Welcome to Home Education in January. For quite a while now, I’ve wanted to add a series of blog posts here where we share the plans we have set out for the month. Whether you use it as a basis for all of your home education ideas or just a break from your usual curriculum, I hope you’ll find these collections of ideas fun and inspiring. Watch for each month’s new installments about 7 days prior to the beginning of each month.
January 2024 National Days & Holidays
First of all, one way to incorporate uniqueness in your home ed each month is to find out any (or all) global national days and holidays. The National Day Calendar website is a great source for looking at global national and awareness days/weeks/months. I tend to set up an activity to cover what day it is, some we even celebrate with friends. Here are a few that I found pretty interesting and plan to implement in some way.
Bird Day – January 5th
Winnie the Pooh day – January 18th
Squirrel appreciation day – January 21st
National pie day – January 23rd
Burns Night – January 25th
Big Garden Birdwatch – 26th- 28th January
International LEGO day – 28th January
National puzzle day – January 29th
Our Home Ed Plans
We have recently decided to change up how we Home Educate and have decided to go down the unit study route. We used to do weekly themes, but it was too much of a quick turn around for us. It also meant, that if someone was sick, a wholes weeks theme could potentially be missed. So by changing to monthly unit studies, it gives us the opportunity to slow down and take our time.
So, here is a look at our unit studies and other Home Ed plans for January.
Geography – Unit Study
For Geography, we travel to a different country each month. We look at the food, music, architecture, traditions, culture and environment.
Our country for January is Greece.
History– Unit Study
To tie in with our country of the month, we are going to be looking at Ancient Greeks. So we are going to be looking at;
Greek Mythology and Gods
Ancient Greeks day to day life
Ancient Greek art and sculptures
Architecture and Temples
Theatre and drama in Ancient Greece
The Trojan war
Alexander the Great
Science – Unit Study
For Science in January, we are going to be studying all things Space!
The planets and the solar system
The Moon
Stars and constellations
Astronauts & space technology
Art – Unit Study
We incorporate art into other unit studies, but also wanted to dedicate a set out time each week to study different artists and techniques. We have set out one dedicated art lesson every other week.
Januarys artist is Georges Seurat
Spanish
Molly has shown a real interest in wanting to learn Spanish, so we are going for it! I learnt German at school, so I will also be learning Spanish with her!
This month we are going to focus on the basics.
Numbers 1-10
Colours
Basic greetings and phrases
Nature studies
Nature Studies is the only area of Home Education where we use a pre-made Curriculum. Raising Little Shoots “Encouraging nature with Children” is a curriculum that I bought when Molly was 2. I fell in love with it instantly and we’ve loosely used it every year since.
This year, we are fully immersing ourselves in it and following the weekly units. Januarys units are;
Winter Sky
Moon Study
Winter Tree study
Winter Pond Study
You can find all the years unit calendar on Raising Little Shoots website in their free resources section.
Math
As we are aiming to make our unit studies multidisciplinary, Math will be incorporated into them. However, I did still want to focus on a few things specifically, especially as Molly loves maths so much.
In January I will focus a little on;
Addition and subtraction within 50
Shapes 2D and 3D
Telling the time
Molly as shown interest in learning her times tables. She already knows her 10s and part of her 2s – so I think we will continue to make our way through them, following her lead.
Money- we use daily out and about and the girls have toy money that they use in role play.
English
This month I will continue to work through our phonics. We use Read Write Inc as the girls respond well to the little songs for each letter.
We will practice our handwriting and letter formation within our unit studies with copy work.
Both of the girls love books. So we like to read books together. I tend to read aloud a chapter at a time, and then we fill in our reading journals. The girls will draw a picture of something that happened in the chapter, and I will write a short notation for them to copy.
Handicrafts
One of our favourite things to do! Trying and exploring different Handicrafts! Some of our favourite things to do include;Pottery
Needle felting
Sewing
Wood whittling
Flower pressing
Weaving
Beading
Origami
Ceramics/pottery painting
Knitting
Crochet
We tend to flit from one thing to another. It depends what we feel like doing,
Music
We explore music from around the world, and it’s history within our Geography unit study. But we also want to look into music more in-depth. Look at a range composers & different styles of music. Look at singing, learning to play different instruments as well as tempo, read music etc.
Molly has shown interest in playing piano, and I have my piano at my In-laws. So it might be something we look at doing more regularly. Or even looking into getting her proper piano lessons.
I hope you enjoy these ideas of things you can into your Home Education for the month of January. And remember, I’m going to be doing one for each month of the year so bookmark this page, save the pin image below, and check back next month for ideas for February!
