Building Self Esteem - Things To Look Forward To

Recently, we have been engaging in a number of activities focusing on building self esteem.   Today, we have compiled a list of things to look forward to.  We plan to update the lists each week.

Japanese Anime - Reading From Sub Titles

Owen is not keen on reading books.  However, he watches a great deal of Japanese Manga with English subtitles.  As a result he is becoming a competent and fast reader.

Easter Egg Hunt 2012

Mud Bath Fun

The Naked Egg

• a few eggs
• white vinegar
•a container big enough to hold all your eggs and a cover for the container
• a big spoon Here’s how you dissolve the shell from your eggs: 1. Place your eggs in the container so that they are not touching. 2. Add enough vinegar to cover the eggs. Notice that bubbles form on the eggs. Cover the container, put it in the refrigerator, and let the eggs sit in the vinegar for 48 hours. 3. Use your big spoon to scoop the eggs out of the vinegar. Be careful—since the eggshell has been dissolving, the egg membrane may be the only thing holding the egg together. The membrane is not as durable as the shell. 4. Carefully dump out the vinegar. Put the eggs back in the container and cover them with fresh vinegar. Leave the eggs in the refrigerator for another 24 hours. 5. Scoop the eggs out again and rinse them carefully. If any of the membranes have broken, letting the egg ooze out, throw those eggs away. 6. When you’re done, you’ll have an egg without a shell. It looks like an egg, but it’s translucent—and the membrane flexes when you squeeze it. Very cool! When you submerge an egg in vinegar, the shell dissolves. Vinegar contains acetic acid, which breaks apart the solid calcium carbonate crystals that make up the eggshell into their calcium and carbonate parts. The calcium ions float free (calcium ions are atoms that are missing electrons), while the carbonate goes to make carbon dioxide—the bubbles that you see.

How To Make a Trebuchet Catapult

Self Portraits

Owen's Self Portrait

Anya's Self Portrait

Owen's Chocolate Easter Nests

Ingredients

• 1 normal-size box of Shredded Wheat (16 large biscuits or 500g bitesize biscuits)
• 400g milk chocolate, supermarket own-brand is fine
• 2 100g bags of Mini Eggs
• Bun cases

Method

Crush the Shredded Wheat biscuits into a bowl using your hands or a food mixer

1. Break the chocolate into pieces and melt in a microwave on a low heat, stirring every 30 seconds
2. Pour the melted chocolate into the bowl and mix with the crushed Shredded Wheat
3. When mixed and all the Shredded Wheat is covered with chocolate, spoon the mixture into bun cases and press down in the middle of each to create a place for the eggs
4. Press two or three Mini Eggs into each nest
5. Leave to set for at least 2 hours (or less if refrigerated)

Trampoline Fun - March 2012

Building Self Esteem Using Photography

Photographs have the ability to capture an emotion in just a moment. A photograph also has the ability to capture a moment that someone might not be aware of, showing his or her true personality. Owen and I have created a display of a selection of photos taken in environments that best express Owen’s personality including favorite places, favorite activities, his friends and his pets.

Take Your Chances by Anya

Pond Investigation

Fish

Frogs

Pond Skaters

Anya's Self Portrait - Feb 2012

Spaghetti Challenge

Human Body Resources

Human Body Resource

Snow Fun in Crystal Palace Park - Feb 2012

Identifying Low Self Esteem

Owen has been having some problems getting on with one of the girls at one of our home education groups.  He tends to tease her and calls her names and swears at her.  It’s not one side as this child is aggressive too and has hurt Anya with no provocation.  However, I am concerned that Owen’s behaviour is verging on bullying.  Owen was bullied a great deal at school and he is starting to recognise that calling people names often gets him attention from the other kids.  I have identified that Owen has quite low self esteem.   I found the following very useful from The Womens & Childrens Health Centre in indentifying Owen’s low self esteem.

How To Identify Low Self Esteem

·        Feeling unhappy

·        Feeling that you are not as good as others

·        Having no confidence in yourself

·        Feeling hopeless about the future

·        Seeing bad things in the world around you

·        Feeling like a victim

·        Feeling miserable

·        Feeling tired most of the time

·        Lounging around and not doing anything

·        Putting yourself down even when you are given a compliment

·        Seeing the worst side of everything

·        Having no respect for yourself.

The site also looks at how peoples self confidence can get so low and suggest the following possible reasons:

·        Telling yourself how bad, stupid ugly you are

·        Disliking yourself

·        Hanging around by yourself or with people that tease you

·        Not keeping clean and tidy

·        Taking the blame for everything and not standing up for yourself

·        Thinking of a mistake as something that only happens to you

·        Believing that you can’t change anything

·        Thinking that no one likes you

·        Brooding about all the bad things that have happened in your life.

·        Not doing anything good or that you may enjoy

·        Listening to and believing people that say bad things about you.

I was horrified when I read this as it also accurately describes Owen.  The same article looks at what High Self Esteem looks like too.  Hardly any of the description of high self esteem matched Owen.

Time - Reggae song by Anya B

Video Games - Original by Lana Del Rey Sung by and Remixed by Anya B

Leave Me Alone - Anya Bedford

Leave Me Alone - Anya First Track!

Holiday in Lewes - December 2011

First Christmas in our New Home - Christmas 2011

T-Shirt Painting

Christmas Lanterns

We made some Christmas lanterns today. You can download the template from here .

Junk Modelling

Owen made a Roblox character from some of the junk we keep aside for Art and Craft.

Introducing Reading Eggspress!

Reading Eggs is an online reading programme aimed at 3 - 7 year olds. We found it unsuitable for Owen and Anya and the environment is too young for our kids. However, they have recently launched Reading Eggspress, which is a new website for 7 – 12 year olds! This brand new world, designed for older students, is full of motivating learning activities, rewards, great games and real time contests. With 650 e-books in the library and 200 comprehension lessons, Reading Eggspress is a complete English Skills program for middle and upper primary students. Anya has really enjoyed the new environment and found many books she has read on the site. She said she preferred reading on the screen as she didn't like the feel of paper. I wasn't even aware of this problem until now.

A Sandcastle Kingdom

Chess - The Right Brain Game

Chess is a great right brain game.  The right brain is linked to the "inner" senses of perfect memory, computer-like math calculation, rapid language acquisition, perfect pitch (music abilities), and intuitive thought.

Torquay October 2011

Owen and Anya Electronics Lessons

Boiling Water Experiment

Taking Things Apart

Anya and Owen love to learn how things work by taking them apart.  Anya and Owen have recently been consumed by taking apart a very old and broken laptop.  It is such a great way of discovering how things work.  It ticks all the boxes for Kinaesthetic learning. It's so fun and simple and most broken appliances serve as great learning tools.  The kids loveto guess what each park is and we talk about the function of each part.

Number Lines & Weighing

Last year, I posted about Anya’s Numerical SequencingProblems.  She learnt to count to 21 by labelling the stairs.  We also used number lines which I think fantastic method of teaching Maths.  We look at the number line and count forward and back using it.  Anya finds it really hard to remember which set of numbers follow which eg once she gets to 59 she can’t remember 60 comes next.  Counting in Tens has helped but she hasn’t quite made the connection between the Units that come in  between the Tens.

Scales are a little like a number line too and by weighing ingredients, Anya can see the value of the scales gradually increasing.  She then has to understand that if she goes over the required amount some of the ingredients need to be removed.

Chicken Feed Receipe to Produce Omega-3 Fatty Acids

I have been researching a diet that will help my chicken produce Columbus Eggs which are high in Omega 3 fatty Acids.

You can increase the level of omega-3 fatty acids in the eggs that your hens lay by including flaxseed in their feed. The flaxseed contains a type of omega-3 fatty acid called a -linolenic acid and the hen will deposit a significant amount of this dietary fatty acid into the egg yolk. The hen will also convert some of the a -linolenic acid into smaller amounts of other forms of omega-3 fatty acids and deposit them into the egg yolk.

Here is my current mix:

Wheat                                             4 Parts
Oats/Barley                                     2 Parts
Lentils/Split Peas/Quinoa                  2 Parts
Flaxseed/Sunflower/Sesame Seeds   2 parts

Free choice of Oyster Shells/Grit      

More information on Omega chicken diets can be found at http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/livestock/poultry/bba01s04.html         

BrainPOP - Our Favourite Educational Site

Last year we subscribed to Brain Pop Jnr. This year I have decided to invest another $99 into Brain Pop which is aimed at older kids. The science provided by Brain Pop Jnr is a little basic for Owen but the science videos aimed at secondary student on Brain Pop will suit him better.

Naruto, Bleach and Manga Subtitles

This time last year, I could never have imagined my son would be able to watch Manga subtitled films. Many of the Bleach and Naruto episode are only available as subtitles. Owen's passion for Naruto and Bleach has encouraged him to watch the new subtitled episodes. My job is simply to provide him with the time to watch them! New Manga can be loaded from AnimePrivate.com

Anya's Reading Takes Off!

Anya's reading has also started to take off now.  Guess How?  By being provided the time to pursue her interests and chat to her friends online.  Anya's main interest at the moment is a game called Roblox.
Last year I spent a whole year offering Owen and Anya one to one learning.  The sessions included reading books matching reading level and age level day reading, playing spelling games, playing reading base board games and working through reading programmes aimed at kids with autism.  We did make some slow progress but the real progress has been made by the kids teaching themselves.  They often ask me how to spell a word when they are chatting to their friends online.  I have learnt to simply spell the word and not irritate them by trying to make their question into a lesson!

Roblox does market itself as an educational game with a belief that kids learn best by making things — by engaging in the creative and complex process of imagining, designing, and constructing.  Roblox provides them with a safe place to build, gives them the requisite tools and lets them play.  They say they are inspired by the educational theory pioneered by Seymour Papert of the MIT Media Lab. This theory — labeled "Constructionism" — holds not only that kids learn best when they are in the active roles of designer and builder, but that their learning is optimized when they're assuming these roles in a public forum.

HOME EDUCATION- what's that all about? By Joolz

Autonomous Self Regulated Learning - How Does it Work?

Autonomous education was one of the first words I was introduced to when we began our home education. My friend, who has been home educating her children for 6 years (now aged 8 and 12) explained that her children do not attend lesson, all their learning is self directed. Her children seemed bright, had great communication skills and seem very knowledgeable in a broad range of subjects. She said her children have learnt to read by being read to. She noticed that they both started to follow where she was on the page. They were not taught to read using phoenix but I suppose more by word recognition. I was skeptical about how a child could possibly learn anything without lesson styled learning.

At the time, I was sitting down with Owen and Anya for a few hours each day to cover English and Math. The lessons were informal and the kids didn’t seem to mind but didn’t seem to engage in the lessons with any passion. Both of them were barely reading and writing when they left school. They both refuse to read books even though I have tried hard to find books with an interest level at their age but a lower reading age. They both hate books which I suspect is a result of the atrociously boring books they were made to read at school. We used a specialist software application called Wordshark which is designed to help dyslexic children learn to spell. Both Owen and Anya tolerated 30 mins a day using this software but it didn’t seem to create any real interest or pride in reading or spelling. I noticed Owen had started watching Japanese Manga films with subtitles and seemed to be following the plot. Owen started to ask me how to spell words having shown no previous interest in spelling correctly. He was very interested in an online game called Roblox and was chatting with his online friends. I sat down with him to watch him play. He was typing at a tremendous speed with amazingly accurate spelling. So I decided to abandon the Wordshark and allow him to watch Manga subtitles for 30 minutes instead. His reading now seems pretty good (not brilliant but okay) and his spelling is very good. He still isn’t interested in reading books but is able to read whatever he needs to on his computer. He uses the internet to research and look up all sorts of information.

Social Story - Moving Home

Moving House & Reducing Stress For Children

Moving house is stressful for most people, but some children find change particularly stressful

I have found that preparing the kids for big events is the most effective way of reducing his stress.  I have spent the last few months preparing the kids for the move and including:

• Explaining why we are moving
• Showing him photos of the new house
• Explaining what is involved in the move
• Showing them the calender and reminding him of the move date
• Packing a bag of essential toys, clothes and food/snacks for the first few days.

Social stories may also help kids understand what is going on. 


On the day of the move we ensure the kids stuff was off loaded first and their beds and essential toys unpacked first.   

Free Audio Books

Books Should Be Free Free Audio Books from the public domain Download a free audio book in mp3, iPod, or iTunes format

Cotswolds Summer 2011

A Walk in Ladywell Fields

Bermondsey Lamp-post Free School - 1974

Reading Eggs

I thought it would be worth mentioning Reading Eggs as some other home educators have recommended this reading program.  Owen and Anya’s reading has improved so much by simply been provided the time to pursue their interests that it is now below their level.  Anya had a look at Reading Eggs but found it too easy although she seemed to enjoyed playing the games for a while.  Personally, I found the program irritating and wouldn't recommend it for older children that are struggling with reading.  It is clearly aimed at younger kids with interest levels and age levels matched at school expectation.  This is rarely the case with dyslexia, ADD, ADHD and autistic kids.  My focus has always been to try and match older interest levels with younger reading levels.

Chemistry Set !

I've just made a huge investment in a Chemistry set.  Owen and Anya love to do experiments so I thought this set would really allow them to develop this interest.  Not cheap though at £168 from Amazon!

The Thames & Kosmos CHEM C3000 includes a wide range of supplies, including professional grade test tubes, an alcohol burner and chemicals that are needed for the experiments. The guide is the most important part of the chemistry set. It covers each experiment in detail, ensuring young learner are able to perform the experiments properly to get results. There are also color photos of the experiments, which is a great way to see if your results are the same as the photo. The set also includes safety gear which is an absolute necessity when working with chemicals.

Documentary Resource

Top Documentary Films you can find 1700+ (more to come) stunning, eyeopening and interesting documentaries.

HESFES 2011

HESFES is a home education festival held in South East England.