Anniversaries in May

How's everyone doing in lockdown? 

We've taken to doing daily Yoga With Adriene and playing Just Dance together as our main form of family exercise. We do go for the occasional walk. Living in a rural area is a real blessing at the minute, being able to walk up high, steep hills really helps to change perspective.

One of the things I've noticed recently is that there seems to be an awful lot of people comparing this current crisis to World War II. While separation from loved ones, shortages on shelves and long queues outside shops bring home a little of what day-to-day life on the home front must've been like, we enjoy the benefit of modern technology to communicate in a way that people in the 40s never could. Of course, it may just be that the war is in everyone's minds because this month sees the 75th anniversary of VE Day on the 8th as well as the 80th anniversary of the evacuation of Dunkirk starting on the 26th. Then, there's the remarkable story of Captain Tom, raising £29million for the NHS, reminding us all that the past and the present are inextricably linked.

If you are thinking about studying World War II currently, the British Legion have put together some free resources to use at home especially for VE Day. Pawprint Badges have a free VE Day Challenge pack. We've enjoyed using a couple of their packs already at our local home ed group and we were planning on using this one at our May session. I will be looking at using it at home instead. If you've not come across Pawprint Badges before, they're definitely worth investigating. So far, we have completed the STEM challenge and the Pirate badge :) 

To remember the evacuation of Dunkirk, have look at Picture Book Explorers ~ The Little Ships.  The pack accompanies the beautifully illustrated picture book which tells the story from the point of view of a girl, disguised as a boy, who helps on a boat that carries soldiers from France to England. As well covering Operation Dynamo, the pack will help you to learn about buoyancy, boats, verbs, Kent, Dunkirk and more. In the pack you'll find, maps, flags, a timeline, notebooking pages for different abilities, 8 minibooks, a puzzle, 4 fact sheets and full instructions for a range of hands-on activities including STEM, art and cooking. 

No matter how you spend your time in May, no matter what you study or don't study, please stay safe and well.

Happy Exploring!

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Gardening, Indoors and Out

At times of stress and difficulty, being in touch with nature becomes even more important than usual for all our well-being. The government are well aware of this, which is why we are all encouraged to get some fresh air and take daily exercise in this challenging time of lockdown.

I am lucky enough to have a garden, but even if you don't, you can encourage your children to grow things indoors.

You can use empty egg shells to make cress heads.
Draw a funny, happy face on the outside of the empty eggshell, maybe add googly eyes :)
Put some kitchen towel of cotton wool in the bottom of the egg shell, sprinkle on some cress seed and add water, enough to cover the seeds.

Within a few days, you will have green cress 'hair' growing from the top of your eggshell. It's always exciting for little ones (and big ones) to be able to harvest and eat food they have grown themselves!

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Grow the tops of carrots by placing them in a saucer of water. Don't forget to change the water every day or so. You can eat the leaves in the same way as cress - add them to salads or sandwiches. The same goes for parsnip and swede tops too :)

If you have books featuring gardens, you may want to have  go at building your own unit study around it.

If you do have access to a garden or balcony right now, you may enjoy learning about seeds, growing seasons and more with The Linked Lapbook ~ Sowing & Planting You'll find science experiments, growing instructions and links to activitie sto keep you busy all through the growing season :)

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February Love

I ❤ February. The days are starting to get a little longer, the promise of spring is in the air and the garden. Bulbs are sending up green shoots, like fingers tentatively checking that it's safe to come out before displaying their glorious colours to a waiting world.

February is the month of Valentine's Day, a day to celebrate love and matters of the heart. Legend has it that St Valentine was a bishop in Rome who disobeyed the Emperor's law prohibiting marriage. Emperor Claudius II had this bright idea that men would make better soldiers if they weren't distracted by wife and family. Anyway, Valentine continued to perform marriages in secret but was eventually caught and thrown in prison. There, he cured the prison guard's blind daughter, Julia, and they subsequently fell in love. On the night before his execution on February 14th 270AD, he sent her a final letter signed "From Your Valentine".

Since the Middle Ages the feast day has been traditionally associated with romantic love, but nowadays, you can now find lots of activities online that celebrate familial and spiritual love too. In fact, I've collected some ideas together on a Valentine's Day Pinterest board for you to explore with your children ❤

This woven heart-shaped craft from First Palette is one of my favourites. I tried it with my Sunday school class and it proved a little tricky for younger children, so they simply wove the strips under and over each other to make a flat heart-shaped decoration instead. We glued the ends of the strips together to stop the heart from falling apart.
If you have older kids who have mastered the instructions, maybe you could set them the challenge of making baskets of different sizes so that they have to work out how to make the template for themselves ❤

February is also National Heart Month here in the UK. The perfect opportunity to learn about the science of the heart. You'll find lots of hands-on ideas, videos and printables on the Circulatory System section of my Human Body Pinterest board. There's something for all ages, so please pop over and have a look ❤

This February, we've got Pancake Day to look forward to as well. I can't wait :) Ooh, and don't forget that it's a leap year. I'll be taking the opportunity to tell my teenage children some leap year traditions. I think they may be a bit too big to play leap frog now - our own tradition when they were little 🐸 

What's your favourite thing about February? 

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