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.

Simple programming and Geography

We were told about this software from a friend who was sure our kids would enjoy it, and enjoy it they do!! It is simple programming language based interactive software which introduces children to simple logic in programs, like when, do, and repeat and x and y variables, and enables them to create the artistic as well as the programming elements. You can imagine Eden is in her element creating the art for the program functions to utilize. (This program reminds me of how much I enjoyed creating simple programs from age 9 or so, and I will be looking into introducing more hardcoding for the children too).
We have always dabbled in geography in some shape or form, be it map work or learning about geological topics. Eden is self studied in rocks and minerals as it is a pet love of hers, and the kids have done various topics on things like weather and volcanoes etc, but I have felt the need to get a bit more organized with geography and find a fun and interactive curriculum. I like the one below and the kids have had fun with it already too, it increases general knowledge and brings in map work alongside, as always I am learning as much as the children.

Autumn painting

I thought that we should grab the opportunity to do some autumn crafts, it is such an artistically evocative time of the year with so many crafting possibilities too.
Ciara choosing some autumn colours.
Niamh's finished autumn tree.

Eden wanted to experiment with the paints herself and come up with some lovely pictures.

Moving up in Maths

This has perhaps been Eden's most challenging maths book so far. It has dealt with mostly fractions, algebra and decimals and area and volume. There has been a lot of explaining from my side as Eden is not naturally mathematical, but we got to the end, and she achieved a great 90% for the final tests, and dark mint chocolate was her choice for a reward well deserved.

She has also done quite a bit out of this Kumon book on fractions to solidify what she learned in her mathusee.
Jude has also finished his Alpha, he is so enthusiastic to do more and more, but he hit a wall when subtracting bigger numbers, like 14-8 in his head. Mastering is crucial in mathusee so you cannot move on until these kinds of facts are known automatically. He just wasn't get them quick enough and was getting frustrated, so we took some time out in the book below for a few months, and when he had come round to understanding these facts, he easily finished the rest of Alpha, and is so excited to start the Beta now. (And we still need to get him his reward.)

Family reading time

After reading a large number of Christian biographies together, we have picked up a fictional series which Grant and Linda gave to Eden for her birthday. She has read them, but enjoys listening to me reading them a second time around, and it is so much fun for all the others to get to hear it too. The first book was extremely gripping for us all, albeit very scary towards the end. The second book is quite surreal and I can understand how Eden gets more out of me reading, and stopping along the way with explanation. We haven't got to the third one yet.
And Eden, Niamh and Ciara love to draw while I read, so they get lots of practice nearly every night.
Pirates, by Eden.
Swan, by Eden.