Homeschoolingmama

I was kindly offered the opportunity to complete a free session using FushaHouse arabic. Arabic has been a language that I've always wanted to learn, and it's also a language I've been passionate about. As little person has taken to writing and reading in English, Arabic was the second language I wanted him to learn. When learning a language, it is important to find resources that are easy to use, especially for younger learners. Over time I have tried so many books, apps and websites, but if the resource isn't exciting or encapsulating, young leaners loose interest very quickly. There is nothing worse than spending so much money and zero use. Nevertheless, I believe we have found a resource that ticks all the boxes. FushaHouse offers interactive learning, it is also child user friendly and the pace enables children to feel at ease, without feeling overwhelmed very quickly into the process. A lot of language resources seem to very quickly move on from basics to

Children are curious about the world around them, and very curious about the body and its workings. I've always felt that it is important to feed this curiosity with as much information the child can understand as possible. That is where this absolutely fantastic book 'So you want to build a human?' comes to play.  First impressions A lot of books you'll find are generally A4 size. It's a great workable size, however, an A4 size book with lots of contents is always daunting, and I find it hard to encourage little person to at least try and read some of the information. The books appear overwhelming, and I've already lost part of the battle. The great thing about 'So you want to build a human?' is the size. Larger than A4 (but we're not talking huge A3 size), the size makes a huge difference to the presentation. The lager area means everything feels neatly spaced out, doesn't feel like an overload of writing and means kids love

Little person eagerly stated he wanted to learn Spanish a while back. I was thrilled, languages are so important, and I do believe every new language opens a new door. If you're bilingual, you'll understand how meaning and emotion is lost through translation. In order to understand cultures and people, I am a firm believer that language is the most important aspect of all; once you open that door, you can enter a whole new world! His decision to want to learn spanish was great, but having only ever undertaken a 6 week course about 15 years ago, I realised that this would mean both of us learning and not just him. In order to start and enjoy this learning journey, I needed to search out resources that would provide the knowledge but fun was an essential add on. Without fun, play or laughter learning is difficult and difficult mundane learning equates to very slow progress as well as the child losing the love for learning. One of the resources I found and we have loved sin

We recently received this wonderful fact filled pack from Archiboldclutterbuck (to read more about Archiboldclutterbuck  resources click here). Contents and what we think The pack is made up of an activity booklet and a poster. The poster is a great visual tool; with in depth (but not overbearing-too much to read) information about 6 critically endangered animals across the globe. Each animal is listed with a fact file (for instance type of animal, habitat etc), and reason as to why they are critically endangered. For each animal listed there is a beautiful photograph; I do believe having photography in such posters and texts is important , as it really does bring the whole concept and idea to 'life'. We love the poster as it's a great size, vibrant and easy to understand, with all the vital information but without too much to read, making it a perfect poster!  The activity pack is what you would ideally expect when teaching endangered animals. Learning fo

'Space Race' is a key stage 2 board game by Oaka books, focussing on physics, following the national curriculum closely. In order to appreciate why this game is different, it's important to look at what makes Oaka books unique. The idea behind Oaka books is that the resources are designed with focus on visual learners and Oaka books ensures areas such as dyslexia are not ignored. 'Oaka’s aim is to make curriculum based topics easy for everyone with their fantastic range of visual learning guides. All of the packs are curriculum based and with the colourful, fully illustrated and clearly laid out designs they are ideal for visual learners. They include memory maps, glossaries of key words and terms, as well as Oaka Active Learning Maps (with character cards) or Games (with flashcards). We have over 47 Oaka topic packs and revision guides for children at KS3/CE level helping them to understand key topics for a range of subjects from Science and French to Geography and

If you like the idea of being able to print packs (containing all the information needed to teach the specific topic), I do believe taking a look at ' Teaching Packs ' is a good idea. Teaching Packs cover a wide range of subjects, from maths, English, science, geography, history and much more.  In order to explain a little bit more about teaching packs, I thought it would be a wise idea to use three recent packs we have downloaded and printed as examples.  Poetry pack For English, we are planning on covering poetry, and as one can imagine the topic encompasses quite a lot. Ideally, when we start a new topic I like to have all the information required at hand, so we can look through the topic as a whole (rather than teaching new ideas at a later date - usually going over the ideas again is more our style).  Therefore, as you can imagine, finding all the resources on Teaching packs was brilliant! Why is this pack so good, I hear you ask! The reason this pack ticks

Tutor In A Box is a great maths subscription box, designed to support your child's learning whilst fully incorporating the national curriculum. When I first discovered Tutor In A Box, I couldn't wait to try the boxes, so as soon as the primary boxes launched, I made sure to subscribe (as quickly as possible!). The first box we received was all about place value- not including decimals  (I've subscribed to the year 5 boxes). This being the first maths resource of this type, that we decided to try, meant we were very excited to get started!  So what's included? The place value box has the following contents: 2 yellow cards- one outlining year 5/6 goals, and the second one with clear list of vocabulary children should be familiar with.  Mint green card - a place value chart. This card neatly and concisely outlines all the important information children should learn and understand. The chart intricately shows the breakdown of numbers; clearly illustrating