Oat Biscuits, puzzles and brooms

It was a little more lively at the group this week compared to our quiet week last week.  We drew pictures, did jigsaw puzzles, played games, made and ate oat biscuits, read stories together and finished with a ride on the broom after cleaning up at the end!  We then went for a rather chilly walk at Fyne Court, a lovely free-to-visit National Trust place, visiting the resident pigs - of course.

Please do feel free to come along to one of our sessions, whether you already home-educate or are just considering doing so.  You can get in touch with us at tauntonhomeeducation@yahoo.com

A quiet week!

It was a very quiet week, this week, due to holidays, illness and possibly the cold weather!

We made snow pictures with black paper, white chalk, white paint and cotton wool, as it had snowed (if briefly) the day before!

We also made structures with modelling sticks (like cocktail sticks) and plasticine.

The group was finished with a trip to the park, but as it was only 2 or 3 degrees, some of us didn't stay very long at all!

Chinese New Year celebrations

This week it was Chinese New Year so we decided to celebrate! We all wore something red. A few of us found some amazing Chinese outfits! 

We tried our hand at writing some Chinese symbols. Using gold paint and brushes we concentrated hard and made some beautiful words. We wrote "prosperity", "sun", "mountain", "love" "moon" and "banana"!

We also had some stories and made Chinese dragons and for lunch we made noodles and practiced using chopsticks. This was harder than it looked! After lunch we tried some new fruits, lychees and Chinese pears.

Happy Chinese New Year!

                        

Juggling

This week we decided to make our own juggling balls and have a go at juggling.
So first we filled some sandwich bags with some old rice, tied and wrapped the bags around the rice balls several times. Then we cut the ends of a couple of balloons for each ball, and cut a few holes on the second balloon for a spotty effect. We wrapped the first one onto the rice ball and the second one in the opposite direction. It will make more sense if you have a look at this tutorial: http://indigo-blue-designs.blogspot.com/2011/03/balloon-juggle-bags.html.

               

Then a few of us had a go at juggling, well we all admired Naomi's skills while we tried to cope with one or two ball juggling! We also had some stilts and a hula hoop to play with.

The girls decided they wanted their face painted...

And we made good use of the park next door.

Paper mosaics and a muddy walk

Lots of us have visited the new Museum of Somerset and seen the mosaic floor so this week Sarah shared her mosaic project with us. We all had squared paper and either drew our own designs or used some Sarah had made for us. 

There were lots of little squares of colour paper to stick on and make the pictures into mosaics.

Some of us chose big squares and some chose tiny squares.

We had to really concentrate!

There were lots of games and toys to play with too.

Afterwards we went on a long walk in Fyne Court. There's a huge tree there we love to climb along. It had been raining in the night and the tree was really slippery!

We love to visit the pigs there. They have eaten nearly all the weeds in the walled garden and it's a bit smelly.

We had fun by the pond fishing for pond weeds.....

....and splashing in the mud and the stream. Some of us got our wellies full of water.

There's a brilliant new musical instrument in the woods for us to make music.