Tis that time of year....

.... when we go on the home ed camps, our first this year was the craft group camp where we worked on some Viking weaving.

These are the instructions for Viking Cord Weaving 

The girls loved it and were to be found weaving all weekend - except when they made some time to practice their photography

Abstract Sculpture day

We went to a great activity this week, making abstract sculptures from old tights and gardening wire.

After making the sculptures they got to paint them 

 And then enjoy a great afternoon out in the sun while they dried.

Space Bodies

We've spent some time looking at the different bodies in space

the girls made posters depicting the differences (if it involves glitter I can guarantee happy girls)

and Tulip made up a skit to help her remember (sorry my computer is having a funny half hour and can't seem to turn the video round the right way).

Giveaway - I took the Moon for a walk - My Week with Picture Book Explorers

I've used a number of Picture Book Explorers from Branch Out World, but have been saving this one especially for our space study.

One of my favourite aspects of BOW's literature based unit studies is you can pick and choose how many activities you do and take as long as you want (I have been know to spread them out over two weeks) but they have provided enough for a whole weeks worth of lessons, because we were home three days last week I chose to do only some of the activities. The other thing I love is how broad the age range is (I used this with 6-12 year olds) and the activities suggest ideas for both a younger and older audiences.

Monday 
We started by reading the book 'I took the Moon for a walk' and went through PBE's narration questions and activities;

Moon worksheet
I read the moon facts sheet, moon stories and the girls filled in the notebook page

Moon Poetry
I used the poetry discussion page to explore the poetry within the book and write an extra stanza for the story. We also read the additional poem - the girls loved this so much they decided to draw pictures inspired by the poem and write their own moon poems. 

Simile and Metaphor
We also worked through the simile and metaphor activity

Timeline
Filled in selected facts on the timeline provided

Maps and Flag
This included facts about Derbyshire, colouring the county flag and labelling/colouring maps. 

The girls got so enthused that they ended up working through lunch and beyond : )

Tuesday
Art 
The girls worked on their myriorama landscapes

and started their moon lamp

Hills activity
I read the fact sheet, Rose created playdoh hills and the older girls made the lift the flap notebook page.

Friday
Math
We worked through the math activities.

Craft
They worked on their well dressing collage

 

and did some more of their moon lamp.

Science
They explored Nocturnal and Diurnal animals, 

British Wild animals,

and did the experiment.

There were a number of activities we skipped because our week was shorter than normal - We didn't make the recipes, the brochure or poster, moon phases activity (because they did one last week) or the different ageing paper techniques.

Picture Book Explorers come as an approx 60 page PDF and provide a weeks worth of educational activities based on a reading or picture book. They divide the days as follows: 
Day 1 - Explore the Setting
Day 2 -Exploring the words
Day 3 - Exploring the Pictures 
Day 4 - Exploring Science 
Day 5- Exploring Math, Crafts and more 
Each day has between 4 and 8 suggested activities that you can pick and choose between.

We have been so impressed that I have decided to give away a copy of 'I took the Moon for a Walk' and it's accompanying picture Book explorer

This giveaway is open worldwide. To enter please leave a comment below saying which Picture Book explorer you would most like to try and for additional entries like Picture Book Explorers facebook page or subscribe via email.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Dressmaking

The girls were super excited for this weeks lesson

Rose finished her cushion,

while Lilly and Sunflower finally finished their pencil skirts (they had to learn to create a pattern on dressmaking paper and learn loads of new techniques including darts, waist band, hemming and french seams - so feeling very pleased with themselves)

Tulip is in the middle of her sampler pin cushion so I'll let you know how that goes.

Moon Activities

The first week back after a break is always hard interesting. To make the transition easier I chose some hands on science activities to fit in with our space theme.

Last week was all about the Moon so I had to review craters for Rose when she asked 'why has the Moon got spots?'

We started with a bowl of flour then put a cling film atmosphere across the top,

when she threw the meteors in they didn't get to the surface because it was protected - I quickly explained that Earth is protected by our atmosphere and the meteors generally get burned up by the atmosphere.

Next we removed the 'atmosphere' because the Moon doesn't have one, threw our meteors and observed the crater 'spots' it made.

We recapped how they used the Moon to discover the Earth was round.

Then did a Moon cycle presentation. It started with an orange...

... we held up to the light to show how the side away from the light was in shadow.

We placed our globe (Earth) in the middle of the table and drew a circle around in chalk to show the Moons orbit, placed our Sun in position

then we were ready to introduce all the phases - the New Moon (when the Moon is between the Earth and Sun) appears as a dark circle because all we see the shadow half.

The first quarter etc.

Next we memorised our terms - Waxing, when the lit area of the moon is growing smaller. Waning, when the lit area of the moon is growing larger. Gibbous, when more than quarter of the moon is lit. Crescent, when less than half of the moon is lit. A good rule is Waxing is the right side and Waning is the left.

Then the older three did a write up

while Rose coloured in and worked on a phases puzzle.

She finished by playing 'match the phase' with Tulip.

Time activities

Our home Ed group ran an activity day all about time.

They made fruit clocks,

played time bingo,

made paper plate clocks,

learnt about time zones,

discussed lunar calendars 

and made an Egyptian water clock - with an interesting discussion around how the Greeks adapted the water clock for the different length of days they had with different sized holes, (bigger for the winter when they was less sunlight and smaller holes for the summer when the daylight was longer - you can find a great description over here)

they even got to make a couple of lids for each clock with different sized holes