African Drumming

Our Thursday group had 3 consecutive weeks of African drumming workshops. The boys LOVED this! Oxford's a great place to homeschool!

The younger group has a go.

Boomwhackers were used as well as djembes.

 Here's a little sampling of the fun...

Thursday, September 26

Jolly Music lesson...

Caleb keeps beat with his new claves.

I believe they're using yelling voices here.

The little guys are captivated by their French teacher.

 Kirsty led a fantastic lesson on leaves followed by several activities and crafts.

The younger group did a matching game with leaves and Usborne identification cards.

Caleb shows off some of his collected leaves.

Noah works on his leaf rubbings.

Seed Dispersal

Our first Thursday nature lesson with friends was last week, but I failed to take photos. I hosted this week, and we learned about seed dispersal.

'Performing Seeds' - Drop a little water on wild oat seeds, and they'll dance.

 After our lesson, we went on a walk through the nature reserve and hunted for seeds.

Beatrice and Noah are great friends.

Amelia and Caleb tromp through the reserve.

Some of the crew watched the horses.

This is a great group of kids!

We'll return to the Boltons' home next week and will have our first music and French class of the school year.

Final Day of Thursday School

Sarah took over the last few lessons for the younger group and did a fantastic job.

Play in the garden to end the day.

Snails

Hands-on nature lessons are so much fun!

Lizzie is recording her observations/ snail measurements.

Noah's feeling the snail's movements.

Cooper, Alice, and Florence are watching the snail move from below. Cornstarch was applied to the glass in hopes of an eating demonstration, but the snails were not interested.

Why is everyone cheering?

Because a snail has nearly reached the finish line of his ramp race. The children guessed his time and then recorded his actual time of completion.

Finally, there were snail races. The big guys always won.

French Brunch

We had a lovely French brunch last Wednesday. The children asked for food and drink using vocabulary learned this term. This was SO MUCH FUN!

Alice fait un croissant.

Play in the garden while the food was being prepared.

Bon appetit

The pain au chocolat was well received.

Field Trip: Oxford University Museum of Natural History

We've focused on insects and other mini-beasts during our nature time this term. Kirsty organized a field trip to the Museum of Natural History for a workshop entitled: Minibeast Madness. It was excellent! The education officer was well-informed and engaging.

There's a 15 child minimum, so other homeschoolers joined our normal crew.

Madagascar Hissing Cockroach

The girls had a go too.

After the workshop, we explored the museum.

Noah sprawled out on the floor to sketch one of the exhibits.

The honeybee hive was a big hit and was GREAT reinforcement of the previous week's lesson on honeybees. The comb is inside the glass, and the bees are able to travel through a tunnel outside of the museum to collect pollen at University Parks and other locations. We watched them do their waggle dance.

The exhibits are great and the architecture is not too shabby.

Hedgehogs

After morning French class...

There was reading.

There was play.

There were 12 children eating lunch.

 Then we had our nature lesson. This week concluded our study of mammals with an emphasis on mammals in Britain. We learned about hedgehogs and then ventured into the garden to collect insects (favorite food of the hedgehog) and other creepy crawlies. Did you know that a hedgehog may eat 7 oz of insects in one night?

Yummy.

Hedgehog Freeze Tag - Curl up into a ball to stay safe from the predator.

The boys picked a rough "camp spot" for snack. First there was fruit. 

Then there were hibernating hedgehogs. Use your imagination. The hedgehogs are under a pile of leaves.

The girls had a "tea party" snack in the playhouse.

Re-cap of the last few weeks

Focused on their science work...note any similarities?

After French class, the kids lined up to watch the tow truck pick up Candace's car.

With the car safely towed away, we went to the park to gather leaves for Autumn crowns.

Caleb was very pleased with his "a" worksheets. 

Pictured here are two of my new favorite finds (thanks to Kirsty!).
Cooper and Noah have a Second Word Book and a First Word Book, respectively. Commonly used words are listed in alphabetical order with extra spaces to add more words. I can write a word once, and then it's available to be copied in the future. And, this is a great way to practice alphabetical order.
Here the boys are using their books to aid in the completion of a literature assignment.

More fun in nature. Kirsty led a study of twigs.

She prepared some fun activities for me to complete with the younger crew.

Getting crafty: All of the kids made lanterns using jars and twigs. 

They also made Maple leaf bookmarks.

 Yesterday...(which means I'm finally caught up on photos):

Cooper started our history lesson with Show and Tell. He was given some Egyptian papyrus, coins, and a Scarab beetle for his birthday.

Our resident expert wandered downstairs with the paper shown above. Line 28 is "Hammurapi" - that's not a typo, the "p" is correct. We've been studying Hammurapi and Shamshi Adad this week.