Socrates with S'mores Pt 2

Not long ago someone jokingly called my family preppers. It may have been meant as an insult, referencing zombie apocalypse or complete breakdown of society scenario, but when I thought about, we are preppers in a sense. No we aren't ready for zombies or nuclear war... somehow I doubt our tents, fire lighting kit, camp stoves and slingshot would really make the difference. But we are prepping our children, not for war and death (or undeath) but for life.

 Camping, fishing, Bush craft and survival skills all give a child confidence. They encourage him or her to get outside and explore, to learn and ask questions. They break children away from what we not so jokingly refer to as electronic life support... the internet, and encourage them to get outdoors and get active.  These activities prep a child for a healthy and active life. Many skills such as archery and knot tying increase dexterity. Putting up a tent can involve problem solving skills, all the more so if you use a Halfords tent (more on that in an upcoming post),  and all of that activity can help children remain physically fit. I am also am a firm believer in the benefits of dirt, fresh air, exposure to every sort of plant, animal, insect and yes possibly a few pathogens in low doses from an early age. Children who grow up immersed in these things develop natural immunities. How often do you see a child with allergies on a farm?

 Outdoor activities can serve as a catalyst for more traditional learning as well. My son's interest in outdoor skills. We have read book after book on scouting, outdoor skills, fire making, plant identification, map reading, plant identification and more. Many of the skills learned do transfer to other fields, plant identification may be helpful in biology, maps and orienteering use some maths skills, learning about fire making and fire myths has taught us about world cultures and most of all , all that reading is an excellent way to boost academic attainment.

But of all the skills my children have learned in the outdoors what I like most of all is "prepping" our family to remain close. My youngest spent an entire day alone with his father, something they would rarely do, just catching fish. The smiles and easy camaraderie between the two building bonds to last a lifetime. My oldest is in the teen years now. He still talks to me, but not as often, but sitting together beside a fire, we chatted happily for hours. I know things won't always be so easy, troubles will come as they age, and distances may appear between us when they grow up. But the time around the campfire, telling stories in tents and even in the complete disaster of the worst tent ever, these all make memories, they forge connections and hopefully prep our family to remain close and loving for life.

                           Socrates with S'mores, 

Bringing out the natural philosopher in your child.

                                                            Part one Socrates

  As soon as a child can speak he begins to wonder about the world around him. Young children want to touch, explore and examine everything. They ask question after question in an attempt to discover the nature of the world.  In this respect, they have more in common with the ancient philosophers than do most adults. Socrates too sought to understand and illuminate the world around him through questions. The Socratic method of teaching refers to  teaching through asking leading questions. Unfortunately Socrates questioning angered those in power, and he was put to death. To me, every time we brush off a child's eager questions of the world, or force them to endure monologues which are aimed at teaching the established narrative rather than seeking truth, we kill some part of the natural wonder and joy of learning in a child. Even when we do do absolutely know the answer, or at least think we do, how much better to allow the child the joy of discovery, to present the evidence we can find and let them from their own conclusions. True, it isn't the safest way to teach, my children have not always come to the same conclusions I have, but I view my job as being to teach them how to think, not what to think. A famous quote attributed to Socrates tells us "the unexamined life is not worth living". It is easy of course to say such things without meaning them, but Socrates did mean what he said, as evidenced by his choice to die rather than give up questioning anything and everything. The foundation of my educational philosophy is to question everything.

 Now not all of our education is centred on the Socratic modelled, nor do I teach an entirely  Classical Education, I will go into the other half of our educational in part 2 - S'mores, and in fact that is the most fun part, but I view the basics of a classical education as the essential underpinning of any well rounded education. Wikipedia defines the Classical education movement as a Western phenomena. According to their site "The Classical education movement advocates a form of education based in the traditions of Western culture, with a particular focus on education as understood and taught in Classical antiquity and the Middle Ages."  There are of course alternatives for other parts of the world, and in particular the  Vedic version fascinates me, but my children our European and I have based their education on their own native culture, history, religions (yes Europe has had more than one religion) and heritage. That isn't to say we don't learn about others as well. It is simply that we focus on the basics of any good education regardless of locale, the old fashioned three r's : reading, 'riting, 'rithmatic  + what I consider the 4th r, or requirement of a well rounded education, rambling, or outdoor activities (more on that in part two) and the history, literature and heritage of their own culture. In addition a classical education includes philosophy and the sciences. A classical education would traditionally include instruction in Greek and Latin as well, but while this would have been essential at one time, to read so much of the Classical literature, I do not see these languages as particularly relevant today other than the basic understanding of Latin names and classifications of plant and animal life. We have decided to use our time on other subjects instead.

  It would not include the many practical skills a child needs to learn, but I imagine it was assumed a child would learn these at home. A classical education, in and of itself does not prepare a child for any career other than teaching. It has drawbacks as does any other strictly adhered to method of education, but that does not mean it does not have value. We combine elements of a classical educations with more modern pursuits, such as computer assisted learning, computer building and electronics; as well as outdoor skills, building a fire, shooting a bow, or finding wild food; martial arts and defensive; and the bare necessities of domestic life, how to cook, sew and clean clothes.

 In General we focus on our own history, culture, literature and religious beliefs, though we do include those from other nations as well. After all, we believe every story has many sides. A classical education traditionally would include tuition in Greek and Latin. We do not pursue these subjects as the odds of the children remembering them are slim and the amount of time devoted would take from other subjects. While part of our studies are devoted to the essentials, we also include anything the children take an interest in. Some of our previous unit studies have included prehistoric plants, insects and even diseases; biological and chemical warfare; parasites that effect some degree of mind control (zombie makers), and the evolution of weaponry. Our current project is an on going study of fire and we have been making plans and gathering materials to recreate a primitive armoury, everything from fire hardened spears to a bola, sling, and possibly an atlatl. The children are also desperate to create thermite, and believe they could do this wish aluminium powders and rust. I haven't researched the safety aspects of this  to decide on whether to give consent yet. The classical subjects form the roots of education, but the whole philosophy is more like a tree with many branches. Every day is another adventure.

For more information on classical home schooling , from slightly different perspectives please see:

https://welltrainedmind.com/a/classical-education/

http://www.home-school.com/Articles/classical-education.php
http://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/want-to-raise-the-next-socrates-teaching-children-philosophy-is-easier-than-you-think

Or if you just want a really quick definition:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mDXauzcdHCo

A good  Socrates for children:
https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/socrates

A philosophy book we are using now:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00TK751Y4/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o09_?ie=UTF8&psc=1

See also my older post on books that teach values.
http://youngadventurer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/childrens-books-that-teach-values.html

  

Some of these species have existed virtually unchanged for millions of years. One was thought to be extinct. All of these have very minimal change from the time of the dinosaurs or beyond, and all are things you can obtain and keep in the UK without spending an absolute fortune.

Dawn Redwood - Metasequoia glyptostroboides.

Thought to be extinct for millions of years, a single specimen was found alive in 1941 in China. Although critically endangered in its natural habitat, these are widely available as seeds or saplings online. This is a large fast growing redwood but is also often cultivated as a bonsai tree. The dawn redwood is the only known deciduous conifer. Grew fron the Cretaceous up until 2mya.

TREE FERN - Dicksonia Antarctica

 A very common plant in the Jurassic, these continued to growin New Zealand and are widely available as seedlings

Ginkgo, Ginkgo biloba  - Cretaceous. This tree is thought to have gone extinct in the wild, but been cultivated in Buddhist monasteries, and then as an ornamental tree.

Monkey Puzzle Tree - Araucaria araucana

The closest relative to the trees which flourished in the carboniferous period.

Horsetail Plants

Cretacous - prefer very damp locations, ideal to plant near ponds, but can be grown indoors or out if you keep,


ANTS:

Fossil ant nests have been found from the Jurassic period. The ants of this time spent more time underground, but they aren't too far from modern ants.

Mosquitoes
 OK you probably don't want to keep these as pets - but they have been around from the time of the dinosaurs, as well as their  companion, malaria - all right we definitely do not want to keep that living fossil, but perhaps understanding how it evolved may help us to fight it someday.

Madagascar Hissing Cockroach:
Not completely unchanged but very very close to the creatures that have survived every mass extinction event in the history of the earth - and if anything survives the next one, my bet would be on these things. All the same, not something I really want to keep in the house, but many people do. You can buy one on ebay for about £7 including postage.

Living Fossils

Most children go through a  dinosaur phase, but it has been more than a passing fancy for my oldest, who has wanted to be a palaeontologist since he was 3 years old. So we have the usual collections of rocks and fossils, but sometimes it is nice to see something alive, much as it was millions of years ago. There are some plants and animals that have remained virtually unchanged. Of course none of us can go out a  coelacanth to add to our fish tank, but there are some relics of the dinosaurs age you can keep in your own home.

Fancy three eyed, prehistoric, cannibal pets? Try Triops.

We absolutely love triops. For those of you unfamiliar with these lovely creatures - they are the oldest living animal species on earth. Triops cancriformis has existed virtually unchanged for 200 million years. They have three eyes - hence the name triops and appear to keep growing as long as they live shedding a complete skin every few weeks. These little creatures allow children to own and observe a living fossil, a creature that shared the earth with the dinosaurs, and has survived a number of mass extinction events. There are only two drawbacks to these little beasties in my opinion. The first is that they are short lived. These animals evolved to hatch out in puddles grow and mate quickly ( oh and they can mate and produce young all by themselves - a single animal can impregnate itself and produce young) and then die out leaving the eggs behind for the next rainy season. The second problem is that they are cannibals. No matter how many hatch out - I always end up with one big fat one. I am going to try more substrate and plants next time though in the hopes that some hiding places may increase the survival rate.

In the past - I have bought a number of triops kits. They tend to be fairly expensive for what you get - a packet of eggs - usually this exact same packet eggs stamped Triops USA from Netyfish, a packet of food and a small plastic container completely unsuitable for raising a triops to adulthood. The purchase price for these kits ranges from £9.50 including postage to £21.99 with an average price of around £11. These eggs will cost you £3.00 including postage from Amazon, and if you want the food that will cost you additional £2.00. Postage is automatically combined if you purchase the two items together. It isn't an absolute requirement, but I do prefer to use the prepared triops food when they first hatch, switching to larger foods as they grow. One pack of triops food should be enough to last the average lifespan as the only food.

HOW TO HATCH TRIOPS

Ideally you need 4 litres per triops. The containers sold in kits are usually about 1/2 litre. Obviously this is not going to work. I use a cube type fish tank which works quite well. If growing triops in the summer, you can use a plastic goldfish tank, or any other large clean container that has never had soap in it. Any soap residue will kill these. A large well cleaned glass jar will work, as will a goldfish bowl. Even a big new bucket, although that would not provide ideal viewing opportunities. In the winter however you will need a heater - which means you need a glass tank. This is one area where I take issue with many of the kits which claim these can live at room temperature. The recommended temperature is 22 degrees. I have found these do very well without a heater in the summer months, which are still obviously below these temperature, but these are not going to hatch without daytime temperatures of at least 14 degrees and preferably higher, nor will they survive a single night in autumn to winter unless you leave your radiator on 24/7 or use an aquarium heater or heat lamp. Personally I don't quite understand the recommendation of a heat pad or heat lamp made by many triops enthusiasts. An aquarium heater id the ideal way in which to keep an aquarium heated.

You can use a small aquarium filter once your triops reaches 1/2 " or more in size, but a small air stone would probably be better, and unless you happen to have a large a number of triops that have refrained from eating each other, this really isn't necessary. You may also choose to use any substrate suitable for tropical fish, but again it is not required. If you have access to a bit of pond mud, this may provide additional nutrients, but it will also cloud your water.

Please note - these things are microscopic when they first hatch - it will take awhile before you can see them swimming about.

WATER:

You are meant to use distilled water or rainwater only. I have used rainwater when possible but have also used tap water as long as it is well aged. I simply scoop a bit from my fish tank. Chlorine will kill them though and the drops used for tropical fish don't seem to work for them as other substances in the water that settle with time may pose a problem.

FEEDING:

Your triops favourite food will most likely be his siblings. After he has dispatched all of these he will eat triops food, fish food, blood worms, dried brine shrimp, daphnia, tubifex worms, alagae wafers or anything you could feed tropical fish. They love algae as well. They will also eat - a pinch of dog food, lettuce, spinach, apple, boiled carrot or potato, peas, corn, cress, aquarium plants, even the roots of grass. They will eat cooked meat as well, but this will pollute your water quickly. I have allowed mine a tiny bit of cooked chicken, but remove anything leftover after a couple of hours.

LIFESPAN:

This is the worst thing about these creatures. The lifespan is meant to be two months. I have had one for three and a half and it grew huge, but there really is no way to keep these creatures for years. You may be able to hatch the offspring - this requires completely drying out the substrate, preferably for months and then rehydrating. The eggs can not hatch without a dry spell. They also will not hatch until temperatures are right, laying dormant for many years if necessary before the conditions for hatching are correct. They can survive freezing to almost boiling temperatures while dormant.

EDUCATIONAL:

I do think these creatures are quite educational, but only if you take the time to learn about them. Just watching them swim about isn't highly educational, but if you look them up online, find out how they evolved, how the planet has changed since the first triops appeared and ask why these little things have survived longer than any other animal on the planet - they become highly educational. Our guesses for their survival include: The ability for only one to reproduce, the ability to remain dormant for many years until conditions are right for survival of the hatchlings and the ability to eat virtually anything. I would also recommend " When Dinos Dawned, Mammals Got Munched and Pterosaurs Took Flight - A Cartoon Prehistory of Life in the Triassic". The mention of triops is limited, but this does give an idea of what the world was like in the early Triassic just after the Permian Extinction, which the triops is listed as a survivor of, although to my knowledge the fist fossils date back to just after the event. " When Bugs Were Big, Plants Were Strange, and Tetrapods Stalked the Earth: A Cartoon Prehistory of Life Before Dinosaurs " would also be quite useful as this discusses life before the curtain fell on most of the earth's life forms.

RECOMMENDED ?

Yes, but preferably for children over age 4. I would also explain to the child before the triops are hatched that they have a very short lifespan, and will not live for more than a few months. My children are still always disappointed when they die, but always want to try again with a new one. If you are wanting to test a child's commitment to keeping a pet though, this might be just the thing. If the child grows tired of it and will not care for it anymore, you won't have too many months of looking after it yourself, and it is pretty low maintenance. I only wish they could breed a strain with a longer lifespan.

I would certainly recommend this package of eggs over any of the sets going. After all, all you can really use out of the triops sets is the eggs and the food so why pay for a plastic bowl and a fancy box?

Summary: A unique chance to own a pet that shared the earth with dinosaurs.

Educational Board Games

We no longer hit the books on Fridays in our home. Instead we head for the games shelves. I once read ( and have spent forever trying to find the link) that there were the top three family activities to help children succeed academically were :

Books - reading to your children, reading with them, and providing varied material for them to read themselves.

Days Out - The obvious museums and zoos and such, but also simple days out such as parks, the seaside or wooded areas.

Board Games: This one took me by surprise but it makes sense. There are so many skills children can learn from board games. You need to read and follow instructions - at least to get started - we often make our own rules or variations later. Even the simplest games encourage conversation, teach children to take turns, and of course how to cope with both winning and losing. Younger children's games often include matching, colour recognition, counting and fine motor skills. Older children's games are apt to include a few more math's concept like counting money and change,  strategy and more. There are a wealth of board games designed specifically for educational purposes each with their own goal in mind. I'll be trying to include as many of the games we use and enjoy as possible for now - so if my ratings look a bit one sided - it is because I am only including favourites for now. Age recommendations are my own. I consider the children's interest levels, difficulty of problems etc when estimating age, but assume some parental help is available for very young players.

Colours

Candyland by Hasbro
A perfect first board game. Teaches colours, taking turns and a wonderful game for Christmas time.
http://members.dooyoo.co.uk/board-games/hasbro-candyland/1591842/
Ages: recommended 3+ but both of my boys played this from age 2. Still gets used at Christmas time but really best for children under age 6
Players : 2 - 4
Reading Required? No.
Entertainment Value  **** 1/2   Educational Value ****

Maths

What's The Point by Greenboard Games
Teaches, fractions, percentages and decimals
http://members.dooyoo.co.uk/board-games/what-s-the-point/1727202/
Ages Technically 8+, but my five year old enjoys playing this as a team with me.
Players: Technically  2 or more - you could go up to 6, but it would grow tedious with too many players. This could be played alone as well.
Reading Required? No.
Entertainment Value  ** 1/2   Educational Value *****

Sum Swamp  - Learning Resources
Very basic addition and subtraction - fun but only for younger children.
Ages 4 - 6
Players 2 - 4
Reading Required? No.
Entertainment Value  ****   Educational Value ****

Magic Cauldron Maths - Orchard Toys
Simple addition subtraction, a couple of very easy multiplication questions.
Fill a cauldron by collecting cards that equate to the correct number for each spell. Uses heat sensitive cards, but these can be hard to work on a cold day. I resorted to keeping a cup of tea handy and holding the cards against the cup, but children playing alone could use a heated bean bag ( not included).
Ages 4 - 7
Players - 2 + but could be used alone if you really needed to.
Reading Required? No.
Entertainment Value  ****   Educational Value ****

Run, Run, as Fast as you Can!  by Orchard Toys
An all time favourite in our house. Teach simple fractions and counting as well as adding abit of rhyming and literature if you wish. My youngest has played this since age 2, my oldest still enjoys this at age 8, and I'm quite certain I will never outgrow it.
http://members.dooyoo.co.uk/board-games/orchard-toys-run-run-as-fast-as-you-can/1680005/change
Recommended ages 4+ but I would recommend from age 2 with suprevsion if you child has outgrown eating small parts.
Players 2-4
Reading Required? No.
Entertainment Value  *****+   Educational Value *****

SNAKES AND LADDERS

It doesn't really matter which version you choose, we have a lovely set by Galt with animal pictures and a ludo game with different habitats on the back, but any Snakes and Ladders game will work.
When playing the game as you are meant to, children learn to count up to 100 and simple addition.

Adding a few sets of flash cards and some coloured markers creates a whole new game. You can use a ready made set of flashcards or make your own. Just be sure you will have answers that equal up to 100. We use coloured glass pebbles like you would have in a fish tank as markers, but anything will work : Hot Wheels cars ( although they roll about terribly) toy dinosaurs, zoo animals etc...  The object of this game is to get four of your markers in a row, while clocking other players from doing the same. Any time you correctly answer a flash card, you place your marker on that square. If it is already occupied - we allow the child to choose another square, but if you want to make it more cut throat you can bump the player off. Other options would be to draw another card, or just miss the turn. In all honesty this doesn't teach any more than flash cards alone - but it is a lot more fun.

For more variations see my review @

http://members.dooyoo.co.uk/board-games/galt-snakes-ladders-and-ludo-game-set/1730681/

Spelling

Scrabble by Mattel

The ultimate in spelling fun, this also teaches vocabulary, especially if played with a dictionary, and quite a lot of maths adding up scores, especially with triple or double and letter scores. This is an all time family favourite and one every home educating family should have.
Players 2 - 4
Reading Required? Yes
Entertainment Value  *****+   Educational Value *****

Fish N Spell Game
What's In The Box?

• cloth pond
• wooden fishing poles with magnets.
• 80 magnetic fish with letters.
• cards which have common words in four languages. You can choose to spell them in English, French Italian or Spanish.
• two cards with eight fish shapes to spell your words on.

The idea of the game is to turn all the fish upside down and see who can find the all the letters to the given word first. It is meant  for only two players, but more can play by sharing the fishing rods and having the older players play without the card. The card is just a bit of paper anyway. I do wish it had been magnetic as it would have kept the letters together better. You are not meant to take turns which can make this  mad race, but we do take turns.

We also often use our own cards, either Kipper's Word Games cards from ORT, or home made cards using words from my son's phonics books. With my oldest we have played using a spelling list as well - so he doesn't get a card to guide him them.

There are a few flaws with this game. The fish stick together easily, the card for making your words is a bit flimsy, and the words on the cards are all easy in English. I don't really feel you can learn a foreign language with this as you wouldn't know the pronunciation, but it would be handy if you were already studying one of the three extra languages. But this still earns five stars because it is so flexible.  You can leave the fish right side up for younger players and use this to teach alphabet recognition  as well as simple spellings. By adding your own cards, you can focus on any subject you wish. You can even try spelling dinosaur names  or latin names of plants - there are enough tiles for most words.

Highly recommended for ages  3 - 10 but be aware that this does contain magnets. These are very weak, but the game is still not recommended for under 3's.

Hangman by Milton Bradley:

This is played very much like the original paper and pencil game. Each player chooses a word and places the letters in a rack at the front of their case. Players take it turns to guess a letter. If it is correct - the letter is placed facing out in the appropriate position in the rack at the top of their case, making this visible to person guessing, If it is incorrect their opponent turns the wheel one click revealing a part of a gallows - or the gallows with part of a body swinging from the hangman's noose ( although the noose itself isn't shown. When a whole body is displayed that player has lost - or in our house died - complete with gasping and choking with hands clutched to throat before collapsing in a very melodramatic death.

As an alternate you can place all the tiles on top of the case to begin with facing the person who has made that word. As their opponent guesses letters correctly - these are turned over, but my son did find it difficult to spell his words in reverse when he was younger.

Traditionally, each player should just make up their own words and must be able to spell any word they will be using. This is the way we play now as my oldest is 8 and can spell a reasonable number of words. When my son was very young ( ages 5 -6) I often gave him a book we were reading at the time and we would each choose a word from the book. This makes this game easy and fun for very young players. I feel this also helped my son learn to read and spell the words he was using in his every day school work as well. As he has grown older we tried using spelling lists for awhile, and it does help him to learn the words, but it also made guessing the words quite easy. Now we just choose whatever words we like - although as an adult I do refrain from using words I know he will not be familiar with - where if I were playing with another adult I would choose the most obscure words possible.

The biggest drawback to the plastic version of the game is that your are limited to only 8 letters. This leaves many dinosaur names out of the game. I also find the cases very hard to open, but my son can open them easily enough so I suspect that is just me. There are plenty of tiles and we have never come across a word that needed more of any letter than we have. 

http://members.dooyoo.co.uk/board-games/hangman/1668082/


Stop back soon I hope to be adding more games daily.

One of the best home ed items we have bought this year!

Toys of Wood Oxford Multifunctional Advanced Beads Puzzle & Threading Board

Most people buy back to school clothes, gym kits and stationary. We buy back to school toys. Of course do a lot more than just play, but play is an important part of our curriculum. I believe children retain what they learn better when they are having fun, but something like allows children to use several styles of learning. The manufacturer claims this is suitable for ages 3 -10. I originally scoffed at this idea, feeling 10 would be far too old for this toy, but seeing how much my 8 1/2 year old enjoys it, I've changed my mind.

WHAT'S IN THE BOX:

Wooden tray with a peg board lid. There are two grooves cut into the inside of the tray which can be used to hold the pegboard upright like an easel if desired.
360 wooden mushroom shaped pegs , various colours, small medium and large tops. the bottom of the peg is just under 1/2 centimetre in diameter. The pegs are nearly 1 centimetre tall. The height is the same for all of them , it is just the width of the mushroom part.
6 coloured laces.
5 wooden shapes for threading: cow, teddy bear, butterfly, fish
And instruction booklet showing several designs to make.

OVERALL QUALITY AND MANUFACTURING INFORMATION:

This toy is made in China. The Amazon ad states that it does conform to EC toy safety rules has a ISO 9002 Certificate and conforms to EN71. this doesn't mean much to me so I looked it up. EC toy safety is obvious, but the ISO 9002 certificate is a British standards certificate but now obsolete. EN71 refers to "European and International toy safety standards EN71"*

The overall quality of the toy can only be described as exceptional. The wood has a lovely smooth surface and the lid fits on top perfectly. The lacing figures are simple, they are all one colour, but also have a nice texture and appear very well made. I do suffer from tremors at times in my hands, and unfortunately this box really went flying shortly after purchase. I was delighted that it came out unscathed. The paint is thick and robust and appears unlikely to chip and thank goodness the whole box was put together well enough o withstand some impact, although obviously this is not recommended. My favourite part however, is the pegs. We do have plastic pegs as well, but these are so much nicer. I just the love the feel of real wood and so do the boys.

The instruction booklet is written in both Chines and English , and I'm afraid the translation is not very good. In one instance it reads "Don't keep the toy in the mouth to prevent children devour small parts of the toy". The English is not perfect, or even good, but it does get the point across, and in all honesty it is common sense anyway, You really shouldn't need an instruction book to advise you not to throw this toy at each other or to allow small children to eat the little pieces. The "Warning choking hazard - Small Parts. Not for children under 3 years" is clearly stamps as are a few other references to 3+. The majority of the instructions are illustrations so no text is needed but what I really like about the booklet is that it has the English word under most pictures accompanied by the Chinese symbol. I really like this as my children have had some interest in Chinese writing and I think it is wonderful for them to be exposed to this little taste of another culture.

WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH THIS?

I could write a book on what you can do with this toy. It is great fun simply to make pictures and allow for artistic expression. It is also wonderful to make geometric shapes and explore patterns. You can have fun creating half of a picture and allowing a child to create the other half. You can make pictures only from pegs, or by lacing the wooden shapes onto the board. Or you can use this as a threading board with strings alone, crisscrossing them back and forth to make designs or stitching out letters. The wooden shapes can also be used for tracing, or you can just stitch the threads in and out of the holes. You can play X's and o's with this , or even a simplified version of Go one of Albert Einstein's favourite games.

CHILD DEVELOPMENT:

Fine motor skills: The small mushroom pegs are perfect for encouraging children to develop a pincer grip. The threading and lacing activities help children develop the ability to use the hands asymmetric bilateral integration or the ability to use both hands at once in a different task. Both lacing and using the pegs improves hand / eye coordination.

Literacy: The ability to recognise patterns is a key skill required in emergent literacy. You can start with something as simple as a two colour pattern and allow the child to guess which colour comes next. If your child makes a picture, you can use pegs to spell out the word underneath. The main reason I bought this though is letter recognition. First I make the letter with pegs, then encourage my child to feel the shape of the letter. As he does I say the letter name and sound, and we think of words which begin with it. Next he makes the letter himself. He ends up using all of his senses in this activity, sight, touch, sound and even critical thought as he thinks about where to place the next peg.

Maths: You can discuss small, medium and large as you pick out mushroom pegs. The manufacturer suggests doing simple sums on this, but we didn't find that very interesting. But a child can learn multiplication easily using blocks of pegs. An example would be to find the total for three rows of eight. This is excellent for discovering factors as well as a child discovers how many different patterns he or she can make with a set number of pegs. You can practice simple division with remainder as well, or use pegs to represent number values such as blue for ones, red for tens etc... - or you could just use the pegs to count.

Geometry: This does not make a perfect circle, but it is nice for more angular shapes, and allows children to learn the shapes through touch just as we did with the letters. You can also show how some shapes can combine to make others. You can make wonderful geometric patterns as well.

Multicultural: Try making some of the Chinese characters along with the picture. You might also read a book about Chinese writing. I would recommend Jin Jin The Dragon by Grace Chang and The Pet Dragon by Christoph Niemann.

Art and colour recognition are fairly obvious so I won't go into these.

DOWNSIDES:

I only have two problems with this set. First I wish you would buy more pegs as with only 360 pegs and 550 holes you can not fill the whole board. The second issue is that while the lid fits perfectly, it does not attach, so this can spill easily, and believe me, you do not want 360 pegs rolling about the floor. To solve this, either make sure the pegs are kept in the plastic baggies, or get a pencil case to keep them as I did. A soft pencil cases fits easily in this, along with all the other bits, and I even had room for an extra set of wooden shapes which I bought separately. There are two notches at the top and bottom of this set. I place a rubber band over the whole box, fitting into the notches to hold everything together and it works perfectly.

PRICE AND RECOMMENDED EXTRAS:

This set sells for £13.99 new and delivered from Amazon, fulfilled by Toys of Wood Oxford.

As mentioned, you can not buy additional wooden pegs for this set. However, you can buy plastic ones. They aren't as nice, but they are fairly cheap. Amazon charges £18.49 for five plastic pegboards and 1,000 pegs but I bought the 1,000 pegs alone for roughly £5 on ebay. I have also added a beautiful set of wooden lacing seaside animals from ELC, and as luck would have it, they even fir in the box. Finally I bought of Miniland plastic letters for sewing. These letters can be stitched directly onto the board with the threads, as can the ELC animals. The possibilities are absolutely endless as Amazon has quite a few lacing and threading toys that could easily be added to this.

OUR OPINION:

My sons are ages 5 and 8. Both really enjoy this toy, and I have to admit, I do as well. There are just so many things you can do with this. I think we could have this for years and still find new and different uses for it. Because this toy does have such massive amount of different uses, it never grows boring, you can always find a new game or activity. I love this because it keeps learning fun and really is helping my son with pre reading skills and fine motor coordination. My sons love it simply because it is fun. If dooyoo allowed 1/2 star ratings, I would drop this to 4 1/2 stars because you can not buy replacement parts. We are very careful with small parts, but if you can't be sure these will always be put away properly, this mightn't be a good choice as you will not be able to replace them. I can't bring myself to drop this to 4 stars though as the boys both love it, it has had hours of play already, and it is educational as well.

# How to play a children's version of Go or Goe:
Go is an ancient Chinese games, dating back at least 2,500 years. It is meant to be played on black line, but in this case, we can play it with holes. The idea is simple. Each player gets a colour. You take turns placing pegs. The idea is to surround your opponents pegs. Whenever a group of pegs is surrounded by another colour, with no open space in which to move, they are captured and must be removed. This is actually a highly complicated game using maths and logic, and we do not attempt the correct scoring. For a children's game, we simply count up the number of pegs on the board after a set time and whoever has the most wins. If you wish to play the game in it's true form, you Google "How to Play Go"

*Wikipedia.

This review also appears on dooyoo

The Board (games) of Education

The children will be going back to school soon, and many parents at this time of year are thinking of ways to boost their child's academic achievement. If your child attends school, you may be looking for ways to help the child excel in class, or is some cases simply to catch up. If you are a home educator, you are most likely planning out an entire curriculum. But regardless of whether your child attends school or not - almost all children are home educated to some extent. Most of do try to engage in educational activities at home. Board games are often overlooked, but their value can be immense. For the life of me, I can not find the original study I am about to quote, but it did state that the three most important things a parent could do to help their child academically were:
1 - read to them.
2 - take them places, everything from museums to parks.
3 - play board games.

Now the first two originally came as no surprise to me, but over the years I have come to see more and more how board games can help a child academically. This book focuses on how board games can help a child develop key skills which may translate to academic success, as well as just basic skills required for life. Obviously, I did not need any convincing, I've been using board games more and more on our home education journey - to the point that next year Fridays will be devoid of all pencil work. We will only have board games, science toys, arts and crafts or days out. I bought this book, not to discover if board games could be a part of our curriculum, but in the hopes of finding new and better ways to use them.

The author, Jeffrey P. Hinebaugh is an American attorney and partner in a law firm. He has also taught economics, and is the father of two home schooled children. Because he is American, this book will have American names of games, and some of the games may be less common over here, but in most cases he does mention British Equivalents. I would note that he also seems to be referring to older variants of some of the games, so that The Game of Life he refers to in the book looks nothing like the edition currently available on Amazon. While some of these games may be less common in the UK, I did engage in a quick search on Amazon and ebay and found all of them were available, although some were a bit on the expensive side. Sadly, none of the Orchard Toys board games are listed though, and I believe this is because these are primarily British games, nor were any games created especially for educational purposes, and there are quite a few excellent ones out there.

The book begins with the simplest games Candyland and Chutes and Ladders - which for us means "Snakes and Ladders". At this stage children are learning very basic skills, such as colours and how to count. the author also points out that these teach very important life skills, like how to lose, and that bad things happen - like landing on a snake just when you are ready to reach the end. The Chutes and Ladders section was one of the best in the book and offers all sorts of variation on the game to make it more challenging for older students, as well as teaching new skills. I have got a few ideas from this, and I have in fact just ordered a Snakes and Ladders Game, but I also had a been reading up on other board games and realised I could make my own version of some very expensive maths games with a snakes and ladders set and some markers. Still the simple idea of added polyhedron dice to the game and a maths dice with +, -, x, and / make this a brilliant way to drill basic facts without work books or flash cards. I also liked the idea of using this game to introduce the concept of negative numbers.

Scrabble and boggle are of course brilliant games to improve reading and spelling. Scrabble also teaches maths skills as we use both addition and simple multiplication to calculate scores. The author gives a few variations, but most of these were ones I was already familiar with. Still, I found it a useful section and it does really make think just how beneficial these games are.

I was less impressed with " I Will Buy It!", the section on Monopoly, Payday and The Game of Life. I'll admit these games do all teach maths skills , especially if you have the child serve as banker, but I'm less impressed with their value as means to teach children to invest, budget, and plan for retirement in real life. The payday game does look quite useful for calendar skills, although it looks rather boring to me, so I may consider making my own version with calendar , monthly supplies drop and an expedition theme, if I can get my hands on a few cheap game boards or something similar to reconstruct.

The section on logic and deductive reasoning was brilliant, and this alone made the book worth purchasing in my opinion. This is an area in which the schools are falling short now, and the need for children to be able to think for themselves and come to logical conclusions, or even logical guesses has never been more apparent. The games included are Cluedo, Battleship and Mastermind. I already own the first two, but after reading this, I ordered Mastermind the same day. Much of what Hinebaugh says in this chapter is common sense, but it hadn't really occurred to me before. He does point out exactly how these games encourage children to use logic reason, and form educated guesses.

The section on war games was also brilliant. The include draughts ( checkers), Risk and Stratego. I am now in the process of searching for yet another spare game board to make a game of Risk based on a modern map, and perhaps one of the Europe only. I had never though of using Stratego places on a map of an actual battlefield and adding or subtracting points for things like high ground, narrow passes, marshes etc... This opens up a whole new level of gameplay. It also got me thinking of ways I could change the games , and I have some unusual ideas as well. I've though of our own addition to this as well - disease dice. Disease wiped out entire armies so something as simple as camping your troops in a marsh could put you at risk of fevers etc... If we include a budget and allow the players to buy weapons, medicines food etc... we could make an incredible game. These games are meant to teach strategy and negotiation, but with some alterations they can teach history, science, military tactics and more.

"Out of the Blue" shows how games like Pictionary and Scattergories can increase creativity and drastically improve a child's ability to express themselves. They don't really sound like a I need board game for them for them though, so I can take these ideas without buying the games or add a Pictionary category to one of my own made up board games.

"Einstein Played Board Games" seems a bit of leading title. It does mention that Einstein enjoyed Chess and Go, but doesn't give much detail on these. I had to look Go up myself, but it looks brilliant and is easy enough to play with a chessboard and markers. This chapter really primarily deals with chess, but I can't say that learned much from it. We all know chess has educational benefits, and this gives us some evidence of this in terms of studies and research. There is a significant discussion of Game Theory here, but I'm afraid if I hadn't already studied this in philosophy years ago, I would have been a bit lost. However, this is the only section that I feel any adult would struggle to understand. This section does have a very useful list at the end which lists each game and skills taught.

Overall, I am glad I bought this book. It was expensive. I paid £9.49 for a new copy from Amazon, with used copies being offered at twice the price - something that has never made much sense to me. I did give me some new ideas, and get me started on making up more ideas of my own. I've always been one to add to games, or even make whole new games out of old and unwanted ones. It did help me realise that playing board games really is teaching quite a lot, and so does constitute a fair use of our educational time, and gave me the research to back this should the school board ever call it into question ( which is unlikely as they don't seem to care how we do things as long as we get the desired results).

To be honest though, there really isn't a lot here I couldn't find by combing through home education sites, it just puts everything in one place, and many of the variations were similar to things we already do. Still, I learned enough from this to justify the purchase price in my opinion, and I tend to be very creative in the use of board games already, so I expect most people will get as much from it as I did. I know I am going to sound a bit arrogant here but in all honesty, I do believe if I wrote down my own educational variants for board games though - I would have more ideas than I found in the book. That said, it is always nice to find a few new ones. My one real complaint was that I did grow a bit bored with the authors use of his children as examples. It seems on every game he went into detail on how they lost the pieces, and what they used as substitutes. Some info on what they learned from the game might have been more helpful.

Finally, there is some really fun trivia on the games, and how they evolved. I was fascinated to learn that Snakes and Ladders developed from an ancient Indian board game which illustrated the path to enlightenment. Apparently many of our games originated in India, but there is fun trivia on more modern games as well.

The big question is - should you buy this? If you home educate - I would say yes. If you already home educate with board games, you are sure to find some new ideas, and if not this will certainly encourage you to consider it. If you do not home educate, but are actively looking for ways to help your child get ahead at school, this might also be worth considering. I do believe children would benefit more from books and board games at home than from workbooks, and especially if your child needs help in specific areas, this might be very helpful. If you already have a number of these classic games, this book will certainly be more useful for you. If not, buying enough games to make this book useful may not be practical. As mentioned, I don't own all of them, but I do own more than half - although some are altered. Mariopoly is ever so much more fun than Monopoly Jr and we will be converting Monopoly Skylandopoly next week.

I believe a family game night has many benefits, but we do have to face the facts that not all children will want to play board games when they could play X-box or Nintendo instead. Home educated children are going to leap at the choice of a board game over workbooks. A child who is already tired from a long day travelling to and from school, doing homework and trying to find a bit of time to socialise might really prefer to unwind with a video game before bed instead of a board game. It would certainly be worth discussing with your child before buying the book and games. I'm also afraid too many attempts to make a game more educational may result in the child growing bored. It's one thing to play a game based on maths facts instead of learning those facts from worksheets. It is quite another to be asked to do more sums after a full day at school and pages of homework. Of course other children will be so happy to be spending one on one time with the parents like this that they won't care how educational it is. So whether this book will work for you or not depends very much on your own child's interests. In short - if your child enjoys these types of games, this book may be very helpful. If they don't - there isn't much point.

This review also appears on dooyoo.co.uk