By Age – Page 2 – Diary of a First Child

Winnie the Pooh may be seen as nursery decor more than anything else these days, but actually the lessons in the stories are suited to a much older audience. In fact, they’re perfectly suited to children heading out into the world forming relationships and developing friendships.

The stories in Winnie the Pooh can teach us so many things about friendship, if we can just take the time to read them with our children, and naturally discuss the issues as they come up.

10 Lessons Winnie the Pooh Teaches Us About Friendship

Here are ten of the biggest lessons I learnt about friendship in Winnie the Pooh:Read more: Lessons Winnie The Pooh Teaches Us About Friendship

Road Safety Awareness Game & Resources

Home / 4-5 / Road Safety Awareness Game & Resources

November 18, 2016November 18, 2016 by Luschka

Next week is Road Safety Awareness week and like all responsible parents (Ahem!) it’s a topic of learning that I take very seriously. I realised recently that while my children know to look right and left and right again before crossing the road, or to wait for the green man before crossing, we’ve never really done any serious ‘learning’ around traffic signs. I think there’s a value to learning through doing with mama, of course, but I don’t suppose it’s ever too early to learn about road safety.

But where do you start?

5 Websites To Keep Older Kids Busy While You Home Ed Younger Siblings

Home / 4-5 / 5 Websites To Keep Older Kids Busy While You Home Ed Younger Siblings

October 26, 2016October 25, 2016 by Luschka

One of the first questions people ask me about home education or homeschooling my children is how I manage to ‘teach’ children of different ages and at different levels at the same time. I’m going to share with you 5 websites that I use to keep my 7 year old busy while I’m doing structured learning d Before my youngest was of school age, it was easy – she’ll happily potter about on her own, colour, play with her small world toys and so on, so being able to spend 40 minutes ‘teaching’ her sister was easy.

Now that she’s also ‘of school age’ and there’s a ‘requirement’ to ‘educate’ her, I focus more on doing some structured activities. At the moment we’re learning the alphabet, which involves a lot of colouring, sticking, gluing, so not really high intensity, but still good for her to have some undivided attention.

To facilitate this, we use one of five websites that Ameli can self-manage her time while I focus on her sister. These are the websites and programs we use most:Read more: 5 Websites To Keep Older Kids Busy While You Home Ed Younger Siblings

Learning About the Hindu Festival Of Diwali

Home / 4-5 / Learning About the Hindu Festival Of Diwali

October 14, 2016October 14, 2016 by Luschka

I can’t claim to have grown up with much awareness of religious diversity, and I can’t claim to be one way better or worse off for it, but I do know that my children are growing up in a much different way and in a very different place to the close, conservative, and supportive community that I did, so I think it’s important for them to learn two things: 1) Tolerance for other religions, 2) an understanding of other religions in relation to what I believe, and what I hope they will believe. Religious observances are also different now, and sometimes more commercial – for example the Colour Run, based on the Holli celebration, or locally, we have Electric Woods, where Robin Hill lights up the autumn nights inspired by Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights. While we could just go and enjoy the prettiness, I think there’s value in explaining what it is that we’re exposing ourselves to, so that the children can learn something about ‘other people’. As it was, the Electric Woods event saw us walking through the woods at Robin Hill enjoying the cold evening air, listening to music and looking at light displays. It was a lovely evening out, fuelled by hot chocolate. dewali-robin-hill Read more: Learning About the Hindu Festival Of Diwali

Tree Detectives’ Handbook For Tree Identification

Home / 4-5 / Tree Detectives’ Handbook For Tree Identification

October 5, 2016October 5, 2016 by Luschka

Over the summer we bought a wonderful little book called the Tree Detectives’ Handbook with which the children are able to identify common British trees by their leaves, fruit and flowers.

Each two-page set has a species of trees, and each set contains vital statistics for the tree in question, including height, location, and fruiting and flowering times. The book contains fifty trees and common shrubs found in the UK including identification tips and detailed illustrations for every tree. There are also interactive boxes where little explorers can record their sightings. Tree Detectives Handbook

Learning About Feelings And Emotions

Home / 4-5 / Learning About Feelings And Emotions

October 3, 2016September 29, 2016 by Luschka

Our first ‘theme’ for the new academic year – such as it is for those of us who learn at home – has been Feelings and Emotions, borne from a few things happening in our family, and a number of occasions where Ameli (6) has said that she can’t explain her feelings, and general outburst of anger from Aviya (4).

I’m never entirely sure how much of what we discus is ‘sinking in’ with the girls, so it’s always rewarding in the days and weeks that follow an activity to see the children refer back to it, or change behaviour based on it. While this theme wasn’t particularly academically approached, more with arts and crafts and fun activities, it was still influential, with both girls coming out of it with a greater ability to ‘use your words’ rather than just shouting.

I chose a range of activities for this week, including foods, crafts, games and activities:

Food

We had two food based activities this week. The first was simple pancakes with fruity faces. You can use any recipe you prefer, and add fruit like blueberries for eyes, bananas or strawberries for a nose and clementines for smiley or sad faces.
Read more: Learning About Feelings And Emotions

Paper Plate Feelings Charades

Home / 4-5 / Paper Plate Feelings Charades

September 29, 2016September 28, 2016 by Luschka

On the theme of Feelings and Emotions, a fun, easy and cheap game to put together for the kids is one we’ve called Paper Plate Feelings Charades, but it can also be played as an emotions ‘Who am I’ kind of game.Read more: Paper Plate Feelings Charades

Halloween and Day of the Dead Mosaic Crafts

Home / 4-5 / Halloween and Day of the Dead Mosaic Crafts

September 26, 2016 by Luschka

It’s almost Halloween, which is kind of amusing because we don’t really ‘celebrate’ Halloween. Or Samhain. Or Day of the Dead. We have two birthdays in October which is pretty much enough for us, but you know… everyone’s doing it. Our Bostik Bloggers Box this month contained lots of Halloween-themed goodies, with a giant foam skeleton, pumpkin and bat. There are all sorts of little scrapbook odds and ends and paper, including Halloween confetti.

For these decorations we used:

Halloween themed scrap book paper
Webbed material
Halloween foams
Glu Dots
Bostik PVA Craft Glue

BostikBloggers Halloween Craft Read more: Halloween and Day of the Dead Mosaic Crafts

Face & Feelings Matching Game

Home / 4-5 / Face & Feelings Matching Game

September 16, 2016September 13, 2016 by Luschka

I have a whole drawer full of printed games and puzzles and activities that I can pull out whenever we need something to change the narrative on our day. One of the activities that I recently added to this collection was a faces & feelings matching game (download it free here). I printed it and laminated it and keep them for a quick, five minute activity from time to time.

You can do it either way – lay out the faces and match the words, or lay out the words and match the faces to them. There are more words than faces because some faces can match a variety of words – like terrified and yelling.

You can either pull out extra words so that you can focus on the words you’re interested in, or you can leave it as is.