This Week at the Kitchen Table

Back to Numbers
This week we returned to the topic of numeracy, having spent well over a month on nothing but literacy with the odd splash of science and play dough modelling thrown in for good measure! No, but seriously, we have been concentrating very hard on raising the boys' standard of literacy and I'm now satisfied enough with their progress - D. roughly a year ahead of what he would be doing in school right now, and M. working at a very satisfactory level considering his disabilities - to feel able to move on and change topic. So it's back to number work!

This move has not pleased the boys, who have grown perhaps a little too comfortable with their writing worksheets and daily reading tasks. The first few days back at the numberface has thrown them off balance; there's been the odd scene of outright rebellion, with occasional cries of 'I can't do this!' so that additional help and support from me has been required most days to complete their tasks.

This may not sound like much fun. And I know there's a lot of emphasis in home schooling circles on work being 'fun'. But, frankly, if I only ever gave the boys easy things to do, there wouldn't be much advantage in doing them. I think children - and adults, in fact - learn most when they feel the most challenged. Often, it's only in feeling uncomfortable and then slowly realising we can cope after all that we begin to make personal and educational strides. Too hard is counterproductive, of course. No argument there. But just tough enough to demand full concentration and the finding of new solutions sounds about right to me.

Besides which, after a week of numbers, they do seem to be enjoying themselves far more than when we started! I think they were just out of practice ...




Ideas for Maths-Related Home Activities
To complement the number sheets they've been doing - i.e. actual written sums, adding up to no more than 12 - the boys have also been using their maths skills in the following activities this week: baking bread, making chocolate rice crispy cakes, planting seeds in our new mini-greenhouse, playing 'shop' with a plastic till and assorted food tins and packets, and using a builder's measuring tape to measure various items around the house so we can talk about area, width and height -- plus which furniture will fit into a particular space, and which won't!

An added advantage of this was talking about shape and space: beds and doors as rectangles, windows and work-tables as squares, the relative scarcity of triangles, ovals etc. about the house and garden.



The task of drawing a garden windmill we bought on our trip to the seaside last month also came in handy, maths-wise, as each individual windmill on the stick was made up of a spiral inside a circle, so we were able to discuss those shapes as well! I think the boys also found it a relief just to relax and do some painting and drawing for a few hours after working hard at their maths.


A Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body
We've also pushed on with our healthy eating regime. The boys are now always asking 'What's in this food?' when their dinner is served, demanding to know ratios of vitamins and minerals, calories, fat and fibre.

This has led us on to discuss percentages and how they work, as seen on the sides of many food packets now. So even lunch time can become maths time for a few minutes before they start tucking in!



This quick and easy-to-make lunch consists of a warmed wholemeal pitta bread, stuffed with cheddar cheese, baby spinach, lollo rosso & rocket, and served with a helping of fresh banana & strawberry fruit salad sprinkled with walnuts and sunflower seeds.

Our Watermelon Poem

Watermelon Smile

If I eat watermelon seeds
will they grow
into watermelon trees?

Will they grow in my tummy
and make me feel funny?



Will my face turn red
in a watermelon head?

Will my smile grow wide
with watermelon pride?

Will I splish and splosh
or swish and swosh

wherever I walk
with my watermelon talk?

I think I'll leave
my watermelon seeds

but I might eat one -
just for FUN!

Our Trip to the Anglo-Saxon Reconstruction Village at West Stow

Last month we took a two-day trip from the Midlands across Cambridgeshire into Norfolk and Suffolk. One of the best places we visited in this brief trip was the Anglos-Saxon Reconstruction Village at West Stow. This is a small portion of an Anglo-Saxon village reconstructed on an original site where many artefacts have already been found. The work was supervised and carried out by archaeologists and other experts using traditional methods and trying to get the reconstructed 'village' as close as possible to how they think the Anglo-Saxons might have lived.

The kids absolutely loved their trip. We bought some handcrafted kids' swords and bows and arrows in the shop, for messing about with afterwards in nearby Thetford forest, plus some books on runes and Old English. Here are some photos from our day at the centre:



The village consists of five or six buildings in a loose cluster: individual huts for living and sleeping in, such as the one pictured above, a larger meeting house, and several crafts buildings such as a hut for spinning and weaving wool on looms, a hut for firing pots and woodworking, for grinding corn, and also some covered or open areas where animals could be kept.




The kids enjoyed pretending to cook around this open hearth. People used to think there would be a hole in the thatch, rather like a chimney, for smoke to escape, but this is now considered unlikely. I presume smoke would simply have drifted up and slowly out through the thatched roof. Those Saxon huts must have been very smoky places on a windless day!



The huts are mainly constructed of wood, with the typical thatched roof you can see in the picture. Some are different styles, constructed as experiments to see which style of housing would be most practical and provide the most likely explanations for some difficult questions the archaeologists wanted to answer.



One of their main problems was the existence of a mysterious pit excavated underneath each original Anglo-Saxon hut on the site. Various explanations for its use were considered, but in the end, the archaeologists have decided to remain open to ideas on that score, as it's hard to prove definitively what the pit was used for.




The roof beams were probably used for hanging dried food on (for smoking, perhaps, over the fire) and also for general storage of equipment, such as nets, household goods and cooking utensils.

Here's a lovely atmospheric shot of M. lurking behind a hanging pot on one of the raised 'sleeping' areas. As you can see, it's very dark inside these little huts, especially with the fire unlit and the door pulled to.




Still, I'm sure that with the fire crackling nicely on those long dark evenings, and an enclosed bed of rushes and perhaps even furs to retire to after the last chores had been done, and perhaps a little poetry had been listened to, an Anglo-Saxon hut would have felt like quite a cosy place, even in our British winters.




The wool-crafting, woodworking, corn grinding and pot-firing workshops would have been built apart from the living quarters, as they are now at West Stow. There were also areas set aside for corn and other crops to be grown and for animals to graze, with probably a small pig-sty of some description on the site. Chickens would have had the run of the place, and some of the more vulnerable animals may possibly have spent the worst of the winter indoors with the villagers!



The Anglo-Saxons used a Runic Alphabet for some of their writing, particularly when commemorating something important or when writing on a sacred object. This is a Rune on the doorpost of one of the houses ... I do have a translation of these runes somewhere, so will have to look up what this particular one means!



It was a fantastic day out and, if you're a history hound, I can thoroughly recommend the trip. Take boots for the mud on wet days though, and a picnic if it's fine weather! There is a cafe there but eating al fresco under the trees, surrounded by new oaks, is a lovely experience after visiting the Saxon village. And if you go into the nearby forest areas, be prepared for some Blair Witch Project scenes in the woods afterwards. Here's D. in the woods, being a Saxon warrior as he wields his new wooden broadsword ...

WORLD BOOK DAY: home-schooled kids entitled to request special book vouchers!

Just to let you know that World Book Day falls THIS week - Thursday March 1st - and I have found out, by looking at the World Book Day site that home educated kids are entitled to the special £1 book vouchers that school children get. That's a refreshing change, isn't it? Here are some FAQs from their site which may interest UK home educators ...


World Book Day Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. When is World Book Day 2007?
A. World Book Day is on Thursday 1st March 2007.

Q2. Is World Book Day a government initiative?
A. No - World Book Day Ltd is a registered charity that has in the past been awarded a small amount of DfES funding to support the creation of improved Schools’ Pack material.

Q6. My children are educated at home. Are they entitled to receive WBD £1 Book Tokens?
A. Yes. Please supply your details, including the number of children in your care and they will be despatched to you by the WBD Helpline. There is no charge for this service.

Q7. Are pre-school children entitled to World Book Day Book Tokens?
A. In 2004 we extended the reach of the World Book Day initiative into the preschool sector; this was so successful we are continuing and increasing activity in 2007. For further information on this activity please visit the pre-school section of this site where establishments can download a form to register their details.

NB: I advise you to visit the site yourself when contacting the WBD team. I tried their email address at blueyonder and it didn't work. Will keep you updated on whether I get a reply using one of their other addresses.

Home Schoolers Meeting!

Just a short blog post to say that we went to our first ever home schoolers meeting in Rugby Library today (our nearest town) and met up with other people like ourselves who, for one reason or another, have decided to sidestep the usual school-based education system in this country and go it alone. It's a weekly meeting of about five or six families, usually, with parents taking it in turns to present the groups with activities based around a theme of some kind. This week's theme was New Zealand, with local games, arts and crafts, and various picture displays to see or get involved with.

The boys thoroughly enjoyed themselves at the meeting, joining in with various colouring and pattern-making activities, and even little Indi, only three, seemed to be making friends with the other younger kids. There was a bad moment when we thought she'd actually wandered out of the library, but luckily our new friends discovered her playing in a small storage room (!) nearby. It can be a hard task, looking after three such young children, especially when they are all excited by a new experience, but the Rugby group of home schoolers seemed pretty relaxed about the way our three kept running about and climbing under the tables!

There's a group swimming session at the local pool on Friday; I've invested in some new swimming shorts for the two boys and they'll be trying that out too. They've never swum before, so I'm a little apprehensive about how they'll cope with the noise and physical experience, especially M., who has a problem with noise, but I'll let you know how they can get on.

The Week the Snow Came ...

Shake those maracas! The kids making music - or just plain noise - while it's too cold to play outside. Though having just seen a programme about a Swedish pre-school nursery where the babies sleep in prams outside at up to -10 degrees, I'm now wondering whether I'm too soft with my three. "Go on, get outside for some lovely fresh air ... just watch out for that ice floe!"



The Play Shed: excellent for rainy days, the playshed provides a tiny but okay-to-mess-up space for the kids which belongs to them alone and is decorated with their own pictures and posters.





These are the Plate People, apparently, from an alien planet. Don't ask.


Before these alien beings were created, however, there was a slight hiccup which had me seething. M. had one of his 'moments' - the ones which remind me he has special needs, something that it's possible to forget on his better days. Having watched me tidy up the playshed after a winter of being locked up against the elements, with many forgotten toys strewn about the floor, he took about fifteen seconds to empty the gigantic toybox onto the floor again.

And why did he do that? Well, who knows?

I made him tidy them all up, of course. But it took a l-o-n-g time, with M. looking up at me with a sulky face throughout. Silly sausage!



Whist may be beyond their capabilities, but a game of Underground Ernie snap - from one of this month's crop of children's comics, presumably connected in some way to CBeebies - provides hours of fun. You cut out the rows of identical piccies provided, clue them to some card, leave to dry and then cut into individual pictures. Hey presto, a game of snap! I expect older kids could make their own set of snap cards in the same way, using home-drawn photocopied pictures or maybe even family snaps printed off the computer.



The Joy of Mini Whiteboards: where bog-standard paper worksheets may bore at times, the thrill of one's own individual whiteboard, complete with marker pens in various colours and a rubbing-out cloth (i.e. one of mum's old tea-towels), cannot be overstated. Just look at this relaxed body language ... and it's a literacy task! Go on, invest in one today.



And to round off the week - snow! Just right for teenagers who don't appear to mind the freezing temperatures.


Arctic Explorer returns from the Play Shed.

Sickness Strikes, the Savage Stone Age, and Bringing in the Washing!

Nasty Bug
I had planned that this would be 'Science Week', with various experiments based around Materials - putting empty yoghurt pots into boiling water to see what happens, for instance, or talking about the properties of metal compared to clay - but I'm afraid sickness has struck and I'm not able to speak very much, my throat having swollen horribly with some nasty cold bug. And since experiments tend to require a fair amount of talking, Science Week has been postponed until I'm better.

Instead, some literacy worksheets on CVC words and Days of the Week have been trotted out, much to the boys' boredom, alongside some rather more inspired activities ...


Treasure Island
For instance, I found an audio cassette of TREASURE ISLAND, an abridged version for kids, and after listening to a few short chapters, accompanied by child-friendly pictures from the Ladybird book, pictured above, the boys drew their own Treasure Islands complete with spooky names and X to mark the spot! Later, when my head hurts less, I'll scan those pictures in for you to see.


Stone Age Food
We've also been talking about the Stone Age recently, having enjoyed the Ray Mears 'Wild Foods' series of programmes on BBC2 about how our hunter-gatherer ancestors somehow managed to scavenge for food and cook it without access to all the metal, clay - and plastic! - food preparation and cooking equipment we take so much for granted. The boys have been particularly fascinated by this, sitting in fixed silence for most of the programmes, then discussing their favourite bits afterwards.

The moment when Ray Mears shot a wild deer was a huge shock to them - and to me, actually! - but they quickly accepted that such things would have been part of daily life in the Stone Age ... and indeed that the chicken and beef they eat also comes from slaughtered animals. Living next door to fields of sheep and cows probably helps them to see the whole thing in more pragmatic terms, perhaps, than town children. Though it can be hard, watching those cute spring lambs leaping about outside in the weak sunshine and knowing that most of them will end up in a freezer before summer comes.

At the library, I found a few of those amusing children's Horrible Histories films - 'Rotten Romans', 'Vicious Vikings' etc - and brought them home on loan. Amongst the best ones is the 'Savage Stone Age', only about 23 minutes long but certainly entertaining and just right in terms of tone/content for such young children.



Not just saving my poor throat that morning, the Savage Stone Age DVD also provided a nice follow-up activity and discussion point for our following of the Ray Mears series, letting us talk about what a 'thousand' means and how long ago 9000 years is. We looked at rudimentary timelines to help us evaluate how long ago the Stone Age was, and watched some BBC Schools programmes on the subject - aimed at slightly older children but still useful when watched with close support - for more information about historical timelines.

We also talked about food in the wild, and much was made of potentially poisonous substances like berries and mushrooms. When Indi was just one year old, she toddled out into the garden and ate a mushroom from one of those sudden overnight mushroom rings that spring up when you're not looking, so we talked about that occasion and how it led to us hurriedly researching what sort of mushroom she had eaten and whether a trip to Casualty was required! Of course, it was not a poisonous mushroom on that occasion, but it was still a useful anecdote that allowed us to talk about being careful when in the garden or out on walks in the countryside ... especially after watching Ray Mears frying up vast forest mushrooms and squeezing wild berries to make a pretty disgusting-looking 'jelly' cake.

From Timelines to the Washing Line
Dad is off work at the moment and, since I've been languishing on the sofa for much of the day this week, has been put to work on various domestic duties. This has caused some jealousy, I think, since it's usually the boys' job to help me out while Dad's at work. At one point we even caught D. standing on a chair under the washing line, trying to take down the washing himself before it rained!

Snow, Number Lines, and Burnt Biscuits

Yes, like many parts of the UK this week, we woke up to a slight covering of snow one morning. I told the kids it would be cold outside and they would not want to stay out there for long, but of course nobody paid any attention to me! The boys ate their breakfast with extreme speed and, as soon as Indi had been taken to nursery for the morning, jumped into their wellies, coats and hats, and made off into the garden. But they were soon making snowballs with their sleeves, having realised that cold hands are no fun! I let them run wild out there for the better part of an hour, then they came in - with obvious relief! - and settled down to some more number work, this being our 'numeracy' week.

Chocolate Wholemeal Biccies

Part of our number work included doing a spot of baking, so we could use some scales and talk about weights, measuring out, grams and kilograms etc. I had originally intended to make wholemeal bread with the boys, but taste buds prevailed when they looked into the store cupboard and we ended up making a batch of these rather burnt-looking chocolate wholemeal biscuits. (M. insisted on branding them all with a fork prior to baking, which meant the flattened-out edges burnt, but they actually tasted a lot better than they look here!)

We've since bought some self-raising flour, plus walnuts and currants, with the intention of making wholemeal walnut bread and currant cakes next week.

Teddy Bear Number Line

My great artistic talent was brought to 'bear' - such a dreadful pun, sorry! - for this counting activity, which involved my drawing a bear and photocopying it twelve times. The children then drew the numbers 1 - 12 on the bears' tummies, sorted them out into the correct order, and we then pegged them up as you can see on this length of string which is now festooned across our living-room.

It was a good activity, simple in concept but rewarding if you think outside the box. First off, the boys went through their Two Times Table, counting along the row, then they had to spot 'odd' and 'even' numbers. Even little Indi surprised us by being able to count all the way through the numbers (though she does tend to get six and seven mixed up if she counts too slowly). We ended the activity by having them look away, then removing three numbers at random and giving them a time limit to spot which numbers were missing. Once they'd guessed correctly, I handed them over and the kids had to replace them in the line.

The teddy bear line is still in place - making it rather difficult to get to the post in the mornings! - so more counting games ahead next week.