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reading

Middlesbrough children encouraged to read with chance to win iPad mini. Confirmed open to home educators.

20th March 2019 by Jax Blunt Leave a Comment

Children in Middlesbrough are being encouraged to explore the town’s most popular stories with new reading logs and the chance to win an iPad mini.

Note, most of what follows is a press release, which is why it doesn’t read like one of my blog posts. However, I’m sharing it because when I followed it up, although it mentions school extensively, it is open to home educators, and I’m adding details of how they can join in 🙂

Following on from World Book Day, Middlesbrough Reads has created a set of reading logs to inspire children of all ages to read for pleasure and more widely.

Based on the Best Reads book list, voted for by local schools, the reading logs are available in four age categories: up to age six, age seven and above, age 10 to 11 and young adults. Each reading log includes 26 titles that children are encouraged to read and acts as a guideline to ensure that they are reading age appropriate materials.

National Literacy Trust research shows that children who are reading at their expected level or above are three times more likely to have higher mental wellbeing than their peers with lower than expected reading skills (40.3% vs 13.1%).

The reading logs have been developed in partnership with the Middlesbrough Promise and will be distributed to primary schools across the town. They will also be available to download from the Middlesbrough Reads website (click here). Once a child has read at least six of the 26 titles in their age category, they are invited to complete a book review about their favourite. All submissions will be entered into a prize draw at the end of school year, in which one lucky child will win an iPad mini.

When you download the forms, you get a list of suggested book titles, and then the last page or so is a form to submit a review. It includes mention of school name and teacher, and says give to your teacher to submit to address on form. For home educated families, just put home educated and parent name/ details and send it in yourself 🙂

The National Literacy Trust Hub in Middlesbrough, known locally as Middlesbrough Reads, has been working for more than five years to improve the literacy outcomes of children and families in the town. The campaign is amplified by Middlesbrough Council’s Middlesbrough Promise, a partnership of education, health, literacy and community professionals, which aims to improve the life chances of young people in Middlesbrough through reading.

Allison Potter, manager of Middlesbrough Reads, said: “We’re delighted to launch these exciting reading logs in schools across Middlesbrough and inspire children to fall in love with books. We know that children who enjoy reading are more likely to lead happier lives.

“We encourage children to read as many books as they can and submit as many book reviews as possible to increase their chances of winning a fantastic prize!”

Like I say, although this is heavily school based, I’ve queried it and it *is* open to home educators, so if you’re in Middlesbrough, get stuck in, and spread the word!

Poster for Middlesbrough Best Reads campaign

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Filed Under: Book club, Home Education offers Tagged With: competition, home education, middlesbrough, reading

The purpose of this blog

1st December 2018 by Jax Blunt 2 Comments

Was to keep track of our home ed days and chat over the garden fence (virtually speaking) with other home educators. Most of those people have moved on, in that their children are more of an age with my teens and I’ve let the home ed aspect lapse.

Today one of those teens used the archive to work out something about his life he wanted to know, and brought home to me that I’m doing the younger children a disservice in not keeping a note of some aspects of their lives. But the internet has changed, as things do, so it needs to take a different form.

So, noted, this week Smallest (who is not the smallest but I thought she would be) has sat started reading the Lady Grace mysteries, thus continuing the tradition of Tudor interest that so many of the original muddlepuddle children passed through. We also had a long and involved conversation about whether you can be a vegetarian in Minecraft, which spun off in all sorts of directions, about vegetarianism, and veganism, and game playing, and use of animal products and so on and so forth. (I love this kind of conversation, it’s what so much of our home education is built upon.)

Tigerboy is reading Dr Seuss, I’m not quite sure why. He can read well, but he’s not very interested in things without pictures. Which is fair enough.

Small went to computer club today where they were taking part in Ludum Dare. No, I don’t know what that is either, I’ll ask him to contribute and add it in.

Big was at work. As was I. She’s a lifeguard, I manage a charity bookshop part time. Which is kind of wonderful and awful all at once. All the books. And they’re not mine ?.

So that was Saturday, not in snippet form, but recorded for posterity. Oh, and my current read which should be recorded on my bookstagram account Liveotherwisebookclub and hasn’t been yet, is the Ambassador’s apprentice, by Trudi Canavan. Will add all books mentioned to an amazon widget when next on a desktop.

How was your day?

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Filed Under: family, how we do it, Small steps, Soa, tigerboy Tagged With: ambassador's apprentice, computer club, creative computer club, Dr Seuss, lady grace mysteries, ludum dare, reading, Trudi Canavan

Lands of make believe

2nd November 2018 by Jax Blunt 1 Comment

This post contains affiliate links. You don’t have to use them, if you do, I get a small percentage from any purchase you make, without any additional cost to you.

Today’s prompt for #BEDN is travel. This is something I’d love to do, but don’t have the funds to cart a 6 person family off anywhere particularly exciting. Instead, my travelling tends to be virtual, through the pages of books.

Recently I’ve been all sorts of magical places, some familiar, some new. I read a proof of Tempests and Slaughter, by Tamora Pierce and it reawakened my love of fantasy. These books are fantastic adventure yarns with great, very human, main characters, and huge casts telling stories that expand constantly. This one is a prequel introducing characters in their youth seen in other books. It’s a great introduction to a fantastic author.

After that, I revisited an old friend and took a trip to Earthsea. A Wizard of Earthsea was one of the first fantasy books I ever owned and I love it. The strength of Ursula LeGuin’s writing is that I find something new in it every time I pick it up. There’s a new illustrated version of the whole set just come out, and I’ve got it on my birthday wishlist. I’m not convinced I’ve actually read all of them, but I don’t really mind either way tbh.

Next up, the Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan. I remember reading at least one of these years ago, but this time I devoured the whole set in about a week, with occasional pauses while searching for second and third in charity shops. I’ve got the first one of the sequel series on order at the library, but it’s taking forever to come in.

While I’m waiting for that, Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan was an absolutely luscious read. The drawback to winning and reading a proof pre publication date is that now I’ve got a very long wait for the sequel! And I really really need to read it.

So, what do you think of my travels? Where do you like to go without leaving your house? (If you want to keep up with my book ramblings, check out my bookstagram account)

Affiliate links for the titles in this post. (May have added one or two to my wishlist too!)

Products from Amazon.co.uk

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Filed Under: Book club Tagged With: BEDN, reading

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

23rd November 2016 by Jax Blunt 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.

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Filed Under: It's where it is, reeling, writhing, review Tagged With: home education, home education early years, home education resources, maths, reading, Teach My Preschooler, writing

The Petie Schole by Francis Clement

16th June 2015 by Jax Blunt Leave a Comment

image

Published in 1587, The Petie Schole by Francis Clement claims to contain “a method to enable both a childe yup reade perfectly within one moneth, & also the unperfect to write English aright”

Having read most of this last night, I’m not sure I’d say it was a truly complete method, but I’ll be giving it a go in the hedge school at Kentwell this afternoon 🙂

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Filed Under: Ages past, Reenactment Tagged With: Kentwell hall, reading, reenactment

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