HESFES Home Education Festival

Holiday in Lewes - December 2011

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.

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.

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.

Legoland July 2011

Lots of skills developed including planning, map reading, problem solving, construction and fine and gross motor skill developement!

Music At The Horniman

One of Owen's favourite places is the music room at the Horniman. The museum provides interactive music projections allowing the kids to select and listen to hundreds of instruments. The kids can listen to the instruments using headsets so the room is very quiet, tranquil and very suitable for kids who are sensitive to noise or have auditory processing difficulties. Surrounding the interactive screens are beautifully displayed instruments which are organised and neatly labelled. In addition, the lighting is very dim so is kind to kids with light sensitivities ... 

British Wildlife Centre

A day at the British Wildlife Centre near East Grinstead to find out about all the wonderful British wildlife. We saw wildcats, owls, polecats, foxes, deer, otters, mice, hedgehogs and badgers.

Owen Plants Garden Peas

Gardening

I find that encouraging the kids to do a little bit of gardening sparks a general interest in learning.

Conversations in the garden seems to result in a more inquisitive approach from the kids.

Our 30 min seed planting session included conversations about germination, insects and slugs, the weather, months of the year and Roblox (which features in almost every conversation).

TUC Demonstration 26th March 2011

Why Are We Marching?

To defend jobs and services.

To oppose Cameron and his liberal side kicks.

To fight for a fairer society.

To use our public right to demonstrate.

Anya is wearing a girls dress from Stardust and Owen is wearing a kids t-shirt from Stardust.

Owen Riding Honey

Anya Riding Honey

Hydrogen Powered Cars

White Board Handwriting Exercises

Museum of London

Most of the experienced home educators I meet say that children have a natural interest to learn and an extraordinary ability to think diversely. Many of them believe that mainstream schooling damages this natural interest. My kids are only recently out of mainstream schooling and generally they don't demonstrate a natural interest to learn. However, I have recently seen sparks of interest and a pride in their work. I am determined to encourage these sparks by allowing them to access a diverse source of learning.

I am on a mission to visit as many FREE museums, park and gardens as possible. Yesterday, we visited the Museum of London Docklands. I thought it was very interesting but Owen spent most of his time lying on the floor saying it was boring. Taking his shoes off did seem to help a little. However, both the kids said they liked learning about slavery. They both asked me lot of questions about this difficult subject.

Fimo Monsters

Anya has been developing her quirky creative style by experimenting with fimo. She has created a really cool range of monsters.

Measuring The Output of a Solar Panel