With the gorgeous weather arriving with the UK lockdown
We started working in the garden
We have dug a pond in Tilda’s garden
And David has grand plans for a waterfall
The girls and I did some weeding and tidying work
And we enjoyed exploring all the different plants and flowers
The girls asked to learn about flowers
And so we did
That is often how it works here
The children express an interest in something
And I build a project around their interests
Last week we focused on spring flowers
Tomorrow we start a week on minibeasts
The following week we will be looking at lifecycles and pollination
We will have a mini Easter Edventure (more on that in another post!)
Before moving on to habitats
And then mother and baby farm animals
We had planned to do all of this work at our local farm
But now we are doing it in our own home and garden
We have borrowed some tadpoles from a local wild pond
They are now very busy tadpoles
That we are loving watching grow
We will also be creating a wormery and growing caterpillars with Insect Lore
Bea also has a ladybird world
So many things to keep us busy and help us learn
But last week we focused on spring flowers
And I thought that I would share what we did
And how I pulled the plans together
How I manage our days
And where I find all our resources
Making a Plan
I always begin with the children
I find out what they already know
This varies HUGELY from child to child
And then I ask them what they would like to learn
Along with what they would like to do
I also suggest things that I think we should do
Things that I know they should learn
Sometimes I plan using a list
Sometimes a Pinterest board
And sometimes a topic web
I hardly ever stick to our original plan
It evolves constantly depending on what we do
How we are feeling
What else comes up in our days
Our learning is very fluid
Edie
When I start planning and resourcing
I always start with Edie
I overplan for her
She is almost 3
She obviously plays a lot and watches carefully curated TV
But she also likes to ‘work’
I plan play ideas for her
But I also print off worksheets
So that she can sit at the table with us
And feel like one of the big kids
She loves doing her table work
It very often involves stickers
Do a Dot sheets
Playdough
Painting
Cutting and sticking
Counting things
Sometimes she will sit up with us for half an hour
Sometimes 5 minutes
She will often come back and forth between the table
And whatever has been put out for her in the playroom
For our Spring Flowers Project
Edie had various things in the playroom including
Tender Leaf Toys Gardening Wheelbarrow
Learning Resources Gears Gears Gears! Build and Bloom Set
Flower themed board books
And a Flower Stall role play area
As far as printables go
For Edie I print more than I need
Keep them in a box
Then whenever she asks to join in
I fish out something for her to do
My go to places for resources for Edie are
These are all great resource banks for toddlers, preschoolers and children in Reception and Y1
We use these sites a lot and I am so thankful that we found them
Bea, Esther and William
With Edie busy and happy I can focus on everyone else
Every day my school age children do one maths activity and one English
These tend to be from Twinkl or using a workbook
We get these out of the way first thing in the morning
We are almost always done by 10
10.00am is snack time time in our house
When the weather is dry
The children wrap up warm
Build a den in the garden and eat outside
If it is cold they might watch some TV or
I will read to them
All my children adore picture books and we love to sit together
And share new books and old favourites
After snack last week we did some work linked to our topic
Spring Flowers
Bea and I made paper plate flowers with help from Edie
We all dissected daffodils
We labelled flowers
We learned about plant and flower lifecycles
We learned how to identify different flowers
We learned what plants and flowers need to survive
We learned through books and printables from Twinkl
As well as lots of practical activities
We also used flowers in our creative and imaginative play
For the older children’s work
I use Twinkl
Lots of themed worksheets here linked to science, maths and English
Also great for colouring and songs and rhymes linked to themes
This is also where I get reading comprehensions
And lots of resources for our role play areas and imaginative play
Lots and lots here for children of all ages
Plan Bee have wonderful science lessons around plants and flowers, definitely worth a look
We are following their science plans so will share what we get up to Instagram and Facebook
Great for maths and English ad if you search your topic you can find linked resources
A treasure trove of lesson plans, activities and resources
I adore this website
Predominantly American produced resources so you have to be careful of spelling
But just a huge number of creative printables linked to a multitude of themes
I can lose hours here!
I like to theme all our work
It is just what works for us and has done since Esther and William were small
So when learning about flowers I will try to find some reading activities
That are about flowers
Often a comprehension will fit the bill
I look for themed maths resources
Making flowers out of 2D shapes for example
Counting flowers and petals
Practical work is really important for Bea and Esther
But also for William
With him I like to do things like
Measuring plants around the garden with standard measures
I will get him to convert his measurements
Make comparisons, predictions and estimations
For William
Sharing a number of seeds between a number of pots
Can cover division, fractions, decimals and percentages
There are so many playful ways to learn
A worksheet is not the be all and end all
It should be a starting point or an end point
With lots of practical and creative activities in between
When we are working on a topic such as Spring Flowers
I will look at The National Curriculum to see what the children need to have covered
In science we take objectives from Year 1 for Bea, Year 3 for Esther and Year 5 for William
And there is also Edie to weave in among all of that
I try to structure our day so that I am working one to one with each child at some point
We do something all together each day
Then I might work with Esther and Bea together while William plays with Edie
It is not easy and can feel overwhelming when they all need me at once
For completely different things
I love home educating my children
But it can be really hard work
And some days we will do loads of activities and ‘work’
Other days we will spend all day doing one activity that we have all enjoyed
And become engrossed with
Other days are over before they have begun because outside is just too tempting
It has taken me a long while to come to terms with the fact
That all of the above is okay
I like structure and routine
I like themes
But I also know that what children need above timetables
And Instagram worthy invitations to play
Are conversations
With me
With each other
They need to have their curiosity ignited
They need to learn problem solving
They need to learn how to work together
They need to learn resilience when working on something tricky
And they need to know that mistakes are part of learning
They also more than all of that
Need to know that they are safe
And they are loved
If your children know those two things
Then in my humble opinion
You are doing everything right
We move on tomorrow to our week of Minibeast Mayhem
We will be thinking about insects and other kinds of bugs
We will be going on minibeast hunts
Singing minibeast songs and dancing at The Ugly Bug Ball
We will be creating new minibeasts
We will be thinking about sorting and classification
We will be identifying and observing
We will be asking questions and trying to find the answers to them
We will be doing a lot of learning
Through a whole lot of play
Come on and join us over on Instagram
Where I share all of our play and learning activities
Here’s to a new week
Of learning and playing at home x
Hi Jennie, you post always very helpful for me. In these hard days when everyone is in home. Kids need to learn something new at home with passing time and not get bored. Excellent activities. Thanks, Stay home, stay safe.