Day Out in Chester

It is rare that we have a Saturday with no activities like art class and ballet. Today was a day with none of those things so we decided to go to Chester which is about a 2 hour drive. I think it is one place that taking the train is actually longer so we drove. Chester has been on our list of places to visit and today was the first time we went. I looked on TripAdvisor to see what are some of the things to do there.

We parked next to the city walls so we began by walking the city walls. Chester is an old Roman fort.

We walked and saw the Roman Garden which was interesting. We didn't bother to go down and walk through but just enjoyed it from the walls.

One of the things to see in Chester is the Eastgate Clock which is the second most photographed clock after Big Ben. I took some photos of it as well. The clock was placed at the Eastgate in 1899 to celebrate the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria two years earlier.

We enjoyed standing up there and looking down at the people on the shopping area.

We went down from the city walls and found a sweet shop.

Then we went to the Cathedral, which has parts that date to 1093. It really is difficult at times to determine how old something is as there might have been a building that prior.

There were four mosaics on the wall showing Abraham, Moses, David, and Elijah.

The stained class was beautiful. It was free to enter and at various times there are tours but we didn't join a tour.

One of the interesting things that they are doing is building a Lego replication of the cathedral. For £1 you could pay to place a brick on the building. It is supposed to be 2 metres high when it is completed. Currently they have 45,000 bricks and I think the estimate is 350,000 bricks when it is finished.

After a milkshake and drink, we continued our walk on the city walls. We were able to see the cathedral as we walked.

There was a tower along the wall where Charles I stood and watched a battle of the Civil War, one that Parliamentarian forces won.

I think there is more Roman history there then we saw today. There is a Roman museum that we did not go to. It was a fun day.

Beth

Friday's Five

Five photos from our walk to the playground this afternoon.

I love the fact that we live so close to the countryside. We can walk just five minutes and see sheep and cows. We mainly see sheep so seeing cows today was different.

I love the yellow flowers against the stone wall. There are stone walls all around.

I loved the lines in the field from the grass that had been cut.

It was peaceful and quiet at the playground.

Miss K loved the slide. This is a playground that we don't normally go to so it was fun to try a new place.

Beth

May in Review

I know it is the 2nd of June and I am writing my review of the previous month. That might be a record for this year.

I think that is a great photo -- J captured that in the green.

Let's begin with the fun thing I did this month. I read six books maybe that is why I didn't get unfinished projects completed. Anyway most of these were novels or easy reading and so those I can read quickly. I did take the reading speed test from Staples. My reading speed is 555 wpm.

Her Mother's Hope - by Francine Rivers - It has been a long time since I read a book from Francine Rivers. I actually purchased the 2nd book in this series first and had to wait to get the first one. This is the first one. I enjoyed it. Through the two books it tells the stories of four generations of women in a family, the secrets they had, love and challenges.

Her Daughter's Dream - by Francine Rivers - This is the second book in the series. While these are separate books it does help to read them in order as it gives the full story.

Saving Amelie - by Cathy Gohlke - I think I just found this book looking on amazon. This is set in Germany during WWII. I began the book and didn't want to pause. I read the book in about 24 hours during which time not much else got done.

Secrets She Kept - by Cathy Gohlke - After reading Saving Amelie and enjoying it, I had to read this book. I enjoyed it as much. It didn't end quite the way you wanted it to end but that is war and what happened. Again this was a book about secrets kept in a family. Now I am wondering what secrets we have in our family.

Britty Britty Bang Bang by Hugh Dennis - I found this in the library and thought it might help me to understand where I am living. It was humorous, historical, and descriptive. I learned all kinds of interesting bits of information. There were a few parts that were borderline but overall it was easy to read. I enjoyed reading about opening of parliement and timed that perfectly as the next day that happened and I understood bits of history.

Ante Up by Chautona Havig - This is the fourth book in her series Aggie's Inheritance. It is planned to be released later in June so more on that later. If you need something to read until then begin with Ready or Not and be ready for Ante Up when it is released.

I have a few books that I am currently reading and hopefully will finish in June. My total for this year is 21 books. This is the first year that I have really kept a list so I don't know how that compares with other years.

Well, I was doing all the reading and I did keep current with scrapbooking. It is nice to know that is current. I do have a scrapbooking project to work on as a Christmas gift.

I finished Miss K's name pillow for her so that is a project finished. I didn't work on any of the other unfinished projects. I currently have eight projects on the list.

We had a day of summer and so we took advantage of that day and went for a picnic and a walk. We also went out one afternoon to see the bluebells.

Miss K and I went for a walk with friends on Saturday. It was a new to us place but I think there are a number of them here. This was a 5 minute drive from our house. We wandered the path, found the cafe. I think that is a difference between here and the US -- there are cafes everywhere, at the parks, at the stores, where ever you might need a cup of tea and a treat. On a walk we saw a moorhen, which was a new bird to us, and as we were walking back we saw a heron. We stood and watched him as he just stood there in the waiting for his lunch.

I didn't have a challenge for May. I have decided that the challenge for June is to organise and declutter the house. That works with the goal of less stuff. I am finding that it seems that I am spending quite a bit of time cleaning or putting things away so the goal is to get things cleaned so I don't have to keep doing that. We have a bit of a competition going to see who can get rid of the most pounds of stuff. That was my way of getting the kids involved.

We didn't take a hike this month unless you call our outings hikes.

As I review the list of goals for 2016, I am making progress on most of those areas.

Now I am going to go through my unfinished project box and see what I can finish.

Beth

Essential Skills Advantage - TOS Review

Sometimes it is nice to have an online program to review and supplement the learning or even teach new bits of information. Recently we had the opportunity to review the Complete Home Learning Suite from Essential Skills Advantage. I received an online subscription for one year for one student.

Essential Skills Advantage, ESA, is a supplemental K-6 curriculum that both assesses and teaches. There are over 14,000 online lessons in five areas -- Reading, Language & Grammar, Math, Science, and Geography.

This is an online program which can be purchased for a month, 6 months, or a year. I like the flexibility of the program being able to get it for varying lengths of time.

I decided to use this with Miss K for two subjects mainly because those two subjects we have a bit of flexibility at this time. We used it for Geography and Science.

Geography begins at Grade 4 level and had learning in Map & Globe Skills, World Geography, American Geography, and Canadian Geography. We spent most of the time in Map & Globe skills and World Geography. I needed to sit with or be near Miss K for most of Geography that might be because we were using it at Grade 4 level or it might be that this is a supplemental program and these were just not topics that she has studied recently. I added to what she was doing there with some books and copywork. We pulled out some of our geography books like Maps & Globes and Geography from A to Z. I really think the geography might have been at a level or two above her abilities at this time.

Miss K also used this for Science and I think she spent more time in science than geography. ESA has science beginning at kindergarten and going through Grade 3. Miss K did Grade 1 science. I think this is the level that she should be at. The science for Grade 1 has physical science, earth and space science, and life science. Miss K was mainly in physical science. She learned about buildings which is a topic that we have studied. She learned about simple machines and I knew she understood what she had learned when we were driving to the city centre and saw a window washer and she said he was using a pulley. I love when the learning is displayed outside of the learning time.

I love the fact that you can skip to the various grades and subjects. You are not locked in to a subject or a grade level that can be nice for children who are at varying levels in the different subjects. I wish at times I knew the topic a bit more before we jumped in as some of the lessons seemed to just begin with the questions and relied on the previous knowledge. We tended to do review after the lesson to cover what was assessed. My preference would be to teach and know that Miss K has learned this before doing the assessment. It was fun to see Miss K get a bit competitive and want to get 100%. I don't know that I have seen that from her before.

We used this on the computer. Miss K did a good job with the mouse and clicking and dragging.

I enjoyed having this for Miss K but it would have been better for her if there was more teaching or instruction before jumping into the assessment.

I think this would be great for children who enjoy researching as they could look things up after they have done a portion of this subject. This would also be good for summer or extra learning times.

Sometimes it is helpful to read reviews from others as it gives you more of an idea of what the program is like.



Beth

Sunya Publishing - TOS Review

Sometimes you just need a new way to make learning math fun or with Miss K maybe a new way to try to learn math facts. I was eager to review and play Sunya - The Magic and Wonder of Math and Science Adding & Subtracting from Sunya Publishing.


Sunya Publishing has two games that they are developing -- adding & subtracting and a multiplication & division one. We received the adding and subtracting game which included playing cards, guidebook, number line, and math and science riddle cards. This game is for ages 7 and up. I was impressed with the quality of the cards.

Sunya is a word from Sanskrit, which means empty or void of any quantity. The idea of the game is to empty your hand of cards and then you say, "Sunya".

I found the instructions a bit confusing. There were photos along with the written instructions, but it might have been too detailed and long. I ended up just following the rules a bit and then working with what Miss K could do. I did find that it was easy to adapt the game to her playing level.

We began with an addition number sentence and then took turns changing the addition number sentence based on the cards that we had in our hand. I think one game I had to pull and pull a few cards which gave me lots of cards to pick from when it was my turn but made it easy for Miss K to win and say, "Sunya".

The wild card confused Miss K a bit so at times I pulled those out just to avoid the confusion. I had her read the math fact to me just to practice math facts.

The guidebook also includes some ideas for math activities for younger children.

The game is still in development and not yet available for sale, hopefully soon. I think it is a good concept and just needs a bit of work in simplifying the instructions.

You can read reviews from other who used either this game or the multiplication & division game.



Beth

Friday's Five

You know you are in Costco UK in five just photos. 

1. Victoria Sandwich Cake - I think a sponge is a very British cake. I did a quick search and all the recipes at least on the first page of results are from UK websites. So a Victoria Sponge is one way you know you are in the Costco UK.

2. The spelling is a give away that you are in the UK. I have learned to add the u to words like labour and harbour and changing the order of re in words like centre and theatre but changing the i to a y in tire is one I just forget to do. See I forgot it here.

3. Marmite in Costco size containers. I don't think I will comment on this as I have never tried it. I think if I decide to try it I will buy a smaller container to begin with. It seems to have either a love it or hate it following.

4. Tea by the 100's - Tetley, Ty-phoo, and PG Tips are all sold here in bags of 100's of teabags. I did read that the British drink 165 million cups of tea a day. Yes, a day. That is 3 cups a day for every man, woman and child. Except in the city where we live where 1 in 3 drink more than 6 cups of tea a day. 98% add milk and 45% add sugar. I did read that the more sugar you add the less the class or you could say the less sugar the higher the class.

Just in case anyone is wondering I might drink 1 cup of tea a month.

5. Mary Berry Cookbook - I was recently introduced to Mary Berry's cookbooks. I have to say that the recipes I have tried have been a success.

5. Cadbury chocolate and a bit more chocolate -

And a bonus photo -- Hot dog and a drink for just £1.50. I will spare you finding the conversion to US$. It is about $2.17.

Beth

British History - Prehistoric to 1066

I shared a bit about our resources for studying British History. We are making progress in our study. We began in prehistoric, Stonehenge and moved all the way to 1066.

We made a model of Stonehenge with shortbread.

It was a combined effort as one of the packages of shortbread had gotten a bit crushed.

I ended up doing most of the reading from Our Island Story with some readings from British History. I found that Britannia repeated the stories from Out Island Story.

We then moved to the Romans. The important things that I wanted the children to know are why the Romans came, what they did here and the legacy that they left, and then why they left.

We built Hadrian's Wall from some chocolate biscuits.

Miss K is quite pleased with her wall.

After the Romans, we moved to the Anglo-Saxons and then the Vikings. I ended the first section just before William the Conqueror. It is difficult at times to find a break in history to have a test. There are events before William the Conqueror that lead to that event.

The maps that we traced during this period were the following
Roman Britain
Anglo-Saxon England
The Earldoms in 1045
Britain from 1066-1070

The important events on our timeline were the following:
Stonehenge
55BC Julius Caesar
123AD Hadrian's Wall
410AD Roman's leave
449AD Saxons arrive
596AD Augustine comes
787 Viking raids begin
871 Alfred becomes King of Wessex

Some of the important people we studied were as follows:

• Boudicca - Miss K loved the story of Bouricca and her daughters. Miss K remembers history with families and children. 
• Canute
• Caractacus
• Earl Godwin
• Edmund Ironside
• Edward the Confessor
• Ethelred the Unready
• Gunhilda - I loved the quote from her, "my death will bring great sorrow upon England"
• King Alfred
• King Harold
• St. Albans
• Tostig
• Venerable Bede
• Vorigern

Now we have moved to 1066. I think as we began studying that we remembered our visit to Battle Abbey.

Beth