The family has had (yet another) nasty infection going around for the last couple of weeks and last week Gary succumbed with a sinus infection, and on Thursday B2 and I came down with some sort of weird throat infection. We’re all on the mend now but didn’t get round to our pond study on Friday on account of there being no fully well adult to accompany the children. I thought I’d post about my school intentions with the younger set instead.
Last Easter we had a mini experiment trying out Mr Men as a potential theme for our fun Fridays. It was a hit and Mr Men and our youngest two children have been firm friends ever since. It occurred to me how simple it would be to include an hour of Mr Men school into every school day for the foreseeable future. I want to have a break from BFIAR curriculum, having used it now three times over and I think Mr Men and Little Misses might just fit the bill.
Mr Men have simple shapes, describe simple emotions and personality traits and are made of block colours. There are many, many of them, which would give us lots of variety, and they are simple to recreate. This makes them perfect in every way for our home school.
There is no curriculum attached to Mr Men but I think it would be simple to make one of my own, and to design it such that it would meet the learning needs of both a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old. I am so excited about the possibilities and as always my wonderful husband is on the case and has purchased 8 reversible Mr Men beanie toys (99p total) and a set of Mr Men jelly moulds (99p) from Ebay. I have my eye on a few other treasures but in the main this will be a home-made learning experience.
I will probably keep to a pattern of exploring one Mr Men book a week, in addition to doing more general Mr Men themed activities. I have started with Mr Tickle, which is the first book written in the series. Hargreaves wrote Mr Tickle in response to his son asking him what a tickle was. The book was his answer. I’m looking forward to exploring these books with my two younger ones and stringing in the older ones to help whenever I can. Given they also love Mr Men, I’m thinking I won’t lack for volunteers!