Home Education: Planning a Project on Spring Flowers

With the gorgeous weather arriving with the UK lockdown

We started working in the garden

We have dug a pond in Tilda’s garden

And David has grand plans for a waterfall

The girls and I did some weeding and tidying work

And we enjoyed exploring all the different plants and flowers

The girls asked to learn about flowers

And so we did

That is often how it works here

The children express an interest in something

And I build a project around their interests

Last week we focused on spring flowers

Tomorrow we start a week on minibeasts

The following week we will be looking at lifecycles and pollination

We will have a mini Easter Edventure (more on that in another post!)

Before moving on to habitats

And then mother and baby farm animals

We had planned to do all of this work at our local farm

But now we are doing it in our own home and garden

We have borrowed some tadpoles from a local wild pond

They are now very busy tadpoles

That we are loving watching grow

We will also be creating a wormery and growing caterpillars with Insect Lore

Bea also has a ladybird world

So many things to keep us busy and help us learn

But last week we focused on spring flowers

And I thought that I would share what we did

And how I pulled the plans together

How I manage our days

And where I find all our resources

Making a Plan

I always begin with the children

I find out what they already know

This varies HUGELY from child to child

And then I ask them what they would like to learn

Along with what they would like to do

I also suggest things that I think we should do

Things that I know they should learn

Sometimes I plan using a list

Sometimes a Pinterest board

And sometimes a topic web

I hardly ever stick to our original plan

It evolves constantly depending on what we do

How we are feeling

What else comes up in our days

Our learning is very fluid

Edie

When I start planning and resourcing

I always start with Edie

I overplan for her

She is almost 3

She obviously plays a lot and watches carefully curated TV

But she also likes to ‘work’

I plan play ideas for her

But I also print off worksheets

So that she can sit at the table with us

And feel like one of the big kids

She loves doing her table work

It very often involves stickers

Do a Dot sheets

Playdough

Painting

Cutting and sticking

Counting things

Sometimes she will sit up with us for half an hour

Sometimes 5 minutes

She will often come back and forth between the table

And whatever has been put out for her in the playroom

For our Spring Flowers Project

Edie had various things in the playroom including

Tender Leaf Toys Flower Bed

Tender Leaf Toys Gardening Wheelbarrow

Learning Resources Gears Gears Gears! Build and Bloom Set

Green Toys Build a Bouquet

Flower themed board books

And a Flower Stall role play area

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Ending a busy week of flower play with our very own Flower Stall. Here you can buy small posies, single blooms, pots of seeds and more. Role play on our stall includes counting, mark making, reading, calculating, lots of imaginative play and real life role play. So much rich language used about colours and parts of flowers. The printables from @twinklresources have helped inspire some writing and maths. #somanywaystoplay #whowillbuy #whowillbuymysweetredroses #roleplay #imaginativeplay #creativeplay #welovespringplay #springplay #springflowers #flowerplay #oursensoryspring #dramaticplay @great_little_trading_co @threadbear.design @tenderleaftoys #playfullearning #fridayfeeling #toddlerlife #toddlerplay #preschoolactivities #preschoolplay #preschoolathome #siblingplay #letthemplay #timetoplay

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As far as printables go

For Edie I print more than I need

Keep them in a box

Then whenever she asks to join in

I fish out something for her to do

My go to places for resources for Edie are

Totschooling

Preschool Mom

The Resourceful Mama

Playfully Primary

Teachers Pay Teachers

My Bored Toddler

These are all great resource banks for toddlers, preschoolers and children in Reception and Y1

We use these sites a lot and I am so thankful that we found them

View this post on Instagram

I have had so many messages about the Do a Dot sheets I use with Edie. They are freely available all over the Internet and seem to be a predominantly American thing. You can get them to fit lots of different themes. They can be used with bingo markers, paint sticks from @littlebrianpaintsticks, finger printing, painting with Pom Poms and with stickers! They are great for toddlers and preschoolers. Through them you can learn about letters, numbers, colours, shapes, patterns, ordering and so much more #somanywaystoplay We find our Do a Dot resources from @totschooling @theresourcefulmama @myboredtoddler #powerfulmothering #preschoolmom @teacherspayteachers and there are some resources on @twinklresources that can be used in a similar way. Have fun!!

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Bea, Esther and William

With Edie busy and happy I can focus on everyone else

Every day my school age children do one maths activity and one English

These tend to be from Twinkl or using a workbook

We get these out of the way first thing in the morning

We are almost always done by 10

10.00am is snack time time in our house

When the weather is dry

The children wrap up warm

Build a den in the garden and eat outside

If it is cold they might watch some TV or

I will read to them

All my children adore picture books and we love to sit together

And share new books and old favourites

After snack last week we did some work linked to our topic

Spring Flowers

Bea and I made paper plate flowers with help from Edie

We all dissected daffodils

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Every year we dissect a daffodil following an activity guide from @nurturestore Using magnifying glasses we look really closely at the different parts of the flower. We take the plant apart and make an exploded diagram labelling the different parts of the flower. The children love doing this. Edie loved opening the ovary and finding all the ovules. Such a simple activity and so much to learn together. You can also compare the daffodil with other flowers. The awesome @maddiemoate and @gregfoot dissect a daffodil on their live show today and explain all the science behind flowers and pollination. We will be catching up with the show this evening and dissecting along!! Do let us know if you have a go too x

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We labelled flowers

We learned about plant and flower lifecycles

We learned how to identify different flowers

We learned what plants and flowers need to survive

We learned through books and printables from Twinkl

As well as lots of practical activities

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We have had a busy week learning all about spring flowers and plant lifecycles. Everyone from Edie to William have worked at their level and enjoyed play activities linked in to our theme. Tonight I am going to write a post on my blog sharing how I plan a weekly theme, where Iook for ideas, inspiration and resources, how I manage four children all doing different things at different development stages. I am an experience primary school teacher with experience from reception to Year 6 but more importantly than that I am a home educating mummy of four creative and playful children and I want to share our passion for books and playful learning in the hope that it might help. I will pop the link in my bio tonight. Next week we embark on a Minibeast Mayhem Adventure! #homeeducation #homeeducator #homeschoolmama #homelearning #playfullearning #playandlearn #learningthroughplay #bettertogether #playmatters #ourhomeedlife #ourhomeedjourney

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We also used flowers in our creative and imaginative play

For the older children’s work

I use Twinkl

Lots of themed worksheets here linked to science, maths and English

Also great for colouring and songs and rhymes linked to themes

This is also where I get reading comprehensions

And lots of resources for our role play areas and imaginative play

Lots and lots here for children of all ages

Plan Bee Teaching

Plan Bee have wonderful science lessons around plants and flowers, definitely worth a look

We are following their science plans so will share what we get up to Instagram and Facebook

Classroom Secrets

Great for maths and English ad if you search your topic you can find linked resources

TES Resources

A treasure trove of lesson plans, activities and resources

Teachers Pay Teachers

I adore this website

Predominantly American produced resources so you have to be careful of spelling

But just a huge number of creative printables linked to a multitude of themes

I can lose hours here!

I like to theme all our work

It is just what works for us and has done since Esther and William were small

So when learning about flowers I will try to find some reading activities

That are about flowers

Often a comprehension will fit the bill

I look for themed maths resources

Making flowers out of 2D shapes for example

Counting flowers and petals

Practical work is really important for Bea and Esther

But also for William

With him I like to do things like

Measuring plants around the garden with standard measures

I will get him to convert his measurements

Make comparisons, predictions and estimations

For William

Sharing a number of seeds between a number of pots

Can cover division, fractions, decimals and percentages

There are so many playful ways to learn

A worksheet is not the be all and end all

It should be a starting point or an end point

With lots of practical and creative activities in between

When we are working on a topic such as Spring Flowers

I will look at The National Curriculum to see what the children need to have covered

In science we take objectives from Year 1 for Bea, Year 3 for Esther and Year 5 for William

And there is also Edie to weave in among all of that

I try to structure our day so that I am working one to one with each child at some point

We do something all together each day

Then I might work with Esther and Bea together while William plays with Edie

It is not easy and can feel overwhelming when they all need me at once

For completely different things

I love home educating my children

But it can be really hard work

And some days we will do loads of activities and ‘work’

Other days we will spend all day doing one activity that we have all enjoyed

And become engrossed with

Other days are over before they have begun because outside is just too tempting

It has taken me a long while to come to terms with the fact

That all of the above is okay

I like structure and routine

I like themes

But I also know that what children need above timetables

And Instagram worthy invitations to play

Are conversations

With me

With each other

They need to have their curiosity ignited

They need to learn problem solving

They need to learn how to work together

They need to learn resilience when working on something tricky

And they need to know that mistakes are part of learning

They also more than all of that

Need to know that they are safe

And they are loved

If your children know those two things

Then in my humble opinion

You are doing everything right

We move on tomorrow to our week of Minibeast Mayhem

We will be thinking about insects and other kinds of bugs

We will be going on minibeast hunts

Singing minibeast songs and dancing at The Ugly Bug Ball

We will be creating new minibeasts

We will be thinking about sorting and classification

We will be identifying and observing

We will be asking questions and trying to find the answers to them

We will be doing a lot of learning

Through a whole lot of play

Come on and join us over on Instagram

Where I share all of our play and learning activities

Here’s to a new week

Of learning and playing at home x

One thought on “Home Education: Planning a Project on Spring Flowers

  1. Hi Jennie, you post always very helpful for me. In these hard days when everyone is in home. Kids need to learn something new at home with passing time and not get bored. Excellent activities. Thanks, Stay home, stay safe.

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