tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55261569887727193502024-03-13T11:50:06.907+00:00HOME EDUCATIONat THE CHICKEN SHEDUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger527125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-62691220535192249442016-04-19T14:37:00.000+01:002016-04-19T14:37:01.205+01:00For those children taking exams this summer...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-46205441750882091842016-02-27T15:19:00.000+00:002016-02-27T15:19:02.570+00:00Rocks and minerals: igneous rocksWe've been using a long-ago downloaded resource from Currlick to study rocks with dd (The title is Intellego Unit Study Soils, Rocks, Minerals and Fossils - I'm not sure that it's still available to purchase) . Many of the links are out-of-date, but it's been a useful prompt to watch videos and do a few experiments.
Here we are, using wax crayon shavings to replicate some of the processes Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-48021772800504962252016-02-25T14:26:00.001+00:002016-02-25T14:26:12.945+00:00C14 robotics team return to help out at the FLL nationals in Loughborough
C14 Robotics team were invited by the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) to return to the First Lego League UK & Ireland finals as volunteers. In return last year's champions had a free hotel stay in a 4* hotel, a lovely evening meal and free lunch (yes there is such a thing). It was fab to see them back as a team (albeit, minus a few members) and the boys had a lovely day.&Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-31671259041680042202015-08-22T11:07:00.000+01:002015-08-22T11:09:27.382+01:00Summer geography: part 1 (structure of the earth)Dd and a friend have been doing some hands-on geography over the summer. We started with the structure of the earth. Using plasticine we made globes in various coloured layers to represent the layers of the earth (there was a little bit of freestyle' involved, but I think dd got the gist). The girls also made cardboard 'earth dials' of the different layers. (I'll add the link if I can find it). bigmammafroghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504398448710000591noreply@blogger.com0Oxford, United Kingdom51.7346773 -1.2054354tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-44061050451845490712015-05-19T11:40:00.000+01:002015-05-19T15:54:20.048+01:00Chemistry: Making a giant periodic table (with links for printable periodic tables)The boys only have a few more (I)GCSE exams to take (in June), so I've been taking a small breather and trying to get back the rhythm of our old home ed. It's not easy when we've been totally focused on box-ticking and hoop-jumping for the year.
After several months of not-much-chemistry I'm picking up where I left off doing Ellen McHenry's 'The Elements" with dd. If you haven't checked Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-81417260555926922752015-05-05T14:32:00.002+01:002015-05-05T14:32:38.260+01:00C14 Robotics team: finally over the jet lag and now sitting examsC14 team members had a week to recover from the excitement (and exhaustion) of the US before most of them sat their GCSEs. Ds1 has gone off this afternoon, having been ill all day yesterday, to sit English, his weakest subject. It doesn't bode well.
He needs to pass English or Maths to get onto the college course he wants to do. If today is a wash-out, we have 3 weeks to cover - again - an Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-46807210245860366822015-02-12T22:59:00.001+00:002015-02-12T22:59:24.789+00:00C14 robotics team now have a fundraising site! http://www.charitychoice.co.uk/fundraiser/c14-roboticsC14 Robotics, First Lego League UK & Ireland champions, now have a C14 fundraising site to help get the team to the World Festival, USA, 22-25 April 2015.
http://www.charitychoice.co.uk/fundraiser/c14-robotics
The team have a lot to raise and a long way to go. I don't like to ask for money, but please give if you can, however little.
For more information about C14 and First Lego Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-43341047019063246502015-02-03T12:38:00.001+00:002015-02-03T12:38:23.226+00:00C14 Robotics team are UK & Ireland First LEGO League champions!!!C14 Robotics, a team of home ed teens from Berkshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire, have won the UK & Ireland First LEGO League championship!
From their press release:
"...The
nine young budding engineers, now have to raise £10,000
to be able to compete in the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) World Festival
in April 2015, alongside more than 100 other teams from all over the
world. The event isUnknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-25306736218236993802014-12-10T00:18:00.004+00:002014-12-10T00:18:57.408+00:00Christmas is coming! (Apparently)
After weeks of nagging from dd I concede and get the Christmas tree out of the loft. The boys dont care either way. No, correction, ds2 is a willing participant once the 20 year old tree is assembled, but neither of my boys are quite the magpies us girls of the house are.
" Ooo shiny thing!"
" Ooo, another shiny thing!"
It's no wonder three sets of our 'christmas lights' have Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-72513663826731108982014-10-18T18:03:00.001+01:002014-10-18T18:12:18.224+01:00Suli Breaks "I will not let an exam result decide my fate"This was sent out on Facebook and struck a chord with me. So much so that I wanted to archive it here, on my blog, so I wouldn't forget it. If you search on YouTube for Suli Breaks 'I will not let an exam result decide my fate' you'll find several versions. But I love the graphic quality of this one :) Anyhow...I'll let you judge for yourself.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-52421214475365735922014-09-21T20:56:00.000+01:002014-09-21T20:56:00.255+01:00Biology: Eyewitness Science - Experiments on bones
We've been working through the Eyewitness Science Guide: How the Body Works by Steve Parker (Ours is this edition from 1994). Like many of the Eyewitness guides it's heavy on the pictures and text-boxes, but we like that.
Some of the suggested experiments in the book are ridiculously involved. I don't mind a trip to Wilkinsons to buy balloons, but I don't want to have to have to Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-60402828085675834382014-09-19T20:21:00.002+01:002014-09-19T20:24:42.399+01:00East Head Spit: Checking out the geography of the South Coast, August 2014A few weeks back we took a field trip to the south coast to check out some seaside geographical features. Ds2 will be taking IGCSE Geography next year, so I took him to the same place we took ds1. East Head spit is a great place to see firsthand, a sand and shingle spit, salt marsh and sand dunes.
I confess it was nice to grab my old camera back from ds1 for a while and play with the black and Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-18175307421321084702014-09-02T08:32:00.002+01:002014-09-02T08:32:19.553+01:00THAT MAD YEAR. A long break from blogging and here we are again.I notice that my last post was sometime in June and related to World Cup activities. The World Cup? Oh how long ago that seems! There we were at the start of Summer trying to fire ourselves up for some hands-on learning and hours of fun in the sunshine.
Well. Good intentions and all that....
Summer has been and gone and we don't seem to have made the most of it, but that's ok. No, really, it's Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-30831225687715816152014-06-07T15:43:00.000+01:002014-06-07T15:45:32.113+01:00The World Cup as a geography project: Part 1 Resources and LinksNot being a fan of football, I've resigned myself to the fact that for the next few weeks I will be bombarded by football-themed *everything*.
But...a nifty home educator would never let an educational opportunity slip past them.
Here are some educational links which we are planning to use to turn the World Cup into an educational geography project. (Thanks to Sarah from alittlebitofstructure Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-45823441502311670232014-06-01T10:25:00.000+01:002014-06-01T10:25:00.050+01:00Kids discover - Free 'infographics' educational posters
Have found some lovely mini-posters to download and print on kidsdiscover here
Topics include the water cycle, cells, the rock cycle, the heart etc.
Well worth a look.
(You might have to register/sign up to download the posters, but it's free)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-87010217277945997712014-05-30T10:21:00.000+01:002014-05-30T10:21:00.147+01:00The Rainforest, with links
A while back I was trying to tie in dd's desire to do more science, with ds2's ongoing geography learning. I came up with rainforest (and soils - see previous post) as suitable topics that I could engage them both in. Dd has more of an interest in animals than anything else. Below is her rainforest layers poster:
The rainforest layers printable (top left of the top picture) was theUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-58683541863594174352014-05-27T09:41:00.000+01:002014-05-27T09:41:00.591+01:00Bees n beans project and soil experiments
Back in April we sent off for the Bees n Beans free kit as part of a research project by Sussex University.
The kids dutifully planted their beans.
It was a slow start, but the broad bean plants grew a little like children do some slow and squat, and some skinny and tall. Finally, after a few days of hot weather last week, the plants have suddenly burst into flower. Not all Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-6689036953391754782014-05-25T17:25:00.002+01:002014-05-26T08:21:05.890+01:00Packing: Three days until C14 Robotics Team go to FLL European Championships!
You can build anything out of LEGO, right? (Toothbrush...passport...)
And they have the hats to go in style
You can follow them on Facebook
Or check out their website
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-78112645133186454332014-04-23T20:33:00.003+01:002014-04-23T20:35:04.249+01:00Ellen McHenry Brain hats and St George's Day dragon puppets
Tomorrow I'll be running a session at our local home ed group on The Brain, so today we ran through a prototype 'brain hat', just to make sure everything will go as planned.
You can print the free brain hat templates here at Ellen McHenry's Basement website
Meanwhile, I was trying to get around to doing something - *anything* - for St George's Day.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-60142777844301979012014-04-18T09:24:00.000+01:002014-04-18T09:24:00.232+01:00Rearing and observing tadpolesAbout a month ago, dd took this photo of our pond frogspawn.
Now the tadpoles have 'hatched' and we've decided to make use of our enormous fish tank to observe the changes in the tadpoles over the coming weeks.
Previous attempts, many years ago, to keep tadpoles in small tanks were unsuccessful. I suspect the main problems were keeping a uniform environment and preventing build-up of Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-69935215514187852032014-04-16T09:56:00.000+01:002014-04-16T11:07:16.636+01:00Chain reactions
Ds1 showed me this video recently and it reminded me that my kids went through phases of doing a lot of this kind of thing, albeit on a much smaller scale!
If you search you can find a series of behind the scenes vids of how they made the video.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-4499544174504299232014-04-14T09:57:00.000+01:002014-04-14T09:57:12.581+01:00Make your own pH indicator paperUsing the instructions here at Wikihow, we made our own pH indicator paper.
We used the 'recipe' for eldeberries as we had a stash of them in the freezer. Ds2 defrosted them in the microwave and then crushed them in our metal orange juicer (a potato masher would have done just as well) to get the juice.
We cut up strips of art watercolour paper (acid free) that we happened to have in our Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-70766186867780451372014-04-13T09:24:00.000+01:002014-04-13T09:24:00.665+01:00The crystals that time forgotDd found an experiment in a science book and declared that she wanted to do it and I nearly fell off my chair.
This is the child whose only suggestions involve eating crackers and playing on the PC or having friends over. She is the child whose favourite phrase is 'can I go now' and who constantly asks 'what are we doing tomorrow' (because obviously today just isn't floating her boat).
So, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-958158084397839252014-04-11T08:58:00.003+01:002014-04-11T08:58:41.550+01:00The potatoes that time forgot...
We have been far too busy here.
Ds1 has been doing art prep for his art and design exam.
The dining room table - no, let's get this correct, the whole dining room - has been piled high with assorted art materials for two months. It has been near impossible to circumnavigate the table without being maimed by mirrored plastic, a sack of sand, piles of paper and paints and pencils, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526156988772719350.post-9096068044106548272014-03-19T16:02:00.001+00:002014-03-21T13:30:34.527+00:00C14 LEGO Robotics to go to the 2014 FLL Open European Championships in Pamplona, Spain!Amazing news! C14 Robotics, the team of home educated Lego robotics enthusiasts that got through to the Nationals in Loughborough, have just found out they are invited to the 2014 FLL Open European Championships in Pamplona, Spain! Very few teams have been invited from the UK so this is a real honour and a reflection of all the hard work they've put in.
The Championships is in May so Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2