Difference

Yesterday I had a quick look at what I had planned for Mr.R  to focus on for Mathematics and saw this:

 “Understand the operation of addition and subtraction (as difference) and use the related vocabulary”

I wasn’t sure what the learning outcome meant, yet alone how to go about teaching and learning it!  Luckily I found some guidance from members of a home education group I’m in.  They suggested that it meant another term for subtraction, to use a number line or 100 square and they suggested always introducing new terminology with actual physical counters (cars, leggo, or even eatable items).

So with this in mind today we tried to tackle the learning outcome!  This is what we ended up with.  I’m not so sure it worked so well, that Mr. R understood all the concepts, but it was the best that I could come up with.  If nothing else it was an introduction to “difference”.

First I drew up a number line.  Then I asked Mr. R to choose two numbers on the number line.  He circled the two numbers.

Then Mr. R placed the same number of counters under each numeral he chose on the number line.

Then we started investigating the difference.  I asked questions like.  What do we need to do to make 10 (in this case) equal to 5?  What do we need to do to make 5 equal to 10?

We discussed how the blocks that we moved was the difference between the two numbers he selected and circled on the number line (in this case 10 and 5).   

Mr. R then counted the number of steps it took to go from 5 to 10 on the number line.  The difference was the same number that we discovered when using the blocks --  5.

We then made number sentence using the information that we found.  If we have 10 and we want to make it equal 5 then we take away the difference 5. We did the same for making 5 equal 10 (add the difference).

Then we experimented with other numbers on the number line.

Number Lines

This is a number ordering activity Mr.R completed.  

He ordered the numbers 1-20  going forwards and going backwards.  

What was really interesting was that he decided to place all the cards with the words up (not numerals up).  When he started searching for the next number he had to search by reading the number words.  He made the task more challenging for himself and enjoyed it.  

When I think about it, it is perfectly natural for children to want to learn.  The way that they learn is enjoyable for them.  This was a learning experience for me!  I really, really hope that I don’t dampen his eagerness to learn.

Thanks for the lesson Mr. R  ♥

Weaving

This is Mr. R's weaving project.  The golden hair like material is jute.  We collected it from the river bank.  Some men were pulling the soaked jute fibers off the long stems.  It was fun to watch,  unfortunately we didn't have the camera to take photos of the men at work.  I love the smell of drying jute, Mr. R says "I like it a bit, but not very much." :)

Balancing Bumble Bees

For playgroup last week we had fun making balancing bumble bees. The idea came from here.  

I tried to link the activity to the Srimati Radharani and the bumble bee pastime.  That's why we made bumble bees instead of butterflies.  They were already cut out, the children decorated them and glued the weights under the wings to make them balance.  

Balance was our focus word for the activity.  We sang  One Grey Elephant Balancing as the the children balanced on a rope on the floor.  We talked about the colours yellow and black and had a look at the yellow and black stripe patterns on the bumble bee. 

Cooking and Fractions

I just put these in the oven...

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/date-bars/4b716ead-523c-42eb-b589-e48dc5240c3d

Cooking is a very tasty way of learning mathematics. Today I was introducing fractions. Mr. R didn't know that though!  

I wrote the recipe on a large white board for Mr. R to read and follow.

Phonics, Spelling and Grammar

I'm pretty sure, that where and when I was being taught English at school, the fad was the Whole Language approach to literacy.  I'm not sure if it was this approach, the way it was applied or a mixture of both, but there sure seems to be a large group of adults that left their schooling with poor spelling and poor grammar.  Myself included.

I remember while beginning my degree in Education at university there was a mandatory basic spelling and grammar test. Over fifty percent of us didn't pass the spelling and the grammar test had similar results.

I'm trying to avoid the same thing happening with Mr. R.

Although I can appreciate the benifits of  meaning and strategy instructions (the components of whole language), I don't think it's enough.  I know it sounds boring and mean, but I do give Mr. R phonics, spelling and some grammar activities as well.

Fortunately, we have come across and frequently use the Dr. Best Learn to Read program.  It comes with  42 fun color talking books and 38 activity books and covers reading ages from 3 to 8.    It's easy to follow for both parents and children, but most importantly it works.  We also use the program for spelling.  Now that Mr. R is speeding along with his reading, we revisit the first books in the program and use the old reading words as the new spelling words.  

A bit of Geography, a dash of English and a splash of Unschooling

Have you heard of "unschooling"?  I stumbled across this word during one of my many online investigations into home education.   Here is a nice quote: 

"What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge,

not knowledge in pursuit of the child."

- George Bernard Shaw 

Here is a link that explains some more.

I think I'm going to have to learn some "unteaching".

Now that I'm not a class teacher one of the many things I have to let go of is the pressure of having to have a final product that clearly illustrates to people that were not present at the time of learning the learning that took place.  I wonder if that makes any sense?

Take a look at Mr. R's Australian animals activity.  I printed out the animals, he cut and glued then labeled them.  That's pretty obvious right?  (I wanted him to learn about the animals in Australia as well as work on his English.)  So what's the deal with those lines all over the page?

I have to admit I had to bite my tongue.  Mr. R came up with the idea of sorting the animals.  He looked at them and explained to me that the wombat, koala and kangaroos were similar and that the cockatoo was similar to the platypus.  He sorted them by drawing lines.

That prompted me to talk about how unusual the platypus was.  It has some features similar to a bird and some features similar to a mammals.  They lay eggs and have webbed feet  and a bill like a duck but still have fur.  Mr.R then drew another line from the platypus to the kangaroo and koala.  

Even though Mr. R's final piece of work may not look like much to a person that wasn't there at the time those wonky lines are the result of some unplanned and significant learning that was lead by the observation and curiosity  of Mr. R himself.  :)

Australian Art

Art and Design.  

Today we explored some art (other than music).  One of Mr. R's geography questions for our current topic is, "What is the art like in the country?"  Since we're learning about Australia, we spent some time looking at Australian Aboriginal art.  We found out that traditionally paints were made from rocks and plants.  We decided to try and do the same.

Grass, beetroot, frangipani leaves, sandalwood, fresh turmeric, turmeric powder and bicarbonate soda mix, sesame seeds and clay.  We started with pounding each item in the mortar and pestle but that was quite difficult!

The electric blener is much easier.

Black soot from a burning candle.

Mr. R made so many colours!  

Now to try them on some wood...

and paper.  We labled them so we could remember where the colour came from.

I was mucking around with some dots (trying to copy the aboriginal dot style art).  Ramai took over and made a peacock feather!

Can't wait to move on to India.  Someone's already given me some ideas, and I'm sure Mr. R is going to love them.

Mathematics

For Mathematics at the moment, I'm pretty much following the old year one sample medium term plan from the National Numeracy Strategy (1999).  I found a copy here:  http://www.learninglive.co.uk/teachers/primary/numeracy/planning/mtplan_Ry3.pdf


I know it's not the latest of documents, but I like the way it's super simple to follow.  It gives me an idea of what Mr.R can be learning for his age and it's all set out in an easy-to-read table format covering only a few pages.  I guess my main concern is having gaps in his mathematics education.  If I follow this, at least I should be covering most areas, (number, shape and space, time etc.) right?


That being said, I was surprised to see some pretty challenging questions in Mr.R's Mathematics workbook I collected from his school the other day like 6 ÷ 2= ??? He's just a few days into year one!  So that threw me a bit off.  Seems like quite a jump from what was expected in Reception.


Luckily, I have had a bit of online help from members in a home education group I've recently joined.  They gave me some helpful guidance in the area of Mathematics.  I'm now feeling a little less clueless.


So what have Mr. R and I been doing?.  We've been learning about money:

This is a shop Mr. R created himself.

A customer buying from Mr. R's shop.  We used  real rupee coins.  

How much does it cost?  How much change will we get?

This was a fun activity.  Mr.R loved it.  He continued playing (and learning) throughout the day and continued playing (and learning) the next couple of days too.

Happy customer!

Then we moved on to measurement.  I told a story about a town that used the size of their King's foot to measure things.  But then one day they had a new king with tiny feet.  This caused too much confusion and they decided to make one way to measure things for everyone forever.  

We took a look at a ruler and looked at center-meters.  We talked about why it was important to start measuring at 0, like we do when measuring with our hands.

Mr. R then chose different objects to measure.

Here he's measuring a  sheet of paper.

Here he is measuring a hinge on the door.

100 square.  Mr. R likes looking at patterns and enjoys playing with numbers.  He soon caught on and finished most of this independently.

Today we started on two and three dimensional shapes.

Science Experiment

Today was a difficult day for many reasons :(

Still, we did manage to complete a fun water pressure experiment.  This continues form last weeks science activities.

By the way, this isn't our video.

New Timetable

This is the new timetable. It's a lot more flexible and after a week of trying it out, it's definitively an improvement from the last one. 

There is one thing I'm beginning to not like about timetables when home educating.  That is, that they kind of say "this is learning time", suggesting that any other time isn't.  

"I see unschooling as the ideal application of the 1960's and 70's "Open Classroom" methods, unlimited by school's schedules and physical limitations, but based in the research about human learning and optimal conditions for children's mental health and growth. In a rich, peaceful environment, learning happens all the time."  

 From: http://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/2011/09/unschooling-philosophy.html

Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to have a monthly list of what  Mr. R could learn as my timetable... just a thought. 

Introducing Little Miss. S

Mr. R has a two and a half year-old sister.  Miss. S.  Every Saturday Miss. S and I go to the local school for playgroup.  This week I've decided not to prepare any major activities.  I've been meditating this last week about how important it is to spend time with our children, listen to them and talk to them.  Seems simple right?  Still a day or more goes by and do find myself wondering.  Have I actually sat down with Miss. S and played, listened and talked with her lately?  I get so busy doing my everyday  things, cleaning, cooking and now home educating Mr. R that I feel at times she's not getting enough of this. So this week our playgroup program will include having parents  massage their children, encouraging them to tickle their little feet affectionately, make eye-contact and talk  to them, ask questions, listen and respond. Followed by free play, where parents will be encouraged to spend this time joining in and interacting with their children..

The social, emotional and language benifits of these simple things are HUGE.

http://www.familyfacts.org/briefs/15/a-wise-investment-benefits-from-families-spending-time-together
http://www.parenting-child-development.com/parenting-tips.html

Tests

Yesterday I decided to make Mr.R do a mini high frequency (HF) word test.  I don't think I'll be giving tests again in the near future.  I don't feel it's really necessary when home educating one child.  I thought it would be good to see how many  HF words he knew how to spell so that I could know where he needs more help. But it wasn't that simple.

He become really disheartened each time he saw he spelled a word wrong while checking.  It didn't do anything for his confidence or enthusiasm in writing. I felt bad for putting him through the whole ordeal.

I've want our home education to feel like a comfortable and enjoyable learning journey.  Assessment will be informal and observational from now on.  I'll, as much as possible, gently correct Mr. R as he works on meaningful projects according to what he can handle, trying to keep a careful balance between correcting and nurturing his feelings of being able to succeed.  

Science Project - Forces/Pushing and Pulling/ Water Pressure

So what 's this cow got to do with water pressure?  Not much really.  The other day  Mr. R and I went for bike ride.  We came across a bridge with water gushing out from underneath.  It's been a very wet Rainy Season so we have had some flooding in the fields around us.  Mr. R loved watching the local boys having fun as they were pushed under the bridge by the water. When we came back home, he was still excited and tolde told his friends and father about it. 

It got me thinking, for science we're meant to be learning about pushing and pulling.  Surely, this is related. Wouldn't be great if we could turn this fun experience which Mr. R  is obviously excited by into a science lesson.  I started to Google up more information and came across this:

When you press or push something, the force you apply is called pressure. Pressure is measured as the force you use divided by the area over which you use it. If you use a bigger force, or if you use the same force over a smaller area, you increase the pressure. We experience AIR PRESSURE all the time because of the weight of air pressing in on our bodies. WATER PRESSURE increases as you go deeper in the ocean.

WATER PRESSURE

Water behaves differently from air when it is under pressure. It cannot be compressed (squeezed). This makes it useful for transmitting force in machines, using a system called hydraulics. Water is also heavier than air, and an increase in water pressure affects humans more than a drop in air pressure. Even with a snorkel or other breathing apparatus, it feels much harder to breathe underwater. The water above you presses down from all sides on your body, so your lungs find it harder to expand to take in air. The deeper you go, the more water there is above you and the greater the pressure on your body.

Liquid pressure is used to carry force through pipes. The small force pushing down does not compress the liquid but moves through the liquid to push another piston a small distance upwards. The wider area of this piston increases the force applied.

http://www.infoplease.com/dk/science/encyclopedia/pressure.html#ESCI075WATPRE

Today we went back to the bridge.  Unfortunately, the rain has stopped and the sun is out, so it wasn't quite as exciting as a few days back.  Still we could see the mark on the concrete where the water was before and could note how much the water level has dropped.  We noticed the water wasn't rushing out from under the bridge anymore, instead it was slowly flowing. 

Mr. R took out the camera (ICT link!!!) and filmed the movement of water under the bridge.

I've also come across some pretty cool science experiments on the topic, which I'll share later.

The Places I've Lived

Our first project we have started promotes development in not one but three learning areas!  English, ICT and Geography.   I'm really hoping this is going to be fun.  Mr.  R has lived in four countries in his little life so far.  So we're compiling a small book about the places he's lived.

So far we've created a cover-page using  Word and have come up with a list of questions to find out more about a place.  Mr. R came up with these questions:

What are the rivers like?

What are the houses like?

What are the animals like?

What are the plants like?

What does the county’s flag look like?

What do the people look like?

 What sport do people play?

What temples do they have?

What do the people wear?

What are the schools like?

Today we started on Australia:

Tomorrow we'll check out Australia on Google Earth! 

Early Listening and Speaking and English Development

I lightly mentioned the importance of early speaking and listening skills when it comes to English development (probably cognitive development in general) in the post  Playing, Teaching and Learning.

Here are some videos a friend kindly emailed me that expand on this (click on the links below):

Professors Maggie Snowling and Charles Hulme, who lead the research team, talk about their work, which found that intervening at pre-school age can have great success.

The video also shows classroom practice with pre-school children at Hinderwell Community Primary School in Yorkshire.

These findings are set to equal the importance of the research that led to the statutory phonics policy introduced after the Rose report, as it appears that oral language and phonics intervention at the pre-school level could head off later failure for these 'at risk' children.

The research's implications for policy are significant, and following longer term analysis of the evidence, a national programme could prove beneficial to a large number of children.

http://www.schoolsworld.tv/videos/the-case-for-early-years-language-intervention

http://www.schoolsworld.tv/videos/language-intervention-in-nurseryhttp://www.schoolsworld.tv/videos/language-intervention-in-reception

Happy Birthday Srimati Lalita-devi

This was quite a sweet literacy lesson. When we finished we gave the card to Lalita herself.

Earlier this week during a lesson with  Mr. R he started going on and on about how he hates drawing and how he was so bad at it.  When I saw how self-conscious he was about his drawing skills. I asked him why he thinks he is bad at drawing, his reply was that his friend tells him he can't draw right. He has an older friend who is a good artist and often tells Mr. R that the way he draws isn't right.

At that point we stopped our lesson and moved to the computer where we googled different works of art. We looked at how different images are be portrayed differently by different artists. That there was no right and wrong way and that effort can make a big difference.

It seemed to have worked as he put much more effort into this picture without complaining or putting his  artwork down. He drew Lalita independently while I cooked.

PLAYING, TEACHING and LEARNING

I'm beginning to realise that my new journey within the realm of home education is not just about the children learning. I will also be learning along the way. As a trained and experienced class teacher there are some teaching practices I won't need when teaching one child at home and others that I need to work on more.

Still, I am grateful to have learnt some things whilst studying and working as a class teacher. One of which is the importance of play, or more importantly and less understood, how children learn through play and how we as parents and educators can expand their learning through play.

Often when I mention I'm a teacher of little children or am homeschooling my five year old the response I get is: "at that age they just play".

It's the distance between the parent and the child that I hear in this response that concerns me. Play, especially when used with the term "education" doesn't just mean that children go off and do what they like without any adult input. Of course that is there too, but there is also much, much more.

When educating though play we can still have learning outcomes (what we would like our children to achieve), we can even still plan and definitely still interact with our children. The planning involves thinking about how to extend our children's learning, what our children are interested in and what environment we can provide that can cater to these.

As parents we can create a play environment from scratch for our children to enter or we can facilitate the play already started by children. That is; we can watch our children play and when we see an opportunity to step in and facilitate their play and extend their learning we do.

The children in these pictures decided to dress up as warriors and cowherd girls and boys. They began their play without adult intervention, with some sticks and a few flowers. The parents then provided more flowers and fabric. The parents demonstrated an interest in their play, participating in the children's role-play and dialogue.

The parents (knowingly or unknowingly) by engaging in their children's play and talking to them extend their learning in the area of speaking and listening.  They helped to increases their children's vocabulary (by introducing new words) and improve spoken grammar (by providing good examples of correct spoken grammar). Early speaking and listening skills are heavily linked to future English development, including writing, reading and comprehension, but that's for another post.

So, this is just one example of some children playing and how their parents facilitated their play and extended their learning in English. But such play based learning goes beyond the area of English it can cover all areas. In this example alone I have just mentioned English to save myself some time; physical, and creative learning was also taking place.

Play, therefore, if thoughtfully facilitated is a fun and great way for our children to learn.

I'm ending this post with a link to the blog "Juicy Learning" and a nice example of how a mother facilitated her sons idea and play to extend his learning in Science.

Survived the First Week!

Yes!! We survived!!!

How was it? I have to admit there were times where I would have mini anxiety attacks and times where the affirmation "I can do this" came in useful. Like most things in life, home education seems to come with its positives and negatives.

Negatives:

• Mr. R complains to me much more than he does his school teachers.
• I don't have much "me" time anymore. Sometimes I really crave just a few moments for myself.
• I also complain more than a school teacher probably would, (putting that in to be fair).

Positives:

• We can choose topics that Mr. R is interested in.
• I can work according Mr. R's ability. For example. In Mathematics I can use numbers to 100, because he "gets" it.
• I love, love, love watching him grow and learn.

So far the positives WIN. I'm looking foward to next week. I'm looking forward to trying out a new "timetable" and looking forward to trying out new activities, which I'll hopefully post up here in the near future.