Home Education Lately – April 2021

Well, I think it’s fair to say that April has been a super busy month! We have worked on a large project as well as continuing on with our core work. We seem to have been able to get out and see the children’s friends which has felt wonderful – just seeing them be children after the last 15 months or so is wonderful.

Core Subjects

Maths continues on and Em has almost finished her maths no problem book; she just has the book revision to finish off and she’ll do this next week I would expect. D and H are both progressing well and H seems to have more of a natural aptitude and interest in maths than his older siblings, he’s certainly much better than they were at four. We are working away on a range of English skills with them all and I am content with where they are at, but will do a check on their maths and English knowledge against the generally expected standards at some point in next few weeks. I don’t hold too much store by the national curriculum (I think it has some huge gaps in it) but it’s useful to check for any glaring gaps.

Reading continues on and I am pleased that H is improving his reading and that Em is also improving her spelling. We have done quite a bit of work on this and I’m glad to see it’s paying off a little. We have shared some brilliant books together in recent weeks and I am thoroughly enjoying the longer chapter books with them.

Project Work

We had our Speaking & Listening group this month with a theme of birds. All three worked on projects for this one, D did beaks and bills, H did flamingos and Em did hummingbirds. These were relatively short projects for us but they were enjoyable and they learned from it and we have the next one to prepare for in early May.

Our biggest project this month was our Ancient Greeks project which we all really enjoyed. We have worked on this all through the month and ended April by presenting a little bit of it at the virtual history fair. There were some fab projects shared by other families and I look forward to when we can meet face to face again and showcase our work.

We covered a lot with our Ancient Greece project and I think the children have enjoyed this and learned a lot from it. Even H got involved and he particularly enjoyed the myths and legends of Ancient Greece. It will be interesting to re-visit with them in a year or two to see how much they can recall. We managed plenty of crafts and art in this project and a good mix of YouTube videos, written text, and crafts to do on this one. I’ve not decided on our next history topic yet, possibly Vikings or Egyptians.

Our Artist themed studies continued this month with Banksy and Bridget Riley. We are really enjoying this series of sessions and look forward to the ones lined up for May, It’s really interesting to see how the children are observing the work on these artists in their everyday environment and it’s been great to have such a long term regular study planned in for this year so far. The books that they’re building up are fantastic examples of the different art styles.

We attended some of the Kids Love Classics sessions as well as another part of the Canal and River Trust badge when we looked at the history of our local canal.

Regular Groups

The theme for our poetry group this month was poems that make you laugh and there were some fun poems to share there.

Beavers and Cubs for the older two have continued and both are working hard on their badges and skills. Hopefully, they’ll go back face to face soon

Spanish classes continued and the children are ever more proficient with their Spanish.

Days Out

Days out have been local and involved walking along the canal! It’s been great to meet with friends and we have loved exploring the rivers and canals locally. We were also thrilled to stop the first ducklings this month and hope that May brings with it more new life to watch and enjoy. We have started a duckling nature journal which I hope we can add to in May.

I also had some one-to-one time with Em this month and we had a lovely walk along the canal and stopped for a hot chocolate and slice of cake at an outdoor cafe. I think she enjoyed this time together with me.

Other Bits and Pieces

We have had some fun sessions this month including one on St George’s Day, Poetry tea times, Shakespeare’s sonnets and probably some other bits in there too. I’ve enjoyed doing the deep dive study on Ancient Greece and look forward to our next one.