Showing posts with label river. Show all posts
Showing posts with label river. Show all posts

Monday, 25 August 2014

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.



Friday, 6 June 2014

Wild about Play here we come.

We have a ridiculous number of amazing resources on our doorstep here in Sheffield.  We are so lucky.  We have decided to make use of one we have been aware of for a while now in the form of an outdoor Kindergarten with a Home Education session.  Wild About Play is run by a fantastic group of enthusiastic professionals who are totally passionate about giving children the opportunity to explore nature and natural materials in an autonomous and exciting way.


We went to an open morning a few months ago, but due to it being really busy Evan wasn't eager to return; so we had been doing things with local group FoCAL  at Woodland Camp, and Forest Kindergarten, both of which starred the inimitable Emma Condor.  Circumstances have coincided now that we have decided to indulge our passion for the woods by attending Forest School, with the added bonus of Emma now working here!!!!  Today was the first day, and I had the pleasure of staying as Evan felt he needed me there.  I was really glad that I could stay as I got to see the amazing resource come to life.

How many ways can you cross a river?







The Home Ed group spent part of the morning developing a waterway to the river, this a small portion of what they created after much problem solving and creative thinking. 

I was most impressed with the lack of rules - only simple rules to keep people from seriously harming themselves.  It gave all the children the real sense of freedom that really we all desire in our lives.  Exploring the idea of conformism this week has been a theme for me due to a number of circumstances, and finishing the week off in this magical atmosphere really foots the bill for me.

Thank you to everyone at Wild About Play for creating such an amazing and inspirational environment which gives children the space they need and crave.  You are wonderful. 

Tuesday, 22 April 2014

Brighton - Day 1 - The beach & Pier

Noo Noo

The only reason these fish and chips are famous is because they are on the Pier - not because they are tasty.  Definitely not the best part of our visit, but a necessary one nevertheless. 



ooops!!!

The log flume was a big hit, and even Uncle Drew, who doesn't enjoy rides seemed to have a good time.  But at £12 for the 3 of them for a 1 minute ride the Wild River was their only ride!




Chillin' on the beach.


Where has he gone.



You can't see this, but we are sat on some pebble nests.



A bit chocolately.

Monday, 24 February 2014

National Coal Mining Museum

Its been a while since our last visit, but we went today with friends. It was loads of fun not least because of the wonderful nature trail, and an really thought provoking visit down the coal shaft, 140metres to travel the seam worked for many years by many brave men and families.
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Monday, 25 November 2013

Making a river

Another trip to Chatsworth, and another bit on our river project.  Many playgrounds these days are well resourced enough to have these amazing things... but we particularly enjoy this archimedes screw and accompanying water feature in a sand pit which provides endless opportunities for collaborative play.  This was the second river project they worked on during their visit, but the biggest hit.  They planned it so meticulously, and thoughtfully so as to create the river despite which way the balance was going, and it most importantly led the water back into the river from where it was sourced via the Archimedes screw.  Their efforts over their visits have led Evan and his friends to recognise key elements necessary in successful channel building - including not letting the water come down before you have created your channel so that it doesn't pool ineffectively at different junctures.  

This was about 15 minutes before we had to leave

Evan was beginning turning the Archimedes Screw to get the flow going just before we left.
It is going...
Here we begin to see the channels - which have been tried out.

Water joining t the two tributuries.

The channel flow has stopped.  They had tried the channel out, but it had filled back with sand as they had nothing to stop the sand falling in again.  So Tom re-dug out this section on the fly as Evan turned the screw.
Keep going Tom!
Here you can see a section where it pooled.


Here is the last bit of the circut, below here led to the river - both our batteries ran out so no more photos I'm afraid!


During this magnificent play Su and I were discussing how well the kids were playing and I have to say it makes such a difference that they have free reign over the equipment, and are not being pressured (either by peers, or adults) to share.  There are valuable reasons why we share, but we would never expect a scientist to share his equipment in a lab because a whole heap of other people had arrived and wanted to give it  go.  Equally, I would not be expected to share the use of all my craft equipment by others, especially when in the middle of an important project.  I would find it impertinent if someone demanded that I do so... not unlike the feeling I felt when Su told me that amidst the crowds of Chatsworth House today with the magical Narnia land, when an adult took the plastic crown off of Amy's head and put it on his own, without a word.  Unsurprisingly screaming ensued, and not a word of remorse.

I feel sure that the endless opportunities to play at their own speed and with what they enjoy has an enormous role to play in the learning and development that goes on.  I am so pleased that Home Education affords them these opportunities every day.

Tuesday, 19 November 2013

Sugarcube Mountain


 Today we decided to have a cuddly day, with a bit of shopping, but it turned into a bit more work on our River project.  We watched some brilliant videos - LINK soon.  Read a few books, and decided to do a bit of an activity to demonstrate erosion and how it works over time on a mountain through weathering.  We used a fantastic experiment outline on Science Fair Adventure website .   The set up involved a bit of maths - looking at square numbers as we lay out the sugar cubes in square numbers.  We had 25, 16, 9, 4, and 1 on our layers.  I just love the artistry in mathematics, so this was particularly exciting for me!!!


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