SPACE ALPHABETS

Today we had fun in English learning about research.  Its one of those things that isn't usually taught well at primary school but is so helpful to kids who can understand the concept at a young age.  So today we started off by talking about what you do when you don't know the answer to a question.  Any of course the answer was use things to find out and you do that by researching.  The kids then helped make a big list of resources you could use to find answers to different sorts of questions.  They did a fantastic job and we then used this learning to research an A to Z list of space words using books as our research tools.  I found a ready made one on the starlabs website, which also has lots of other great resources to use for any space learning!  The picture today is of Ben using the books to find words for each letter of the alphabet.  True to form, Ben found it hard to go to morning tea and leave this worksheet to finish after a bite to eat .... a clear sign it was a great task for my little home schoolers!

SEQUENCING STORIES

One of my favourite parts of English is the visual sequencing the kids do.  Its a great asset to be able to visually sequence clues so they can tell a meaningful story.  By far the best books I have found to do this are really cheap downloadable books from Curriculum Concepts.  They have great educational resources and the first one I got was actually part of their free downloads.  The sequencing books are easy to find just put in the site search engine sequence stories and it comes up with the relevant e-books.  The best part is they are a series, so you can progress with them as your child masters this art.  Todays photo is of Pollyanna who has just cut out the six pictures and found the right order for them to make a story, so she is now colouring them in before gluing them in her writing book. It is pooring with rain today, but we are going out this evening on our second tramping walk :0  Should be interesting in this cold, rainy weather! 

On another note am starting to get really excited about doing heaps of work around our barns and making our home better, Spring is going to be busy getting things done around here!  I am completely motivated by Angela's house and how much they have done and I also keep thinking back to the two couples featured on Grand Designs who did a house each in Italy and France with little money but plenty of passion and hard work.  So the plan will come during this last month of winter and the action will happen the first day of Spring under the first day of Winter next year.  Watch this space for action plans and before and after photos :)

FUNNY TIMES LEARNING ABOUT KATE SHEPPARD

Today the kids were totally on task and did some great work.  The morning started with a new topic for the next five weeks of term for English, called A Journey Through Space.  The kids are going to complete a big poster board each about questions they have thought up about what they want to research and find out about space.  So today it was working on question making and making sure they had a WHAT, WHERE, WHY, WHO, WHEN, and HOW questions.  There were plenty of HOW questions but they found it more difficult coming up with the rest of the questions, which was good :) This afternoon we worked on learning about Kate Sheppard and the role she played in New Zealand's history.  It was hilarious, they had to draw a scene from the 1880-1890 time period to do with Kate Sheppard and then write about it.  There were good behaviour crosses up for grabs for effort for both the writing and the draawing so they took it very seriously!  Poor Ben worried about the quality of his horse drawing and Polly stressed she hadn't written enough, but they had both done great work and learnt about Kate and the influence she had in New Zealand history, AWESOME DAY, heaps of effort and fun :)  Todays link is to a fantastic New Zealand History site and the site has everything from timelines with all the major events to information on each and every event of significance to New Zealand to plenty of resources that can be used in a teaching capacity.

FIRST DAY BACK FOR TERM THREE

The kids were a bit hard to motivate today given it was the first day back at school and we had had such a relaxing school holidays at home :) Never mind, they still did a lot of great work and we started our new theme for Science - Astronomy, and did our first tramping fitness walk of 3kms.  So while it wasn't the most exciting day the kids have had at school, they still did a lot of work.  The picture today is of the kids at there desk doing their Grammar work.  One of the major teaching resources I use for Grammar are the once a week workbooks from Help Me Learn, which have fantastic education resources they will send anywhere in the world!  We have found them to be prompt with orders and the workbooks I have ordered have ALL been great teaching resources.  Ben has had two weeks without doing any writing and you could tell ... his writing was back to waffling with not sentence structure so it is something we will have to concentrate on this term and really make it something he does without thinkikng about as opposed to the concerted effort he currently has to make to form sentences.  We made great advances last term in this area but it seems without a reminder and after 2 weeks holidays he has reverted back :(  We have made major steps forward with the writing though, in the area of he no longer sees it as a punishment to have to write!  Pollyanna had a reading test today and passed, moving her from Level 11 to Level 12!  She is doing so well with her reading :) 

MATHS: WHICH NUMBER IS LARGER?

I am using this worksheet with Pollyanna at the moment so she understands the relationship between numbers 0-30.  Its a really good exercise that provides meaning to a number and how big it is. I have left the top of the worksheets blank so that you can use them to find either the smallest number or the largest number for each series provided.  When they are first beginning to understand numbers and their order, number lines become really handy.  This website here has some great ones that you can just download instantly Sparkle

Until I discover how to attach files to my posts you will just have to email me for each worksheet and I can email it back to you :) Sorry about not having them available to just download instantly yet. HATE THAT as I am an instant gratification kind of girl!!

Anyway todays worksheet is Which Number is Bigger 0-30.  Email me if you would like a free file of this worksheet Kirsty

EASY SCIENCE WORKSHEET AND EXPERIMENT FOR LEARNING ABOUT CLOUDS

So today I thought I would post my first home school worksheet to help other families that are in need of FREE worksheets to help with the at home teaching. Each day I will post a new worksheet and let you in on little tidbits about my day at home with the kids and anything we have been adventuring into. Hopefully you will find it helpful :)

To do with today's worksheets is a really easy experiment you can do quickly with the kids and doesn't require any major ingredients! Boil the kettle and put 1 cm of boiling hot water into the bottle of a clear wine bottle (or similar) and then put a piece of ice on top and wait for the cloud to form in the bottle.

Scientific Explanation (at a child's level of understanding)

When water heats up it rises (water vapour), when it goes high into the sky and cools (thank you ice for achieving this effect). Cooled water vapour is what creates clouds. A very simple explanation but it helps make the science expt relevant for children.

The worksheets are Cloud Names, Generic Science Experiment Worksheet, and one that even the littlies can do What Clouds Are About Today.