Summer of Year 1 - Autumn of Year 2

A list of some of the things we've done over the last few months... No time for proper updates! SubhanAllah, my youngest brother was diagnosed with stage 4b lymphoma and things were a bit busy and a lot of going back and forth between Bristol, Birmingham and Ipswich. Alhamdulillah, he's finished his chemo course and seems to be doing well (and MashaAllah, the work we've done in Science recently on infection and the human body was really useful in the girls being able to understand pretty quickly why I was upset to hear the news and why we need to make lots of dua that Mamu gets better soon). Next time we visit will be next month, inshaAllah. 😄

So aside from the usual Literacy and Numeracy, guided by the Year 2 NC (going through the list and filling in all the gaps), we did the following:

1) Definition of habitats: research in non-fiction books, identify from fiction books, create a poster of a habitat of choice (including marking locations on a world map) which contained examples of plants and animals found in that habitat. Rehearse and give a presentation of their poster to each other, giving feedback on how to improve, then give an improved presentation to Papa. Convert their posters to PowerPoints (skills: typing, text boxes, inserting images, animations) and show this as a presentation to Papa.

2) Art trail around Ipswich, looking for Elmer statues. Map reading, walking, exploring, checking off a list, art appreciation & discussion... The girls then designed and named their own Elmers on pieces of scrap paper and compiled these into a booklet each. They tried to copy the art trail Elmers and came up with puns where they could!

3) Visit to a working water mill, where they grind their own flour and make their own bread - Tide Mill in Woodbridge. We took the train there with Nani, which was an experience in itself! The mill itself was really educational and child friendly. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area! The girls got to help start the water wheel by turning a handle and follow all the ropes and pulleys to the top of the mill. They were able to identify where the old pulleys should have been connected in the roof for the bags of flour to be lifted through the hatch, and also understood the mechanism behind the cogs turning and affecting each other. While there we also did some bird spotting from the lookout area and talked about how the mill was connected to the river. This led onto discussions to do with water sources and the sea, which inspired some more visits whilst in Ipswich...

4) We went to Felixstowe beach twice - once on the train with Nani during the daytime and another at sunset by car with Papa. Both experiences felt completely different despite being to the same place, which led to some good discussions. On our first trip they had fish & chips and ice-cream on the pier, played in the sand and F was brave enough to paddle in the sea. On the second trip we went for a short stroll on the beach and they played in the sand by the light of some coloured string lanterns hung across the promenade. It was interesting to watch the sunset on the horizon and see how the sky changed colour and then how the sea faded to black so it was impossible to tell where the sea ended and the sky began - the only clues the sea was there at all were a few lights from ships far in the distance. This led to talks about lighthouses and on how vast the sea is.

5) We walked down to Ipswich docks (only 5-10min from my parents' house!) and compared how the water was flowing to the river we saw at Woodbridge. Why? M had the idea that maybe both the water in the docks and the water from Tide Mill would end up in Felixstowe to meet the sea, so we checked on Google maps by zooming out and saw she was right! We didn't have time this visit to see, but I'd like to take them to Orwell Bridge so they can compare how the river looks there to how it was after the docks (and also to the little streams we saw in Holywells Park).

6) Which is the most popular car colour in Ipswich? The twins came up with a method of answering this question (watch the cars on the main road outside Nani's house) and keep a tally chart. We repeated this on two different days and compared the results (the same top three colours but not the same most popular colour on each day!) then turned these results into a bar chart (column addition practise to collate their results from both days). I helped them with this through prompts and questions and then wrote some simple questions about their data for them to answer.

7) We went to a free pizza making workshop at Pizza Express, organised by another home ed mum. The 3 eldest girls learnt a little about Italy and why a margarita has that name (the colours of the Italian flag represented by the toppings), tasted some pizza toppings then made their own margaritas on a pre-made base. The next week they wanted to make pizza at home from scratch, so I found a simple dough using Greek yoghurt and flour they could do independently. They made the dough themselves while I helped with the oven parts and making the sauce (tomato puree, oil & herbs). They put all the toppings on themselves and decided to make tuna, sweetcorn, mozzarella and cheddar.

8) Bake Off inspired baking: taking it in turns to bake cupcakes with me, one person each week. They designed their cupcake on paper first (sponge flavour & decorations) then baked with my guidance (they did measuring themselves for once!). After we all had a turn, we discussed which bake was our favourite and why. Mine was mint chocolate and my favourite lol - will need to post recipe soon inshaAllah!

9) First piece of extended writing in a while... We're currently reading the Famous Five series together and they're really enjoying them, so I used this as a basis for their writing. After a particularly eventful chapter, we did some hotseating on the characters' thoughts/feelings then I modelled writing a simple diary entry on A3 paper. Together, we discussed what the features of a diary entry might be and annotated them on the paper. Then the twins wrote their own diary entries as different characters from the book. When they thought they were finished, they referred to the poster and added to their work.

10) Bouncing ball investigation (as M asked why did the ball bounce higher in the kitchen compared to the sitting room?). Discussed in terms of energy (potential, kinetic) and energy being absorbed. Twins came up with ideas on how to test these factors (i.e. strength of throw, height dropped, floor surface) and how to measure - describe in words or use tape measure? Both ways difficult but tape measure was preferred option! One of the results didn't match our predictions, so we did some further investigations explore why. M came up with hypothesis 1 and F with hypothesis 2, with them both working together to think of how we could test each one. We put both ideas together to come up with a reason to explain why that one result didn't match.

Understanding the clock face

We've covered telling the time to the hour and half past the hour on both analogue and digital clocks. Before moving on to quarter past/to and the intervals between, I wanted the girls to understand and be familiar with the fact each of the numbers 1-12 on the clock represents 5 minutes/seconds. Rather than simply tell them this, I thought it would stick better if they worked it out themselves!

They already knew there are 60 minutes in 1 hour from becoming familiar with digital clocks in our everyday life (e.g. the clock on the oven which we've been asking them to read since they were 3!) so I began by asking: If there are 60 minutes in an hour and it takes 1 hour for the minute hand to go all the way round the clock, how many minutes fit into each of those big numbers 1-12? Sounds like a mouthful, but not so complicated illustrated on a clock at the same time. 😂

They understood they needed to share the 60 minutes between the 12 numbers, so it was division, but they couldn't work it out in their heads! I asked them if they wanted to use the blocks to help and they said yes. 😏

I took out the numbers 1-12 from our Melissa & Doug jigsaw and asked the girls to arrange them to look like a clock... So they knew they needed to put them in a circle but it was a challenge to get it looking right lol. They started out with a triangle, then one commented the 6 needed to be in a straight line under the 12, and eventually they ended up with a wonky oval.

Next, I gave them the tub of multilink cubes and asked how many did they need to have one for each minute? 60... And what did they know about their cubes and the different colours? There are 10 of each colour... So how many colours did they need to use? 6! There are two of them, so how many colours did they need to get each? 3! MashaAllah. They put the 60 cubes in the centre of their clock.

Now for the sharing part... If they put the same amount of cubes on each number, how many cubes would each number end up with? I prompted them by saying to first try giving 1 cube to each number.

They then continued sharing out the cubes so they all had 2, then 3, then I stopped them and asked them to estimate how many more times they thought they'd be able to go round the clock... One guessed 8, the other 11. 😂 Ok. So I let them go round again then stopped them again to see if they wanted to change their estimate. They both laughed and one said she thought only one more time after this so she should have estimated 2 to begin with - then the other agreed and exclaimed she thought they were all going to end up with 5 cubes each. 👍

We equated this back to the original question: if there are 60 minutes in an hour, how many minutes are there in between each number on the clock? 5! Then we counted in 5s round the clockface to check.

Finally, I told them to look at the real clock so they could count how many seconds there are in a minute - count how many times the second moves for it to go all the way round the clock, using 12 as a starting point. I asked them if there are 60 seconds just as there are 60 minutes, how many seconds do they think are in between each number? 5! Then we counted 5 seconds between two of the numbers to check.

Later on in the day, after a break, they completed the above worksheet to consolidate what they'd learnt. Taken from both *** and *** [edit to add titles]

After a few days, one of the twins asked if it was five past six because the big hand was on the 1... I said yes. Throughout the day she kept asking if it was so-and-so past, getting it right; I asked how she knew and she said because she was counting in 5s for each number! Masha'Allah. Within the next couple of days her sister had caught on too - so now they can both tell the time to the hour, half past and x minutes past the hour. 💪

Odd/Even Numbers

Introducing the idea of odd and even numbers through a mini maths investigation!

Handwritten because I had the idea at night and was too lazy to put the laptop and printer on. 😂😅 [EDIT: You can download a typed version of the worksheet here.]

We used the multilink cubes for this investigation as a nice, simple guided activity.

I gave each girl 10 cubes then used that as the example: how many cubes are there altogether? 20. We can divide 20 fairly into 2 groups, so each person gets 10 each. Half of 20 is 10. So if a number can be halved fairly then it's even. If it can't, then it's odd.

I modelled how to fill in the first line of the table, using 1 as another example. Can you halve 1? Can it be shared fairly between 2? Why not? Show me using the cubes... So they wrote "no" in the first column and ticked the "Odd" column.

I then modelled how to fill in the next line of the table, i.e. Can you halve 2? What is half of 2? Show me using the cubes... So they wrote "Yes, 1" in the first column and ticked the "Even" column.

After watching and prompting them for the next couple of lines, to ensure they knew what to do, I left them to complete the rest of the table themselves using the multilink cubes to help them.

When they were done, we discussed what the pattern was. MashaAllah, one noticed towards the end of filling in the table that the ticks were alternating and the other got the first sentence ("They take turns to be odd and even") by being prompted to read the table out loud. 💕 I then asked them to read just the even numbers out loud. Did they notice anything about those numbers? Yes, it was counting in 2s! So they wrote that sentence too. 👍

Finally, there was another table at the bottom for them to fill in with any other examples of odd and even numbers they could think of. They noticed that even numbers always end (i.e. the units) in the number 2, 4, 6, 8 or 0. After they wrote a few of their own, I challenged them by saying a random number and they had to tell me if it was odd or even. MashaAllah, I ended up going on to 3-digit numbers and they understood it was only the units which were important in deciding if a number was odd or even! One of them didn't want to stop, but unfortunately it was dinnertime so we had to. 😂😂

Number Bonds to 10 (Part 1)

We've covered basic addition using the standard methods (blocks, fingers, number lines, etc.) and the twins understand the principles, but I wanted their mental arithmetic to be quicker... So decided now was a good time to start getting them familiar with the number bonds to 10, i.e. which pairs of numbers add together to make the number 10.

I gave them each a piece of A4 paper with 10 squares (each the size of a Multilink Cube) down one side, a pencil, 10 cubes of one colour and 10 cubes of another. They had to see how many different ways of making 10 they could find, the two colours being to make the process visually easier.

Both of them decided to start with 5 of each cube and I modelled how to write the number sentence 5 + 5 = 10 on the whiteboard for them to copy onto their paper: handwriting practise as well as a way of keeping a record of their findings along with reinforcement of how sums are displayed. 😄

Now came the tricky part! I removed all the blocks of the second colour and modelled how they didn't have to have 5 of the first colour. Maybe there could be one less, or a couple more, or even none! So I had removed all the blocks completely. So what did they want to try next? I tried to keep it quite open so they were doing more exploring and thinking for themselves.

One decided to make the first colour one more, and ended up doing the task quite systematically. She found all 11 combinations quicker than her sister and it was easy to explain to her how she hadn't missed any out. The other took a more random approach, but she was determined and I could see she was really thinking about which combinations she hadn't tried yet. When she got to her 8th possibility she wasn't sure if she could find any more, so I read through her work in numerical order, using the first number in the sum as a reference, and purposefully paused at the possibilities she missed - she caught on quickly what she needed to try next and that she had 3 more sums to write.

With this activity, it was also nice to see that they remembered some of the addition work we'd done previously, as even before they'd filled in the squares with the second colour cube, they would already guess (most of the time correctly!) at how many more cubes were needed.

Because they worked through finding out what the number bonds were for themselves, rather than just being told them or being made to memorise them parrot-fashion from flashcards, I think it made the pairs stick in their heads more easily. After a break, we practised some mental arithmetic again and they were both noticeably quicker in finding the answers. 😊