The Romsey Show

the Romsey Show 2011

Who said that the best place to learn is a classroom?
Hands-on learning should be taking place all over all the time.  When you think about it, almost any activity can be educational, especially with primary school aged children.

We recently had a great time going to the Romsey Show as a family.  My daughters LOVED it, and they learned a lot too.  Farmers were there with all kinds of livestock, and there were also workers from a bat hospital, otter sanctuary, falconry group, and other animal-related groups.  We were able to get really close to the animals, and my girls had a chance to talk to some of the workers about them (in addition to asking us questions).  They learned a lot about animals, agriculture, the local food industry, and the environment (especially environmental issues that impact local wildlife).  If we had just told them the information at home, they'd probably have promptly lost interest.  Since we actually saw the animals, they'll be talking about this day out and the things they learned for months.

To find out more about our visit to the Romsey Show, click here.

Butterflies!

We recently had the chance to take our five-year-old to the Natural History Museum in London.  We actually had to queue up outside to even get into the museum!  There were lots of families there, and it was nice to see that a museum was such a popular attraction.

Inside there were a lot of good displays, and Miriam ran back and forth in excitement looking at all of the cases.  Her favorite was the whale.  There are several whale skeletons and a life-size model of a blue whale.  I'm pretty sure our house could fit inside of it.  There was also a fantastic new section on dinosaurs.

The highlight of our visit, though, was the butterfly house outside.  The temporary special exhibit, Sensational Butterflies, really was sensational.  There were thousands of butterflies of all varieties, ranging from tiny brown ones to silk moths so large and colorful they looked like kites.  It was absolutely delightful to have so many butterflies flying everywhere around you (and sometimes landing on you).  There was also a great educational trail through the butterfly house.  Every few yards there was a little station that taught kids something about butterflies.  They were very hands-on and included both information and a chance to try things out themselves and observe butterflies.  There were special lenses, for example, that you could look through to see as a butterfly sees.  We all loved it, and I have to admit that I learned things about butterflies that I had never known before.

Butterflies are a great topic to get kids excited about science, and you can encourage butterflies around your home as well with butterfly feeders or butterfly attracting plants.  We have buddleias, for example, that always have butterflies around them in the summer (unfortunately the caterpillars seem to like eating up our gooseberry bush first).

The New Forest Reptile Centre & Reptile Trail Hike

I find that when I'm travelling, I always visit the local attractions and museums.  Yet we often neglect the sites that are closer to home.  It's amazing the resources that we often have nearby if we are willing to look for and appreciate them.  We recently went to an exhibit on the Romans at a small local museum.  Since it was only a small museum, it had never particularly caught my interest before.  However, it was the perfect size for my kids to be able to enjoy.  They kept interest throughout the whole museum and were particularly interested in the Romans display (it had a lot of hands-on activities for kids as well as artifacts and information).

Another nearby education attraction that we just went to for the first time was the New Forest Reptile Centre.  Again it was only a small centre, but my kids were very excited about it.  They learned about different local wildlife species and about the local environment.  They learned a lot and had fun.

For more about our visit to the New Forest Reptile Centre, click here.

No matter where you live, make the most of your local museums and other educational sites.

Free Maths Resources on the Internet

Creating your own exercise sheets, quizzes, and tests in math can take a lot of time.  It is really helpful to sometimes use tests created by someone else.  This both saves you time, and also is beneficial to the pupil because it helps them to solve different types of problems or recognize different approaches to similar types of problems. 

Here are two resources that I have used with Year 9 (9th grade) students and found helpful.

"Year 9 Half Yearly Exam Revision-Algebra" This site offers a practice exam focusing on 9th grade level algebra.  This is supposed to be a mid-year assesment, and is really useful for gauging a student's strengths and weaknesses as they study algebra.

"KS3 Bitesize: Maths" This site is an amazing and easy to use resource.  It reviews everything covered in Key Stage 3 Maths (grades 7-9).  There are review sections teaching/reviewing the principle, activities to practice them, and then short tests.

I found both of these sites really helpful, so I hope you will too.

Homeschool Share: A Fantastic Resource

If you are homeschooling, you know that it can be difficult to constantly come up with new ideas to make your teaching interesting.  There is a website that can help.  Homeschool Share is a great website and an invaluable resource for homeschooling parents.  Basically, it's a forum for homeschoolers.  There are a ton of free resources with different study units appropriate for different ages (particularly for preschoolers and elementary school, or infants school).  Parents can contribute high quality units that they have created, so their collection is constantly growing.  If you homeschool, I highly recommend checking this site.

To visit Homeschool Share, click here.

Free Homeschooling Resources

I can not tell you how many times I have found teaching resources on the internet only to discover that you have to pay to use them.  In some cases you have to pay to even join the site or view the resources, so you're not even sure how useful they're going to be.

The good news is that there are lots of good free homeschooling resources on the internet.

If you homeschool, here's a writer who might be of interest to you.  A. Hermitt is a freelance writer who homeschools her kids.  She's written a lot of articles on Associated Content about homeschooling.  I think that her articles about homeschooling high schoolers are the most useful, but she has articles about teaching different age groups from kindergarten to college admission.

To view Hermitt's articles, click here.