What Home Education Looks Like - 5th May 2014

On Friday we had to be up early to travel (well, we left at 8.00am which is early for us!) as we had a trip to Stonehenge to attend that had been arranged by another home education group.

There was surprisingly little traffic that morning so we had time for a drink and giant bourbon biscuits in the cafe.....

.... then once everyone else arrived we had a look around the visitor site....

....before boarding the special bus to Stonehenge itself.

 As an educational group we got to have a guided tour around the site and our guide was very knowledgeable and had some great images and artefacts to explain the history and heritage to the group.

It was a windy cold day, though mercifully dry, so some of the group opted out of the second part of the tour, where we went to the barrows (burial mounds) nearby and re-enacted a Neolithic burial.

On the way back the children were all given small instruments and had a go in groups at creating their own musical chants.

After taking the bus back we took a little time to look around the gallery at the visitors centre before we left. we particularly liked the clever 360 degree screens that gave you a feel of standing within Stonehenge itself at different points in history.

It was a really lovely trip and we'll certainly go again!

What Home Education looks Like - 28th April 2014

Tons of stuff going on with our seeds! We took the paper off the "under the ground" potato project to see the spindly roots filling the pot.....

We also received some surprise poppy seeds from the Royal British Legion, which we have planted out the back.

Our tomato seedlings are growing very well in our sunny front window and may be strong enough to plant out soon.

Finally our beans are doing marvellously.... although one seems to be an overachiever!

What Home Education Looks Like - 21st April 2014

On Thursday we went to the new Olympic Park on the site where the Olympics were held in 2012. The park is just huge and still has the Olympic pool!

The kids were very excited as they spotted the building sued as the exterior for Hank Zipzer's flat in the tv series. They love that show!

We explored the whole park; Povey loved the Helter Skelter and the water play.

Papaya liked the Ewok-style climbing frame and swings.

What Home Education Looks Like - 14th April 2014

As well as the potato project we're also excited to be taking part in a "Bees and beans" project this year too! 8 of our beans sprouted (we need 4 for the project) and are now growing nicely on our windowsill in the sunshine.

We've started them in these little fibre pots and will then plant those within the pots that have been provided. Very interested to see how this project develops.

What Home Education Looks Like - 7th April 2014

Tuesday we went to Lego Mania at Milestones Museum! It was brilliant as it is every year!

The big project from Bright Bricks this year is a giant Mammoth.....

This involves building big brown bricks out of little brown bricks. Sounds mind-numbing to me, but Povey was just in his element building brick after brick. He was even singing "Everything is awesome" to himself as he worked ;)

We'll be back there again before Lego Mania is over!

What Home Education Looks Like - 31st March 2014

It's all about Superheroes this week! A brilliant talk from Dr Matt Pritchard at the Royal Institution about the Science of Superheroes.....

....led us to this great series of Ted Talks....

What Home Education Looks Like - 24th March 2014

On Thursday the children wanted to try something they've seen Stampylongnose and Iballisticsquid do....

We decided on £5 or under each to buy ingredients to cook each other lunch, including pudding and a drink! They bought the ingredients for each other to cook, so Papaya bought what she would like to eat and then Povey cooked it for her and vice versa. They took it in turns to shop with me and then the bags were revealed when we got home.

Here is Povey's bag, and interesting assortment, but as you can see he only spent £3.69!

....and here is Papaya's bag; a far more nutritious assortment and she spent £4.34. I was impressed with how much she got actually, enough to feed all of us!

Gotta love Lidl for giving them value for money!

Povey decided to use Papaya's ingredients to make a smiley face sandwich and he grated the chocolate into her yoghurt.

Papaya mixed together the hotdogs and beans and heated them up with some sneaky sweetcorn and cheese from the fridge!

Then they chowed down!

We're planning to do another challenge involving more actual cooking in the future but it was interesting to see the choices they made and the pleasure they took in preparing meals for each other.