Wednesday 22 April 2015

P.E. Home ed style

I love a lot of things about home ed and one of them is being able to take advantage of the weather. Today we walked down to the beach with two other local families to enjoy some fresh air and sunshine. The children had a fabulous time exploring together. As we watched them we remaked on how great home ed P.E. is. The children got to balance, climb, problem solve and work together in teams to achieve goals that they set themselves. They explored dead jelly fish and sparkly 'crystal' rocks. We discussed limestone and porous rocks. It's a unique and free way to learn and grow. Here are some pictures of our happy day. 








Thursday 2 April 2015

Polyhedral dice games

I have had a goal to increase the speed and ability of the children's mental maths. While I don't necessarily think that all primary school maths should be taught as early as it is, I do place huge value on being able to quickly solve traditional sums. They're often called number bonds or magic numbers. 

One of the ways that I thought might be fun is with polyhedral dice. The games you can play are endless - and we've played a few! 
We have 20 side, 12 side, 10 side, 8 side and 4 side dice.

The first game that George 2 and I played was a simple multiplication of two numbers thrown on two dice. 
Then we played some family games of adding numbers together. Each time you throw the die, you add the number to your previous throw and the first to get to 50 wins. They quickly worked out that the 20 sided die would likely get you there faster! It was great fun, and the older children helped the younger children with the addition. It got pretty fast and competitive after a while.