Making It Up

as we go along

reeling, writhing

Binge learning. 

by Leave a Comment

People often ask how home educated children learn to read, and the answer is in as many different ways as there are children learning. Let me tell you about Tigerboy this week to demonstrate why I think that. 

Tigerboy lives in a house (over) filled with books. He has free access to a wide number of resources, and shared access to things like computers, tablets and so on. He’s had an account on Reading Eggs (see affiliate link in sidebar for more info) for ages, and we’ve done a variety of montessori type activities from time to time. He has three elder siblings who have all learnt to read in very different ways at very different times. Oh, and in case you’re wondering how old he is, he was 5 at the start of the month, so would be in reception if he had gone to school. Scene set. 

Two days ago I saw a tweet or Facebook post commenting that the iPad app of Teach your monster to read was free until Sunday (tomorrow). I’ll have that, I thought, found the educational iPad and charged it and set it up. 

At some point during the day he came bouncing in to find me and I told him I had a new game for him. He likes games, so this was an instant hit, and he played for ages, with a minor blip when we thought he’d lost access to his monster and all his stuff (oh boy the wailing! ) but Big rescued it, and all was well again. 

Yesterday morning started like this. 

He sat next to me at the table for around three hours, with breaks for getting dressed, eating breakfast etc, then bounced off to do other things. And when I say sat, I mean jumped, balanced, perched, twisted, fidgeted etc etc. He’s rarely still even when utterly focused. 

I was quite surprised to discover he had gone from asking me what letter made what sound and vice versa to being able to sound out all the words in quite long sentences. Ok, more than quite surprised, very surprised. 

After his mammoth app session, he did a variety of other things for the rest of the day. Until at bedtime, after I’d read a picture book and a chapter of Harper and the Circus of Dreams, when he grumped that the book I’d read (Nibbles the book monster) was too hard for him to read for himself. I went and fetched a stack of Bob Books instead. 

Bob books start off *very* easy. It’s still a massive boost of confidence for a child when they manage to read their first book, however short and simple it is, and he was thrilled when he managed to read the first one. So thrilled that he wanted the next, except I couldn’t find it so he had to jump to book six. 

Didn’t phase him at all. 

So last night he managed two books. 

This morning he picked up Teach your monster to read again and watching him play I realised that he was reading the instructions without needing to vocalise at all. Instructions like “I do not need the red hat”, she said. “Get me the black one.” 

OK then. 

In montessori terms I think this would be described as a sensitive period – a time when all the pieces for a particular bit of learning have fallen into place, and the child has interest and focus and can develop amazingly rapidly. I’ve seen it happen with other children when I worked in a montessori nursery and school – I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite as drastic a leap in as short a time, but my children have never done anything by halves. 

It’s entirely possible that someone in the next few days he’ll seem to lose interest in all this stuff for a while, that happens too, and while it’s incredibly frustrating from the outside I’ve learnt that if you try to push or pull at that point you just extend the period of disinterest. So I’ll be over here, sitting on my hands and doing my best to gently strew opportunities for him, as I do for the others. 

So there you go. One child, binge learning to read, the way that suits him. 

Details on the Teach your monster to read app offer here on Facebook. Bob books on Amazon (affiliate link).

Contemplating home education styles, with a Teach My Preschooler kit review.

by 3 Comments

When you mention home education to people one of the first questions (usually right after ‘but how will they make friends?’) is how will they learn to read? Or do maths?

The answer to that is all sorts of different ways, to be honest. Some children just seem to acquire reading in the same way they did spoken language, soaking it up from the atmosphere around them. Most home education households I’ve been in are very book rich environments (code for there are books *everywhere*), avid library users and big on reading with and to their children. This isn’t enough for every child though, and these days there are all sorts of resources available either free or cheap. We’re fans of Reading Eggs (handy affiliate link over there in the sidebar if you’re looking to give it a whirl) but there are all sorts of other apps as well, like Teach your monster to read, Nessy (which is particularly targeted at children with dyslexia).

Or you can go old home ed, as it were, and use actual physical resources. We’ve got a Montessori movable alphabet (like this one at Amazon affiliate link) and recently we were sent a TeachMy Preschooler box set for review.

The Kit contains resources for four types of activity – letters, reading, printing and math. (Sorry, it’s an American company.) It comes in a green filebox within a sturdier cardboard sleeve, ideal for storage. There’s a parent guide too, but I doubt you’ll be desperately surprised when I say we’ve been winging it in how we use the kit 😉

teachmy-box

Inside the box the rest of the resources are in labelled up plastic envelopes. The whole set is very well organised, and feels sturdy.

teachmy-preschooler-kit-contents

I chose the preschooler as I thought that Tigerboy might like it. Turned out that Smallest took to it too, so I’d say don’t underestimate the longevity of this set.

They’ve both spent some time with the printing activity, which is a magnetic writing board, an instruction book and 4 sets of transparencies. I particularly like the transparencies, which weren’t something I’d encountered before.

Tigerboy started out following instructions. (Don’t worry, it didn’t last long.)

teachmy-writing

Smallest had a go at the letters and numbers.

teachmy-numbers

She’s also spent quite a lot of time with the learning to read set. She’s already pretty much there with phonics tbh, but lacks confidence, so this was a good consolidation activity. And it turns out she loves flashcards, so has been practising them regularly, which can’t be a bad thing.

Way back when the big two were the little ones, ‘normals’ was a thing in my home education circle, as mentioned often on Merry’s blog eg here. With the way Smallest responded to this kit, I’m wondering if a box set of normals would be something that she would enjoy. She already effectively does this for herself, but she loves ticklists and organisation, so I’m thinking that an actual list of activities, all kept in one place for her to access easily might well be something that would make her a very happy girl. And Tigerboy tends to crash along and involve himself in whatever she’s up to so he’d probably just join in to a large extent.

There are as many ways to home educate as there are families home educating. The thing to do is find out what works for you, and never be afraid to mix it up when things need a change. If you need more inspiration, there’s a style of home education quiz on the eclectic homeschool blog which might give you some ideas.

Disclosure: the kit was supplied free of charge for an honest review, and amazon links are affiliate links.

But what do you do all day?

by 6 Comments

Every day is different. At this time of year I’m trying to tease the children away from their screens and into the great outdoors, though to be honest, it doesn’t usually take all that much encouragement.

This week, Smallest is enjoying Early Readers from Orion children’s books. She grabbed them out of my hands and shot off with them as soon as they arrived. And with a little help from an eager older brother, she started reading Deep Dark Sea facts, in the middle of the book of course. Apparently there are 8 million year old fossils of frill sharks, did you know that?

And we were tipped off to a whole bunch of reduced Reading Egg apps late one night and grabbed those, so there’s been a fair bit of app led exploration. I’ll write those up more thoroughly if I ever manage to pry the iPad out of any child’s hand 😉

We caught a bee fly in a collecting jar from a handy review Discovery Channel – Bug Barn set (affiliate link). He was a fascinating creature – to begin with I thought that he either bit or stung, but it turned out that the proboscis is designed for sucking nectar out of long thin flowers. Such a clever disguise though, he really did look like a bee!

bee fly in collecting jar

All of that led to some further bug hunting in the garden with the rest of the set. There’s a net, a barn thing, magnifying glass, tweezers, everything you need to hunt insects, examine them and then set them free again, *if* you manage to catch them in the first place!

(We were also sent a Discovery Channel 100X Microscope (36 Pieces) but we haven’t fully explored that one yet.)

We did some seed experiments. This is our pea seed, grown in the side of a jar, just before we planted it. Further updates on that to follow.

pea seed in jar

And today I found a fabulous little game in Lidl while on my weekly shop. It’s ever so simple. A collection of wooden shapes, a card for each shape, and a bag. You put the shapes in the bag, draw a card, and then try to find the shape by just feeling. Surprisingly difficult, and a game that suits all ages from 3 to 50-ahem… 😉

hero shape and card game

Cost all of £3.99 – you could make something similar if you were up to making the pictures, but the little wooden pieces in this set are lovely. I did consider buying two sets, and then we could have played Montessori style matching games as well, but I thought this would do well enough.

As well as all of that, there are family meals, games of football in the garden, consoles and computers, and netflix (always netflix). Add in drawing, craft, writing, and bedtime stories, and you’re getting close to finding out what fills our home educating days. There’s a different rhythm to time when you don’t break up the days and weeks into school terms, so it’s not as hectic as trying to fit in everything you have to cram into holidays, and you aren’t doing the decompressing and getting to know each other again thing either. (We did school terms and working for a while too, a few years ago. Been on both sides of this fence, and there’s green grass in both places, honest.)

Do I worry that my children aren’t learning anything, won’t make anything of themselves, aren’t doing the right things? Not any more (or less) than any other parent. Honest. It’s just another path, albeit one less travelled 😉

Disclosure: amazon links are affiliate links. Discovery Channel sets and Orion Early readers books were supplied for review.

Feel free to follow me on twitter if you want to keep up with my in between blog thoughts 🙂

Home ed days: learning to read with Songbird phonics

by 1 Comment

So, like I said the other day, The Book People had a sale on. Which was cruel of them. (Newsflash: Tuesday 10th until midnight, click here to use SHELL10 for 10% off your order! since released a new discount code of 5% off sales over £35, just use AFPEACH)

So I ordered Songbird Phonics, a reading scheme written by Julia Donaldson, and also a pack of Walker Stories, which I had some idea I could partly use as prizes.

I’m afraid I’m going to have to buy something else to use as prizes, these are such a fab collection there’s no way I’m giving any of them away!

Today Smallest has picked her way through Top Cat, the first of the songbird phonics books. I remember Small learning to read with these, right after Stile trays, and before his brief flirtation with ORT, before he gave up on all of that and headed for Harry Potter. I think it may take Smallest a little longer to crack it all – I don’t think she’s currently got the motivation he had, although it may well be coming. But she is getting the hang of most letters, beginning to blend, and does recognise words repeated from page to page. So, a good start.

Handa's surprising day jack's little partyAnd after she’d read that, I read Handa’s Surprising Day (Walker Stories) and Jack’s Little Party (Walker Stories). These are just great. They are small format, so the bag of 30 is quite portable, but each book has three stories in it. The illustrations are black and white, but they’re still beautifully detailed. I am a little confused, as we have Handa’s Surprise which is one of the stories in Handa’s surprising day, and I’m sure it’s not quite as detailed as in this book – I’ll have to dig it out and check.

(Rather than buying the books individually from Amazon via the affiliate links above, why not check out the entire 30 book collection of Walker stories for £15. (Yes this is also an affiliate link, but to the Book People. Books….)

Ahem. Enough of the subliminal advertising. 😉

Reading. Even though at the moment mostly what I’m doing is sleeping, and I’m very grateful that Big can cook (spaghetti bolognese for tea tonight, yum) we are still fitting in those little bits of home education that can be done quietly sitting down. So there’s our home ed days update. For more regular photographic input, check out the #100homeeddays tag on a variety of social networks – I’m tending to use instagram, but I’ve seen them on fb and twitter as well.

I will attempt to do a 300 Picture books update some time this week, if I can stay awake long enough (touch wood the headache is *finally* wearing off tonight) but blogging may be a little hit and miss for a while. Bear with me.

Linked up with #homeedlinkup – see the other posts here

A short reading week for picture books.

by 2 Comments

300in2014

When the challenge is to read 300 books in a year, that’s not quite 1 a day. I figured that getting a book a day in to begin with would be a good start though.

So far I’ve read the Mozart Question aloud to the small children. I think I got more out of it than they did. I know it’s about the Holocaust, but it’s also about music and love and redemption and I enjoyed it much more than other Morpurgos that I’ve read. The pictures are great – I have always loved Michael Foreman. One of our favourite early picture books with Big was Hello World.

Then there was Heroes of the City – this runs alongside an app and a tv series. It’s in translation, and there were one or two glitches, but the kids didn’t notice. I quite liked Calamity Crow – and the game to find him on the inside covers is reminiscent of Where’s Wally.

The Polar Bear and the Snow Cloud is a lovely book about friendship. The snow cloud tries his best to make friends for the little polar bear who is all alone, but none of the snow sculptures will play with him, and they all melt. Eventually a second polar bear comes along, and everyone is happy. Simple, but beautiful.

Slinky Malinki is from the Hairy Maclary family. Lovely rhyming story about a cat who is good by day, but a thief by night. Until his greed is his undoing…

This is my book by Mick Inkpen is my book of the week so far. Absolutely lovely – the BookMouse is trying to protect his words from the naughty Snapdragon, who steals letters and bites others, turning a perfectly innocuous book into a Poo. But never fear, with a few OOOOOs borrowed from the scary Ghosts of the Woolly Wolves in the Wildwood, the BookMouse has a plan to sort everything out. I love story books that play with language and this is visual as well as verbal, tying all the aspects of reading together but with a very light hearted touch. Definitely a keeper, might have to source my own copy when this one goes back to the library.

Sunday night – finally got round to telling Smallest the plan for the year. You have never seen such a happy child. She grabbed a stack of books, and handed me the top one so that we could read a new book, and then review the two from the previous evenings. So we read Good days, bad days. Low on words, you might want to skip over the hamster picture. Lots to look at and talk about.

As you can tell, I’m doing the book reviews on a separate blog, Shingle Street, more or less daily. I’ll be setting up email subscription on that sometime this week if you want to follow it, though I’m tweeting and pinning them too.

So, our numeric tally. 6 picture books read 6/300 (2%)

Books bought – 0.

Books disposed of. 0

Library books borrowed – 11.

I’m also trying to persuade Small to take up a Read 52 challenge – I suspect it’s the reviewing that puts him off tbh, so I might negotiate for one review a month and the other titles just listed 😉 I might have bought a book to help persuade him. He’s read two books this week though, so he’s well in line for it. Doing rather better than me in fact!

(His numbers 2 read, 1 bought, 0 out, 0 borrowed.)