Art

A River Scene

Hannah has been enjoying practising with her watercolour paints this week. In the second picture she tried some texture by adding sugar and glue to make the sand!

Egyptian Pyramids

A Visit To Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum

On February 7th it will be the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens birth, and his birth place is right here in Portsmouth. So, yesterday Hannah and I met with two other homeschooling families we are friends with and went to visit his birthplace museum.

It is a small 3 story house in the centre of Portsmouth, and has been recreated to look as it would have done in 1812.


The Dining Room
The Parlour
This was Charles Dickens' crib.
The Bedroom where he was born.
Each room has information boards - here is Hannah reading about the bedroom.

We came across a maid in the attic!
And Hannah tried on a washmaids cap and apron!The children really enjoyed seeing around the house, and all chose some resources to buy in the shop to do next time we all get together.

Children's Concert

Today we joined some of our homeschooling friends at The Children's Concert performed by Southern Pro Musica at The Guildhall in Portsmouth.

This was Hannah's first taste of classical music and she really enjoyed it.




The program was chosen especially for children and was as follows:

Overture 'Ruslan and Lyudmila' - Glinka
Meet The Orchestra - Jonathon Willcocks (he is also the orchestra's conductor)
The Arrival Of The Queen Of Sheba -Handel
Tubby The Tuba - Kleinsinger
Waltz From Swan Lake - Tchaikovsky
Trumpet Concerto (Finale) - Hummel
Hornpipe - arr. Henry Wood
Tritsch-Tratsch Polka -J Strauss
Wigwam - Jonathon Willcocks
Wigwam had actions and words to go with it which all the children had fun joining in with and it was a lovely finish to the performance.

We will definitely be going back next year!

Still Here!!

We're still here! We lost our internet service 9 days ago and it only just got fixed today, so sorry for the lack of posts!

Anyway, we had a relatively quiet week as I wasn't well (horrible coughing virus!) so you didn't miss much, but Hannah did entertain us by making a puppet theatre and puppets from a box and some card. She did it all herself, and then made up a play called 'I love you'. The puppets are our family and the play was about us all going out on a country walk and picnic - it was so cute!





She also started working on a Social Studies workbook that her friend sent her. I have been reading alot about unschooling, and would be happy to move away from curriculum based learning with Hannah, but she really does seem to like it. She picked this workbook up and decided to do it for herself - she really enjoyed it and talked for ages about our neighbourhood and lifestyle after reading about those things in the book. She also discovered Mental Arithmetic this week and has been endlessly asking for problems to solve!

Fun Stuff!!

Last week was quite a quiet week. We spent all of wednesday and thursday waiting in for the plumber to come fix our central heating and hot water so rather than getting out and about Hannah rediscovered games and puzzles! We played lots of memory pairs, and Hannah spent ages doing this lovely puzzle that Grammy bought her for Christmas. She also played lots of Moshi Monsters online.




On friday we spent the afternoon with friends and then in the evening Hannah joined a Brownie pack. She tried out Brownies last year but decided she wasn't quite ready for it then. She was nervous about going this time, but after a little while she was brave enough to join in and make some friends! It helped that her homeschooled friend Mimi was also there and she gave Hannah a bit more confidence to take part in the activities. Hannah came home afterwards really excited about the next meeting and already working on her Winter Badge!!
She made this Pompom Penguin and did an Arctic Animals wordsearch towards her badge.
And on Saturday her Tap Class resumed! This is Hannah waiting to go into the class!
She really enjoys Tap and is working on her Grade One exam.

A Little Bit Of School

We've been getting back into the rhythm of 'school' this week after a few busy weeks out and about!

Hannah has been practising her story writing skills with this story sheet i found on a Berenstain Bears website ( Hannah loves Berenstain Bears!)





She has also completed the next section in her Alpha Omega Lifepac Math and completed the self test,
Before moving on to the next section.

And she has used the computer to play some games - Moshi Monsters is her new favourite, as well as printing out activities, birthday cards and art work she has done online.

Home Education Trip To The D-Day Museum

Yesterday Hannah and i went to The D-Day museum in Southsea with our home ed group. Hannah found the museum pretty scary on the whole, she did look around most of it and definitely learned something about her grandma's childhood (my mum was 4 when WW2 started) but we didn't go into it in too much depth as Hannah can be very sensitive and worries a lot!

The visit started with a short film about the war, then we walked around the exhibitions,

This is President Franklin Roosevelt, General Dwight Eisenhower and Prime Minister Winston Churchill planning the D-Day Invasion
Hannah and her friend Melissa
A mock camp

US Army - spot the Hershey Bars!

Operation Overlord in progress

Melissa, Hannah and Oliver
Injured troups in Normandy on D-Day ( Hannah hated this bit but still managed to pose for a picture lol).

This is me!!
Sparkle Kitty
Hannah

And that was the end of our visit! Maybe i'll take Hannah back when she's a bit older because it was actually a really great museum and i would have loved to spend more time there looking around.