A year at "HOGWARTS"

 A year at "HOGWARTS" 

Yes you have read the title correctly, we are having a year at "HOGWARTS". No we are not moving into the warner bros studio, nor has my son got a place in the musical. However, as he is Home educated this is our plan for set 2023! 

For Info - Hogwarts = HG and Harry Potter = HP

Lets back up a bit as it's been ages since I posted on this blog, well during covid I think! (no that was my family tree one, never mind!)

In October 2021 my youngest son was removed from school due to ongoing bullying and the fact the school couldn't (or wouldn't) protect him and keep him safe. When he fought back against a gang of 6 lads he was the one who was suspended for 2 weeks for fighting. When we went in to school for a return to school meeting the safeguarding officer (SGO) was really arsey with us. He didn't know why we were so upset over this as it was his 1st punishment and incident. Errr no it's not! He argued i presented him with 2 A4 pages of "incidents" including dates the school had taken him to hospital with suspected broken ribs from being kicked. SGO was shocked and didn't know anything about them all. He went and spoke to a teacher who said "well they are boys being boys you didn't need to know". THAT comment was the final straw and I decided I was removing my son and going to Home educate him.

So, we move back forward. Since being home ed, my son has done various things. As part of this years work he is doing the Pagan wheel of the year and this was meant to be ended (nearly) with a visit to the Witchcraft museum in Cornwall and the History of Witchcraft. My son then said "well you have said about doing Harry Potter theme at some point, can we do it at the same time as the History of Witches?" Well yes we can, i will work on it.

I started looking for ideas and things to do and came across a blog of a lady who home educates in USA and she had done "a year at Hogwarts" and this is where my thoughts went!!! She had done it every day and all lessons were linked to it. Sadly there wasn't much on here blog except this was what they were doing. I know for a fact that my son will be bored doing it every day for a year as he gets bored of long topics after 5 weeks. So I spoke to him, and he has agreed that he will do 1 day a week at "Hogwarts". 

Let's do some maths - there are 39weeks in a school term (approx), so that's 39 days of work. If we do 4 lessons a day that's 156 lessons I need. BUT some HG lessons and activities I've found are fairly quick and less than 30minutes to do, this means a very short day of learning. Back to numbers if I add in 1 more lesson I need 195 in total or if I go to 6 I need 234! OMG! This is going to be mad. My middle son then said, maybe you need a bank of extra bits as well "just incase" something goes wrong or you can't do the planned activity then you have a back up. (Thanks son! start thinking of extras then!) So it looks like I need about 275 different things. (Ideas on a postcard please!)

My son has stated he wants dropping off at the train station 2 or 3 from home by his Dad, with his suitcase, an owl in a cage (toy), and him in wizard robes. He then plans on travelling like it to the local station where I am to meet him, dressed as a WITCH, and we then proceed to get a taxi or bus home so that he can start his HG experience! This is also to be reversed on the last day of each term. He also wants a sign outside on the wall above the post box saying "welcome to Hogwarts" and it's to stay for the year. (My neighbours and postman are going to think I've totally lost the plot! LOL!)

I started planning. I wrote down possible subjects - we have 7 main, a general HG and maths. I then started hunting the internet and saving websites with ideas, activities etc. I grabbed all of our science instructions from kits and a few science experiment books and started making notes - this for potions, that for spells and such. From here I have made (well started) a powerpoint for each subject. So I can start adding the activities to them. This is going to take me a few weeks.

A few things I am 100% certain on:

1. I think I have totally lost the plot on agreeing to this (and actually doing it).
2. My neighbours and postman are going to think I've gone mad, my friends probably will as well but most know I will do anything for my kids.
3. I am 99.9% certain I am going to be fed up of seeing HP/HG decorations and items around my house before my son is.
4. I am going to sell the "work pack" afterwards that I am making as it will help so many others.
5. We are going to change "house" every week, with a new sorting hat ceremony. This means that we can work with a house points system and see which house wins at the end of the year. (Son won't be able to "fix it" for his favourite as it will be done via a quiz, a dice, a spinning wheel online and picking paper from a cauldron throughout the year.
6. Lessons are going to be picked out of a cauldron at the end of the each week ready for the next week, so I have time to get the equipment together, especially as some tasks I am looking at require fresh foods etc.
7. IF I manage to pull it off I think I could end up with 6 weeks to plan another big theme for September 2024. BUT saying that, if son decides he wants another big thing and says soon after we start etc I will have time.
8. I think my printer is going to leave home crying due to the amount I will need to print, thankfully I'm on a pay as use ink programme and they send me replacements.
9. My middle son thinks I'm crazy for even considering doing this and has said he's NOT dressing up or being involved - he will be!

Watch this space for more updates on our "Year at Hogwarts". I think it will work out really well when it comes to it.

making a robot (that is wearable)

I had a food delivery sent to me by courier and it came in a huge box. I joked to my son that I could turn it into a giant turtle for him, he said no it could be a robot. Hence this post, we made a robot. I am adding how and what we did below. I don't have photos of every step we did, but it was very easy to do.

EQUIPMENT

1 large cardboard box, 1 smaller cardboard box, pieces of cardboard, duct tape in grey/silver, scissors, tin foil (or silver paper, or paint if you dont mind waiting), a tumble dryer pipe for arms, odds and ends as decoration/buttons, imagination

Tape the big box together securely but leave one end open. Work out where the head will go and cut out a circle. Cover the edge with duct tape so no sharp edges.

the kitten helps cut out the head!

Next you need to cut out some of the base (so child can get into the robot once it's all sealed). Don't go all the way to all sides as it will loose it's strength. As with the head go
round the base with duct tape so no sharp edges. Go over all parts of the box "that should open" with duct tape so it is fully sealed and more secure.

Once you have a head and base hole you can work out where the arm holes need to go, cut them out (make big enough to allow for clothing and more tape) and add duct tape over the edges. Tape the open side of the box together so you have a solid sealed box. You should have a box "outfit" your child can get into like the image right.

We then measured the distance between the top of the smaller box and sons head so we could work out where the eyes needed to go, instead of cutting circles we cut a rectangle right across the front (so he could see even if he turned his head slightly), as with base hole don't cut all the way across leave some on each side for strength. Cut a smaller rectangle for the mouth. Go over the edges of both with duct tape.

Next we fixed the smaller box to the top (over the head hole), we fixed it on with the top flaps open, so it had the whole open part as space. We cut lengths of the tumble dryer pipe to use as arms (this was an old one heading for the bin).

Our next move was to make the robot silver. We spray painted the tumble dryer pipes silver (as well as some of the patio and ourselves!) and left them to dry. We only did the outside. My son found some silver shiny wrapping paper with white stars all over it that he liked and wanted to use for the body. He wanted the head plain silver so we used tin foil. We covered the head first and secured it with more duct tape. Then we covered the body with the wrapping paper, i had to do it in bits due to the holes (and the bar code on box my son wanted to keep), I held the joins in place with normal selotape whilst i cut and sorted then secured with duct tape.

Once it was all covered i put duct tape around both ends of the tumble dryer pipe to cover the metal that had been snapped to break the tube, i then fixed them to the arm holes with more duct tape. Hopefully you have something that looks like our robot to the right.

We still need to add buttons and bits to our robot but this is the main construction complete.

HOWEVER, my robot making and craft skills didn't end here as my son decided that he wanted the robot to have a pet kitten, cue more boxes, tape and stuff. The pieces were collected (see below) and made into shapes, spray painted and duct taped together. this didnt take as long as the main robot did.

My son is very happy with his robot and robot cat and has decided to use them in his school homework and has written a story about them.

I hope that you have as much fun as we did.

*NOTE* i am not linked to the duct tape brand, nor am i being asked to promote them. the tape i use is from £1 shop or other cheap shops as it's just for crafts. We use loads in the things we make so i cant justify using expensive brands for it. I have also bought different colours from shops (like aldi) when they have had on offer.

December 2nd 2015 - Winter Wonderland

As part of the Family Learning course at the school we went on a trip to Walby Farm which has a Winter Wonderland been set up inside of it.

The children got to write letters to Santa and post them, have photos taken in a photo booth with props, play in a giant snowglobe, meet santa and get a  present, make gingerbread men, meet the reindeers in the barn and take part in a nativity play that had a real sheep and donkey next to the stable.

We all had a lovely day out.

November 25th 2015 - Christmas Crafts

 I was at the school for family learning today and we were doing Christmas Crafts and making things that could be given as gifts.

There was loads of options for them to do.  They had the option of making tree decorations from sewing kits, making christmas pictures, and many more.

Lil man made a reindeer from brown paper and added magic reindeer food to it and needs to sprinkle it on christmas eve.

The middle one made a christmas bauble but as this was still very wet it got left at school to dry and 1 of the teachers will give them out later.

Lil man decorated a mini treasure chest and said that him and Daddy are going shopping for a diamond ring me to go in it.

They both  made snowman countdowns to christmas.  This confused lil man as he thought it was from today and didnt realise it was from dec 1st, but we explained he was fine.

The boys also decorated cakes as melted snowmen but these got eaten.

We also made candy cane star decorations which involved a hot glue gun to fix them together and to fix the decorations onto them.

November 17th 2015 - Parents evening

Today was the younger 2 boys parents evening at school.  both are doing well but could do better.  they both need to work slower (it's not a race and they dont need finish first) and this also links in with them writing neater - when they slow down its not as messy and they need stop talking as much.

however both are polite and honest, they do their homework most of the time and get on well with others.

Well done boys. keep up the good work.

October 23rd 2015 - Halloween day at school

As today is the last day of term the school allow the children to go dressed up in Halloween outfits and they have a day of fun as wel as some work.

This year my middle son (eldest of the 2 at the school) wanted to go as a Skeleton Pirate, and this is what we did for him:

This  was very easy to sort as all 3 boys have pirate outfits and we had  2 skeletons outfits so it was just a case of mix and match of what fitted him best.  He had to have a mask as he is allergic to face paints.  Apart from fact skeleton legs bit short he looks really good.

My youngest  son found a pair of monster feet in a charity shop and said that he was going to wear them and go as a monster for Halloween at school.  Meet the feet:

The only problem we faced now was he had no monster outfit.  "Not a problem you can make me one mummy" says son!  Hahaha!

Well I hunted ebay and found a cute fluffy dog onesie that was similar colours to the feet, and thought I could alter it (see post).  It altered really well and here is lil man dressed as a monster ready to go to school:

I think he looks really cool.  I'm not sure the school are going to be happy as the monster feet make monster noises as he walks!!! lol.

Hope they both have a good day.

October 14th 2015 - money matters

Today is wednesday, this means that as per earlier in the year I am back at school.  This term the short course we are doing is called money matters.  We will be looking at ways to save money, banks and building societies, budgeting, making gifts vs buying them, loans and credit unions, sales and offers and anything else that may be money related.

Hopefully it will be helpful and enjoyable like the previous courses have all been.  The difference this time round is that the children will only be in for 1 session and not a short time every session, but that is for the reason the course is aimed at the parents and not how to help the children.

June 23rd 2015 - Maths makes sense (2)

June 23rd 2015 - Maths makes sense (2)

Well sort of but mainly not!

No i've not gone completely mad and re-pinned the same thing without realising.  Today was the Maths makes sense for parents of year 1 children.  Today's lesson made abit more sense than yesterdays but I am still none the wiser why they have changed a system that has worked for many years.

23 - TWENTY THREE (do you agree???)  Well it was when I went to school - not anymore it is now TWO-ty THREE, and the rest of the TWENTY numbers are also TWO-ty now, and the 30's, 40,s etc have also changed!  I'm glad we didn't stay on these for long as seems very confusing to me.  But apparently children understand and learn it better.

We spent most of the lesson talking about coins and giving change and what coins add up to what sum etc.  We played shops with pictures and coins and had to give the correct amount of change. 

At least today we weren't standing up saying times tables!!!

June 22nd 2015 - Maths makes sense

June 22nd 2015 - Maths makes sense

Errrrrr no it doesn't!

The parents of year 5 children were invited into school this morning for a maths lesson, so we can try and understand more of the new system that is being taught in schools now, it's called maths makes sense.   It has been designed  as a new and improved way of teaching maths to kids.  I personally think the old way is easier, and so does my 9yr old.

Todays lesson started with the kids (and parents) reciting the 9x tables forward (I just about managed) and then backwards (not a chance).  Then they did the divisional sums of 9 as well.  They then moved onto DP - the teacher had to explain to us that this was "daily practice" and in pairs they each do some of the sums and help each other with the answers and discuss how they got it etc if they have different answers.  The next part of the lesson was a dog made from cubes and they had to work out how many cubes it was made from and write out the "maths story" (sum of how they got answer) and then simplify it.  The next image showed the dogs head as a "double" and not just a simple add 1 more row etc but it had been lengthened, made wider and higher.  This confused my son who is usually very good at maths.  Some of the class had different answers and all were discussed.  From here they had to work out how many cubes would be needed for the body, I gave my son and his partner an answer and then had to explain to them how I had a different answer to them - they had only done it as 1 layer not doubled its height as well.  Once they realised this they got the same answer as me.  Finally it was to work out how many cubes for the legs using the same method.

At this point the parents half hour lesson was up and we all left the class, but the teacher said that they had another puzzle to work out.  My son said he would let me know tonight what it was.

June 19th 2015 - Dress up and dance

June 19th 2015 - dress up and dance

My younger 2 boys school is today taking part in the dress up and dance event in aid of Macmillan Cancer, each child needs to dress up and pay £1.  The school has decided on a theme of rock stars and superheros.  I have 1 of each.

The elder of the 2 has gone as a rock star - complete with guitar, bandana and orange and blue hair!  (not that you can really see the blue), and the youngest has gone as a super hero, wearing his iron man outfit that he wore for superhero day few months back.

I hope the school has loads of fun doing this event today and that all the kids look great.

June 4th 2015 - Pop uk

June 4th 2015 - Pop uk

My boys brought a letter home from school the other day about an event through school at the local church called pop uk.  It wasn't anything I had heard of but said I would be there for 1 of the 2 performances.

Just before I left I got a text message from the school saying that the pop uk cds were available to buy after the performance at £5 each.

Got down to the church and got seated near the front, thanks to a friend that was at front of que to get in that saved me seats.  Lil man was on the front row and eventually saw us and started to wave.

A lady was introduced to the parents in the church and she took over.  she explained who she was and what she had been doing at the school with the kids over the past few weeks.  Then they all started singing.

They had been learning special songs about being kind, making a difference and all things like that.  Then the songs were recorded at the school when the kids sang, all by pop uk and put onto cds.  I bought 1 of the cds as both my younger 2 boys were involved, not that I expect to be able to pick out there voices.  lol!

It was a nice afternoon and all the kids sang lovely.  We parents had to join in parts of it as well, which wasn't greeted with great enthusiasm I can tell you.

May 21st 2015 - Finished Story Sack

May 21st 2015 - Finished Story Sack

Yesterday I should have been at the last session of the family learning at the  school where we were meant to be finishing our story sacks and talking about them with the group.  But due to lil man being in hospital I wasn't there, but my story sack is now finished.

Pirates Love Underpants Story Sack was made by me, if you follow my blog you will have seen bits over the past 5weeks that I was making to go in it.  Here is a picture of the finished thing with everything and I will add pics and descriptions of other bits below.

First off was the sack, we were given plain canvas sacks and told we could decorate them how we liked.  A lot of the people in the group did them to the book they were putting in it, I decided to do it as a general sack so we could change the contents.  More info on my sack can be found here and here

My main story book for the sack was of the "pirates love underpants", my son already had dinosaurs and aliens and likes them and he likes pirates so this seemed a good choice.  As part of a story sack we were told that the sack has to have a "fiction/fact" book, so I bought the 100 facts on pirates shown above, this was much bigger than I thought it was going to be.

I  made a little "work book" linked to the story and laminated the pages so that they can be used again and again.  I have included white board pens and hi-lighter pens that rub off and a board rubber in a pencil case.

My son  asked if we could have a monkey like in the book, and brought me his toy one from upstairs.  This was ok but the monkey in the book had pants on, I asked my friend to make me a pair of knitted pants for him.  Her first attempt didn't work and we ended up with a monkey "mooning" us, which was quite funny.

My friend had them back (after I embarrssed her on facebook with the "mooning monkey") and re-made them so they fit him better.  I was very grateful as I can't knit. They did look good once done.  I added a gold earing to his right ear, and made him a banana to go in his hand.  (Banana instructions are here.)

I made a Pirate and a Parrot hand puppet to go in it.  The parrot was a "wash mit/flannel" bought off ebay, but was green.  The parrot in the book was red, so I glued red feathers all over its back and wings and made it a tail.  I also made it a pair of underpants like in the book.  My boys didn't know about the parrot as I didn't make a post or tell them I had bought it.

I made a Golden Pants Trophy  like the pirates are hunting for in the book.  My boys thought it was really good.

I bought the dvd "So you want to be a Pirate" and added it to the bag, it's only 18minutes long but tells you things you need to do to be a pirate etc.  I didn't realise it was so short I thought it was a proper film.

I bought a travel version of the traditional game pop up pirate and I made a set of  matching pairs underpants cards.  When they were printed you could see the pants through the paper so I made a sheet the same size as the cards using the cover of the book, cut them out and put on the back of pictures of pants and then laminated and cut out.  Now you can't see which pants are which.  I printed out a mini instruction card and placed them all in a small drawstring bag.

Last week at the family learning I was given a small wooden treasure chest which I decorated and added gems and coins to.  This was also meant to be a suprise for the bag, but I forgot to put it up before the boys came home from school so they saw it.

Lastly I added a (brand new) pair of boxer shorts (Aldi had packs of 3 reduced to £1.49 and they are next size up for my eldest son but now only has 2 pairs) and an eye patch so that my son(s) can dress as a pirate in underpants when we read and re-tell the story with the props.

Here's my lil man as a pirate in underpants with the parrot puppet.

I really enjoyed this course at the school it has been good fun and my kids like their story sack.  Hopefully I will be able to make a different one (or 2) so that we can change them round from time to time.  They want to put it in the car.

May 15th 2015 - Making a banana

May 15th 2015 - making a banana

In my story sack for family learning I have a monkey.  In the book the monkey is eating a banana, so my son said that his monkey needs 1, so I found an idea to make a banana.  The 1 I found is made from felt, of which I don't have have the right colours, so I decided to make 1 from fabric.

I pinned yellow and white material together and cut out a sort of banana shape, I am stitching the 2 pieces of material together to make both the inside and outside of banana skin.  I have also made a white dome from 3 pieces of material to be the actual banana.  I am going to stuff it and stitch it all together.

April 29th 2015 - Book Quotes

April 29th 2015 - Book Quotes

As part of the story sack for family learning I decided that I would add a Dr Seuss quote to the bag, which has been printed on t-shirt transfer paper for me to iron and and then the small book from felt with Book quotes on each page.

I hunted the net for ages trying to find some quotes that the kids would understand.  I choose the ones that are in the link (I made the pin of them).  Each quote has been written out in pencil on a small piece of material and I am back stitching the letters on each one.  This is taking longer than I thought it would but never mind, will look good when it's done and they are fixed to the felt book.

Here is 2 of the quotes - 1 drawn in pencil and the other that has been sewn

April 22nd 2015 - Family Learning Story sacks

April 22nd 2015 - Family Learning Story sacks

Family Learning at the school has started a new course today - Story sacks.  This envolves us parents making a story sack based on a book.

We sat and discussed ideas that we could put in 1 based on a story about night pirates and included things like a pirate hat and eye patch, treasure chest and treasure, story book, fact book, map, material for the sea, moon and stars, a boat or ship, pirate puppets/finger puppets, pirate toys etc.

By next wednesday we need to have a story book and some ideas of what we are going to include in it.  Having 2 children at the school that did the last course with me I have got to decide if i'm making 1 between them (but as different ages this could be hard), or if i'm going to make 2 which means that they may not be as good as just 1.

I think this course could turn out to be really good.

March 18th 2015 - Family Learning

March 18th 2015 - Family Learning

Today at the family learning at the school we didn't have the children in with us as they were all involved with Commando Joe who does sports and things with them, and today he had brought in an inflatable assualt course for them to do and as they were at different times they didn't come.

The first of today's tasks was a spelling test of 5 hard words that most people can't spell - I got 4/5 as I put an extra letter on the last word.  The words were necessary, secretary, piece, accommodation and rhythm(n added at end).  We then talked about ways of remembering the words whether it be through pictures of phrases.  And after about hour we were asked to re-write the words down, I got 5/5 then.

We were then all given bookmarks to make for our children - I got the one with the apple and the one with the purple book.  I hope the boys like them.  The initial ideas was for the children to make them but as they wern't with us we did them.

We went to more things about spelling including a KS1 SATs paper where they had to spell words linked to the pictures and then write the word in the space that the lady read out in the story.  Some of the words were not easy for 6/7year olds I tell you.  We also did a SATs paper that KS2 would do and again it wasn't easy although I got 20/20, some of the words I thought would be hard for 10/11year olds.  Linked to this a paragraph that had had the full stops and capital letters put in the wrong place and we had to sort them, some of us said we would put them in different places.

The lady teaching the course gave us all a question that we had to answer - they were both open and closed questions.  Mine was "what would your dream job be?" I answered Paramedic.  And as I had only given a 1 word answer I was asked If I would ever do it - the answer is no because of my knee problems and it never would be an option as my knees are not strong enough.  Everyone had different questions.  We were then asked what our children would say as an answer to our question - I said that my youngest would say a Chef and we got talking about why and I told them that he has his own business plan already written and who is doing what job.  For my other son I said that he wants to be a Fireman but as hes asthmatic he can't.

Finally the trip to the farm we are going on after Easter as the last week of the course was talked about and how we need to take wellies and lunch etc.  This should be a good day, we only have next week left in the classroom and then the course is ended.  They are hoping to do a short 5week craft course after Easter as well and then another 10week course from September.

March 4th 2015 - Family Learning course

March 4th 2015 - Family Learning course

Today is Wednesday which means I am back school for the family learning course.  Today the children didn't come and join us as OFSTED are in the school and its not fair to disrupte the classes more than they already are.

Once we were all there in the library and everyone had their coffee and biscuits, Ruth explained to us that the children wouldn't be joining us and why.  She then told us that we were all going to do some creative writing and write our own story.  She  gave us some pictures of doors as the promt for where our story would go and the starting line of the story.  I chose this door (very strange that I found the exact one on pinterest! Fate is what I call it).  And I proceeded to write my story.  (see below for my full story.)

After we did these we talked about nouns, pronouns, verbs and adverbs and played a few simple games linked to them.  One of the games was a version of consequences where we each wrote one word, folded the paper and passed to the  next person to add the next bit.  Most of them didn't make much sense.  We then had to used the categories to make a 4 word sentence but had to use alliteration where each word started with the same letter.  I wrote 2 they were "many monkeys marched madly" and "small shapes sang slowly."

We then did a worksheet linked to the above, on it was a few short sentences that we had to make more interesting by adding nouns, verbs etc.  One of the original sentences was "The fox had a tail", edited I made mine "The fierce red fox had a long fluffy tail". 

OFSTED came into where we working and asked if they could join us for a few minutes, alot of the parents on course suddenly had "the don't come near me" or "you cant see me" image and stance.  I personally had nothing to hide to so answered the questions one of them asked me and showed my folder of work that we have done over the weeks to the other to look at.  Whilst they looking at my work they are not making notes on what we're doing nor are they asking questions!

It was a shame that the children were not able to join us today but we did get alot of work done.  The work the children were meant to do has been sent home with us for them to complete if they want to - mine WILL be doing it as they wanted me to go on this course to help THEM.

Next week we have a lady fro Dove Cottage (William Wordsworths house) coming to talk to us and apparently this does involve us dressing up etc, so should be fun.

My Story written in 20minutes today:

(First line given to us) I stood silently, looking at the door.  With a slow creaking sound it opened.  Taking a deep breath I walked inside..... Having slowly climbed the eight stone steps I had no idea what I was about to face.  I fully opened my eyes to see where I was and where this door had taken me.  To my supprise it was a magical land in all shades of purple.

The flowers wer all purple and of every variety you can think of, the leaves on the trees seemed  to change from purple to silver as they caught in the sunlight.  It was beautiful and a sight you would never forget.

There was a path off to the right which I followed, and after walking for a few minutes a sign appeared infront of me and it read "This place is whatever you wish it to be, it wont be the same for anyone."  And with that it vanished.  I kept walking and could see a sparkling pool of water, this intrigued me so I went towards it.  I thought it would get bigger the neared I got but it stayed the same size.  I looked into it but couldn't see anything, this wasn't normal water!  I leaned abit further to see more closely and as I did I was pulled into it, but I wasn't wet as I expected.

All around me was swirls of purple and as I started to spin panic took over.  I wanted to get out of here and back to the flowers.  Before I knew it I was stood back beside the now closed door and the sea of purple flowers was infront of me.  This sure was a strange place, i'm not sure if its real or just my imagination.

February 25th 2015 - Family learning at the school

February 25th 2015 - Family learning at the school

Today is another week of the family learning at the school.  We were talking about stories and making them up and how you can come up with a story just from looking at 1 picture or from 1 line that is already written down.

We mad jigsaw pieces about ourselves to go on a display board on the wall, similar to this -

I forgot to take a picture of it but will do next week.  My puzzle piece I covered it in purple tissue paper, I added my name down the side in black letters, a big pink pig in the middle as I collect pigs and have liked them since I was a toddler, a gold ring with a silver glitter diamond, a rose and some stars.  I was going to put a green cross for first aid on it but you couldn't really tell what the cross was for.

When the children came to join us for their part they all headed for the biscuits staright away, I do wonder if this is why they are coming along to it! lol!  Once I had managed to collect my 2 boys from the snacks I explained to them what they were going to be doing.  There was 2 parts to their work - the first was to make a simple book from a piece of A4 paper by folding it and then cutting and re folding it (see the book link above to pinterest).  The second part was to colour or stick things onto a paper person that will be the character in their mini book.

Blake decided that his person was going to be a zoo keeper called  Blake and he gave him zebra print trousers, a giraffe print top and red hair (see below).  And Kenzie made a boy with silver spiley hair and named him spike (see below).  They were then laminated, had a hole put on the top and a piece of string threaded through and were selotaped to the middle of the book so that the character can visit every page in their mini books.  They have got to finish them next week.

 

The pics of the jigsaw shapes we made.

February 11th 2015 - Story Mountains at Family learning

February 11th 2015 - Story Mountains at family learning

Today is wednesday, that means that its the day I go to school again.  I wasn't able to attend last wednesday as I had a meeting with St John Ambulance and hubby couldn't go in my place as we had a child off school ill with chest infection and asthma.

During today's session we were talking about story's, not just those read from books but those that you make up as you go along, those that have been told to  you by family members, stories that have happened to family members etc.  And after we had been told the story of the monkey that lived in a Jarmun (jaaa-moon) tree that tricked a crocdile we were asked to fill out story mountain sheets. 

A few of the younger mums had heard of them and even remembered doing them at school, whillst myself and the rest of the older parents (some are older than me) had not seen them before, so it was a whole new ball game for us. We all got the idea and filled them out.

We also did a "if you hold the toy you can talk" thing, but with this we had to each re-tell part of the story we had been told (again about the monkey and the crocodile).  It didn't matter if we altered it slightly or got bits in the wrong order.  I volunteered to go first - Once upon a time a little brown monkey lived high up in a Jarmun tree..... (I got the easy part!)

Again was a good day and the kids came in and joined us and again a story was read to them, this story was a true story about a boy and his green trousers and how he made a friend for life when they became to small for him, and they have a piece of homework to do linked to it - drawing the pictures about the story.

January 21st 2015 - I'm going back to school

January 21st 2015 - I'm going back to school

Today saw me go back to school for a 10week family learning course in Literacy.  It is being run by the local council and is all free (including the tea/coffee and biscuits!!!)

It all came about the end of last week.  My middle son brought a letter home about it and then the next day so did the youngest, they both asked if I would go on it with them, so I filled in the form and returned it to school.  Yesterday when I picked up the youngest he declared that he had a letter for me.  I opened it and had a look and it confirmed we had a place on the course starting today!

The only downside to this is that I actually have to be up and dressed and out the door by 08:35am in order to get the boys to school for 08:45am for register, the course strats at 9am.

Today was mainly about filling in paperwork and getting to know each other - most of the parents doing it already do know each other but it was nice.  I knew two of the mums on it already quite well and a 3rd that i've spoken to in passing etc.  They seem a nice group and I may actually make some more friends from it.  We also had to make invites for our children to come and join us over the next few weeks.

The last week of the course is actually a full day trip away from the school for us parents and our kids, again all free (except lunch).  They are looking at going to 1 of the local farms that has a big indoor soft play area as well.


I will kepp you posted on how it goes.