Home Education Lately – January 2021

I have to say, January wasn’t anywhere near as horrible as I had anticipated it might be! Starting the year in (yet another) lockdown wasn’t filling me with joy and I have to admit I was dreading how the month would go. That said, it’s felt like a reasonable month. I won’t pretend it’s been a breeze, but it also hasn’t felt as long as January can sometimes feel. We have packed in lots this month, and you can read what I had planned for January here.

Core Subjects

Maths and English continue with the older two progressing well through their maths curriculum. H has shown a desire to do maths work so we have started the Maths No Problem books with him. I intend to do some number bonds work in February with him, but he’s enjoying showing off some of his addition skills at the moment and will proudly tell anyone who listens that ‘4+4 is 8’ whilst declaring it’s ‘easy’. He has also started to learn to read and is really enjoying that; it has the add on of helping his speech too.

Project Work

We have undertaken a few projects this month. Our longer project has been on Mount Everest and the Himalayas in preparation for the zoom geography fair in early February. We have looked at different things for this one including nature and wildlife, what it takes to climb Everest as well as learning about the people that have managed to climb Everest.

We also began three longer-term projects on artists, composers and poets. The artists that we have studied so far are Yayoi Kusama and Andy Warhol. We have learnt about Vivaldi via an online session with The Cardiff Violin Teacher, and we started our poet study by celebrating Burns Night and learning a little about Robert Burns and his poems.

The children also undertook a robin study and we really enjoyed this and I have plans to do another study this coming month with them.

Regular Groups

The theme for our poetry group this month was winter poems and the children have had fun choosing. I find it’s a good focus to have poetry scheduled into the month as it’s a great opportunity for them to spend time reading through the poetry collections that we have to find their favourites and spend time illustrating them.

Beavers and Cubs restarted online for the older two, as well as their weekly Spanish class which they’re still enjoying.

They were also pleased to see Maddie and Greg return with their Lets Go Live YouTube show which they watch each week. I think we may well end up studying the Egyptians again soon following this last weeks theme.

Days Out

Days out have consisted of walks! We have walked most days this month which has seen us clock up a decent amount of mileage. Daniel was keen to reach 100 miles for the month so on the final weekend of the month he wanted to do a ten-mile walk. In part to achieve ten miles in one go and to also hit his 100-mile monthly target. We had a lovely walk along the canal and he was so pleased to make his 100 miles. We have also been enjoying spotting the wildlife along the canal and the children are getting better at identifying the birds from their songs as well as being quite adept at spotting them! We managed to spot a pair of dippers down by the river and Daniel and I managed to see a male and female mersander on our long walk; the male even diving down and catching fish a couple of times.

I suspect February will be more of the same walks, but they’re enjoying them and it’s great for them to get to see the changing seasons along the canal as we start to move into spring in the coming weeks.

Other Bits and Pieces

In January we also celebrated Bubble Bath Day by making soap and bath bombs which were messy but lots of fun! We also marked Penguin Day with friends via zoom and learnt about penguins and made some delicious penguin biscuits. The older two have also been learning how to play chess and we have been doing lots of baking. Em loves to cook and to bake and this month has seen us make fairy cakes, banana bread, pizzas, crumble and fairy marshmallow cakes. I am sure she will have a few more things planned for us over the coming weeks too.

I am glad that we managed to keep busy during January and I think February will also be busy too. We have a good structure to our month and I’m looking forward in particular to building on our art and composer studies.