Jesus following, natural living, Somerset homeschooling mum to Acey. Here is our blog to share with family and friends and anyone else who might be interested, about our home ed journey.


John 13:34 - ''A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.''

Friday 28 June 2013

Stream farm

We had a busy day today - first we had Acey's french lesson



Followed by a trip to lovely Stream Farm where we found had a picnic by the stream and found some lovely little froggies



....went on a treasure trail



Fed and fished for some rainbow trout and took some home for our supper...





Saw some piglets, calves and sheeps



And had fun bouncing on the trampoline and rope swinging. THEN we went to karate - Acey got his yellow belt on Sunday so it was the first time he got to wear it! 


Thursday 27 June 2013

Trip to the museum

Today we went to the museum where we saw lots of interesting things....

seeing what we could spot on the wooden tree...






Holding a fox's skull....


Doggy skeleton buried with it's owner

having a go at building a church...



A pair of GIANTS' shoes!!




Wednesday 26 June 2013

apple experiment

We discovered that if you leave an apple out all day it turns a brown color. We did an experiment by cutting an apple in half, and pouring lemon juice over one half and not doing anything to the other half. We waited for an hour and then came back to see what happened - the half that we had poured the lemon juice over still looked white, but the other half had gone brown. We found out that it is because of something called a chemical reaction in the air that makes the apple turn brown, and which made the lemon juice keep the apple fresh.



Acey also made a book by sewing the pages together. The story is called 'dark shaddows' and it is very scary. He also made a 'film' of the book in lego...


Monday 24 June 2013

Goodness and mercy

Today Acey memorized Psalm 23


He said that it is his favorite psalm because it makes him feel comforted. Surely goodness and mercy will follow him all of the days of his life. 

Friday 14 June 2013

Ninja




Ninja has his karate yellow belt grading in a few weeks time...
He loves it!

relaxed learning week

This week we have been reading about Noah's ark, creation and learning psalm 23 (which got us onto the subject of Shepards, and what they have to do to look after their sheep - we're going back to visit Stream Farm soon which might tie in nicely)



..Playing in the sunny park at Taunton Home ed group


We met up with lots of other home ed friends this week, and visited some friend's new little kittens, and we also started a new home ed french class which was excellent! The teacher spoke to them mostly in French which fits in nicely with the Steiner philosophy, and they played fun games and sang songs in French. 

We also made some challah..


Very sticky fingers!! 



Sunday 9 June 2013

Green scythe fair

Today we went to the Green Scythe Fair and had lots of fun.

 (making a dice out of chalk)




Wednesday 5 June 2013

Play based maths and workbooks

I am really Steiner inspired, so much that if we lived near a (free) Steiner school I would strongly consider NOT homeschooling and sending Acey there instead. I try to incorporate a lot of Steiner philosophy into our home ed, I've made sure that the early years have all been about play and spending a lot of time in nature, although there are some things I've slipped up on like letting him watch ninja turtles on the laptop (which I'm regretting).. and now he is about to turn seven and his second set of teeth are starting to emerge we are still very much play based, learning is very gentle - lots of time outdoors in nature, lots of painting and craftwork, baking, play play and more play. I am currently reading The Christopherous Waldorf homeschooling overview and it has really set my mind at rest, as sometimes it can be daunting when your child isn't at the same level as public school children who are all phonic'd up and are chanting the times tables off the top of their heads! It's reassuring to read that learning through play and at a slower pace can actually be more beneficial to the child's development.

With that all being said, we LOVE workbooks!!! Not very Steiner at all, but Acey enjoys doing them and will sit very quietly at the table, so we are flowing with that. Today was all about dimensional shapes

 

We also like to do lots of play based maths too - we've been having great fun doing a couple of simple math games from a book called 'games for math' by Peggy Kaye. She has written some amazing play based learning books


Tuesday 4 June 2013

A fun day at the farm

We had such a lovely day on Sunday, after a great morning at church we went to visit Stream Farm in Broomfield with our lovely friend David. We bumped into some homeschooling friends and we got to have a go at rowing a boat and had a tractor ride around the farm which was very interesting..





We also got to taste the lovely produce and Acey got to stroke some baby chicks and had a fab time on the trampoline


The farmer said that he used to homeschool his own children and that we could arrange some home ed days on the farm which would be nice

Afterwards we went to forage for some Wild garlic for our tea