I promised you last month that I would work on a new Smorgasbord week for you.

How about a week of Polar Exploration?



I am still working to add more to this page - my apologies but I hope you will forgive me when you see how big this topic is!

You can see the outline of the plan at Polar Exploration for Kids.

I want to add more to the history day - and I also plan to produce a Picture-Pack for your lapbooks with all the pictures you need in one place.

But let me know if you give it a try, or can think of extra resources you think I should add.

We are gearing up here again for November and National Novel Writing Month.

NaNoWriMo is a great opportunity for kids to write a novel. There are lesson plans, a supportive forum - and the opportunity to get your book printed for free if you meet your word goal.

But my kids are currently enamored with fanfiction.net.

This is a great way to get your (over 13year old) kids writing without them having to commit to a whole book. Fan fiction encourages them to write stories about something they are a fan of. Love Angry Birds or Alex Rider or Pokemon? Here is your chance to write a story about it

We have found the reviewers to be mostly positive and encouraging about stories. Which makes it a good way to get your writing reviewed.

And even if you don't want to write anything, reading the stories is somehow addictive!

Ok, not literally!! Although I know you are all very talented people!

Last month I posted a photography project that needed a slow shutter speed.

This month I thought you could try levitation!




This is a totally different type of technique and needs a fast shutter speed - or some photo editing skills. Fancy trying it out? There are more details on my photography projects for kids page.

Happy exercising!!

Day of the Dead (or All Souls Day) is a Mexican holiday taking place on November 1st and 2nd.

One of the traditions is that sugar skulls are made to represent a departed soul - and placed in the home or on a gravestone to honour the return of a particular spirit. The sugar skulls are decorated in folk art style - and this has given rise to lots of beautiful Day of the Dead coloring pages and designs.


Photo courtesy Spacedust Design


There is a whole site here about the holiday and some free coloring pages at ColoringCastle.

And if you are interested in finding out more about the Day of the Dead, you might enjoy this lesson plan.

I loved these little family in fabric pictures and I am sure you will too.



Florence explains how her children made them on her blog at FlossieTeaCakes. There are lots more photographs with ideas there - and she even shows them framed and hanging.

I think they are really lovely and would be easy make with children of all ages. As well as paper pictures you could make journal quilts using fabric glue and fabric markers. Older children could then stitch or quilt around their images using a sewing machine.

Perfect for a rainy day!

Have you seen those children's toys where you place an image under a round mirror to see the reflected image? Well, how about making your own?

Photo courtesy: WikiCommons.


It never occurred to me that we could draw out our own anamorphic art, until I saw this great lesson plan outlining the steps. There are even some examples you could print and use.

This is a fantastic graphing and co-ordinates type activity. They have a video you can watch that I found helpful - go here and press the 'watch video' button.

You can buy the reflective film at Amazon (in massive quantities!) but we found that tin foil wrapped around a toilet roll worked at a push.

Susan Kilbride of FunasticUnitStudies.com emailed me this month to ask me if you would all like a couple of free downloadable unit studies from her book Science Unit Studies for Homeschoolers and Teachers.

Unsurprisingly, I said yes!!

She has sent me two unit studies - one on plant experiments for 3-7 year olds. And an atoms and molecules unit study for ages 8-13.

You can get both free downloads on my kids science experiments page.

Many thanks to Susan for her kind offer - I hope you enjoy them!

It isn't always easy to find collaborative projects to involve your homeschooled children in. I recently emailed Jen from Projects by Jen to see if she accepted homeschoolers for her project challenges. Her reply?

"OH YES!!! That would be so great!!! :) ALL my projects are always open to Home School families....... ALWAYS!!"

What a welcome! So let me start by introducing you to her annual Pumpkin Seed Count Challenge.




The challenge is for PreK - 3rd Grade students and runs the 27th, 28th and 31st October. The idea is to estimate, then count the seeds in a pumpkin - and then submit your results to the online database.

You can find out more - and other related activity ideas - by visiting this page.

And don't forget to roast up those seeds as a yummy snack when you are done!

It's halloween time again. So I wanted to remind you I have a page of halloween activities on the site that you might like to try out.

The apple head witches are something that we made as a family tradition for years - but this year I think the children are keen to try a time lapse film of a rotting pumpkin. Nice!

Are you having a Halloween party? Check out this gross Halloween food and these great easy homemade Halloween costumes from my friend Alicia's site.

• Wonderputt Crazy-golf as never before seen.

• Canaries. Get the little canary (and his laser gun!) through the mine.

• Balloon Tower Defence. Place your defenses ready for the balloon invasion.

The Three Rs!

Resources, Read-Alouds, and Recommendations

The tagline for this book is "Enhancing your child's imagination and education in 15 minutes a day! and I promise you will find this book a real asset. It is filled with hundreds of recommended picture books sorted by themes. Want to read your way around the world? Or from month to month? This book will help you do it. She provides a list of books for teaching virtues - and even a 'cooking with literature' list.

Even though a lot of the books mentioned here were harder to find in the UK - this is the one book I wish I had purchased earlier in my homeschooling.

Enjoy!

Look for a series of books called "Mindware Math" through Amazon.com. They have a mix of great math coloring and puzzle books your kids will love!

Agony Aunt!

Questions from readers

Am starting to get back into the swing of things again (if I little too slowly for my liking!) and so I can share two readers questions with you this month.