This term we are focusing on Leonardo Da Vinci. We spent most of last week looking through the resources and getting a feel for what each child might be drawn towards. After much to-ing and fro-ing topics have finally been agreed upon and the children have enthusiastically thrown themselves into their work. We have discussed…
Category: Project Work
Reflections on an ‘Unsuccessful’ Term
When we first tried out project based learning, I knew somewhere deep inside, that this would forever change the way we do school. And I was right. It remains a good choice. However, this term has not been as successful as last term. The premise of project based learning (PBL) is autonomy, which has always…
Project Based Learning – Making a Bug Observatory
You remember the Bug Adventure box I made up for the little ones to help with their chosen bug project? There was a reason I put everything in a large plastic box, rather than the customary wooden box I had used for the past few years. I had plans to turn it into a bug…
Project Based Learning : The Black Death
Not the most inviting of titles but a subject which has gripped my children. As we near the end of the second week of a six-week term I thought I would write more specifically about the projects the children have chosen to do. I am so incredibly excited about our new 'project based' status! My school…
Project Based Learning with Young Children: Bugs
When the decision had been made to home school using primarily project based learning, Gary and I had to decide whether we wanted to include the little two. Could they join in, learning the same subject matter as the older children, or should we allow them to choose a project just for themselves? I had…
Plans for this Term
We have a short six-week term ahead of us and are planning to keep ourselves busily ensconced in project work. Our experiment last term was so successful that the children had been begging to start school again last week, with T12 getting quite antsy that he didn't have something to get his teeth into. We…
Medieval Banquet
We did it. After almost twelve weeks of preparation and work, and feeling like we would simply never be ready, the day of the banquet arrived. It went well, really well. The children did their presentations and answered our guest's questions fairly intelligently. The food was remarkably good, considering we used authentic medieval recipes and…
Medieval Fashions: Knight’s Lady
C11 is doing her presentation at the feast on medieval fashions. She had made a fabulous start, creating a hand sewn costume for her medieval peasant doll. It had taken her much longer than anticipated, leaving only three weeks until the date of the feast to have her next costume completed by. This costume was…
T’s Home-Made Go-Cart
T12 has been busy making himself a go-cart, which he intends to race against his friend. T had been chuntering on as he so often does about the minutiae detail of his go-cart for weeks. He has questioned scientists and engineers alike, collected many scientific equations, all of which he understood but which left me…