Monday 13 August 2012

World Wide Culture Swap

We have been quite busy over the last couple of weeks taking part in a world wide culture swap. Somebody posted details about it on a home ed page and after having a look I decided to sign us up.

Here is the link:

http://www.worldwidecultureswap.com/

Basically after you sign up Rachael the administrator of the site joins you up with 4 other families from around the world and you all agree a deadline for sending each other a parcel of items that will help the other families to learn a little about your culture. So in return for your 4 parcels, each family receives 4 parcels from around the world.

So, what we weren't expecting is how challenging it would be to find things to represent our English culture that were a) cheap and b) light to post.

Here's how we did. (Note, if you are one of our receiving families, please don't read on too carefully if you dont want to spoil the surprise!)


·        Twinings English Breakfast Tea

Here in England drinking “Afternoon Tea” isthe quintessentially English thing to do. In fact, we like to drink teamorning, noon and night! It’s even better when accompanied by cake or biscuits.
We’ve enclosed an English Breakfast Teabag for you to sampleand get a little taste of English culture.
To find out more about the history of tea in the UK here aresome great weblinks:

·        MiniCooper Car Magnet (attached to the crown craft paperwork)
The MiniCooper was recently voted the second most influential car of the 20th centurywhich is some achievement for a boxy two door that handles like a go-kart – andgreat testament to its enduring charm and iconic design.
The Minibegan life in 1957, when the head of the British Motor Corporation, LeonardLord, decided to design a true miniature car.
 It was rolledout in 1959, and sold very cheaply at cost price, with the only profits comingfrom deluxe models with optional accessories such as seat belts, door mirrors,and a radio. The Mini Mark I looked pretty odd for the time, and sold badly atfirst, but thanks to enthusiastic uptake among taste-makers and style iconssuch as Princess Margaret, Lord Snowdon and the Beatles it was soon wildlypopular. But the most famous model was the souped-up Mini Cooper,introduced in 1961. This car really came into its own when models won the MonteCarlo Rally in 1964, 1965 and 1967. The Mini continued to sell well in the 70s but by the 80s,though still hugely popular in Britain, the car was looking increasinglyoutdated in the face of less pretty but more practical rivals such as the FordFiesta. Finally, even the Mini could not escape the decline and mismanagementthat characterized British industry in the late twentieth century, and thestruggling BMC was sold to Rover, which was itself later broken up. The lastproper Mini (a red Cooper Sport) was built on October 4, 2000.
Butthat’s not the end of the story: the iconic brand was bought by BMW whounleashed a new version: BMW’s MINI is technically unrelated to the old car butretains many of the original features – though it is a little bigger and a lotless minimal in its styling. With cartoony curves and outsize dials it seemsself-consciously cute, and has proved a great success as an icon of retro cool,particularly in Japan.
In the end more than five million Minis were sold, making it themost popular British car ever made. Now regarded as a timeless classic, itsappeal has endured and the older versions are collectors' items. As one of thefew big success stories of British manufacturing, recognisable all over theworld, the Mini deserves a proud place in the frontrow at the gathering of British style icons.



·        MarmiteSample
Love it or hate it,as the company slogan goes, Marmite is undeniably part of the UK’s heritage andone of the most unique British icons. The name of the world famous yeast spreadthat divides the UK when it comes to breakfast time, originally came in fromthe small earthenware pot it was served in - a French casserole dish called amarmite. We love it in our house, and often have it spread on toast with butterfor breakfast. I hope you love it as much as we do!




·        England’s Countryside and Towns
We are famous for our green and pleasant land here inEngland, and where we live we are surrounded by rollingcountryside and farmland. Our historic village is about 5 miles away from  a thriving market town, with great road and rail links to Londonand the rest of the country. 

Wehave included some laminated sheets from a fabulous website www.naturedectectives.org.uk of some of ourbeautiful British Birds and Trees. The website has some great ideas for outdoorfun, whichever country you live in! We have also put in some tourist brochuresabout  our town.


·        Cadbury’sChocolate
Cadburys chocolatein its brilliant purple wrapper is the favourite chocolate here in the UK. Thecompany have recently been taken over by Kraft (an American Company) but it’sstill the nation’s favourite. We’ve included some of the London 2012 Olympicsbars for you to enjoy.
Here’s a link tothe history of Cadburys:

·        UKcurrency & postage stamp

LocalNewspaper
Please don’t betoo influenced by the sensationalist headlines about crime and the like on thelocal newspaper we have included! Our town overall has a low crime rate and sowhen things like this do happen it makes VERY good news stories forjournalists! Don’t forget to check out the property pages to give you a flavourof the style of housing here and of course the prices! You will also find ajobs section to give you an idea of earning here in the UK.


Finally, there is some fun facts allabout typical British Culture on this website here:

Thursday 12 July 2012

Colour continues

Wow! Today was actually warm, dry and sunny! The first in a long time, so after a pleasant trip to the park with the dog we got colourful and creative in the garden. Mark making, small boys style.

Colourful week

We've had an action packed week this week, with hardly any time at home for "school" ;)

We attended the lovely monthly home ed group organised by our friend Elizabeth. It is some 30 odd miles from where we live, but often worth the journey. This month saw a terrific turn out with nearly 100 kids ranging from 18 months to 14 years old and it was so lovely to see so many vibrant, interested and enthusiastic young people engaging with all things scientific.

I didn't stay with Lox to see what he did as I needed to supervise my littlies, but there was whiz zing and banging a-plenty I was assured. Lox has always been really good at science so I had no concerns leaving him to it.

Beccy our scientist did an amazing job at finding some "kitchen science" and engaging the 0-4 year olds of the group. It largely involved food colouring, milk, cream, oil, water, bicarbonate, vinegar and cornflour. We made some amazing colourful things.

And by pure coincidence the BBC published an article on how scientists have made further discoveries about how the non Newtonian cornflour-water mix works. So we're right on trend!

Here's the link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18800017

Thursday 7 June 2012

Dodging the rain

It's been raining pretty much all week - typical as both dh and me are not working this week and had the chance to do "stuff" with the kids :-/

The best we've managed is to take the dog out for a walk and get back home moments before the rain started (again)

Tuesday 5 June 2012

Jubilee weekend

Ok, so I am still pretty crummy at this blog thing!

Since I last blogged things have changed in our home ed journey. We have decided that flexi schooling for E will end at the end of July (Reception) and he will be home educated full time, and we are now also home educating our 14 year old (year 9). There's no way I can catch up on 6 months of posts, so I wont even try :-)

In the build up to the Jubilee we have been doing some related crafts and projects. E knows all about the Queen now :)
Jubilee picnic


Our party menu plan. 

A booklet all about how the Union Jack came about.



For the Queen's Diamond Jubilee weekend  we went down to London on the Sunday and braved the weather. It was cold, it was wet, but in true British style, the crowds were out to celebrate.

We were lucky enough to win tickets to the Family Festival in Hyde Park. I say lucky, in reality I was glad we hadn't paid for them. The whole thing was a complete disappointment, from the crummy stalls, over priced refreshments (not to mention the 30 minute wait for a coffee) to the ridiculous 1 hour queue for the Kids Zone shows and the average Main Stage shows.

We all got very cold and very wet, but I'm sure we built some memories for our boys who will be able to tell their grand children that they were there!
Lunch at Euston Station - stylish dining!

Little Boys watching "Fireman Sam" show


Say "Cheese"!


 Fab Mei Tai on loan from lovely Angela at www.pouchlings.com

Loved these trees!
There was a LOT of this!


Friday 13 January 2012

Peace restored.

I'm feeling much more at harmony with the world today having played, visited the art gallery and museum and being surrounded by other home educating families.

This afternoon we read "The Jolly Postman" (again) as E is really taken
with this book at the moment. So much so, he wanted to have a Jolly Postman display in his writing corner. So we found a banner on the web to print off and we have begun to stick up his "work" - so far a map of the Jolly Postman's route and a dot to dot of cinderella's castle. He has also made some stick puppets of all the characters from the book to play with. We've printed off lots of letter and postcard templates and E is very busy writing letters to all and sundry, all beautifully signed with his name at the end.

Oh, and of course, we've played pirates today too ;)

Thursday 12 January 2012

A different rhythm

It's been an interesting week of changes this week. We started our new flexi school arrangement.

It's funny because today a friend I don't know very well tagged me in a face book post today about amazing people and how she considered me one of those people, for, amongst other things (and I am trying to be humble, honest lol) home educating. Well, after my epic fail at getting Elijah to school for his two days on time this week, I consider that actually parents that send their children to school every day, on time, to the rhythm of someone else's agenda are better parents than me! I. Just. Couldn't. Do. It. All. The. Time.

It's not like I haven't tried really hard, it just seems like something is against me. Like traffic, sleeping babies, stropping teenagers etc etc. so I must confess, I for one have not found this transition easy.

How about the boy then? Well, we arrived, we were greeted and introduced to the routine that is expected and I stayed for around half an hour to make sure he was happy before I left. He looked quite anxious and pale but he was joining in with circle time on the carpet and so I left. When I collected him at 3pm he looked even more anxious and even paler if that's possible for my already fairly translucent, golden haired boy, but he claimed to have had a lovely time. He did PE and some work on the computer and played outside and threw his carrots on the floor at lunch time.

Mid week we went to our lovely Playbox Theatre session for home educated children and whilst the children were being educated in all things of a dramatic persuasion we parents chatted. There are a number of us who flexi school and I was keen to learn how it worked for others. Issues such as "homework" and the associated "homework diary" have already cropped up and I was relieved to discover that other flexi school parents think these are redundant notions also.

Roll on to today and it's our second day of flexi schooling (did I mention we were late, again?) and this time my over tired, pale, golden haired boy did not want to go. I must admit that I half don't want it to work. There, I've said it! I selfishly want to keep my boy all to myself without anyone else ruining him. But of course, I have 5 boys, including an even smaller youngling. I have to remind myself that flexi schooling was about giving everybody a chance to do separate things and being able to let the littlest one finish his time at toddler groups and the like where school aged children are not welcome. The idea was "its the best of both worlds".

So, as a compromise (read, bribe) I suggested I would collect him at lunch time today as he was very tired. Bless him, he was so deeply asleep when I woke him at 7.20am that it was no wonder the school run was doomed to fail. On collection at lunch time however, he did seem to have perked up somewhat and I was glad that he was happier about the experience. Today in the homework bag was a new shiny pot containing 44 laminated phonemes and a note from Miss explaining that it wasn't necessary for us to record every single book we read together in the "reading record", just the "school books", despite her previous note that we should record every time we read together ;)

So tomorrow is a home ed day. We've switched off the alarm. And we shall learn to the beat of our natural rhythm. Where we can play pirates in our pyjamas, read a hundred books because no one is counting, go to the art gallery whenever we get there and go home again when we've finished. Its been a tough week, but I'm hoping we'll catch hold of this new rhythm soon.



Tuesday 3 January 2012

3rd January

Gentle day back into some vague semblance of routine. Actually, that's not true. It's nearly midnight and Elijah is still up. I read some research today which suggested that children who lack fixed time routines for meal times and bed times don't do as well at school. I figured we have fixed meal times pretty much and don't go to school so two out if three ain't bad!

We went to a birthday party today and had a lovely time. The parents were "music together" teachers so the activity at the party was great. Lots of singing, dancing and playing musical instruments as part of a group of around 15 kids and as many adults again. Elijah didn't really participate, he had found a car building kit of a certain little shiny red sports car affectionately known as lightning and the queen in my house, so he took himself off to do that in typical "construction mad" style. Barnaby, however, was enthralled with the whole thing. Perhaps I should consider signing up for a music course with him.

The boys made cards themselves to give to their birthday friend and Elijah's writing is really coming on. He is keen to copy as much as he can when he doesn't know the spelling himself. I noticed too that Barnaby's pencil grip is looking very sophisticated these days too for a 21 month old. :)


Monday 2 January 2012

Christmas 2011

We had a peaceful Christmas at home with everybody in relatively good health compared to previous years. Connor was home from uni and I've got used to him being around again. It is surprising how the family dynamic shifts when there's one less boy in the house. ;)