Do They Need Teachers?

I heard tale of a teacher who recently went on a course about Lego learning in the classroom. One thing that surprised him about the training was that there was no Lego involved, it was all about the structured design process and getting the kids to write down those ideas in a way the teacher…

How to Start Homeschooling

I think a lot of new homeschool parents get quite anxious about how to start. There are so many options and so many big feelings. It’s very different if you’ve never sent your little ones to school, but if you have then what on earth do you do? Many make the mistake of immediately feeling…

Learning about cells in Minecraft

I’ve been umming and ahhhing about how to teach my children about cells. I know that its going to be boring if we sit down and try and teach them. They won’t take it in. We tried making the cell cakes using sweets for parts and it was fun, but they don’t remember anything. In…

Getting Creative with Literacy

I’ve tried so many different things over the years. My kids loved books when they were little, we’d snuggle up and I’d read to them. Then they went to a school for a few years and all that changed. They ad a specialist literacy teacher who was strict and shouty and set boring tasks. They…

Nail Polish Rainbow Science

Sometimes it feels like we’ve done all the science. Sooooo many science experiments over the years and it can sometimes feel like there aren’t any of those fun little things left to do. We’ve done some more advanced ones lately, but since we’ve needed some things where we can learn in shorter bursts, we’ve enjoyed…

Turtles and sick kids

In our house we do what we can. We have children with illnesses which means sometimes they are well and sometimes they are not. Sometimes one is well and the other is not. It’s not always easy and it’s not always fun, but the mantra is that we do what we can when we can….

Opportunistic Unschooling

Today we went for a trip to some caves. It was magical and wonderful and was supposed to be my effort to quietly fill them with some fascinating geography and it worked. On the drive home we passed a truffle farm. I’ve never tasted truffles as my budget and tastes swerve me away from the…

Precious Curiosity

When I was a child I can’t remember feeling love for my school life. It’s not that it was a terrible experience, but there were plenty of times I was embarrassed, humiliated, unsure, doing things just because that was what I was told to do. I handed in the homework with minimal effort done, mostly…

Love First, Education Follows On

When I was researching homeschooling and particularly unschooling, there were lots of posts explaining where to start. Perfectly natural, people need a beginning. It can look so different to everyone, recommendations on activities, curriculum, styles. The truth for me is that the relationship is the place to start. If you are new to homeschooling your…

Maths at the Arcade

One of the toughest and the best parts of the job is trying to make things engaging and with topics like maths that can be a challenging topic. I was excited to come across the idea of making a fantasy arcade. A lot of sites that are meant for teachers and school children have brilliant…