This Homeschooling Life #10

sandpit fun

Hello! Another month and another ‘This Homeschooling Life’. Another month of me thinking ‘eeep! what do I have to say/!’

I’ve said it before, but after 9 years homeschooling is just normal life for us – I don’t always see the differentiation between life and learning. Indeed, there often isn’t one. So much of my kiddos learning is organic and part of us living our lives. They don’t need to be sat at a desk with workbooks to be learning.

As the weather improves, we always find ourselves spending most of our time outdoors and often away from the house. Books and lessons get put down for the summer while we enjoy nature. The kids still learn while we’re out and about, just in a way that has no tangible evidence. Long walks see us discussing everything from why we don’t float off into the sky to what that flower/leaf/bug is. When I don’t know the answer, Google usually does! One thing I’ve been passionate about is teaching the children how to find things out for themselves. I don’t see the benefit of spoon feeding children and just giving them information. I think it’s really important to teach them how to learn. Give them the ability to find things out for themselves. In the 21st Century this often means googling the question that Mama doesn’t have an answer too. And actually, I think it’s also good for them to see that even me as a grown up doesn’t know everything! That it’s OK to not know the answer and give the knowledge that they need to figure out how to find things out.

Kiki and Baya have been doing lots of baking this past month {yum!}. They love to experiment in the kitchen and they learn so much – there is so much science and math involved in baking {changes of state, temperatures, measurments} – Plus reading those recipe books is great reading practice!

girls baking

They’ve also been spending lots of time crafting. Baya loves Hama beads and spends hours making her own designs up and giving them as gifts! She also loves making paper dolls at the minute. Those two will happily spend all day long sat in the playroom, making something or another.

I’ve spied Lola picking up the guitar a few times, I think she’d like to take a few lessons which is something we’re looking in to. She still spends a lot of time writing and drawing – I’ve been scoping out a few new courses ready for September for her. We’re still undecided whether she will go to college/school in a year or so for her GCSE’s, whether she’ll do them at home or wait a bit longer. She’s also been studying some FutureLearn courses which she really enjoys.

Kiki and Baya asked to do a project on the Human Heart, so we dug out some books, watched some YouTube videos and then I found this great human heart lapbook that we did together over a couple of weeks. They really really enjoyed working on it – it was great to see them ask to do more each day! I did some lapbooks a few years back with Lola – I think we’ll be doing some more soon.

human heart lapbook

Kiki has also been enjoying practicing making fake wounds with special effects makeup! They’re a little too realistic looking for me…!! She’s even found recipes to make the make up herself! I think she may have a found a new career for when she’s older!

special effects fake wound

This Homeschooling Life is a linky for you to share either a week, a day or just a moment from your life as a homeschooling family. We are hoping it will be a really nice way to discover new blogs and learn how we all do things differently. We’d love you to link up with us and share what homeschooling looks like for your family. 
 
The linky will open at 8am on the first Monday of every month and throughout the rest of the month the hosts will share your posts on their social media channels. 
The Hosts:
Adele who blogs at Beautiful Tribe
Laura who blogs at Side Street Style
Polly who blogs at Enchanted Pixie
The Rules:
 
1. Link back to one of the hosts. You will find the code for the badge at the bottom or if you prefer you can use a text link.

2. Link up a post from your month, no more than 3.
3. Link directly to a specific post, not your main blog.
4. Follow each of the hosts on at least one of their social media platforms.
5. Visit and comment on some of the other blogs linking up.
6. If you share on social media then you can use the #thishomeschoolinglife so we can all find each other.
This Homeschooling Life


2 Comments

  1. Jess @ Along Came Cherry

    June 7, 2016 at 10:49

    We’ve been spending loads of time outdoors too, it’s the best thing about this time of year. And I always think to myself how homeschooling would be so much harder without Google! It’s amazing!! x

  2. tracey witts

    June 13, 2016 at 10:03

    So interesting to read what other home educators do. We will be spending lots of time outdoors and exploring nature, we already have our butterfly kit and some stick insect eggs. We love lap books too, we are creating one about ancient Greece.

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