Out and About in Winchester

Over the summer we've been trying to do lots of fun and educational activities with our kids.  One of our fun day trips was into Winchester in Hampshire, England.  There's a lot of history in this beautiful small city.

We saw part of the original Roman wall and talked a little about the Romans (we later learned more about them at the City Museum, which has a lot of activities for children).  We also went to Wolvesey Castle.  My girls had a great time running around the castle ruins, imagining what life would have been like in the middle ages, and trying to piece together as much as they could about the castle from what's left.  They learned a lot about history, and got really excited about it as they could actually see and explore it.  After that we walked around the city and saw other sites like Jane Austen's house.

Encouraging Reading

Children need all of the encouragement they can get when they are first learning to read.  In my opinion it's always a good thing to reinforce learning as many different ways as possible, and to make learning as fun as possible.  So I think that whoever came up with alphabet food was a genius.

Normally I'm not a big fan of processed food, but I make an exception for these potato letters.  They cost about £1 from Asda and my kids love them.  It makes meal time a great time to reinforce learning what sounds letters make (for my 2-year-old) and reading simple words (for my 5-year-old).  I spell words with them when serving them, and encourage them to use the letters to make their own words as well.  I'll also ask them to find a certain letter (and they get to eat it when they find it).  It's a really great way to reinforce reading for younger kids.

In addition to these potato waffles, we've also had letter shaped noodles.  I've also been known to make letter shaped pancakes, and you can get letter shaped cookie cutters.

For more ideas on how to help your child learn to read, click here or here.

Field Trip Books

Whether you homeschool or go to school, field trips can be really memorable and educational experiences.  One way to make the most of a field trip is to make a book about the experience.  Children can draw pictures, write about the experience, put in photos, and do related activities.

Here's a page my daughter did after a field trip to the zoo.  They have a book for the class.  Each child gets a turn to bring the book home and fill in their page.  As she's in kindergarten, this meant that she drew pictures of herself and some of the animals and wrote the name of each.

The National Gallery and Discussing Da Vinci

Trafalgar Square, London
view next to the National Gallery (where "The Virgin of the Rocks" by Da Vinci is)

This week I was able to take my children with me on a day trip to London.  Miriam (my kindergartner) really wanted to go to an art museum while we were there, and Anya (my almost preschooler) was mostly excited about riding on trains.  To make them both happy, we took the tube to Charing Cross and went to the National Gallery.


Rather than trying to see everything there, we walked through rather quickly and then stopped at the pieces that interested the girls.  We were there for about an hour, and spent almost all of that time looking at only three pieces of art.  Of those, we spent the most time with "The Virgin of the Rocks" by Leonardo Da Vinci.  (I have also often heard this piece called "The Madonna of the Rocks", but I will use the name assigned by the National Gallery.)

We sat down in front of the painting and spent a long time discussing it.  Rather than lecturing my kids about it, I asked them questions and encouraged them to think about the painting for themselves.  We talked about a lot of the symbolism in the painting and some about Da Vinci.  While we were there an art historian from the Open University joined in and supplied some extra information.

Afterwards we went out into Trafalgar Square where they enjoyed chasing pigeons, looking at the fountain, etc.

Miriam is already asking when we can go to another art museum, and she kept talking about "The Virgin of the Rocks" and Leonardo Da Vinci.  Not all of you can take your kids to the National Gallery in London, but there are art museums around the world.  I think it's really beneficial for children to be brought to museums and galleries, exposed to art, and encouraged to think about it.  You can tie it in with lots of subjects.  For this painting, for example, you can study the painting itself, learn about Da Vinci and the time period, learn more about what Da Vinci did and his contributions to both art and science, make your own version of the artwork, write a story inspired by it or a paper about it...

For more information about Da Vinci's "The Virgin of the Rocks", click here.
For free lesson plans about Leonardo Da Vinci, click here.

Meet Ben



My daughter Miriam recently turned five.  For months she's been asking for a pet for her birthday.  In the past she's had pet fish and shrimp, but never a more interactive pet.  So after a lot of discussion and consideration we decided to give her a pet for her birthday.  It took a lot more discussion and consideration to decide to give her a kitten.  (We went with a kitten rather than a cat so that they can be used to small children from the beginning rather than having clashes between an older cat and kids trying to get used to each other.)

We thought that we had a pretty clear idea of what kind of kitten we wanted to get.  Then Miriam accidentally met Ben, a tiny all black kitten, and fell in love.  As soon as she saw him, she knew that Ben was her cat.  (Or, as my husband puts it, that she was Ben's person.)  Ben was the runt of his litter and was only a third the size of the other kittens his age.  In this picture he's 8 1/2 weeks old and easily fits in an adult's hand.

As an almost five-year-old, Miriam was excited for a pet because she wanted to be able to love it and play with it.  She had visions of a kitten who would follow her around, sit in her lap, etc.  So far she has spent large amounts of time stroking and carrying around Ben.  She also draws pictures of him and sings songs to and about him.

What's really impressed me, though, is the amount of responsibility that she's taken for her pet.  She is happy to help give him food and water and even to clean his litter box.  Having a pet is definitely going to help her to learn responsibility and commitment.  I'm looking forward to seeing what else she learns from having a pet (so expect to see more posts with Ben).

Meet Frankie

Meet Frankie.  Frankie is a little teddie bear that belongs to my daughter's class.  Over the course of the year, each child has a chance to take Frankie home.  Then the child writes in Frankie's book about their adventures together and draws a picture.  This past weekend was my daughter Miriam's turn to bring Frankie home with her.

Although I have often seen activities like this done in school classrooms, this could also be an effective exercise for home schooled kids.  Miriam was really excited to have Frankie visit her and do all of her weekend activities with her.  Because she was excited to share her experiences with the other children, she was happy to write about it.  She also read the entries put in by previous children.  It didn't feel like she was working on reading and writing (literacy) because she wanted to do it and got to play with Frankie.

For most homeschool families, you can't just pass it around kids like you do in a classroom.  However, you could start a similar activity with other homeschooling families.  It could either be local (through people you meet or a homeschooling network, for example), or you could post it back and forth between homeschooling families anywhere in the world.  Children will be excited to follow Frankie's adventures and practice their literacy skills with it.

My Bookshelf

If you are homeschooling--especially if you're homeschooling teens--you can look at a lot of books.  Especially teaching English it can be hard to pick out the right novels to read and books to use.

I read a lot, and recently started another blog specifically for book reviews and discussions of books.  This blog will cover all types of books from children's books to novels to non-fiction.  It may be of use to some of you to help you to get more information about a specific book, or to help you to browse reading possibilities.

My book blog is called Keri's Bookshelf.  Click here to check it out.