Project 71: Another 500 Words!

To coincide with this 500 Words Live Lesson we got the kids to write their own entries for the competition (luckily Monica will just be old enough in time!).

It seemed a bit more of a slog this year than last year, but we got there in the end.

Monica's Flower and the Marshmallow Castle

Flower’s pom-pom dress bounced like a kangaroo as she skipped out of the palace for her afternoon walk. She took her pet bear with her as well. They walked through the forest looking for juicy berries to snack on because they were hungry.  

Suddenly a big swarm of bees flew along and stung them both! They cried in pain, and stumbled through some bushes. On the other side of the bushes they saw a marshmallow castle and it looked delicious. They forgot about how much their stings hurt, and they forgot about their berry hunt, they just wanted to eat the castle! As they walked closer to it,  they heard sobbing, and looked up to see lots of princesses locked up in the highest tower. 

“Move your hairy bum,  we need to rescue them!” Flower shouted to Bear.

“I want something to eat before I do any rescuing!” Bear replied.

Flower stuck her hand into the side of the castle and scooped out a fistful of gooey marshmallow, “Here, eat this quickly, the princesses need us!”

But as bear was wolfing down the marshmallow, the side of the castle started to slip down a bit. 

“Woah did you see that Bear? The highest tower just got a bit lower down when we took out some of the marshmallow wall!”

Bear didn’t say anything, he was too busy licking his lips, “mmmmh”.

“I hope you’re hungry Bear, we’ve got a lot of eating to do!”

Flower and Bear both started scooping out handfuls of marshmallow from the castle walls and gobbled as fast as they could. Their lips were sticky and their cheeks were bursting but they carried on shovelling in pink goodness. The highest tower was now nearly as low as Bear, and the trapped princesses shouted through the window, “Hurry, the King will be back soon and he will turn you into jelly tots if he catches you!” 

“You’re nearly low enough now,” Flower said, “Bear, pull at the candy cane window bars and we can lift them out!”

The candy cane bars easily snapped as Bear yanked at them, so he reached in to lift the princesses out, when the King suddenly came back. 

“Who dares to ruin my castle and steal my princesses!!” the King thundered.

“Why were these princesses locked up?” Flower asked. 

“I was going to put them in my new ice cream chocolate bar to make it sweeter, and now the recipe will be ruined!!” the King replied.

One of the princesses who had just been rescued from the tower ran towards the King and grabbed his Wrapper Zapper from his inside cloak pocket, she stood back, and then pulled the trigger. The King was zapped, and wrapped in a shiny new chocolate bar wrapper!

Bear had been busy eating the broken candy cane bars and hadn’t noticed what the princess had done, and when he turned round and saw the wrapper, he said, “mmmh, that looks tasty!”, and all the princesses laughed.

Solomon's An Adventure in TaKlinkiKlonk

“I want those ones” Sam said to the shopkeeper, pointing to the blue and yellow sweets on the top shelf in the darkest corner of the shop. 

“Those are very special magic sweets” said the shopkeeper “you can only buy them if you promise to just eat one at a time.”

“Yes, I promise.”

Sam pays for the sweets and leaves the shop with the small bag, putting the first of the sweets in his mouth as soon as he gets outside. It was like an avalanche of fruity tastes, and before he knew what had happened Sam put another sweet in his mouth.

Sam suddenly found himself in a jungle! All around him were trees, and in the trees were strange creatures. He could see lions with wings chasing monkeys with wings. An elephant with extra trunks instead of tusks eating leaves from three trees at once. A pink striped zebra with a lion’s mane was singing a song and a wingless parrot was floating in the air.

“This must be a magical jungle” thinks Sam, and just then a whale with legs came crashing through the trees and Sam jumped out of the way just in time. 

“Hello. Excuse me Pink Zebra” he called “where am I?”

“This is the magical jungle of TaKlinkiKlonk, where all the animals live happily except King Roar, a flying disappearing lion. As long as you keep out of his way, you’ll enjoy a lovely visit.” It was too late though, as just then, Sam heard an almighty ROAARRR and King Roar appeared before him. 

“I am the King of this jungle, you do not belong here” snarled Roar at Sam.
Suddenly Sam was lifted into the air by the invisible lion. The King’s sharp claws dug into his skin as he was lifted high above the trees. Sam tried to wriggle free but Roar had a tight grip on him, and flew him to his castle where he threw him in a cage and locked him up. 

Sam saw Roar sitting asleep on his stone throne not far from the cage. Sam grabbed a magic sweet from his pocket. He was just about to eat it, when he decided to try something different. With all of his strength, he hurled the sweet into Roar’s eye. The lion woke up and roared an almighty ROAAARRR, but it was too late, the lion was starting to fizzle and shrink. Steam was coming out of the lion’s ears and he looked terrified! After 2 minutes, all that was left of the lion was a pile of claws. 

After eating his last two magic sweets, Sam returned home to the real world. He skipped down his street, happy that he defeated Roar of the magical jungle of TaKlinkiKlonk. He opened his front door excited to be home and safe, “You’re late for dinner!! No dessert for you tonight!” shouted his mum. 

‘Oh well,” said Sam, “you can’t win every battle.”   

Next week's project: The Climate

Project 70: Fabric crafts

This week's project was designed to coincide with a home education workshop at the local Peterborough museum called Fabric of Society, to coincide with the exhibition of the same name.

Unfortunately the workshop itself had very little to do with the Fabric of Society exhibition (at least for the younger group). In the first part they were read a story called Welcome, with an unsubtle message about climate change and refugees, and the children then had to create a picture associated with the story with the craft materials available. In the second part they were told to look at the Just Be Normal Exhibition, and then make a person with the craft materials available  

Workshop creations

Workshops relating to a specific exhibitions are a great learning opportunity, but of course they should actually relate to the exhibit!

We also bought a number of craft kits to introduce Solomon and Monica to crafts they wouldn't have tried previously. They made pom-poms:

Pom-pom Trolls

They sewed hand puppets:

Pirate Puppets

And they started some cross stitch key rings - although these are still a work in progress:

Cross stitch key rings

We also bought some children's knitting needles to introduce them to the basics of knitting, but unfortunately there just wasn't time as so much time was spent untying knots with the earlier activities! The Baker Ross craft kits were reasonably priced, and a great introduction to the crafts, but they did require a lot of parental help - especially as the instructions weren't always particularly clear.

Monica in particular enjoyed the craft activities, and it seems likely that she will return to some of these activities in the future.

Next week's project: Another 500 Words!
(see also the original 500 words - Project 21: Writing a Short Story).

Project 69: The Tudors

This week's project was initiated by the Katherine of Aragon festival that was taking place at Peterborough Cathedral, where she is buried.

The week started with lots of reading and videos about life in Tudor times, the kings and queens (especially Henry VIII), the reformation, and the dissolution of the monasteries. We also looked at the impact of Shakespeare at the end of the Tudor period, and some of the idioms he introduced to our language. Solomon and Monica chose to watch the animated Richard III twice!

There was a school's day at the cathedral as part of the Katherine of Aragon festival and a group of home educated children took part. They wore monks' scapulas, tried singing in plainsong, learned about the history of the cathedral, Katherine of Aragon, monk's manuscripts, and had a go at using a quill and ink to write their name.

Solomon and Monica's manuscripts

The day finished with a talk on arms and armoury, and whilst Monica wanted to try on a gauntlet, Solomon was more interested in asking questions on the suitability of using arrows to scale walls and hitting people on the head with hammers.

The Armoury

Finally they finished off the week by designing their own ruffs at home.

Ruffs

Next week: Fabric crafts
.

Project 68: Birds of the world!

This week's project was dictated in part by a home education workshop on 'Winter Bird Watching and Bird Feeders' that was taking place at Ferry Meadows, the local country park. We have enjoyed a number of local wildlife projects previously(Project 20: Local Wildlife and Birds, Project 51: Pond Life, Project 57: Living things and their habitats), and it's always nice to have a bit more structure when exploring the local wildlife.

The work shop consisted of making some bird feeders, going on a bird spotting walk, and drawing some of the birds they could see.

Apple bird feeders

It's worth noting that the apple and seed bird feeders have not gone down as well as last year's fat balls!

After watching some videos about birds, the classification system,and Carl Linnaeus, as well as the birds episode of Attenborough's Life, we asked the children to pick an order of birds from the Animal encyclopaedia to learn more about and create their own artworks. Monica picked flamingos and Solomon picked parrots. They both loved videos of parrots talking, and we had to find them extra ones to watch.

Tissue paper flamingo and parrot

Unfortunately, the home education workshop on birds came a week before the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch, so we do not yet know whether we will spot more than last year's "one measly pigeon", although the children are already looking forward to building their hide.

Next week's project: The Tudors.
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UPDATE 27/01/2019

Once again we took part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch - briefly discussing citizen science and building a 'hide' for spotting some birds in the garden. Thankfully it was slightly more successful than last year, with a chaffinch, starling, and collared dove landing in the garden.

Children taking part in the #BigGardenBirdwatch

Submitting our most successful year!

Project 67: Trends and Fashions

Solomon suggested 'popularity' as this week's project; why some things are more popular than others. Building on this idea we looked at how trends and fashions change over time, considering the impact of usefulness and aesthetics, with particular attention to three areas: language, clothes and technology.

These days it is easy to see how language changes over time with tools like Google ngram viewer and Google Trends, and both Monica and Solomon enjoyed exploring the rise and fall of different terms in books and search engines.

Minecraft, Fortnite and Mario Odyssey

There are also plenty of resources for exploring changing fashions of clothes, from sticker books, stories, to plenty of online videos:

Surprisingly, Monica's book of Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World, also included the story of Coco Chanel and her little black dress. Surprising because there are a number of questions about the extent of Chanel's Nazi sympathies. Whilst the book promoted the freedom of the little black dress in comparison to earlier restrictive clothing, it also inadvertently formed the basis of a far more  pertinent message on fashion: you can be the most fashionable person in the world, but it's not worth a damn if you're a Nazi!

We also dug up a wide range of old and new technology from around the house to explore ideas of technological progress and convergence. Exploring everything from a box brownie camera and 3.5 inch floppy disks to a Sony walkman and Nokia 3310.

Based on fashion, transport or technology, Monica and Solomon were asked to suggest a future trend. Monica designed a 'moon hat', a hat which keeps your head dry without messing up your hair. Solomon designed the Fun-Travel-500 Car, with soft play areas and roof trampolines.

'Moon hat' and 'Fun-Travel-500'

Finally we finished the week by considering a couple of models for how we can think about trends and fashions with online simulators, exploring both the idea of contagion and Schelling's model of segregation. Solomon really took to exploring the simulators, especially Schelling's model, and explored the idea independently with his Bloxels kit, exploring how people might sort themselves into groups if there were more than two different types of people who wanted to live next to similar people. It was one of those moments when you could really see the advantage offered by home education: it is not merely that you can cover subjects that would never be introduced at school, but when a topic piques their interest they have the freedom to explore it as much or as little as they like.

Next week's project: Birds of the world!

Project 66: The Jungle Book

After the exhaustion of Christmas we wanted a more sedate project to start the New Year with, and decided to tackle another classic of literature The Jungle Book. 

The Jungle Book is a collection of short stories, of which the most famous are about Mowgli and have been made into films. As well as reading the three short stories about Mowgli in The Jungle Book, we watched both the classic 1967 animated film and Disney's 2016 CGI version. We decided against Netflix's Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle  because it is supposed to be a bit more violent, but also because three Jungle Book films in one week is probably a bit too much! Both Monica and Solomon preferred the cartoon version to the 2016 version.

To accompany the release of the 2016 version, Disney published activity worksheets as well as an educators' guide to The Jungle Book, with ideas for discussing the story, exploring characters, the ecology of the jungle, and creating your own story.

Monica and Solomon were given the task of creating their own characters, drawing a picture of them and coming up with their own story. Monica decided to create a story about a bat, and Solomon one about a cobra.

Monica's bat (flying in the top picture) and Solomon's cobra

Baghed and the Den by Solomon

Mowgli was in the trees to find some fruit to eat and also to find some sticks and bark to make a den with to sleep in as it was nearly night time. While he is building his den in the trees he sees an odd shaped branch, which he tries to pick up, but it turns out to be Baghed the Indian Cobra. Baghed doesn’t move. Then Mowgli sees a knot in the branch so he realises it is some kind of animal. He says, ‘Who are you?’

Baghed replies, ‘I am Baghed the lovely!’ 

Mowgli asks Baghed if he will act like a branch and be a wall in his den, as it is nearly dark and he needs to go to sleep.

Baghed says, ‘Yes, I will be part of your den.’

Mowgli settles down to sleep, then Baghed moves and the den collapses making Mowgli fall from the tree into a clump of stinging plants. 

Baghed whacks Mowgli with his tail to knock him out so that he can then eat him. 

Mowgli gets a stick to protect himself, and starts to whack Baghed. Baghed slithers off with a broken nose. Mowgli finishes rebuilding his den, and has a good night’s sleep.   

Mowgli and the Cave by Monica

Mowgli needs somewhere to sleep for the night, as he wanders along, he comes across a cave. The cave looks orangey, and is well sheltered from the rain.  Mowgli decides to go inside to take cover from the rain. Once inside he lies down to get some sleep. Bewkey the bat suddenly flies in through the cave entrance and sees Mowgli lying on the cold hard floor, so she decides to go and get some leaves to make a softer bed for him.

When Bewkey returns with the leaves, she accidentally wakes Mowgli up while trying to put the leaves under him. Mowgli is shocked, and tries to run away. But Bewkey catches up with him, and tells him she wants to help him. Mowgli explains he is trying to get back to his wolf family without running into Shere Khan the tiger. Bewkey uses her echolocation to help guide him through the dark jungle at night time, back to his home.  Bewkey decides to stay with Mowgli and the wolves for the night, and she often comes to visit Mowgli at night to make sure he is okay and bring him food. 

Working with the worksheets and the animal encyclopedia 

Next week's project: Trends and Fashions

Project 65: Christmas and the New Year

Rather than trying to add an additional project to the hectic Christmas schedule we had a two-week project focusing on Christmas and the New Year. Unsurprisingly, this included many activities done previously (Project 12: Time and Calendars, Project 15: All about Christmas!). 

Once again we made Christmas cookies, taught the children about the nativity, why we celebrate Christmas, Christmas traditions, and how the story of Father Christmas has evolved from older traditions including that of Saint Nicholas. They went to the Christingle service at the Cathedral, the Peter Pan pantomime at the local theatre (see also Project 46: Peter Pan), and even tried to watch The Nutcracker ballet on the TV (although despite knowing the story the ballet didn't engage their attention in the same way as the Hansel and Gretel opera had (see Project 63: Fairy Tales and Folklore)).

Some Christmas 2018 activities

We also focused a bit more closely on the story of A Christmas Carol, reading the Usborne Young Reading Series version, and watching The Muppet Christmas Carol and the very accessible BBC documentary Charles Dickens and the Invention of Christmas. 

We watched a couple of videos on the months of the year, and discussed how the calendar had evolved over time and was based on lunar and solar cycles. It also gave their father the opportunity to have his annual rant on the arbitrary nature of January 1st as New Year's Day! 

Next week's project: The Jungle Book