In the woods

We are having the most beautiful winter, cold, fresh and sunny. The weather has been so warm here that the leaves clung to the branches much longer than usual, suddenly dropping in between our two visits to the woods.  I have winter in my heart and although I enjoy the long nights of summer and all the good fun that brings, winter is where it's at for me. Going out, getting cold, feeling our cheeks go red in the wind and then coming home for hot chocolate and blankets, snuggles and stories.

Jo x

make: all the beads

Montessori maths materials. Need I say more. Well, yes, probably! The Montessori method for teaching maths involves a lot of manipulative materials that are tempting to touch and lovely to look at. The bead cabinet is one of my favourites but the price tag is a bit off-putting! This one is great and the cabinet to store it all in is too but together the cost is reaching thousands. Obviously not affordable, but crafty doesn't say can't, so here is my homemade version for considerably less (approx £40 total by buying the beads when on sale). 

The materials. Beads - a whole load in various colours, wire ( I ended up going back for more), pliers, wire cutters, jump rings and plastic mesh.

The beginning - when I had no idea how long this was going to take!

The thousand cube! Yes it is solid and made of 1000 beads all wired together. Do you see the plastic mesh in between the edge rows and the second row in? That's what holds it all together.

The squares and cubes 1-10. I made one cube of each and the number of squares equal to its size, eg, 3 - 3x3 squares, 8 - 8x8 squares, 10 - 10x10 squares etc.

Bead bars, approximately 60 of each, although more of the 10 bars.

The bead chains. Short bead chains that show the square of each number (eg, 6x6), and the long chains show the cube of each number (eg 6x6x6). Let me tell you that the long chain of 10 is very very long and time consuming to make! It's extremely cool when you can compare it to the 10x10x10 cube and see that they are the same though!

I also made snake games which involve some more of the bead bars, some bead bars 1-10 in different colours for holding places, and again in another different colour for negative numbers. Somehow I forgot to photograph the snake game but here is one by another DIYer so you can see what I'm talking about.

I have plans to show you how we are using these beads in our homeschool, but for now I'm just taking a breath after all that bead stringing!

Jo x

Cave paintings

As part is of a study on early people faith made some of her own cave paintings, she made paint out of a coloured earth that we found and used charcoal from the fire. We looked at some examples online so that she had an idea of the styles they were usually in. This was a really fun hands on project.

jo x

at our place

At our place has been lots and lots and lots of learning, learning to swim, learning to climb, learning to care, learning to balance, learning to balance, learning to count, learning to share, learning to make a humungous mess... 

...learning to clear up.... er, no, what was I thinking...

Jo x 

kids with crafts

To us craft and creativity are very important, a big part of our days. A lot of our homeschooling is done through drawing, painting, modelling, photography, story writing etc, and I find that faith explores ideas so much more deeply when given a free creative space to work in. 

Last week we met up with a few other families and I brought along fabric, wool, ribbons, card, glue, sparkly bits, pens .... a recipe for chaos!

Brilliant chaos.... creative chaos.... the kind of mess that means great things are happening. I wouldn't have it any other way. Wool can be re-rolled, ribbons re-sorted, paint scrubbed, and children put in baths (clothes and all!), but that kind of creative abandon is hard to get back once squashed. 

Bring on the chaos!

Jo x 

form drawing

Form drawing is a big part of our week. We usually do it 1 - 3 times a week, we do form drawing first thing and it really settles us and brings faith into a frame of mind for some work. 

Recently Faith has been using the forms as inspiration and finding other shapes and pictures in them. We only began form drawing in September and the difference in concentration, pen control, evenness of line and things like that is enormous. I would highly recommend it.

Here's a good article on why to do form drawing and here's one on getting started. These are just 2 and there are many many more out there. 

I only have photos of the chalkboard but form drawing is so much more than this. We draw in the air, in sand, walk lines on the floor, make our bodies into shapes, spot shapes in nature when we're out walking, and lots more. The drawing part of form drawing is almost the least important, it's more about really getting a feel for shape, line and balance, the drawing is just the simplest to photograph!

Jo x 

lovely letters

We spent some time over the last few weeks doing some lovely watercolour paintings. Just spreading the colours on the page and getting used to the flow and how much we needed to load our brush up and things like that. We ended up with lots of beautifully covered pieces of thick paper, some have been used to make book covers but some were used to make these lovely letters...

Faith had a fun time with them spelling out words and sounds then we had lots of giggles with her laying out lists of letters for me to sound out and inventing words!

The cards really are lovely, I don't think the photos do them justice, the colours are soft and gorgeous.

After our first 6 weeks of more formal schooling we are really enjoying ourselves. How are you other homeschoolers out there getting on?

Jo x