To market, to market

Sophia chose to study about markets one day and the other two warmed up to the topic over the course of the day. We played and worked all day on this theme, beginning with all taking it in turns to read the designated book on the farmers market. 


We had a morning of role play, where we set up a traditional market stall initially with a full range of farm produce set out on the table, courtesy of farmer Sophia, who also brought a cow to market, played magnificently by Kira who dressed the part.

Alexander joined in, and a food market quickly merged with the farmers market.as he busily set up a pizza stall, and was preparing orders for everyone. Active role play commenced and hours flew by. 

Along came a grumpy old lady (played magnificently by yours truly), very hard of hearing, who asked the farmer questions about everything under the sun about the produce and the cow who was inaccurately sat eating potato peeling crisps, mooing away on occasion. 

This lady was very bad at maths and needed help figuring out the change for her shopping by the farmer and cow. Thus there was an extensive maths lesson involved regarding money and change. 

The children were in fits of laughter and loved the morning lessons, they were in a great mood then to continue with the more serious side of activities in the afternoon. 

They remained engaged. It was an extremely educational, fun, silly, memorable morning. 

In the afternoon we sat together and spent an hour watching fresh produce and food markets around the world, talking about how the climate and culture dictates the local produce and locations for the markets. We looked at different farms including a potato farm, a rice paddy farm and a banana farm. We looked at Christmas markets around the world and Sophia now wants to go to visit soule food market with Aunty Courtney and Manchester Christmas Market. We wrapped up with learning about farms in Minecraft.

Sophia completed the topic with a writing exercise on the topic.

All three of the children remained engaged on this theme throughout the day which was a joy. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning From Your Environment

Image
There is so much potential for learning on car journeys. This time Sophia's attention was caught by seeing electricity pylons and wind turbines and she was avidly asking questions about these. I briefly introduced them to her and offered to set up some follow up science educational YouTube videos at a later date. Good old 'Dr Binocs' came through and the children have been eagerly learning about fossil fuels, renewable energy and electricity. Sophia has started writing down her thoughts and knowledge on electricity in her new science book. It is a great sidestep from their current topic of light, which is being learnt enthusiastically. They have loved their light experiments, as simple as they were, including going into a dark room and shining a torch, seeing how a pencil seems to change when placed in a glass of water, just with a light shining on it. Observing what materials allow light to pass through and which cast shadows, and performing shadow puppet plays on the wall...
Read more

Role playing Is A Serious Business!

Image
The morning period is personally the best time of day for lessons for my girls. They are alert, focused and raring to start lessons, consequently breakfast lessons are an established learning time. I have a captive audience, they are in the kitchen with me anyway learning how to prepare the food, tidy down and set the table. This session can be the best for attention span and concentration out of the entire day, so I have learnt to capitalise on this precious half hour.  This morning we learnt twenty spellings from two word families. They are storming through their word lists, quickly approaching the 200 mark in only a couple of months. I cannot recommend this learning style enough, the girls are retaining their spelling knowledge and are actively using the words in their artwork in their free time. Today they also requested spelling tests to be their handwriting practice, and did further spelling practice on top for another half an hour through choice.  The rest of breakfast ...
Read more

Always be thankful

Image
 It was December 2021 when Miss Jo, The Children's Coach contacted me and offered the girls free places in her January zoom class. This was the tutor who had organised and ran the summer fun project which the girls had been nominated and awarded for bravery. The girls absolutely loved her as a teacher and had immediately bonded with her. They wrote her letters and talked about her every day during this project.  I took her up on this very kind and generous offer and the girls had a regular half an hour zoom class every Thursday on the theme of gratitude. The girls were the youngest ones in the class and they handled it really well.  Sophia wrote the classes on the calender, scheduling in the lessons, for the month. Kira took a postcard written to her by Miss Jo, which she had received the previous year, to bed with her every night until the classes took place. She read it to me as her bedtime story.  The first thing Kira said to Miss Jo on class, was to thank her for...
Read more