Minecraft... Discovery continues

A few months ago I believe I wrote about my kids new found interest in minecraft... At the time my focus was mainly on how I could manage the emotions and limits of screen time. Now, things have moved on in our thinking, and the children's connection with it.  We have settled into a way of using it which allows them plenty of time without overly impacting on other activities.  The kids play on it before breakfast and after dinner each day when we are at home.

I have been back and forth in how I think about this... But one thing I have always seen and recognised is that Minecraft gets Evan talking. He will talk easily with fluency to anyone who will listen.  He loves the fact that he has a greater knowledge about this than most people he knows, and that Autumn and his friends defer to him for help.  Because he is so interested in it, his thirst for more is unquenchable, and he seeks to learn more all the time. He finds out new things by creatively interacting within his worlds, reading books and watching a famous minecraft player's videos on YouTube. (Stampycat)

They are both now interested in doing instructional videos which they hwbe both started blogs on... Links to follow.

I have noted his ability to support his friends using minecraft, in an increasingly sophisticated way, and has learned not to simply take over.

HES FES 2014

There are loads of fantastic camping things to do as a Home Educator with other families, but HES FES is the one we have been to 3 years running.  A number of other local Home Educators have been going there for many years.  It is full of workshops and activities for children and adults ranging from Copper beating, to hula hoop making and circus skills.  I also run a Zumba class there.  It is a whole week, so a real holiday for us.  We manage to go together as a family as it is during the school holidays, and my husband is a school teacher.

This year was the first year our children decided to take part in the cabaret.  I was so proud of them as they opened the show.  They had both practised a lot in the run up to HESFES and it was the thing that they were most excited about.

End of Year Report

I thought it would be fun, and a nice record to do a not-school report for my kids, since they won't get them any time soon.  (To be clear, I'l be writing it in school style with my tongue firmly in my cheek, but the essence of this still stands)

Evan has made huge progress this year in his ability to connect with others.  Ranging from developing new friendships without adult support; relating to known adults in a competent, relevant and fluent way; and willingly show skills to known and unknown people.  This was particularly exemplified in the final term with the excitement he found in performing in his ballet exam, and on stage at HESFES, doing both a dance routine, and a loom band demonstration. His understanding of the needs and feelings of others has taken tremendous steps forward.  He shows this through his need to help Autumn when she is upset, and come up with plausible helpful solutions to the difficulties she has encountered.

Evan is developing his leadership skills, and is able to see the relevance and importance of listening to the ideas of others.  He is able to compromise his intentions and goals in order to gain support from others, and give them an opportunity to play an active part in the game.  Evan's core friendships have also developed and he has become adept at playing different roles with different friends, and also in different environments, according to that which would seem most helpful to him and his friends.  For example, when attending Forest school, he enjoys his time with friend Tom, and doesn't play so much with his other good friend Oscar, who seeks out different playmates at this time.

This year has been the year of new things for Evan.  He began ballet and tap classes along with Autumn and his friends, which he thoroughly enjoys, and is eager to improve his skills.  He practices around the house regularly.  He worked on projects, such as Rivers, Tigers and Guinea pigs.  In which he partook in some formalised learning through worksheets, as well as more concrete learning like in the rivers project, and here, here, and here.  Whilst he enjoyed these projects, much of the learning that goes on is much more fluid (pardon the pun) and unplanned.  Evan also began Forest School which he thoroughly enjoys, along with his friends and sister. This experience is challenging him to develop friendships and demonstrate leadership qualities in less familiar surroundings.

With regards to his academic achievements, Evan continues to be fascinated by science and engineering.  He constantly seeks out opportunities to satisfy his hunger to find out how and why.  His progress reading has been in phases.  There are times when he is really interested in working on Reading Eggs program, but struggled to make the connections between that and reading other things.  He has also worked through the whole of "Teach my monster to read", a phonics based program which built on some of the things he was learning with Reading Eggs.   A new reading set of reading books enticed him to read to his sister, and he enjoyed this.  He found it difficult to read books where he was expecting something in particular to happen, as he liked to make his own version of events rather than connecting the pictures and writing more closely.  This is definitely something to bear in mind with regards to exposure to new reading opportunities.  He has done a number of reading eggs worksheets as well, though I don't feel this added much to his confidence and overall abilities.

Burbage valley

We had the most awesome few days exploring the wonders of Burbage Valley.  Stunning sky, creatures, company and adventures.  Thanks to our wonderful friends for joining us and making the experience so special.

Pizza, Highfields, Ant Motorways Art and Adventuring

We went to an organised pizza making activity at Pizza  Express, for FREE, on Tuesday, here they are.

YUM... thank you very much Pizza Express, and Lizzie who organised it.

Next we popped along to the fantastic Highfields Adventure Playground.  This exciting place has had a lot of hard work from some very commited individuals who have fought off closure, and the Health and Safety army to create a wonderful exciting adventurous place to play.  For more information about the adventure playground movement click here.  Evan was delighted that the water pump was on, and set to work, with a team of others creating a river, this led down to make a moat around the roundabout.  The scenes that followed were extremely muddy and full of smiles and laughter.  Meanwhile Autumn and Safia created a little garden of "night flowering plants".  We got this message from Jill, who is a core figure in our Home Ed meet at Higfields after this day.

"Well that’s it – Highfields is out for the summer. There were 90 children and 42 adults and the strawberries and scones were devoured in a flash! 

What a year it's been ... but yesterday ended on a high note and it is a very different place to what it was just over twelve months ago. Times were bleak in the winter of 2013. We had fought our own battles to keep the group running after the previous organiser left, but then to top it off the council included the playground in its round of cuts and wanted to withdraw funding. At that point they had already made detrimental changes. Some weeks there might only be four or five of us there. The outlook was grim. But this was one of the best user led turn arounds I’ve ever seen. At the fore was the 'Friends of Adventures' but the protest was strong from everyone, not least our group. Funding bids were made, hundreds of emails sent, weekly multi-agency meetings and a steering group set up. The council had to rethink. Today, although it is stlll owned by the council, it is managed by a community charity and new staff have been employed. The children have reclaimed it and their writing is back on the wall (literally). 

It is now even more a true adventure playground than it ever was. The next target is the replacement of the huge rope swing that the council took down. When that arrives it will be symbolic. 

Yesterday was symbolic too, because Highfields is about the children and home educated children have played there for 15yrs. So to see 90 of them up to their necks in sand and water (again literally!) and fun was good to see. "

After dance class the next we popped along to Longshaw, as the end of our work on our house meant we could escape.  There just so happened to be a home ed meet there at the same time.  We gatecrashed, and Evan made a new friend in Nat.  They go to Forest School together, and they have played alongside each other before, but this time they actually connected, and Nat asked Evan to be his friend. :)  Along with the other older ones in the group, they found a brilliant set of hide out spaces among the bracken.  They used sticks to identify to each other where they were when the bracken was too high to see.  There were a variety of different spots, a fireplace, which the boys had created a path to with clues of charcoal, a little place to be on a rock, a look out and a big dip.  they were very content in their adventures and want to visit here again with the others.   Meanwhile, Autumn created some rock pictures on the clay bank by the river.  After this, we visited the ant motorway, and Evan led a commentary of it.

Science club: SOUND

Today was science club.  We did loads of activities and experiments about sound.  We used the following books for our experiments - Usborne 100 Science experiments, Super Science Experiments and Make it Work! Sound. The authors and publishers of which we are very grateful.

We started off by exploring the garden trying to make the largest sound possible with just one bang.  They started small by just exploring the musical instruments, but then explored further by going round the garden.  They discovered that the wheelbarrow was the loudest they could find when hit with an object.  We discussed a bit about materials, and which ones made the loudest sounds.  Evan found that plastic made the least sound, whilst wood was a bit louder and metal was the loudest.

We followed this by a series of activities which I are shown pictorially below.

We used a sound cannon to blow a candle flame... later we took one end off this and were able to actually blow it out.

We then watched a favourite television program called Miracles of Nature (from 18 minutes in)

the episode concerned with Echolocation. The technology information of which is shown here. We followed this up by trying out our own little bit of echolocation in the garden.

Using our own ability to notice if we were in open or closed in spaces by clicking.  They did remarkably well.  I was very impressed.

The children next had a go at feeling and seeing sound through the effect of the vibrations from a speaker.  This was a real hit, and later they demonstrated how the jewels moved by bouncing on the trampoline.

More seeing the effect of sound through vibrations on a drum - this time sugar on top of a stretched balloon over a glass. All of them loved the end of this activity which involved the tongue doing in the inevitable.

Next we looked at amplification using funnels in the form of making a duck sound using a paper cup, string and a wet towel.  Evan explored what happened without the wetness and without the cup, and found that without the wetness there wasn't the sound at all, and without the cup it was a quiet noise.  Plus, they all made megaphones which were super effective and simple, a great way to feel vibrations of the voice on your lips.

Now this strange looking photo we are demonstrating a tuning fork.  We literally have forks connected to thread wrapped to our fingers which are in turn sitting on our ears.  The sound is transferred and we hear it really loud after we dong the fork onto a hard surface.

We changed the pitch a few times by adding extra water and keeping them at different levels.

The whole session was super quick, and was a platform to inspire and start learning about the subject of sound.  I would hope the children now have a few ideas of how to explore these concepts themselves at their own pace now.  There was a bit of discussion here and there about the scientific conclusions we can make from our findings, but we did keep it fairly light and exploratory.

Could felting be any more fun... we think so

Today our friends from "I love you more than rainbows" blog (well they our real life friends, but also have a home ed blog!) came over for a crafting morning.  Jasmin said she fancied a spot of felting, so we set to it.  She decided on her colours and that she would make a brooch from flat felt cut out and sewed together.  Autumn decided to make a picture, Debs to make a mobile phone case, and I couldn't make up my mind so decided to just make some flat felt which I could go on to make something out of later.  Evan, however, decided to make some slippers!

I have made felt now quite a number of times using different methods, but this one we used today is by far my favourite for it's fullness of fun.

For speed I'm going to do a quick bullet point list of the method, for fullness you will have to explore elsewhere.

1. Lay out a square of bubble wrap about 40% larger than the piece of felt you want.
2. Tease out wool so that it is fairly evenly spread out.
3. Lay out the teased wool first vertically down your bubble wrap.
4. Lay out more teased wool this time horizontally on top of the first layer.
5. Add any detail on top with teased wool - wisps, stripes, swirls. (remember that the result will be an approximation of your design, intricate designs can be done using appliqué or needle felting.)
6.  Sprinkle soapy water across the wool, spreading thinly and evenly (or use a spray - much quicker and easier!)
7. Put another layer of bubble wrap, (or plastic bag) over the wool.
8. Roll up tightly.
9. Secure with elastic bands (3 or more works well)
10. Cover with a towel if you want to avoid getting wet hands (secure with more bands)
... NOW FOR THE FUN BIT
11. First squeeze the tube gently across the middle all the way along
12. Now whack it, throw it, and generally have a brilliant, silly time with it.
(we threw ours down the stairs, whacked them on the floor, door frames, and you can hold them between 2 people and wiggle hard too!)
13. After about 5 minutes or so remove the bands and carefully unroll.
14. Check it over for bits your don't want and that the process is working well.  This checking process is important to make sure it is all done at the same time, as once the process gets past a certain point it is difficult to incorporate any stray bits.
15. Re-roll and repeat.
16. Repeat processes 12-15 until you feel it is all coming together nicely, and looking less translucent.
17. When you are happy with it, it is time to finish it by plunging and chucking. (my personal favourite bit)
18. Take the unrolled felt and plunge it into cool water.
19. Squeeze it out leaving it wet without dripping
20. Keep in the ball and chuck it hard onto a hard surface.
21.  Gather up using 2 hands and repeat.  Do this lots of times, re plunging if it gets too dry.
22.  When you can see it has reduced in size significantly, thickened up and puckered across the surface, you have done.
23. Rinse it out and dry.

As Evan was making a 3D object he utilised a slightly different method.  Here goes:

1. Make a template, using oilcloth or similar, of your feet about 2cm bigger all round.
2. Follow other method up to 7 making sure 2 separate pieces are done, and both about half a hands width extra around the sides.
3. Put template on top and fold excess around the template
4. Now follow 7-16
5. Open up hole in the middle and remove oilcloth.
6. Place on feet.
7. Ensure wet.
8. Put on a pair of wellies.
9. Jump, stomp, dance around for about half an hour. ENJOY.
10. Remove, check and repeat if necessary.
11. When happy do the plunging and chucking but only a few times as we don't want to shrink it too much.
12. To finish you can sew any bits on you like, add some leather soles, decorations or anything you like really.
13. ENJOY