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- Sep 7, 2022
- 5 min
Five 'Must Read' Books for Home Educators
There are masses and masses of books out there on Home Education. One of my top tips for finding the confidence to take the leap is to read as widely as you can. These are the five that have had the greatest influence on me during our home education journey. How Children Learn by John Holt I first read this book back in 1999, when I was in my first year of my BA(Ed) course at University. I was inspired, but little did I know at the time (young and naive that I was) that I wou
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- Mar 9, 2022
- 4 min
30+ Favourite Maths Books for Children
There are so many wonderful books out there that introduce or explore mathematical concepts through story. If your child enjoys books, then adding a few of these to your collection can be a great way to factor in a little maths without the need to explicitly teach. Babies and Toddlers On a practical level, I'm sharing links to board books here, for obvious reasons. Most are available in paperback too, if you prefer. Our very favourite maths book for this age is Ten Little Fin
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- Feb 27, 2022
- 5 min
February Newsletter: The One With Our Trip to London
Hello, and welcome to my monthly newsletter! This is where I share the highs and lows of the past month, as well as the books and resources we have been enjoying. February has been a breath of fresh air after a difficult few months over the winter, and it's such a relief to feel my energy and zest for life returning. Things are still quite chaotic here, with our building project ongoing, but it's been so nice to be out and about in the world, doing some normal things the past
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- Feb 16, 2022
- 4 min
Learning About Vincent Van Gogh: A Unit Study
Before I begin, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Sarah at RightAtHome (on Instagram), who has an excellent story highlight on Van Gogh on her grid. This is where I found most of the books and resources recommended here, as well as inspiration for art provocations. I think it is important to credit, when credit is due. As busy, home educating parents, there is no shame in buying ready made curriculums, or copying the activities that you see elsewhere. We're havin
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- Jan 29, 2022
- 9 min
January Newsletter: The One Where We Survived January
Hello, and welcome to my monthly newsletter! I hope that you all had a lovely Christmas, and that you are easing into 2022 with a little lingering magic and joy. I know that I have a lot to be thankful for, but January is often a struggle for me, even when my mental health is stable (which it still isn't, yet). The excitement of Christmas is over, it's grey and cold, and I'd be hibernating if I could. This January has been especially tough. An absolute rollercoaster of challe
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- Jan 19, 2022
- 3 min
100 Things to Know About Book Review
Finding suitable books for morning time can be a little tricky, as you want to choose books that your child will find interesting and enjoyable, but that are also easy to dip in and out of. There are so many wonderful books out there. Way too many for me to list here. For morning time, we are HUGE fans of the Usborne 100 Things to Know About series. Let me tell you a bit about these books, and why we love them so much. The Usborne 100 Things to Know About series is a collecti
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- Dec 29, 2021
- 17 min
December Newsletter: The One After a Five Month Break
Hello, and welcome to my monthly newsletter! I can't begin to express how lovely it feels to be writing again after such a long, unplanned break. For those of you who are new here, I took an intentional break from writing my blog in August, as I wanted to enjoy a summer holiday. Then, at the beginning of September I had a mental health breakdown (I suffer with the occasional seasonal and/or stress induced panic disorder episode) so was unable to work for around 8-10 weeks. A
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- Sep 2, 2021
- 4 min
(Not) Back to School 2021
Hello friends! It's been a while since I last checked in with you all. I hope you're well and have had a happy August. My plans for an August newsletter, and a series of Math-themed posts for September, have all been flung out of the window because our builder has surprised us at the very last minute, and we are having our extension built! The builders start next week! As you can imagine, everything has been a bit chaotic here, as we work on clearing the spaces, negotiating w
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- Jul 31, 2021
- 6 min
July Newsletter: The One With Our Three Trips to Wales
Hello, and welcome to my monthly newsletter! July has been a busy month, with not one, not two, but THREE trips to Wales! We certainly feel like we made the most of the heatwave, and like we've had a proper summer holiday this month. Now that we are home, we are resting and catching up with family and friends, while beginning to prepare our home for the new academic year. I will be taking a break from blogging this August, to focus my time and creative energy on listing some
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- Jun 30, 2021
- 10 min
June Newsletter: The One With Bean's 10th Birthday Celebrations
Hello, and welcome to my monthly newsletter! Ah, June, one of my favourite months of the year. It's been an eventful month, with a birthday, a short holiday, a heat wave, a bereavement and funeral, alongside all the usual social, educational and work commitments. As expected, our various projects have taken a back seat as we spend more time outdoors and gradually slip into a summer of unschooling. How does that look for us in practice? We school all year around. This means t
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- Feb 24, 2021
- 11 min
February Newsletter: The One With Our Valentine's Day Celebrations
Hello, and welcome to my monthly newsletter! I hope you are all safe and well. February has been a really difficult month for us, for various reasons. We have well and truly hit the proverbial lockdown wall. Despite being the shortest month of the year, it has felt so loooong. In fact, we're not even through with it yet, are we?! We started off the new year feeling positive and productive, despite our lockdown news. But then the Beast from the East arrived, rendering us quite
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- Jan 27, 2021
- 8 min
January Newsletter: The One With Lockdown 3.0 Projects
Hello, and welcome to my monthly newsletter! I hope you are all safe and well. This photograph pretty accurately sums up our month... dark, but with rays of light. Here in the UK we find ourselves yet again in a national lockdown *sigh*. This time around feels harder, with it being winter and having decided not to see our support bubble as the risk feels too great. Our days have been merging into one another, but with a certain shape to them. I feel forever grateful that we h
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- Jan 6, 2021
- 6 min
20 Science Books to Inspire and Educate
For those of you who follow my social media accounts, you will know that we are working on a Science Project this term. Bean loves science and I'm keen to nurture her interest, which is why we will not be focusing too much of our time and energy on recording findings at this stage. My objective is for her to explore, investigate, play and have fun, through lots of hands on experiments, reading books and watching educational videos on YouTube. I've gathered all our books and r
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- Nov 4, 2020
- 2 min
Christmas Gift Guide 2020
I've debated putting this blog post together for the past few weeks. I still feel very uncomfortable about sharing Amazon affiliate links, but equally I value my time and feel strongly that I deserve to be paid for it, even if it is for an incredibly measly amount (I've been blogging weekly for the past 7 months, and have received around £50 in affiliate fees). I'm looking into setting myself up as an affiliate for the independent book shop site, bookshop.org, but wasn't able
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- Oct 21, 2020
- 5 min
A Gentle Introduction to Native America
This Autumn we are learning about the continent of North America. We started at the beginning of September with a focus on Canada, which you can read more about in my September newsletter here. Why Gentle? We have now moved on to a gentle introduction to Native America. I say gentle, because my daughter is just 9, and not yet ready to learn in great detail about the horrors of North America's past. I'm only just getting to grips with the extent of the loss at age 40, and it's
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- Aug 26, 2020
- 8 min
August Newsletter: The One With Our Home Education Plans
Hello, and welcome to my monthly newsletter! This is a place to document and share a few monthly highlights, along with book recommendations, recipes, interesting articles, links to other blog posts, free resources etc. If you have a specific request, please drop me a message at contact@invitationstoplay.org Holiday Club August has been such a busy month for us, because at the end of July I reopened my childminding setting, offering holiday club sessions to a few of my existi
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- Jul 29, 2020
- 6 min
July Newsletter: The One With Our Collage Project
Hello, and welcome to my monthly newsletter! This is a place to document and share a few monthly highlights, along with book recommendations, recipes, interesting articles, links to other blog posts, free resources etc. If you have a specific request, please drop me a message at contact@invitationstoplay.org Playing with collage. We've been working on a mini collage project this month, inspired by this beautiful book Bean's Granny gave her for her birthday. Playing With Colla
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- Jun 24, 2020
- 6 min
June Newsletter: The One Where We Welcome Our Guinea Pigs
Hello, and welcome to my monthly newsletter! This is a place to document and share a few monthly highlights, along with book recommendations, recipes, interesting articles, links to other blog posts, free resources etc. If you have a specific request, please drop me a message at contact@invitationstoplay.org Welcoming Chocolate and Brownie. At the beginning of the month, Bean celebrated her 9th birthday (you can read all about how we celebrated her birthday in this blog post)
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