We’ve had a light homeschooling week as it’s UK half term holidays and my mum and nephew S(5) have been visiting. S lives three hours’ drive away and started full-time school last September, so it’s been lovely for the cousins to spend time together. There’s been lots of swimming, park fun and playing in the garden.
What’s Been Happening In Our Homeschool
Projects C’s passionate about animation at the moment. Father Christmas brought her The Klutz Book of Animation and she’s been having great fun making movies using the software that came free with the book. This week she made a portable animation studio out of paper, and created some props, including a rising and setting sun and moon suspended by fishing wire!
Art We got out the soft pastels and made watermelon pictures.
Read Aloud We’ve been listening to lots of audiobooks recently – we just finished the Narnia series (again).
But we have a few books on our shelves that I’ve been wanting to read together, like Return of the Twelves, which intrigued C and I when we used it in an opening hooks exercise for The Arrow. So I was pleased we started reading it aloud together this week. Return of the Twelves also fits in well with the fantasy genre C and I are exploring with the Arrow following reading The People in Pineapple Place.
Science We continued our investigation of mixtures, colloids and emulsions by experimenting to see what substances make good emulsifiers.
The results weren’t as clear-cut as I’d hoped – it’s no coincidence that mayonnaise and hollandaise sauce can be tricky to make! We talked a little about how emulsions are formed, and plan to make mayonnaise together soon to revisit this topic.
My nephew’s visit also prompted me to get round to making “elephant’s toothpaste” which I’d pinned 36 weeks ago! They all LOVED this experiment, of course! Read more about how to make elephant’s toothpaste here.
Poetry Tea We held a special poetry tea at which read all our favourite, 5 year old-friendly poems. (Yes, I was there too!)
What have you been up to this week?
For more fun homeschooling ideas from around the world, visit Collage Friday at HomeGrown Learners, It’s A Wrap at Hammock Tracks and Weekly Wrap-up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.
Oh my goodness: elephant toothpaste!?! I may have to look for this one! Your pastels watermelons look beautiful, too.
Now we just have to find an elephant! 😀 Thanks, Jamie.
I love the picture of the elephant toothpaste. I agree with Jamie — I’m going to have to look for this one, too! thanks for linking with Collage Friday!
I think it’s one we’ll be doing again. My nephew’s first words this morning were, “can we make elephant toothpaste again today?”!
Your making of elephant toothpaste looks incredibly fun, and a poetry tea – love that idea!
We have poetry teatime at least once a week – it’s one of my favourite parts of the Brave Writer lifestyle. I highly recommend it!
I’m loving your science posts! Had to giggle when you replied up above ‘I just need to find an elephant!’ Ha, in England??! You seriously need to start a science co-op or something! (I’ll come!)
The elephant challenge sounds like a good project for the children! I’ll do the science co-op if your L10 gives us cooking lessons there!
Great week! Thanks for the link to the Elephant Toothpaste, we’ll need to try that one.
Thanks for giving us the chance to see what everyone else has been up to by hosting Collage Friday, Mary!
That toothpaste looks so cool!!
I have to check out that Klutz Book of Animation. We have loved other Klutz books and my youngest loves to make movies–she is actually filming a “detective” movie starring her sister as the perp and me as the security guard right now 🙂
The Klutz books are great, aren’t they? I love that sound of that movie! I’ll mention it to C, I’m sure it’ll inspire her 🙂
Lucinda, Thanks for stopping by. What a fun science project! I love your elephant toothpaste experiment. I have to say The People of Pineapple Place was one book I remember reading as a child and just loved.
Mindy 🙂
Thanks, Mindy! One of the things I love about using a US language arts programme (the Arrow) is discovering books that aren’t so well known over here in the UK. I definitely enjoy them as much as the children!
Thanks for linking up to HammockTracks…I have featured your poetry tea. LOVE it!
Thank you so much, Savannah! We love poetry tea 🙂