Imagination Station: A Book Review

We have recently found a new book series that we are really enjoying.

The Imagination Station series of books comes from Focus on the Family. They feature cousins, Beth and Patrick, and their travels through time on various quests via the Imagination Station. In the first book, they travel back to meet Erik the Red and his son Leif, experiencing a taste of Viking life as they search for the elusive 'sunstone'.

The story links in a bit of real Viking history, together with a Christian theme which is woven through the story, but fairly subtly done. The language and storyline is engaging and there are a few black and white illustrations scattered among the pages.

I have enjoyed reading this first book to my 6-year-old at bedtime. The 14 chapters are not too long, and each one is entertaining in itself, with a little cliffhanger at the end. The typeface is quite large, and a fairly confident independent reader could probably manage to get to the end with little trouble.

At the end of each book is a little section of reflections and activities, and accompanying the book series is a website (which you can find here) with additional resources for each book. These little books would make great additions to a historical study you already have planned, but I think we will use them as starting points, adding activities and day trips to build on what we are reading about.

We bought a pack of the first six books, so now we've finished in the lands of the Vikings, we have the Romans, ancient China, the battle between David and Goliath, medieval England, and the Pilgrim Fathers to look forward to.

I've been looking for a while for some books to read to my son that will be entertaining in themselves and also spark an interest in history, and these fit the bill perfectly.

Real Home Ed: Internet Finds

I often muse about how I would have managed to get even this far with home educating in pre-internet times. It would certainly have taken a lot more planning and legwork!

This week, Bud has developed a sudden interest in how the heart works. I must admit I was a bit sketchy about it all (GCSE Biology was such a long time ago!) so after a couple of days of prevaricating I had a quick look on the internet for any useful material.

Bud always responds well to visual resources, so my first port of call was YouTube. After a few minutes I came across a series of animated shorts called "How The Body Works". They were perfect - detailed enough to feel as though real learning was taking place, yet short and simple enough to keep Bud's attention throughout.

In fact, he was so fascinated by the one on the heart that we quickly followed it up with episodes on hair, skin and immunity (which neatly fitted in with this term's Body Invaders topic at Gateway's Learning Centre).

What internet gems have you come across in your home educating explorations?





Real Home Ed is a regular feature from one of our home educating parents who is just starting out on a home educating journey with her 5-year-old son. We welcome contributions from other home educating families, so if you would like to share a story, photo or review as part of our Real Home Ed series, please email us: info@gatewaychristianeducation.org.uk

Real Home Ed: Keeping Records

One thing that seems to come up again and again when I talk to other home-educating parents is the issue of keeping records that will be useful both for the family, and also for showing to visitors from the LA who might want to be reassured that we are actually providing our children with an education. This is a particular talking point for those unschooling, or educating very young children where formal written work might be infrequent.

We've taken a while to come up with a system we're happy with, and I know all families have their own methods, but this is what has worked for us - please do share what has worked for you in the comments!

I try to keep it as simple as possible as I know I'd lose interest in anything too complicated over time. We don't do a lot of formal work, so photos, photos, photos is the theme here. I take one or two photographs of absolutely any activity we do that has any learning associated with it (pretty much everything at age 5!), using either my camera or my phone.

So there are photos of baking, cooking, crafts, messy play, trips to the park, visits to museums or activities, games we have played, books we have looked at, toys we have played with and so on. Anything he creates that is 3D or too large for his folder also gets photographed.

I also keep a weekly planning sheet, similar to the one pictured here. I jot down our plans for the week, or retrospectively note down what we actually did. I also use it to keep a record of when we have done Reading Eggs or Maths Seeds, just so I know we aren't letting it slide. If there are days with not so much written down, I don't worry about it.

At the end of each week, I gather together anything we have done on paper, and pop it into a ring binder in plastic sheets. The weekly planner sheet for that week goes at the front. I print off a page of pictures that are representative of our other activities during the week (sometimes I add a few explanatory notes) and that goes at the back. Any certificates he gets on Reading Eggs etc. also go in there. Sometimes a week might consist only of the planner sheet and the photos, but other weeks we might have a quite a lot of paperwork. The whole process takes me around 15 minutes. Any longer and I think I'd start procrastinating!

So, how do you keep records? Please tell us!





Real Home Ed is a regular feature from one of our home educating parents who is just starting out on a home educating journey with her 5-year-old son. We welcome contributions from other home educating families, so if you would like to share a story, photo or review as part of our Real Home Ed series, please email us:info@gatewaychristianeducation.org.uk

Real Home Ed: Reading Progress with Reading Eggs

Our big news this week is that Bud has read his first ever book! Admittedly, the plot was a bit thin - mainly mats, hats and fat cats - but it's a significant achievement for us nonetheless.

This 0-60 start to reading has come mainly as a result of subscribing to Reading Eggs recently. I have delayed any serious work on reading until the time seemed right, but recently Bud had started to show a lot more interest, so we decided to give Reading Eggs another go.

When we first explored it around 18 months ago, it was a non-starter because Bud simply could not manage the mouse skills required and it's not currently available on our tablet. It was very frustrating for him and counter-productive. Now at age 5, he can do almost everything the programme asks of him, even learning to drag and drop using the mouse pad after a few days. Even better, Gateway Christian Education has a complete set of Level 1 and Level 2 Reading Eggs reading books in its Resource Library, so we can supplement the screen time with actual book time.

At the moment he is very keen to have a go every day and I practically have to drag him off it. Of course, it's all very new and exciting at the moment, especially as he's not used to a lot of screen time normally. I expect the novelty will wear off quite soon, but I'm taking advantage of it while it lasts!

Real Home Ed is a regular feature from one of our home educating parents who is just starting out on a home educating journey with her 5-year-old son. We welcome contributions from other home educating families, so if you would like to share a story, photo or review as part of our Real Home Ed series, please email us: info@gatewaychristianeducation.org.uk

The writer of this post is not affiliated in any way with Reading Eggs, and has received no payment or gift in kind for this blog post.