Project 220: Birds

Serendipitously, our fourth participation in the Big Garden Birdwatch (see Project 20: Local Wildlife and Birds,  Project 68: Birds of the World!, Project 120: Birds, birds, birds) coincided with a home education workshop to create a bird box and a bird of prey centre, so it was a very busy bird-centred week. 

Unfortunately we didn't spot any birds in the garden for this year's Big Garden Birdwatch, but the children all enjoyed partaking in the (attempted) bird spotting:  

The children all enjoyed making and painting the bird box at a Ferry Meadows workshop, although the workshop was primarily leaving you to it with a bunch of wood. 

The home education event at the Herring Green Activity Farm and Birds of Prey Centre was a big hit however, as the children learned how to tie a falconer's knot...

...and even got to hold a kestrel and a harris hawk. 

 Next Project: Electricity 

Project 219: Random Science

We had a lot of science projects left over from the 'Crazy Scientist' advent calendar (see Project 212: Christmas Crafts), so we had a science focused week to catch up on them all.

Along with the detailed commentary on the science behind each experiment in the accompanying booklet, we read up on each topic in our illustrated science dictionary. 

As the 'Random Science' title suggests, there was no real theme to the science, but it included everything from creating a vortex and the conservation of energy...

...to looking at the pH scale, a facet lens, and static electricity. 

It was a really good advent calendar, but just a bit too intensive to do one experiment a day in addition to other project work in the run-up to Christmas!

Next Project: Birds 

Project 218: Typography and calligraphy

 As some of the children's handwriting leaves much to be desired, we decided to have a project on typography and calligraphy to try to encourage them to take more pride in their work.

They made use of some worksheets to practice writing with calligraphy pens, before creating there own bookmarks:

After going through a Twinkl PowerPoint on illuminated manuscripts, they used their calligraphic skills to create their own manuscripts with an appropriate biblical verse. 

They also picked their own style of lettering to produce a word of their choice:

And explored some of the different types of type that are available. 

They finished the week by watching The Secret of Kells (Again!! - see also Project 133: The United Kingdom and Project 100: The Middle Ages). 

While the children all enjoyed learning about typography and calligraphy, unfortunately there was no real notable improvement in their writing!

Next Project: Random Science

Project 217: Even More Extra Maps

Last time we tried a project on maps it went wrong from start to finish (see Project 76: More Maps), so as we haven't had a successful maps project since our second ever home education project (see Project 2: All About Maps!) it seemed a good time to have another one. 

The week started with an orienteering workshop at the local country park, which involved an orienteering task to solve a puzzle, and creating their own maps using natural resources. 

We made use of lots of Twinkl worksheets to learn about Ordnance Survey maps and compasses: 

And they went out to discover a new local geocache:

Next project: Typography

Project 216: Board Games Three

With Christmas bringing a raft of new board games, we decided it was time for another board game project (see also Project 154: More Board Games and Project 32: Board Games). 

Alongside many of the family's favourites, we played five new games. 

Forbidden Island is a cooperative card game where you have to collect treasures on a sinking island. With different roles and abilities it reminded us a bit of Pandemic, and all the children enjoyed it. 

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is a standalone expansion of Terraforming Mars, and whilst it has a few variations, if you've got the original it's probably not worth spending your money on this additional version. Solomon loves the complexity of these games, although the younger two (ages 6 and 7) are not so keen. 

Evolution is another card based game, and it introduces the notion of evolutionary traits. Solomon always wins, and is a big fan of the game, but the fact that he has memorised all the traits and their interactions means it's not much fun for the rest of us. 

Dungeons & Dragons: Adventure Begins was another game that was popular with all the children, and is a brilliant introduction to D&D as it doesn't require players to build their own characters, but retains all the key elements of the original game. 

Horrible Histories: the Board Game was a nice classic roll-and-move board game with questions, although it was let down by the quality and annoyingness of some of the questions. 

Next project: Even More Extra Maps

Project 215: Penguins

It was Sam's birthday, so his choice of project, and he wanted to learn about penguins. Unfortunately, as it was over the Christmas period, and the omicron variant was at its peak, we had to primarily make use of online materials. 

We watched a penguin documentary, followed by a Twinkl PowerPoint, and made use of lots of Twinkl worksheets:

They created their own colony of penguins using their fingerprints:

And they revisited some Scratch programming:

Finally they created their own Antarctic scene in the tuff spot:

Next project: Board Games Three

Project 214: Christmas and A Christmas Carol*

 As with Christmas 2020 (see Project 115: Christmas and the Pilgrim's Progress), we decided to have a book project to go with our Christmas week project. So, as well as the usual carol and Christingle services, we also revisited the story of A Christmas Carol (they'd watched the Muppet version way back in Project 65: Christmas and the New Year). 

As it was a busy week we decided to stick to the abridged version of the story, and also made use of a lot of Twinkl worksheets on the story. 

As it was Christmas we also included a couple of new Christmas films, with A Boy Called Christmas and 8-Bit Christmas, although neither look set to become classics. 

Next project: Penguins

(*About 6 weeks behind on writing the blog posts!)