Homeschoolingmama

If you've had a chance to look through my instagram page or read any of my reviews, you'll notice that I do like Orchard toys.  There are a few reasons why I like Orchard toys games, they are: The quality of the products is superb. All of the games we have are still as good as new, and that's after lots of play! They are excellent educational games. Orchard toys design and produce some very good educational games that I can use instead of pen and paper.  They are inexpensive for the quality and product being purchased.  They are unique, you cannot find copies of the games or similar games. They are fun! That is so important, not only do children learn whilst playing, but they also have ever so much fun. Slug in a Jug This is one of our newest Orchard toys games. The concept is simple, help children with rhyming words. It is aimed at children from 5-9 years of a...

Dekko comics  I wanted to share another  superb  resource  we've been using more recently - Dekko comics.  As a family that are structured during some months, semi structured during others and completely autonomous for some, Dekko comics have been a brilliant resource to have and use.  I saw these fab comics, and decided to order all 12 back issues, I knew they would be invaluable (so why waste time buying one at a time?!) What makes them so good? Each issue covers a variety of subjects, with  in-depth  explanations to  foreign   language  scripts. The layout is fun and exciting, a colourful comic, but full of facts. These comics  work so well,  because  children  enjoy  the idea of 'relaxing and reading a comic for fun', but at  the  same pick up information - without being bored and tied down to a desk! Little person has enjoyed reading ...

We were kindly sent a copy of Scoop magazine to review. The magazine is aimed at 7+, and it is ' a feast of words and pictures for kids.'  First Impressions Upon opening up the magazine, we were positively surprised with the quality and quantity of content. There is enough content in the magazine to keep a child entertained and busy for a long while. The best thing about Scoop magazine is, the fact that there aren't any adverts. It is rather frustrating at times, when a children's magazine is full of adverts for days out or toys, not only does it feel like you've paid to see adverts, but they're a distraction and the space can be better used with quality content. The magazine, contents and structure Issue 20 of Scoop magazine is all about imagination. What an interesting topic, that is rarely thought or talked about in our house! I won't bore you with the finer details, but will outline some of the articles little person has enjoyed the most, a...

Diary Of A Wimpy Kid - by Jeff Kinney My 7 year old son has been zooming through the 'Diary of a Wimpy kid' book set, he's laughed and loved reading these books. Now, normally, I wouldn't read any of the books he reads, however, when a fellow home ed mum asked what the books are like on instagram, it got me thinking....and reading!  Thus, having completed the first book, I felt it's time to share my thoughts. Book review 'Diary of a Wimpy kid' is a hilarious book, written as a diary by Greg (journal - Greg's mums idea for him to keep a record and write feelings down, but he is adamant it is a journal and not diary), following his adventures during the school year. It is full of embarrassing, crazy and funny moments for Greg, and his best friend Rowley. There are times when you feel a little irked with Greg’s decisions, but ultimately, you like the guy! Rowley is a great friend, and at times you do fe...

BANANAGRAMS I can't explain how much excitement I feel when I find a resource, game or book that enables me to incorporate schooling whilst using it. I was thinking about word games that I could buy, thing is, there are so many websites and apps, but I really wanted something that would mean zero screen time whilst playing it. Whilst browsing through  Waterstones  website, a game called 'Bananagrams' caught my eye. I don't think I'd ever heard of it before, but it looked like it offered what I needed (and was cheaper than a few other games I had in mind). What is this banana mania all about? 'BANANAGRAMS is a labour of love, grown out of a passion for wit, wordplay and silliness...'  And that is what the game is in a nutshell...but I'm happy with that, as a wordplay game is what I needed. The game consists of 144 letter tiles. If you've played scrabble, the tiles are very similar (no score numbers on the tiles though, but these a...

I 've found myself digging out a lot of resources I used for my 8 year old to use with 3 year old (or start to plan using them).  When I first started 'teaching' little person, I was overwhelmed with all the information out there. Teaching to read seemed like an impossible task, and I was wary we were never going to get anywhere. The world of phonics was a new thing, I'd never learnt to read like that, and so teaching seemed so tricky. There were too many words that didn't follow the patterns we were learning using phonics, and it was then that I finally understood the concept of some words simply being sight words. Sight words are words that are learnt through sight (as the name implies!), so this meant I needed resources where those words were constantly used and looked at. This is where the next fun game (well 2) come in... The games During my late night scrolling, I came across Learning resources, POP games.  The games are so simple to use, but they made...

Handwriting and creative writing notebook My 7 year old  excitedly  held up his new notebooks and  exclaimed  with happiness, 'I now have the tools to write away!' As  we've  both been so thrilled with the notebooks,  I  thought a blogpost was in order! We have the lovely handwriting notebook and the creative writing notebook. Continue reading for our impressions of the two... Notebook of story writing  The first thing about the story writing notebook is the lovely cover. It is a great design, both child friendly but not too young for a 7 year old boy! 'Let the adventure begin...' is a great caption for the cover of a notebook to be filled with all sorts of adventures.  Within the notebook, there is a mountain of knowledge, making story writing so much easier and fun. I love how the notebook begins with an explanation of adjectives, and examples to work through.  This fantas...

When I first came across ‘countdown’ game, I was thrilled. Having watched the game show most of my childhood, it was a delightful find! If you’ve watched the game show, you’ll know that the game has three categories, letters, numbers and conundrum. The board game follows the exact structure, closer it is to the actual game show the better! So how does this board game work?  It is a very easy to set up game. Even the pencils are provided, which means no running around trying to find a pencil! For the letters round, the vowels and consonants are placed in two separate piles, face down. One player has the choice of selecting consonant or vowel, and a total of 9 letters are chosen. The 60 second timer is set, and all the players get to work thinking of the longest word they can make. Player with the longest word gets the points.  Numbers round is very similar, 5 numbers are chosen. The numbers are split into large and small, and again the player choosing selects how ...

Little person has struggled with creative writing for sometime. He fell in love with the idea of writing after watching and reading 'captain Underpants' -finished the series! It was more of a struggle with trying to get the idea onto paper.  We tried a few workbooks, worksheets but they all seemed to quickly work through the important ideas, which is great, but we needed something that focussed on each point at a slower pace. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to find 'The Usborne creative writing book'.  THE BOOK The reasons this book is so good, is not only because to works on each idea at what I feel is a lovely slow pace to ensure the idea is embedded, but the fact that it opens up different styles of writing and ideas.  The book works through character building, and a fab way it starts this is by working on the person completing the tasks. Little person had a lot of fun noting important information about himself, whic...