Wednesday 24 October 2012

Weapons training

0 comments
It's not as bad as it sounds, honest!!!

It's half term, and whilst the school we live in is closed for two weeks, my husband has some family commitments and a school trip to morocco which mean we only have a couple of days together :0(

Still, there's enough time to do a few fun things, including some planting and building a bow and arrows to play with.

Cosmo has been so proud of the bow and arrow he and daddy built and they've had great fun shooting it.

Wednesday 10 October 2012

Twinkl

1 comments
A few of you have already commented on my facebook photos of the new posters in our 'school room', asking me where I bought them. 

Well lucky for you guys, they are actually a free downloadable resource on a website I've been asked to review called Twinkl

Photo: New posters for the school room: 'Homophones' courtesy of Twinkl October 07, 2012 at 03:39PM http://bit.ly/Uvblbo

Twinkl have a ridiculous amount of free resources available for both classroom environments and parents at home to help with everything you could ever want for your preschool,  KS1 and KS2 children. 
 
You can buy the resources printed up nicely, or if like me you invested in a laser printer and ink is not a premium commodity you can print them yourself for FREE. How generous is that?

The posters in the picture above is from the literacy section explaining homophones. Highly useful with an extremely verbal ASD child who tends to take everything said very literally. Knowing that hole and whole are two different words is more important than you'd imagine...

In fact, in the parent's section there is a whole load of SEN (special educational needs) resources including pictorial timetables (which were a massive help to reducing stress levels and allowing my son to cope in sunday school) and simple chore charts. 

The cutting worksheets are also proving a massive hit with Cosmo (he feels so grown up with his own scissors) and there is just a tonne of resources for things like bonfire night and thanksgiving. There's book lists and recommendations, classroom display ideas... this website is honestly a home educators dream!   

I'm pretty new to the site (I only discovered it about a week ago) but you can expect to be seeing and hearing lots more about it on here as I work my way through the whole thing. There's just so much to see! It's basically my new Starfall (and you know how evangelical I was about starfall...).

Saturday 6 October 2012

Nearly five...

0 comments

Having turned two lychee is really enjoying being in Cosmo's swimming lesson and works really hard at keeping up and doing everything the teacher asks of her. I'm so proud of her!!

This term Cosmo will be turning five, which means that he is now eligible to join the sports classes that are run by the co-operative we're in. He had his first session yesterday and was so nervous and excited.

He did brilliantly and the coach was really great at giving him specific instructions that allowed him to join in with minimal stress.

Winning two games of 'rob the nest' and learning to dribble with his hockey stick were highlights of the day, and I was surprised by his dexterity.

We also made 'iced tea' yesterday, which was the perfect opportunity to talk about particles and diffusion. I'm pretty sure that he had no idea what I was talking about, but you never know... He had great fun crushing all the herbs we'd dried anyway, and brewing the tea required plenty of stirring which is always enjoyable.
In fact, having spent so much time in the kitchen, he asked if he could make dinner. Unfortunately I had already made dinner and it was going to come straight from the slow cooker. He wasted no time in reminding me that one day he was going to be a daddy and that if I didn't let him take responsibility and help out with chores how would he ever look after his own children? He is nearly five after all...

It's incredible hearing your child repeat back things that you have taught them and attitudes and expectations that you have for them. I was so pleased to hear him genuinely concerned about learning how to take on responsibility around the household. 

He had one more opportunity yesterday to show me how much he'd been learning too. Lychee was being a little impatient and pushing to get past him. He disappeared off, found our Plants Grown Up book (from DoorPosts), looked up a scripture on patience and copied it out onto a card for her to keep as a memory verse!! Not only had he chosen a gentle way to reprimand her, but he took the time to write the verse out in his best writing too. 
Times like that remind me why we take the time to be intentional with our discipline, and it's worth every effort!

Monday 1 October 2012

Feast of Tabernacles

0 comments
Looking for meaningful ways to celebrate the feast of tabernacles with your kids?

Here's what we'll be doing: Living in a Sukkah


For a more 'grown up' version of finding Jesus in the feast of tabernacles, you can read a great article here.