Reading list

I have set up a reading list for this school year. Every time a book is read, my daughter will write a review in her workbook. All books will then be wrote about on World Book Day.

Here is our list:

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
Northern Lights: His Dark Materials 1 by Philip Pullman
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia) by C.S. Lewis
Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Chocolate Flower Pots

Chocolate Flower Pots

My daughter loves baking. We had this idea to create chocolate flower pots using brownie mix, cornflakes, Galaxy chocolate and fondant.

The main soil is brownie mix. One top of that, she wanted a loose soil effect so created chocolate cornflakes and added them on top.

The flowers were originally cake pops but when she tried to apply fondant they slipped down the stick, holding the cake pop, so we decided to just put it on top.

I think they look really good and my kids love them. I am going to try one today.

Book haul

This year would have been my daughter's first year at high school. Instead we are homeschooling.
She is eleven and whilst she excels in some aspects she does struggle in things like Maths. We are still in the process of unschooling her, as she still has a lot of bad habits, picked up from main school.
There is no rush, when it comes to homeschooling. You do things at your child's ability and speed. We try and include Maths sum in the things she loves like baking.
Among downloaded school work, we like to also work from texts books, and the following images are just some of the books we have recently purchased:

People often want to talk to me about homeschooling. They have it in their mind that people are either hippy types - which I most definitely aren't - or are very intelligent. Let me tell you, there are lots of resources out there to help you.

We have been homeschooling since April 2017 and we are still learning what works best for our child. There is no right or wrong way.

First Term

We have just finished our first term and things have been going great. There are days when Kasey-Ray asks about schoolwork before I have even given her any. Her favourite thing to do, beside baking, has been writing prompts. I got all these random words such as: Justin Bieber, the Queen, an egg, a tornado, and much, much, more. Then I lay them all face down on the floor and Kasey-Ray had to make piles of four. Once done we giggled over what four there were. Kasey-Ray's job was every day to write a story on four of the words. I would stick four in her book and she could write anything but the story had to mention these words. She had so much fun and said that these were the best writing prompts she has done. We have a spelling book too and she is to do 3 to 6 words and day then write a sentence with that word. The rest of the day can be anything from the planner. This week is the school holidays and after that we are going to be making an autumn display, hallowe'en display and a Guy Fawkes night display. I am hoping it will be fun. Kasey-Ray has already been animated with her ideas for autumn. Let's see what autumn shall bring :)

Tornado Experiment

With hurricane Irma causing devastation we wanted to explain it to our daughter. Luckily we have a tornado experiment pack so we built the motor then attached the bigger bottle. It was slow but by putting in beads it was a great way to explain all about the debris as well. Then we had the idea of trying a smaller bottle. We weren't sure how different it would be but wow. See for yourself.

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One week to go

Only one week to go before our first, official, full-year, of home schooling begins and I am so excited.

Already I have been planning. So far I have three folders which maps out what I plan to do each week. Currently they are only full until the end of October, with a bit leading up to Christmas. I keep buying new ink and printing things out then running out of ink all over again, lol. I also have to keep buying supplies of the right green paper, for my daughter, as she suffers from dyslexia and can read better on certain paper.

So whilst I am feeling giddy about it all, I thought I would share with you all some of the boxed activities that I have been buying on Amazon.

This year I thought my daughter could try and invent something. She loves Science so I thought it would be a great way to open up her imagination. I bought this boxed activity and we also plan on visiting the Science museum in Glasgow in September.

We also decided to do some weather experiments as well as learning about water, which we touched on briefly before the end of last school year.

We will also be doing various arts and crafts and I picked this up.

We will also be doing three languages this year - French, Sign Language and Spanish. In these topics we will be covering the basics then come the end of the school year she can get to pick which one she would like to continue. Beside using Twinkl for resources we will be using YouTube, books and these handy things.

 

All of our lessons can be done both at home or out and about, which I love. We also have lots of field trips planned. I am hoping everything goes well. I have a set amount planned for each week but I do know that if things are not done we can just do them the following week or do more on the week we are at. 
I will also be keeping records of everything I do, just in case the local council want to check in on my daughter's progress.

Planning the year ahead

In August we start a brand new school year. Kasey-Ray will be in P7 which means, in Scotland, she will be in her final year at primary school. It also means that this will be our first full school year at home schooling.

Currently I am working on preparing a timetable for the entire year. It is a big task, especially because I have never done it before. Not only that I want to make the school year fun but educational.

It is a continuous worry as to whether we are doing the right thing, but I suppose this goes part and parcel with just starting out.

Kasey-Ray has already told us that she wants to do lots of baking and science but I also want to ensure that she learns English and Maths too.

One of the main places that I get resources from is a website called Twinkl. I joined when we first started homeschooling and decided to sign up to the premium package so that I have access to everything. I have to say that it is a great website and there are so many great resources on there.

This year we will be adding three languages to the school year - French, Sign Language & Spanish. I want to teach Kasey-Ray the basics then come the end of the school year she can decide if she wants to continue any of them.

We will be doing lots of other things like Art, Computing, Social Skills, to name just a few. And even though we will have a structure in place we will be going at Kasey-Ray's pace and focusing on things she struggles with and trying to find more fun ways to help her improve these. 

One thing we don't want is for learning to become a chore. We want her to love learning, which is why I have been buying fun Science experiments.

The great thing about all of this is the fact that not only is Kasey-Ray learning new things but, as a family, we are learning too.

There are some lessons that I 'eek' at, such as French and Spanish. My language skills are a bit rusty.

There are lots of trips planned too.

Currently I have problems with my health but it is great that whilst I am having hospital visits my husband and eldest daughter are on hand to help out with the learning.

Look out for posts about our progress from the 21st August.