In addition to all the wonderful and simple outdoor (and indoor) pleasures of childhood – be it reading a book borrowed from the local library, blackberrying with grandma, or playing hide and seek with siblings – there is nowadays an abundance of free resources on the web intended specifically to help with the home […]
Back when I decided to shift the focus of this blog towards all things home-based, I explored renaming it. I went through all those usual clichés, like Home is where the heart is, and so on, but someone had always beaten me to it. At last I thought I had got a unique one in […]
In our house, I have decided, every room needs an egg timer. Maybe not a fuschia pink one, but a timer nonetheless. I love this twisty egg-shaped timer. Simple, mechanical, no batteries required. It makes a motivating tick-tock and a satisfying, loud rrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing. In the kitchen my pink timer is used, naturally, for baking cakes, […]
Contrary to appearances, this box of junk is not just what I picked up off the floor this morning. This old shoe box has been filled deliberately with pairs of small toys that rhyme. Pan, man. Bear, chair. Hat, cat. Bag, flag. Fish, dish. This idea is ridiculously easy and entirely free. […]
Like Joseph’s coat, home education is many-coloured. Understandably, then, there is plenty of overlap between the different hues. A couple of facets stand out. First is the tailoring of learning to the individual child, to a greater or lesser extent. Second is the vast scope provided in the home for conversational learning, a powerful […]
Notebooking seems to me a rather fancy name for project work. Or maybe project work is just as fancy a name for what is putting-down-on-paper-what-you-have-learnt. It’s really an organic form of unit study, or unit study for autonomous learners. More long words! How about this: A child begins a study of a topic of […]
There’s a myriad of ways for a child to consolidate the phonics knowledge he/she has gained. Here’s just a few of our favourite ways. Salt/sand/teabag tray A tray with a sheet of coloured card sprinkled liberally with table salt makes a great tactile writing board. Children can draw lines, shapes, and letters with their fingers. […]
Here are just five ideas for little hands to help them count, add up, subtract, divide and multiply. I know there are some lovely tools like cuisenaire rods and other plastic stacking blocks for tens and units work, but these are just simple things you are likely to have some of around the house […]
Babies and toddlers have a wonderful ability to learn and develop. Our 9-month-old could sit A levels in locating and eating newspaper, cardboard and magazines and he would get straight As. He has also expressed a strong interest in studying for an honours degree in Climbing The Stairs. We have a 4-year-old who holds […]
I have never favoured lists, but since marriage to my darling husband 10 years ago, my aversion has only grown. Writing lists is, to him, as breathing oxygen. He writes enough lists for me and our entire extended family too. If only I could outsource my list requirements to him. Due to my allergic […]
We are now at the phonics stage with child #3. Here are the methods we use. 1. Alphabet wall poster/wall-hanging These are really popular – think the kind of thing plastered round the walls of a nursery school 🙂 I decided to make something myself since I don’t want my dining room to look like […]
There's no place like home. Home is where the heart is. An Englishman's home is his castle. And so on. Cheesy cliches aside, we are nonetheless aiming for a renaissance of the home.
