little-N turned 7 a few days a go. Seven is a special age. I'm really excited for the year ahead. He has matured so much lately and learning is on a completely different scale. His thoughts, character and personality are far beyond anything I could imagine my child to be. I'm so proud of him and person he is growing into but most of all I am so HONOURED to be his mother.

Thank you God for blessing me with this lovely child.

Primary Colours Activity 2 - Playdough

As mentioned in my previous post the children have been learning about primary colours. Yesterday they made playdough in the three primary colours. They will be using this playdough later on for another colour wheel related activity. Here is a link to an old post that includes a playdough recipe.

Primary Colours Activity 1

As part of our art curriculum I have started to present a series of activities based on the colour wheel. Here is the first activity: using colour box 1 the children were introduced to the three primary colours. This lesson was followed by drawing a primary colour triangle and labelling the colours.

The children then looked at the art work of Piet Mondrian and produced their own pieces of art using only the primary colours.

Trampoline

*Just wanted to say and big THANK YOU to everyone who commented on my last post on literature for boys. I will be buying some of the books recommended and Little-N will be very happy.*

Little-N isn't very sporty or physical, he prefers to sit and read a book than to run about or play football. I recently bought him a big trampoline so that he can have some daily physical exercise [secretly I bought it for me!]. It's really funny to watch him, he really enjoys bouncing up and down with his long hair flopping about and that's about it, he's as stiff and wood. All the other boys who have had a try on it have done 'somersaults' 'seat drops' and many other fancy moves. Little-N however is proud of his bouncing and occasional bottom landing. Over the next few weeks I'll be adding more things to the garden so that Little-N and my other students can have a variety of physical activities to explore.

Literature for Boys

Anyone who knows Little-N will know how he and his books are inseparable. He reads so much, almost too much. He will read when he wakes up, read when he goes to bed, read when eating, read when walking and any other opportunity. Once he was asked if he would like to try a friends trampoline, he got on and stood there reading all the warnings and notices, he didn't even try and jump!! He really makes me laugh. He has a huge selection of fiction and fact books, and he will happily read both. He has that balanced just right.

In the fiction section so far he has read most of Roald Dahl's books, all of the Chronicles of Narnia, the complete series of Little Nose, many animal tales and other library books. However I am finding it so difficult to find literature that I am happy with him reading. I want him to read stories with meanings, morals and something beneficial. I recently bought him a series of books by Michael Morpurgo however after getting a friend to proof read them I have decided not to give the books to Little-N. The stories are well written but don't convey they same morals or benefits that I would like become part of Little-N. Roald Dahl's literature is well written, however I was not happy with some of the language or ideas that came across from them. I have been searching everywhere for good books that I can happily give to Little-N to read without worrying. If you know of a good story or series of the books, please leave a comment and let me know, you'll make Little-N very happy!!!

Student Updates

My recent move meant that I had to say goodbye to some of my students. Goodbye to students is always a hard thing, but over the years I have learnt to cope with it. My recent move also meant that I got to take on some new students, I'm surprised at how many home-educators there are in my locality and finding new students was quite easy.

My current class now consists of:

YN who is 8 years

SN who is 8 next month

Little-N who is 7 this month

A who is 6.5

IA who is 6 next month

IB who is 5.5

Not all students come everyday and at the moment I am only running my classes three days a week. Children come for a three hour work cycle plus 1/2 hour in the garden. All the children are already home-educated so they are taught at home on the days that they do not come. Even the children who come two days a week are progressing well.