Learning about the sense - Taste

As you know we have been learning about the senses. The next sense we have been exploring is the sense of taste. I think this was the children's favourite as they have been asking to do these activities everyday since! First, we read the next book in our senses series; 'Taste that'! 

Then, we did some practical activities. I am a big fan of practical learning experiences, especially for young children. It really engages their attention which makes it more likely they will enjoy, understand and remember what they learn. Here's what we did.

Learning about Skeletons

Now that we have finished our astronomy topic, we are moving on to the human body. We started off by learning all about bones and the skeleton. 

Learning About Astronomy - the Planets

Our final astronomy topic was the planets. We started by reading these books about the planets which are great for children. Each book covers two planets.

Then we made posters with all the planets on. This was a lot of fun. The children were given a long, thin piece of black paper and circles of white paper of different sizes. They then used poster paints to paint each planet. They looked at pictures of the planets to help them do this.

As they painted, we talked about the different features of each planet. What colours were they? Were they made of gas or rock? Did they have any moons or rings?

Bilingual Language Activity - Finger Painting Wildlife

As you may know, we are a multicultural, multilingual family with quite a few different languages being spoken in our surroundings. As the children's father is from Turkey, Turkish is the main language we are teaching the children. It can be very difficult to teach the children a non-native language, and even more difficult to maintain it. Therefore, I am always on the look out for new ideas or thinking up creative ways to make language learning fun.

The weather has been glorious lately so we have been spending a lot of time outdoors. I try to encourage my children to participate in outdoor play activities as much as possible and prompt them to observe the environment around them. When we go out and about, I point out the flowers and wildlife that we encounter and encourage them to talk about their own observations. I thought it would be a good idea to start learning some more wildlife vocabulary in Turkish so we can use it on our outings, or even just in the garden

Learning about astronomy - the Earth

We have already learnt about the stars, the Moon and planets. Our next astronomy topic covered the Earth. As our planet, the Earth is something we all know a lot about. We started by thinking about all the things we love about our planet. 

Celebrating Laylat al-Qadr

Laylat al-Qadr is a special night for Muslims around the world. It is the night of power when Allah revealed the first verses of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad pbuh. We do not know the exact date of Laylat al-Qadr, we only know that it is one of the last 10 days of the month of Ramadan and it is an odd numbered night (21st, 23rd, 25th, 27th or 29th). This night is very special because it is said to be worth as much as 1000 months, or 83 years. The angels come down from the heavens and are among us, although we cannot see them. Muslims carry out lots of acts of worship during the last 10 days of Ramadan in the hope of gaining the blessings of the night of power. They pray, read Quran, make dua and do other acts of worship.

Building a Stone Age Den

We have been learning about the Stone Age as part of our history curriculum. We have done many crafts and activities, which you can read about in this post, as well as attending a workshop at the local museum. After all that, I thought it was time to get outdoors for a practical lesson.

Learning about the Stone Age

We have spent the last couple of weeks learning about the Stone Age. We are following the 'Story of the World' curriculum for history, which is the only curriculum we follow (apart from maths). I really like the 'Story of the World' curriculum. It comes with two books; a reading book and an activity book. 

Learning About Astronomy - the Stars

Our next topic in our astronomy project was stars. Stars are such a broad topic and you can cover many different areas; types of stars, the life cycle of a star, the birth of stars and our star - the Sun. We started off by watching a short video about stars which I found on YouTube by Storybots. Storybots really make learning fun by introducing topics through song.

Learning About Astronomy - the Moon

We have spent the last month or so learning about astronomy as our science topic. We have learnt about the planets, the Earth, stars and the moon. We go to a project group once a week where the children learn about these topics together with other children. They love this weekly group and have started to make some good friendships. We often continue learning about these topics at home and they form the basis of our science curriculum, giving it structure and focus.

We were not able to cover the moon during our project group sessions so we spent a week learning about it at home. 

Nature journaling at Bowood Woodland

I have been reading a lot about nature journaling recently. It is a lovey way to study nature using art and observation. By sketching or painting, it allows you to slow down and analyse something in great detail and you may spot things which you otherwise might miss. Look at the colours, the shapes, the textures in detail and experiment with techniques in your artwork. Nature journaling is a great way to learn skills, document your observations and gain knowledge about the natural world around us.