Book Reviews: Milky Moments and Who's Not in School?

I am so very proud of a cluster of writing friends who have all published incredible books this year. 

Having ventured down this path ourselves, I will never underestimate again just how much goes into producing a book. It's exciting, exhausting, expensive, stressful and what I didn't anticipate is just how very vulnerable you feel when the work is launched. You doubt every detail, you nervously wait for a response and I think anyone who dares push themselves that hard for something they believe in deserves our support and praise.

Twinkl, you little star! Free Learning Resources

I use a variety of learning resources when helping Natty with homework, when we used to hem school and when simply helping her learn about the world around her. 

Natty, like many children with Down's syndrome is a visual and a kinesthetic (actions) learner, so colourful and interesting visual resources that capture her interest are key.

One of my favourite sites is Twinkl.
If you are a teacher you will already be using their 93,000 lovely and unique teaching resources' daily, but you might not be familiar with them as a parent.

Teaching a Visual Learner about Jobs

I haven't written one of our HOME SCHOOLING posts for a while now.

I flexi-school Natty at home one day per week which allows her a quiet day with undivided attention to focus on her reading, writing and numeracy skills. We also do a hearty slice of life skills, such as cooking, laundry sorting, grocery shopping, even bed-making. We then usually fit in a SWIM or a run on the beach. Natty gets a mid-week rest which she so often needs and, quite simply, we love our time together.

This half term the topic at school is JOBS. Natty knew a few of the more obvious roles, perhaps those involving uniforms or the ones that feature in her life like doctors and dentists. The other jobs I chose to focus on today were those I knew she understood and had met, but perhaps didn't know the term for. So here are the activities we enjoyed together:

1) I found and copied pictures of people doing jobs. These are readily available to download free from many online educational sites.

2) I copied 2 sheets of these images. Natty coloured in and drew on one as we chatted about what the people were doing.

3) I cut up Natty's coloured in sheet to make smaller individual flash cards. We labelled each picture with the job title.

4) Natty matched the flashcard to each picture and we repeated the words and talked about what the people were doing again, using Makaton if necessary.

5) We then went to find a story about jobs and cuddled up to read together. Natty chose Doctor Daisy.

6) Finally we raided the dressing up box and Natty dressed in as many different job outfits as she could think of. As you can see from the doctor's afro (formerly to be spotted on Daddy Downs Side Up at a 70s party) Natty had a free range over her choice of what to wear for each outfit.

Mind you, the firewoman's backwards baseball cap is a little unorthodox too.

There is no right or wrong way to teach your child at home. Just choose what they enjoy doing and adapt it. Most of all have fun and enjoy each other's company.

For more ideas such as learning about fruit and veg, shapes, textures, reading and writing skills, have a look at our ACTIVITIES TO TRY AT HOME page.

Blending CVC Words and Making Biscuits!

Learning to read and write through cooking. What better way to a little girl's head, than through her tummy. Here's what Natty and I got up to on our latest home school day.

1) We looked at pictures I had downloaded of ingredients for our cookies. (Constipation busting ones of course!) We said the words aloud together, shouted and whispered them, giggling.

2) I gave Natty 2 copies of each picture and she did a little matching game all by herself, finding 'the same'.

3) Then we took the pictures to the food cupboard/fridge and using the visual prompts, Natty found each ingredient.

4) We assembled the ingredients and together weighed and mixed them.

5) After rolling out the dough, Natty created her own shapes and I cut freehand letter shapes, which we then baked.

6) Then the really fun bit. Natty made words from the cookies and drew around each letter with her finger, using the Ruth Miskin flashcards and chanting the rhyme to remember how to write each one.
p - down the plait and round the pirate's head
i - down the insect's body and a dot for its head
n - down the net and around the net
t - down the tower and across the tower
s - down the snake
a - round the apple and down the leaf

Natty traces round the letters with her finger.

7) We ate our words!

Cookie recipe from the BBC adapted to bust constipation!
I usually mix flaxseed/ crushed linseeds in with the seed/nut element of the recipe as this is a gentle but powerful laxative, and replace some of the flour with wholemeal flour. I have been known to include some prune juice too. You can add cocoa powder to make chocolate cookies if your children like that.

Here are some we made earlier!

Teaching Shapes in a Visual Way

Today was Home Education/Flexi Schooling day when Natty and I spend some quality time together and she get undisturbed learning time.

Sadly she had her flu jab this afternoon and came home and chilled out on the sofa, snuggling me. But we had a very productive morning learning about shapes.

Here's what we did for CIRCLES and SQUARES.

1) We went on a treasure hunt around the house (using loo roll binoculars) to look for square and circular objects. We collected them on a tray, saying each word aloud.

2) Natty sorted the objects according to shape, with help.

3) We decide to make a picture with the circles. 

Natty made this caterpillar. I love the eyes!

4) Natty carefully drew around the shapes to make an impression 

of her collage on the paper. Sometimes I held the objects still and guided her hands. Great for fine motor skills development!

5) Natty signed her masterpiece proudly, using her emerging writing skills.

6) Natty stuck her circle painting on the radiator for all to see.

A simple, and virtually free activity any child will enjoy.

You might like to read about our writing tips here

Or find another fun activity that your little one might enjoy here

Our Fruit and Veg learning day + a great video

Home Education Day: Fruit and Veg

I know that many of you are interested in what we have been doing during our one flexi-school day at home each week. It's going really well and Natty and Mummy are enjoying quality time to enjoy learning together.

I thought you might like to see what we got up to last week...

The topic being covered at school was Healthy Eating and Fruit and Vegetables so I planned a series of activities that covered science, reading, writing, literacy, numeracy and life skills using this topic as an umbrella.

1) We took a shopping bag and went around the kitchen collecting as many fruits and vegetables as we could, including fresh, tinned and dried varieties. We said the names of each aloud. Natty loved putting them in the bag and heaving it around, shouting 'ooooh, heavy'.

2) I spread 2 bath towels down on the floor and labelled one fruit, the other vegetables. Natty and I said each word, then I spent a while shouting out the words while she jumped to the appropriate towel, pointing to the right word. I made a huge fuss of her for being able to read the words 'fruit' and 'vegetables'. What a proud girl :)

3) We took the fruit and veg out of Natty's shopping bag one at a time. This time I encouraged her to remember the names of each item. She needed help with a few and we used Makaton to back this up. We talked about the colour of each item too, again using Makaton as reinforcement where necessary.

4) I encouraged Natty to decide if each item was a fruit or a vegetable and sort them.  There were multiples of some. This was a challenging task, so I helped by saying that fruit are 'sweet and juicy' and that we generally 'cook vegetables'. I added a fruit bowl to the fruit towel and a saucepan to the vegetables one as a visual prompt of this.

5) We moved on to our numeracy task, using our home starter kit of Numicon. This is an invaluable sensory, visual system that uses colours and shapes to represent each number. Natty found 1 tomato, 2onions, 3 carrots, 4 grapes and 5 potatoes and so on. We set them out on the floor in order and then Natty matched the numeral and the Numicon shape to each number set.

6) After a little break and a healthy snack of one of the bananas and some grapes, Natty and I went back to the kitchen to prepare a homemade vegetable soup. We took all the vegetables from the first activities. Natty washed her hands and put on her chef's set. I went to Spotify to find some vegetable themed songs to play (there were scores of them!) and off we went. I was very nervous about Natty using a serrated knife to chop, but she did very well with guidance although my heart was in my mouth the whole time. You know your child and what they are capable of. Always supervise such activities closely.
Natty then poured in the liquid and stirred while dancing.

The amusing moment Natty remembered she'd taken off her apron earlier!

7) We tidied up and had some lunch and then began our writing practice. We wrote 'a' 's' 'p' and 't' in plates filled with oats and dried beans, then on each other's backs, in the air, on the floor. We wrote the letters on paper (Natty finds a rubber pencil grip helpful for pencil control) using the Ruth Miskin ideas for formation ('a' round the apple and down the leaf...), firstly tracing over dots and then freehand.

8) Time for a quick burst of literacy practice. We went through the flashcards in Natty's current book (one from the Oxford Reading Tree series), then matched the cards to the 'same' words in the text. We then read the book and talked about the story.

9) And we still had time for a swim before going back to school to collect Mia :)

Mummy was shattered and in bed by 9pm!

The New School/ Home Ed Term

We've been dropped on the shore of a new term, today our first day back, having ridden the crest of a wave all through the summer holidays.  

It was our best summer ever, the girls were super company, got on well for the most part, and the house was filled with visiting family end to end. I think we only watched Mary Poppins about 87 times too, which wasn't too bad going ;) Read about our summer experience here : Looking Back, Looking Forward

Now we are ready to plough on, full of enthusiasm and determination to be better organised, get up earlier, work harder and happier, fit in more play and leisure time and ditch the stress. (ahem, that is not unrealistic is it?)

Natty has moved up into year 1 alongside her peers. New classroom, new teacher, new (slightly higher) loos. The few teething troubles of last year have hopefully been ironed out. The new class format is more table-based and formal, in a warm, colourful welcoming way. Gone is the role play corner and boxes of dressing up. This could go one of two ways, but I'll wager that Natty will thrive and soar with less distraction, freedom, (chaos even) and will don the more grown up hat of a year 1... we'll see. Maybe it was the exciting air that made it seem OK for Natty to push her classmates. I hope that this behaviour will also dissappear. We haven't seen it over the summer.

Also new for this academic school year is that I will be teaching Natty from home for one day a week. This wouldn't be for everyone, but I felt it was right for us.  I didn't want to Home Ed entirely, as Natty thrives in the school environment, a popular and communicative pupil. She has learnt so much from the daily routine of school and I cannot begin to compete with their resources, and quite frankly, I'm not sure my sanity would stand up to 24/7 education. But this particular balance feels right. Our amazingly supportive Head is behind us, understanding fully my reasons and thinking.

Essentially on our one 'playing schools at home' day, I will stir a mixture of what is going on currently at school with what is coming up in the following week. I will add a generous measure of life skills and a sprinkling of sporty fun.

Why can't you do all this in the evenings and at weekends? I hear you cry. Well, when the girls are at home I treat them equally. We play and bake and read together, but it's impossible to tell one to go away while I quietly work with the other. This way I can have undisturbed learning time with Natty without Mia feeling pushed out of the equation, or, as is more likely, feeling she wants to be the teacher.

Our Wednesdays will be fluid and subject to change, but tomorrow's plan looks like this:

Drop Mia at school

Do a short shopping trip, using a magnetic shopping list. Ask Natty to pint out the right shop then  encourage her to ask for the items such as apples and bread, help bag them up and pay.

Go home for a good 2 hours formal learning comprising:
Reading current school book - reinforce with key words and flashcards. Make sensory words, using sand glued onto card.
visit www.oxfordprimary.co.uk website for additional, alternative activities for the same book.

Finish summer scrapbook by sticking in photos, leaflets from places visited, adding drawings and labelling.

Begin our Days of the Week project, incorporating Makaton, pictures of what we do on different days, using our velcro calendar and wearing the appropriate socks and pants for that day! Make colourful shapes with each day of the week and blu tac onto kitchen window!

Then we will do some life skills in the afternoon.
Having collected eggs and looked after the chickens, I plan to make cookies tomorrow (constipation-busting ones of course). I have printed images of all the ingredients and we will do a matching game with them, then find the ingredients in the kitchen. When we've made the cookies we will glue the cards into our book and Natty can write 'and' between each one. Her first recipe card!

Then we'll get Mia, come home, run round the garden, plan tea, do homework, bla bla bla.
Don't expect to see me on Twitter on a Wednesday evening. I will most probably be tucked up in bed at a reasonable hour for once.