Our sister travel blog Free Range Explorers

We proudly present FREE RANGE EXPLORERS!!! Ta ta da daaaaaaa!!

It's our new blog, dedicated to all things travel and to our personal adventures of course, it features Martin's amazing photos (you've not seen many here unfortunately) and it will include travel tips and reviews as well as interviews with interesting people we meet along the way.

Find it here and ENJOY!

Facebook page

Just wanted to remind you that the Facebook page still contains a lot of links to resources and interesting things I come across that won't necessarily make their way into the blog. Facebook is good for this sort of snappy sharing.
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Remembrance Sunday

As a life long pacifist I am always in two minds when it comes to war related events, but it is undeniable that many (too many) people suffered during the two world wars and remembering those who died during this time is not something I can criticise. And of course, from a historical point of view it is very important for the boys to find out about these wars and the effects they have on us today. I took them to the d-day landing beaches in Normandy and it was a sobering and touching moment even though the boys are still very young.

Some background (thank you Wikipedia as usual):
In the United Kingdom, 'Remembrance Sunday' is held on the second Sunday in November, which is the Sunday nearest to 11 November Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of hostilities in the First World War at 11 a.m. in 1918. Remembrance Sunday is held "to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts".
In the United Kingdom, Remembrance Sunday is marked by ceremonies at local war memorials in most cities, towns and villages, attended by civic dignitaries, ex-servicemen and -women (principally members of the Royal British Legion), members of local armed forces regular and reserve units (Royal Navy and Royal Naval Reserve, Royal Marines and Royal Marines Reserve, Army and Territorial Army, Royal Air Force and Royal Auxiliary Air Force), military cadet forces (Sea Cadet Corps, Army Cadet Force and Air Training Corps as well as the Combined Cadet Force) and youth organisations (e.g. Scouts and Guides). Wreaths of remembrance poppies are laid on the memorials and two minutes silence is held at 11 a.m. Church bells are usually rung "half-muffled", creating a sombre effect.

For children to find out more and engage is some activities, the CBBC website has some good information, and for loads of crafts and activities go to iChild

Here's some other activities I came across:

Coffee filter poppy flower

Fingerprint poppy craft

Memorial day poppy project

Magic Town

Magic Town is a recent discovery for us. It's a website and app containing a virtual world of stories.

Reuben really likes the independence of reading virtual books, so this website is really nice for him. We only use the free version but you can upgrade to a paid subscription and get more stories. The free version has around 15 books and a new story each day. There is also a download section with free activity worksheets.

When you arrive in Magic Town, you’ll meet the guides Izzy and Max. They’re there to show you around. You’ll see lots of houses that hold the stories and games. And if you click on the big tree at the top of the landscape, you meet Louis the Storyteller. Louis is a wise old lion who has travelled the world, collecting stories that he’s brought to Magic Town. Click on Louis to get the free story of the day.

Some of the free books include: Elmer the elephant, Winnie the Witch, The little princess, and classics like Little red riding hood and The boy who cried wolf.

Nature Detectives

As we are all huge lovers of the woods (and we are lucky we live near the National Forest) we found the children's website from the Woodland Trust a treasure trove of ideas.
It's called Nature Detectives and is just jam-packed with activities.

You can download an impressive amount of activities ideas, worksheets, recognition sheets, booklets, arts and crafts ideas, seasonal activities, you name it!

This is the Halloween activity booklet (click on image to download)

And the Autumn activity booklet (click on image to download)

For a small subscription fee you can join the Nature Detectives club and you will receive some extra material and weekly challenges, we joined but in all honesty (with the huge amount of stuff available for free on the website) we haven't done a challenge in months...
Our favourite resources are the recognition sheets (plants, birds, etc.) and making things (dens, fairy houses, etc.) and we like the seasonal activities.

The boys running in the Outwoods

IXL maths website

Amongst the impressive amount of online courses for children, we quite like this website. It covers maths from reception to year 11 so if you follow the national curriculum or want to see what your child would be doing in school it is a good resource.

http://uk.ixl.com

 

 

It is a subscription service (currently it costs about £7 a month) but you can use quite a lot of it before it asks you to subscribe...

I found that younger children can't really use it independently unlike the apps my boys have on the ipad, but Reuben quite likes the fact that I need to sit with him and read out the questions.

It would work well with a structured approach (lots of goals and progress tracking) and for us (who don't follow lesson plans) it is fun just to see where the boys are in terms of understanding maths concepts. When you subscribe there is a reward system that maybe autonomous learners would dislike but you can always ignore it... Overall I find that it is good value for money and good for general maths practice.

 



Make a Pop-up book

Pop-up cards and books are addictive!!! Reuben wanted to make a small card for his daddy and next thing we knew we were making a pop-up castle half as big as the table.

Our first attempt

Wizard of Oz from a template

A very good one stop website with instructions and templates to download is Robert Sauda's
http://wp.robertsabuda.com/make-your-own-pop-ups the artist and children's books illustrator. And the cards can be put together to make a book.
Here are some examples, the pop-ups are divided into simple, intermediate and advanced.

Advanced: Ship pop-up

Intermediate: Shark pop-up

Simple: Rabbit pop-up

Or you can get a ready made kit like the Creativity for Kids one.

Britannica Kids apps

We use the iPad a lot and the boys came across a Dinosaur app by Britannica Kids. It's a bit advanced for them (nearly 3 and 5, it's aimed at ages 8 to 10) but they still enjoy looking at the pictures of dinosaurs and doing the puzzles.

It's divided into different categories: The World of Dinosaurs - Dinosaur Characteristics - Death of the Dinosaurs - Discovering the Dinosaurs - Dinosaurs A-Z (featuring 36 different dinosaurs) and there is a good games and quiz section. The pictures are great too, scary but the boys like that!!

So this led me to find out if there were any more apps from Britannica and of course there are! They can be used with both smartphones/tablets and the pc/laptop, and tie in with the Britannica Kids website http://kids.britannica.com (note: the encyclopedia is subscription only but there are a lot of other resources on the website).
A list of the apps can be found here http://www.britannica.co.uk/ebproducts/Apps.asp# and this includes The solar system, Knights and castles, Egypt, Ancient Rome, Rainforests, Volcanoes, Snakes and the Aztecs

Project Noah

This is a very worthwhile, educational and fun project to get involved in. Share pictures of wildlife and plants to help document our planet's biodiversity.

It works through a smartphone app with linking website and facebook page.
Website http://www.projectnoah.org
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/#!/projectnoah

You can take pictures on your phone then post them to compare with similar ones, to add to the database or for others to help you identify the animal/plant. You can help identify organisms yourself, join missions and help build up a worldwide map.

The happy scientist

We LOVE this guy!!! http://thehappyscientist.com

Hunting with an umbrella...

Science videos and experiments galore from the American science educator Rob Krampf, mainly for older children but Reuben enjoys the videos, which are sorted into study units as well so you can either mix and match or follow progressively.

Whyzz website, children's why questions

This website is really useful, I get why questions daily (and what/when/who/where/how...) so on my many google searches I came across this website http://www.whyzz.com/index/home
Rather simply, you type the question and it gives you a simple answer plus some activity/further research ideas on the subject. If you join the site you can contribute, comment and share. There is also a phone app that goes with it and I must confess I have used it a few times!

Tate for kids website

We discovered this great website when we visited Tate St Ives about a month ago.
http://kids.tate.org.uk
Children can create their own art galleries and share them with others, play art inspired games, and our favourite bit: Tate create, lots of ideas of things to make at home based on the works in the Tate.

Websites for learning to read

Reuben, my eldest is four and a half but has been fascinated by the alphabet and reading since he was two, these are some of the resources he uses (the ages represent when Reuben started using them so it's just a vague guideline).

• Youtube and endless repetition of the alphabet song in as many guises as he could find (age 2)
• Reading Eggs http://readingeggs.co.uk/ subscription only, a lot of children use it but Reuben doesn't like the linear/building blocks approach (you must finish one activity before you go on to another) and the fact that you get eggs as rewards allowing you to use them in the arcade bit of the website. Reuben loves jumping from one task to another so got very frustrated and then he has no idea of how the rewards system works (never having been to school of received pocket money) so doesn't understand the egg thing at all... But from feedback from other home ed families, this is very popular and children enjoy it (from age 3)

• Starfall http://www.starfall.com free, and the subscription version http://more.starfall.com/m/welcome/index/load.htm we really like this website so also use the subscription one, it is phonic based (which Reuben doesn't seem to be going with, he prefers to recognise whole words) but Reuben can pick and mix his activities (also numeracy and other topics like music and art) and he really likes the story book format (from age 4)

• Early Learning at home http://www.earlylearningathome.com/home a ton of resources, mainly things to make and do at home, Reuben has not seen this himself as I tend to print things out for him if I see he has an interest in a particular area, it's the same sort of activities children do at school, see video as an example (from age 3)
• Oxford Owl http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk from the publishing house, books to read online with activities/quizzes (from age 4)

I'll be happy to hear what other children are using, and having compiled this list I realised that the biggest motivator for learning to read is necessity! Reuben uses the computer and ipad himself so he really needs to know what all the writing means!!

Oh and a little end note: I'm writing this in the evening and about half an hour ago I heard some noises from upstairs, I went to see and Reuben was still awake, sitting up in bed, "reading" Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss... a REAL paper book!!