Topic Planning

My Sunday night activity - planning. I'm full on work mode so this is a quick snapshot of what it looks like to put together a HomeEd topic plan. This isn't particularly entertaining (sorry) but it might be useful.

1. Choose the topic 
HomeEd means the pupils can choose the topic. Having 2 in my class makes this pretty easy as they can take turns; K was up first and inspired by the impending heat wave (hooray!) his choice for the topic this month is Weather.

He did a quick mind map of things he's interested in relating to weather.

2. Produce a Scheme of Work (SoW) 
A good topic will give opportunities for teaching across the curriculum; weather is a great choice as I can bring in geography, science, D&T, art, maths, PSHE and literacy. The SoW is a rough plan for what you're going to teach - linking topic elements to the curriculum. It can live in your head but if it also lives on the fridge that's a bonus.

I took K's mind map, added a few notes and made it into a more formal scheme.

3. Find resources
Trawl the internet for resources which will support the teaching. Powerpoints, youTube videos, worksheets, posters, etc etc. One of the most useful things to do in terms of preparation is to get powerpoints downloaded or prepared and worksheets printed in advance - the days flow better when I've got things ready to hand out.

4. Use the SoW, loosely
It's absolutely essential to scribble all over it as you go along, crossing out entire sections and going off on fantastic tangents...


Marks for showing our working - here's the process :

K mind maps, I add some notes as we're discussing

Write up the SoW noting curriculum links and beginning to capture task ideas

Start searching for appropriate resources and annotate with links and experiments and the topic order

As resources turn up so do opportunities. I'd put compass readings in the climate section thinking it would be a brief side note but I found a fantastic resource using treasure maps which links to literacy so it's enough to spend a day on. It's been upgraded to compass points, exploring directions and how to write instructions.

A note on differentiation. It wouldn't be fair on K if everything was too easy or on W if it's too hard. Some sites provide low/medium/high ability worksheets which (as K & W are only 16 months apart) is enough for us to cover all bases. Even if an activity feels like a single version, differentiation is always possible: any worksheet can be made more accessible by writing in sentence starters, prompts or annotations. Any task can be extended or made more accessible - the tricky bit is pitching every activity so that both kids are challenged but not overwhelmed...

For a great summary of differentiation and what it means to teaching, see:
http://www.bbcactive.com/BBCActiveIdeasandResources/MethodsofDifferentiationintheClassroom.aspx

Time Out

We are struggling a bit with time.

Problem 1 : There's not enough of it.
Problem 2 : W is struggling to tell it.

I'm just focussed on the second issue today. W is good at maths but if you stick a clock in front of him he'll try every trick in the book to get out of telling you what it says. If he waits long enough K will shout out the answer anyway or I'll fall asleep.

Time then for a concentrated lesson on time. The internet provides some great stepped resources to introduce and then extend, so with a cup of tea, a bucket of patience and about an hour of one-to-one, we're ending today a bit further on than we started.

W prefers online games to worksheets and as this is a tricky topic for him I'm happy to oblige until his confidence builds up. Here are some nice free resources (plenty on TES & Twinkl too) -

Start with the basics - hour/minute hands, am/pm and 24 hour clock:
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/time/

Exercises with the colourful Bitesize characters:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/maths/telling_the_time/play/
(Pick up the worksheet for re-enforcement)

Match analogue to digital:
http://resources.oswego.org/games/stoptheclock/sthec3.html

Cheerful little plenary game:
http://www.ictgames.com/hickory4.html

Use the empty clocks from :
http://nrich.maths.org/7384/note
to write the times of your own day (wake up, breakfast, lunch, etc)

A good day, definitely time for a glass of wine.

Passing the Test

We had a call from the Local Education Authority at the council. We've had the specified 'deschooling' period so we're now offered a visit. I was fine about it; I'm sure we're meeting our legal requirements for full time education and the boys are thriving.

But like medical conditions, you only start to worry once you google. Off to the forums of doom.

Panic set in. The advice was clear : you don't legally have to let the Local Education Authority into your house, so don't let them in. If the house is too tidy they'll say it's a sterile environment with insufficient creative opportunities and issue a school attendance order. If the house is too messy they'll say it's unsanitary and issue a school attendance order. Definitely don't give them a cup of tea - they'll issue a school attendance order.

It was nerve wracking. I'd already said yes to the visit on the phone (before googling!) and my middle class manners dictate that I now have to welcome this terrifying character into my home AND offer her not just tea but possibly a biscuit... if I haven't stress-eaten all the chocolate digestives before she arrives.

So the day came. I had duly laid out an engaging, Ofsted outstanding lesson on Egyptian hieroglyphs. I'm joking of course. It was 1pm and the sun was shining. So the boys did what they would normally do at 1pm on a sunny day straight after eating lunch - they played outside. It meant I could talk to my visitor without distraction and the boys had a cracking time burning off a ham sandwich.

The lady seemed friendly. No horns, no clipboard, no whistle... just a nice person doing her job. I was honest about what I'd read on the forums. She was honest about her role - she's employed to make sure the children in her authority are getting the education they legally require. The air cleared, I got out the emergency packet of rich tea biscuits.

We chatted for an hour. She took notes. I rambled. She eventually stopped me as she had to go to another appointment. That was that.

I over-analysed after she left. Had I said everything I needed to say? Did I mention all the stuff we're doing? What had I missed? Was this the end of our Home Ed journey, when we'd only just begun?

I needn't have worried; I got the letter today summarising our meeting and I'm reassured. The notes she took captured everything I had wanted to say - about the provision, assessment, social opportunities, curriculum. She had understood the boys, she understood our family and she understood what we were doing and why. She said Well Done.

So we're ending today on a high. We're doing alright. I have a letter that says so.

Losing my Marbles

We've been working hard this week and we needed some light relief today.

Inspired by the FrugalFun4Boys blog we decided to create some marble runs. There's a bit of D&T (planning, designing, iterative development, safety, tool use, etc) and science (mostly gravity) and some maths (angles) in this but I'm dressing it up - we're making awesome tracks for marbles and hexbugs and it's a lot of fun.

The boys had a great time with this, in fact it might be a record for engagement in a task - 2.5 happy hours spent literally losing our marbles. Mostly under the fridge.

Designing a marble maze which was almost instantly upgraded to a hexbug maze! First step, draw out the design...

Fast forward 2.5 hours & 80 giant lolly sticks ....

I wasn't idle while the boys were busy - here's my marble drop run! The boys did the scoring and you get 100000 points if the marble drops out of the run. No wonder so many are under the fridge now!

For the instructions, see : http://frugalfun4boys.com/2014/08/17/build-marble-run-craft-sticks/

Cracking the Code

Capitalising on the boys' spontaneous interest in coding this week we headed over to Bletchley Park. Seemed a good opportunity to stop talking about it and go and see it! Fantastic location and lots to do; the family-friendly audio tour was superb and there are code breaking puzzles for the kids in lots of locations around the site.

The huts where the code breaking took place were authentically kitted out so K & W could get a feel for the scale of the work that was carried out there and the sense of urgency each day in the race to decipher messages.

One of most interesting characters in the history of Bletchley is of course Alan Turing although there are numerous exciting stories of others. Dilly Knox was a fantastic person to find out about at Bletchley as we've got the memorial to him in the village.

Oh - and when the boys started asking 'can we go home now?' (there is a limit to 7 & 9 year old interest in war memorabilia) ... there's a really great little cafe and park! Happy days.

PS. You can go back free for a year so when we cover probability in Maths we'll head back to Hut 8 as there are great resources there. There's a separately charged National Museum of Computing on site which will also be worth a look on a return visit for ICT.

Don't Mention the War

Or do.

We ended up on the Second World War topic after W made a booby-trap in the bath using balloons and string. It's too complicated to describe and any photos would involve nudity so suffice to say if you'd tried to use our shower yesterday you'd have had a nasty shock when a balloon partially filled with water fell to the floor! That'd teach you to use our shower without asking!

We googled booby traps but I fell into one as everything the internet could offer seemed to make use of the word booby (snigger) or involve swearing or death or both. With a bit of filtering during translation we did find some interesting stuff about pit vipers being hung from trees in the Vietnam war and pressure sensor bombs being hidden under helmets by the retreating German army in WWII.

It was all a bit of a downer as there's nothing terribly cheerful about a deadly snake attaching itself to your face or having your legs blown off so we moved on to code breaking. We watched a short video on Enigma and got to thinking about cryptography and why armies needed to send secret messages in the first place.

For our secret code machines the boys made matching rotating cyphers so that they can exchange secret messages and change the settings each day at midnight, just like in the war. Or maybe 8am because we're not as disciplined as the German army.

So far the secret messages say 'ask mummy' (for what?! this is torture!) and 'snail'. I guess the lettuce-eating invaders in the back garden had better watch out. Or maybe someone will ask me for a snail. Only time will tell.

Topically, we had a good rummage through my Dad and Grandad's things as well today. Lots of war memorabilia which was very topical. Here's Nana with a 'Dig for Victory' poster, making a guest appearance in class!

Mad Scientists

Science is one of the coolest bits of EHE. You have loads of time and space to be hands on and science is ... well everything isn't it? Kicking a ball, baking cookies, going to the loo - not all at the same time - all grade A, top quality science lessons.

Props too : Mud. Clementines. Stevie the cat. All massively useful in science lessons and more likely to be found in my house than at school.

We declared this week science week because Ministry of Science were at our local theatre. We were really lucky to get front row seats; they promised explosions and explosions were what we got!

Without liquid nitrogen, a human cannon and a cannister of methane we didn't stand much chance of recreating Mike & Emma's fabulous experiments so I did the next best thing and a had a trawl of the internet for ideas.

I found some amazing sites which are share-worthy. Big #SO (shout out to the cool twitter peeps among us. Hell yeah) to ScienceBob.com & FrugalFun4Boys.com

A whole bundle of fantastic ideas suitable for all ages and stages. I'm gushing about both sites because they both have genuinely doable ideas - they suggest demonstrations and experiments that you can do right now (go on, what are you waiting for?!) because you have the necessary junk in your cupboards.

First up - make your own lava lamp from Science Bob, who also provides printable PDFs with the instructions and science bit, if like me, GCSE science is a distant and painful memory.

Pretty awesome! We decided to lid it and watch the pressure build up so that we could have a bit of a chat about the behaviour of particles in solids/liquids/gases. Great terminology in this too - effervescent, pipette, pressure, funnel .. and a cheeky bit of measuring, for good measure.

The reaction went on for a long time as (like the bubbles) we did get overexcited and use about 5 big fizzy VitC tablets so we had plenty of time to shine a torch through the bottom and enjoy our creation 60s style.

I'd have loved to make another and test it out in the dark but it uses nearly a litre of vegetable oil and even my cupboard has limits.

Light Bulb Moments

A lovely hour long science lesson to introduce electricity as a circuit and draw basic circuit diagrams.





What uses electricity in our home? Identify 10 things that would / wouldn't work in a power cut. Side notes into services that come into our house - water, telephone, gas.

Build a simple circuit to make a light bulb light up.
Side notes: identify batteries/cells have positive and negative, wire can't be on same side. Side note: ensuring connections are 'good' to avoid flickering.

Break the circuit, identify why the bulb went out.





Card sorting activity to match up the components with their name and diagrammatic representation, then draw our simple circuit.

Add a switch made from a drawing pin and paper clip.
Draw the diagram showing the bulb switched on.

 

Extend : Add a resistor to show how we can dim a bulb.

Right First Time

K's target is to appreciate the importance of right-first-time in Maths.

The downside of using computers in learning is that you get a second go. On social media, you type > check > edit > send. Or occasionally not and it usually back fires when you read it back later and realise it did not sound how you intended.

Auto spelling corrects your every word (thank you predictive text for asking a friend to 'Poop in' this morning instead of 'Pop in' ...). Even the good old fashioned spell-checker is a great example of how you can rely on someone else spotting your mistakes and having a chance to fix things.

In most of the online maths programs, quite rightly, pupils have a second chance if they are wrong first time round. It helps learning and gives pupils additional support to understand the question. The flip side is that it encourages fast answer jabbing and there's no motivation to check before you hit Go.

A lot of our maths focus with K has been going back to basics and re-equipping him with the tools he needs because the techniques he'd picked up at school since Y2/3 were not embedded enough to support the speed of Y4 learning. I'm so proud of him for the huge strides he's made in his mental maths as he's built up a solid toolkit of mental strategies to help him with times tables, number bonds, addition and subtraction. However for the recognition of measurable progress he has to get things right first time in RMEasimaths and Explore to prove he has mastered each skill.

One to one support is helping, having a scratch pad didn't (it lay unused).
Making a fuss of the wins is helping, grumbling that he is careless didn't.
Keeping going will help. Quitting won't.

Glorious Bits

A lovely, bitty day. Today felt like an all round win and I'm wondering if it was because yesterday was a real grind... the happy value of comparative analysis?

This is the kind of day I'd love to describe as 'typical'. Although if it was, I wouldn't be rushing to blog about it before things go awry and the magic fades.

A prompt 9am start (after a little bickering .. we'll brush over that), kicking off with maths as we always do. K is working on time (Y5 POS) and W on metal methods for subtraction (Y4 POS).

Break time at 10am. K&W head out to swing about like monkeys, I frantically load the dishwasher, wipe down the counters and bleach the sink.

10.30am and K&W come in on the 2nd time of calling (counted as a win) and we open out a huge map of the world. First we've got to work out if the world is actually flat and understand how a map can be flat if the world is round so we unpeel the world (tangerines), keeping the peel in one piece. Mixed success and a lot of peel on the floor but we used the pieces to show tectonic plates so a quick volcano/earthquake diversion (NC LKS2 Geog- volcanoes, earthquakes) and the boys spotted how South America looks like a jigsaw fit to Africa so we touched on how the continents were formed.

Officially today's LOs were identifying some continents, our location, where key world events are happening right now and how proximity to the equator changes climate. (NC LKS2 Geog). It was a fun hour. We've got Aunties in a couple of far flung locations so we started labelling and then K&W did some independent research to find the locations of things that interest them. K had heard about the Dead Sea so he looked it up, found out about why you float in it and then identified Israel on the map. W wanted to find out whether the animals in the film Madagascar were real so we found Madagascar and googled for wildlife.

Our labels are a bit random. W added the 'Cool Animals' tag to Madagascar and a 'We Are Here'. K labelled the Dead Sea and Manx Cats. One label says 'Drugs' and points to Columbia - an overspill from a discussion about drug smuggling at the airport ("Why do they search the bags?" cue a caught-on-the-spot-over-explanation from me about smuggling and street values.) Spot a Pyramids label, where bush babies live and also the postal address of Santa.

Side note teaching on internet searching, choosing reliable sources and using suitable keywords (NC UKS2 ICT - be discerning, evaluate digital content).

After geography we did an online maths session and then had another brain break.

Last lesson of the day was a quick fire grammar presentation - a retention check for adjectives, nouns, adverbs and appropriate connectives (reinforce Y2 POS) and K correctly spotted a preposition.

Now it's lunchtime and we're almost done for the day. We've got a coffee date with friends in a bit (socialisation - tick) and then we'll go to Explore Learning this afternoon for one more bit of Maths/Literacy.

A good day.

Caught not Taught

There's an excellent article on the BBC this week about character and how it could or should be taught in schools.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33003958

I've mentioned it in previous posts but more the research is building up to point strongly to character and emotional resilience being better determiners of adult happiness/success (depending on which study, how you define the term, how you measure it and whether you link the two...) than intellectual ability.

It comes as no surprise that it isn't only academically clever people who are happy and successful. And yet we place an extraordinary emphasis on test performance, grade, spelling group, NC level.

It boils down to the fact that we can't measure character but we can measure levels - so to feel good about ourselves and our children we use external validation to check where we are against our peers.

Neil Gaiman is an exquisite writer, famous for his Sandman comic series, Coraline (you may have seen the film version directed by Henry Selick) and novels like Stardust. This may just be one of my favourite quotes of all time:

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.”  ~ Neil Gaiman

None of those vital life skills can be taught discretely with a powerpoint and a worksheet. They need a deep and contextual understanding of cause and effect, analysis, compassion, a sense of self-worth, decisiveness, humility. The twist is that schools shouldn't necessarily be responsible for instilling those values - only reinforcing them. It's hard to argue that those skills and traits shouldn't originate from home. The BBC article uses a great phrase - Caught not Taught. Sums it up perfectly. And you'll catch a whole lot more if someone is taking the time to throw balls at you.

Perhaps we've had a wake up call. The vital skills needed to navigate the fragile path of life have been brought sharply into focus and I have to try and teach the boys something that will prepare them to cope, succeed and enjoy whatever life throws at them.

Teacher Friends

I have very wise friends. They're also better at baking than me, have tidier houses and always have gorgeous hair. I wish I could hate them but I can't because they're just so darn wonderful.

I spent today with a fabulous friend who also happens to be super-experienced in education. As usual I learnt A LOT. Some people are such naturals they can't not teach - even when she's meant to be popping over for tea and cake I'm getting a top quality education in child development.

She mentioned Home Education months and months before I realised she was right and it was something our family should consider. I pick her brilliant brain for ideas and potholes in my plans. We talked about issues EHE kids face if they integrate back into school, about how school supports (or doesn't support) high level pupils, how to structure literacy teaching and equivalences in terms of number of hours of hands on teaching.

There are a few tweaks to be made in the next couple of weeks. As well as peppering our days with writing up science experiments, filling in reading diaries, etc we need more focussed literacy. Every week or two we'll try out having a story day where we focus our full attention on creative writing, aspects of SPAG (spelling punctuation and grammar) and handwriting. I'll let you know how it goes!

The focus element is really interesting. The teaching at home is so intense that K & W are missing out on the sitting-for-an-hour training that normal school gives them. We achieve more at an individual micro level but the shorter bursts are different to the rhythm of a large class. External provision is helpful on this one with Explore Learning giving them a solid hour of classroom style work. It doesn't replace the practice and group work element, the latter being one of the biggest EHE challenges.

The best thing about good friends is the confidence they give you. Having someone on your team to cheer you on, shout advice, motivate and inspire... especially when you're tired and starting to doubt yourself... is invaluable.

Lunch Break

Great news, you're still allowed a lunch break when you're at home school!

The weather was beautiful today so after their art and DT class K, W and I headed to the park for lunch in the sun and a bit of play. Bliss.

Fretting and Other Norms

There has been fretting.

Are we doing the right thing? Are they learning enough? Is it okay that we take the dog for a walk in the middle of a school day? Will we make them weird(er)?

I think (hope) that this kind of worrying is completely normal when you do something that's not normal.

When it all gets a bit too much and we have a genuine wobble on the whole EHE philosophy I instinctively head to the figures. Maths may not be my strongest suit but I'm improving along with the boys.

School is 9-3.15pm. So 6.5 hours or so. Let's knock off the easy bits - coats off and registration, assembly, lunchtime, 2 x 30 min breaks, coats on and pack bags ... perhaps 3 hours lost to logistics.

Feeling better already.

Now we're looking at 3.5 hours of teaching. Roughly 30 children in the class so in that time we still need to take into account papers being handed out, repeating instructions, supporting struggling children, stretching the most able, handling any disruption.

I'm a qualified teacher but I'm secondary and these little people are out of my comfort zone. Even knowing the rhythm and challenges of school life I am astounded at how much progress children make in state primary school - and how hard and creatively teachers work to make that happen.

Maths doesn't lie though. 3.5 hours of group teach per day is equivalent to how much one to one tuition? I'm sure it's different for every child and attention span, interest and brain ache are natural limitations. One unexpected aspect of EHE for us was that we have to work in small bursts or the boys burn out fast. In a normal classroom they get integral breaks: while a child is told off, while the teacher writes on the whiteboard, while 30 handouts are passed round. At home you can't hide. It's full on, constant and you can't rely on your partner to answer for you.

Add to this the fact that the teaching is completely tailored to the child's level and needs.

So a typical day is not the relaxed, bubbling-along-like-a-stream dream I was expecting. It's intense. And we need those brain-breaks. So between lessons we bounce on the trampoline, dangle from the trapeze, head to the woods ...

But HELP I still don't know if the boys are doing ok?! Good news - external assessment is my friend. W has gone up a sublevel in maths in a very short time. 

Because I'm a brilliant teacher? Because his school teacher wasn't great? Definitely not. 

It's because the cheeky monkey was coasting and at Home School you can't coast. Instead you can just go to the coast. Because it's a beautiful day and we can learn about tides, fish & fossils.....

Smooth Moves

K & W are doing a DT project on smoothie making and having designed their smoothie recipe and made a plan today was the day to make it.

The carrot-strawberry-lemon-milk creation that was W's dream turned into a pink nightmare but in the spirit of iterative development, he tweaked the recipe and came up with something much more like K's ice-cream-strawberry-chocolate crowd-pleaser!

Side note teaching including safe tool use (apple peeler, blender and knife) plus hulling, chopping, scooping and measuring. More importantly it saved me thinking up anything for pudding today...

Tomorrow they'll be writing up their evaluations..