Studying South Africa

We didn't plan on studying South Africa, but we have been asked to do a talk on South Africa at our home education group.  I only really got excited about doing it after Christmas, perhaps there was just too much to think about over that period, and naturally when I am excited the kids are(well except for Eden and maths).  Of course it is such a vast subject and we only have so much time to do the presentation, and I plan on splitting it up with other South African families too, so we will see how it develops as we go on.  We have started on history, and seemed to get a little fixated on the Bushmen - they were the first indigenous people that were met by the Europeans.  They are an extremely fascinating people.

Eden's watercolour of a Khoikhoi man.

The children do love acrostics- Eden's acrostic:

Buck are grazing
Up sails an arrow
Soaring gracefully through the sky
Heavily plunges into the flesh
Men dancing around the fire,
Aged wrinkly mouths tell their story
Night strikes, but tomorrow is another day

Niamh's acrostic:
Brown little people
Uttering and clicking
Shouting and dancing
Hunting has just begun
Munching all the juicy tender buck
And now the night has come
Nomad Bushmen - in the morning......another place

The amber sparkle 
of a fire 
Crackles and 
retires to embers 
Memories created 
relayed in stories 

Little brown people, 
faces animated. 
Dancing, praising the spirits up high. 
The hunt a success, bellies full. 
Water all around, tranquil.

Parched pans, 
reflecting mirages. 
Chapped lips,
hunger pains. 
Trekking, 
searching,
vast empty plains. 

Caved galleries visited. 
Coded messages 
deciphered. 
Buried water found. 
Another spirit crowned. 

The Bushman, 
 a Nomad. 
Forever, 
wandering. 

Author - Winbow

Zoology

The children have been really excited for this curriculum to arrive. Of course Eden wanted to go straight to the Zoology - land animals which is book 3 but books 1 and 2 are a prerequisite. It was highly recommended by a friend and I'm glad it was. The quality of the book is excellent and the children are really enjoying filling in the journal and the experiments. We look forward to doing the other books in the series too.

We are currently doing Zoology 1

Sorting all the animal toys in the house into Kingdom, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species - a study in taxonomy.

Experiments in flight.

Learning about the Bernoulli principle, the upward force created by wing shape that enables a bird(and a plane) to fly.

A page out of their zoology journal.

Cartooning fun

Eden has become interesting in cartooning, so her dad started her off with a few lessons. She then got quite a lot of books out of the library, and specifically enjoys the manga style of cartooning. Her enthusiasm has rubbed off on Niamh and Ciara too, who did a lot of their own cartooning too.
Eden practising.
Eden used some of her dad's art supplies to create the above and below cartoons, the markers really makes a difference in giving it a more professional look.

The manga style has affected a lot of her portraits(which she does on a daily basis), with either sketch or paint.


Two more examples of what she has created with markers and ink.




Ciara's superhero cartoon. Niamh made some really good cartoons, unfortunately she stuck them up in her bedroom so as yet I have not taken photos of them!

Wax resisit

Art Monday has proved to be such a great idea as the children have come up with so many lovely projects. Even if I have not organized something for them to do, they look up in their art books for projects they would like to have a go at. This wax resist turned out really well.
First they drew the picture with wax crayons.
And then they painted over with watered down acrylic.

Niamh was very pleased with how it looked, and thought it looked very much like a pastel picture.

Maths mad!

A lot of people ask how it is possible to school 5 children of different levels at the same time. Although they are all at different levels they pretty much follow the same subjects each day. So they will all do their maths together, and then all do spelling, handwriting, grammar, science etc etc. Most of the time Ciara and Ayla play a lot together, and I am sooo grateful that they love each other's company as much as they do, but often I get to read to the younger two while the others are stuck into their workbooks.

Two little munchkins.
Jude absolutely loves maths, and it is not uncommon for him to do two hours of maths everyday - that is computer work and workbook work combined. It always takes up the majority of his school day.

Fall trees made with egg shells

Another fun fall project using eggs.
Firstly the eggs get painted with acrylic.
These are then stuck down to black card with modge podge - the eggs crack as they are pushed down to glue them down. Once the glue dries, the card is cutting into lots of leaf shapes.
An autumn tree is painted and then the leaves are stuck down, a really effective picture.
Eden's tree.

Salt dough leaf prints

The kids had a lot of fun with this multi stepped autumn project.
First make salt dough, and find some leaves to make leaf imprints into the salt dough.
Niamh got really creative and made a frog.
Jude even got stuck in with the painting.

Niamh enjoyed putting the finishing touches on her frog - perhaps a paperweight ?


Niamh finishing it off with some modge podge.
Which seals it off nicely and gives it a nice shine.

An Autumn Batik

I always get soo excited when we learn a new art technique. This one is called Batik.
Firstly the picture is drawn on material, and then the picture is glued with washable pva.
The material and picture is then painted over with acrylic paint.


The end pictures - above is Eden's, below is Niamh's. Note how the tree is totally covered over.
Once the painting is dry, the material is placed in hot water so that the glue(which covered the trees) comes off, and pulls the paint off with it.

To reveal the lovely autumn tree pattern below.
Niamh's tree.

Gecko colour wheel watercolour

We finally got some transparency paper so the girls could finish off the geckos they started a while ago. This was a really fun craft, as they had not done anything like this before. They made a colour wheel which went behind the picture and as they spin it the gecko changes colour. The transparency paper is for the geckos black markings.


On art day Eden also did a sketch of a Komodo Dragon, a reptile she is utterly fascinated with.

Autumn watercolours, with acrylic

We continue with our Autumn inspiration for Art Day on Mondays. Eden and Niamh enjoyed doing these watercolour autumn trees, and finished off the leaves with acrylic paint.
Niamh's painting.

Eden's painting

Science Experiments

We are implementing a new weekly routine. Each day of the week will be assigned a certain learning day. So Monday is Art Day, Tuesday is History Day, Wednesday is Geography Day, Thursday is Science Day and Friday is Foreign languages day. Of course the children will still do their maths, spelling, reading, english and music on a daily basis, it is just that when all of that is finished , we can then focus on one particular subject a day. We started the new routine last week and it worked fabulously well.
Jude is studying air in Science, so for his Science day he got to do some fun experiments - of course everyone gets involved anyway.

In this experiment an empty bottle is place in a pot of boiling water. A coin is placed on top, and as the water heats the air in the bottle, the air expands and pushes the coin up making the clicking sounds.
In this experiment a ping pong ball is dented.
The dented ball is placed in a cup of hot water.
The air inside the ball heats up, expands and pushes the dent out.
Eden has been learning about conduction of heat. In this experiment she had to find out what material would conduct the heat the best. The three different materials(wood, plastic and metal) are placed in a cup of hot water and a blob of butter with a raisin is placed on the top. The heat travels up the materials, melts the butter and the raisin falls into the water.