Outdoor play/p.e

Outdoor play/p.e ideas

Suggestions from the kids have included a wooden cricket set, badminton set and a tennis set. Ideas I've found to add to this via eBay are: a wooden skittles set, a quoits set, large garden darts, large twister/snakes and ladders. The idea is to get outdoors as much as possible playing sports while the weather is nice.

Design and technology sticky toffee pudding

Design and technology, food technology.

Sticky toffee pudding recipe:

 

Nine ounces Dates

One pint water.

Three ounces butter. 

Nine ounces sugar.

Nine ounces self raising flour.

Two teaspoons bicarbonate soda.

Three eggs

Method: 

Put dates and water on to simmer for fifteen minutes.

Cream sugar and butter until pale.

Add eggs and flour slowly until fully incorporated.

Liquidise dates with bicarbonate soda, add slowly.

Bake one to one and a half lhours at one hundred and sixty degrees.

Butterscotch sauce recipe:

One pint cream

One pound brown sugar

Three quarters of a pound unsalted butter

Method:

Mix together stir until sugar and butter dissolves.

What happened?

Drew successfully made a gorgeous cake and sauce.

Design and technology lessons at home

Yesterday we did some DIY jobs around the house I taught my eldest daughters how to repoint brickwork as some damaged pointing was causing damp on the kitchen wall seems a good idea to count this as a lesson in design and technology for my home schooled daughter. 

I showed them how to do pointing then let them practice on the back hard wall as it had quite a few places that needed repointing my daughters really enjoyed themselves learning a new skill and spent two hours repointing bits on the garden wall with me then we did the brickwork that had needed doing. 

Today my home schooled son is doing a design and technology. Food lesson with his daddy who is a chef. This will involve cooking a proper dinner and pudding of his choice from start to finish, he's chosen gammon with honey and mustard glaze, roast potatoes and green beans with home made sticky toffee pudding with sauce for six of us! Much more practical for real everyday life than cooking a basic recipe like cake for one person at school.

New timetable

So finally decided on a new timetable with more flexibility for outdoor learning across the summer our new summer timetable runs April to end may with summer holidays starting the start of June as our new baby is due around then :) then back to school still on our summer timetable until the start of October so timetables don't change mid week. Across the summer structured topics they study are optional to allow making the most of outdoors play and learning across the good (I hope) weather this is thirteen weeks around the long summer break and new baby then in October the winter timetable starts with eleven weeks before Christmas hols then January to the end of march on the winter timetable before back to summer timetable in April. The winter timetable will be more structured hopefully combatting boredom being indoors with the bad weather. At the moment we study in two and a half hours of structured work a day five days a week in the summer this is flexible in the winter it will be two and a half hours five days a week with an extra two or three, two and a half hour sessions alternating weeks offset from the summer timetable if they have done structured work across the summer timetable they won't do all of these so basically across a year we have three weeks more holiday than my daughter at school but only Christmas and summer no half terms, more outside time and less structure across the good weather ( fresh air, sunshine, play and fun) then structure in the winter with set topics and we still cover across a year the same home school hours on structured topics as we do now but there's something to suit all of us.

Design and technology (making) project ideas and electronics projects ideas for 2014.

Been working hard to come up with creative projects that are within the abilities of my 9 year old to complete and not get frustrated with.

Project 1: woodcraft f-18 kit.

These kits slot together like puzzles so I thought they may be easier to try to start with than an air fix kit and they have less fiddley pieces. Although the instructions are purely picture based with numbered parts which did resulting a minor error putting two pieces in the wrong way up it it was also simple to fix as there's no glue involved the only minor mishap was my 3 1/2 year old accidentally breaking some of the missiles that book onto the wings off as the books were quiet small and weaker than other bits but nothing super glue won't fix once painted it won't be noticeable.

My son was able to follow all the instructions himself and it kept his interest from start to finish, it took 6 hours to complete without painting it above all he was so proud he finished his jet.

We are using this as a design and technology project so my son wrote about what he did.

Aim-build woodcraft kit using instructions included and end up with a completed f18 to paint. Method- how he made it. Conclusion-what problems he had and how problems got fixed, anything he'd do differently next time.

This project has encouraged concentration. Learning to follow the instructions but problems solving skills and thinking when the instructions have come up a bit short. Creativeness, artistic skills, practise of fine motor skills painting tricky small areas. So lots of transferable skills from a hands on making project and at the end he has a cool jet model for his room :)

Other projects we have planned are a wood craft helicopter kit which may be a bit trickier as its a smaller model and a 14 in one robot making kit this is aimed at his age group from maplin with parts that click together to make 14 different variations of robots that then run using battery power. Hopefully I going to find some further slightly harder electronics kits and some science based kits to move onto as the year goes on.

Home ed challenges for a new year Jan 2014.

Very annoyed by lack of computer and mobile access of late making it very awkward to update our website and blog and use online resources like conquer maths. So at the moment making do with iffy access via iPhone with a cracked screen and limited pc access via the local library.

This has meant adopting a more low tech approach to home schooling and £60 on stationary and hardback lined books from the pound shop to use in conjunction with textbooks.

Evidently this has worked fine as we sailed through our visit from the local authority guy and he doesn't need to see my daughters work again for another year.

My nine year old son has joined us home schooled so his work will be looked at in February. 

Having never done ks2 work there's even a few challenges and my son finds written work hard so I'm taking a more practical approach to his learning and just hope the local authority feel this is adequate. 

His interests are different to my daughters although he wishes to do sewing lessons with her. He's more interested in practical design and technology projects, electronics and using workbooks and activity packs to help complete work with less hand writing required.

This year will present many new home ed challenges with a new baby also due the end of June.

However at the moment just taking each day as it comes and looking forward to all the wonderful activities the warmer weather will bring in the next few weeks.

Skinningrove to Saltburn beach (Cleveland way cliff top walk)

This afternoon Christina and I walked from Skinningrove looking down from the cliff top we were opposite the beach and jetty to Saltburn beach where we briefly stopped before going back the walk is about 7 miles but we walked about 8 where we walked around Saltburn too.

This shows the walk we did although we started from skinningrove walked to saltburn and then walked saltburn to skinningrove before going home:

http://where2walk.co.uk/north_york_moors_coast/coastal_exploring/from-saltburn-to-skinningrove/

Along the walk you can see the guible fan house, it is possible to divert off of the cliff top walk and explore the fan house although the building is derelict and not fantastic aesthetically to look at it is still interesting to look around:

http://www.northseatrail.org/show_single_article.php?article_id=3365&lang=uk

As the article says this was part of the huntcliff ironstone mine, railway is still in use by Cleveland potash coming from boulby mine and transporting steel from Tata steel in carlin how although called skinningrove works:

Find out more out boulby mine:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulby_Mine

Find out about Tata steel general info about the company and statistics : http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Steel_Europe

Find out about skinningrove special works, carlin how who along with cleveland potash at boulby mine use the railway line for transporting goods that goes past guible fan house: http://www.tatasteeleurope.com/en/company/activities/long_products_europe/special_profiles/

More info about skinningrove works (tata steel special works) carlin how:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlin_How

Find out more about the huntcliff ironstone mine:

Pictures of huntcliff ironstone mine:

http://www.mine-explorer.co.uk/mines/Huntcliffe_980/Huntcliffe.asp

Information about the huntcliff ironstone mine:

http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=512948

Information about saltburn by the sea:

http://www.saltburnbysea.com/html/victorian.html

Information about skinningrove:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinningrove

Skinningrove jetty:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/tees/content/articles/2009/03/16/skinningrove_jetty_feature.shtml

As you walk along the cliffs there are  absolutely incredible views of the sea and on the other side of you open countryside on the route you also come across a rather interesting wind chime feature that is very pretty and looks like a charm bracelet:

http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/United_Kingdom/England/North_Yorkshire/Brotton/photo404318.htm

As its now August and summer is actually in full swing there are lots of beautiful wild flowers along the track and there were so many gorgeous butterflies darting about them. If you look out to sea you can watch sea gulls fishing in the sea and boats go past. Today when we did our walk it was lovely and hot but also really, really windy up on the cliff top you have to be quite careful as there are a few places the path passes very close to the cliff edge, not recommendable for people afraid of heights. As we got nearer to saltburn you could quite clearly see what looked like jelly Fish in the water you could clearly see them moving under the water in a jelly fish like way so we're assuming that's what they were a little Internet research indeed makes it seem pretty probable they were indeed jelly fish:

http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/hot-weather-sparks-increase-in-jellyfish-off-county-s-coast-1.1075055

Overall the walk was very interesting and quite pretty and when we got to saltburn we went down the cliff steps by the ship inn and played on the beach for a while before heading back, going back up the cliff steps was a bit steep we then walked back the way we'd come heading back to skinningrove it was a very pleasant walk.

Reading

We've finally managed to master the kindle app and how to find full books that are free. Christina has been enjoying reading a lot more using ebooks. She's currently reading Nancy Drew and the old clock tower (which was a paid for ebook) but we now have 65 different free ebooks which are full books, some are aimed at young adults for Christina and some aimed at under 5 for storm to read.  There are so many different books to choose, plenty to keep the children interested in reading.

Hopefully reading more will improve Christina's memory for how words are spelt and for storm help her learn new words but above all reading is a great way to help concentration and help them be imaginative and have fun.

Timetable September 2013 on:

                                  September 2013 - June 2014:

      Monday:     2 1/2 HOURS IGCSE English language Edexcel.

      Tuesday:     2 1/2 HOURS  GCSE Textiles Edexcel.

Wednesday:     2 HOURS Controlled unit GCSE Textiles Edexcel.

                                    2 HOURS Sewing lesson.

                                    45 MINUTES IGCSE Computer Studies Cambridge. 

    Thursday:     2 1/2 HOURS Conquer maths Or IGCSE Maths                                    Edexcel.

            Friday:     2 1/2 HOURS Science: IGCSE Human Biology                                         Edexcel.

               Saturday:     4 HOURS GCSE Textiles Edexcel.

                  Sunday:     4 HOURS GCSE Textiles Edexcel.