Day 14 & 15

I totally missed writing up Sunday, but to be honest you didn't miss much. I tidied, sorted laundry, did good shopping etc whilst the boys kept themselves busy doing who knows what?!

Day 15 we got up and did some maths (e did maths loops and B did maths seeds) we read some stories then we headed out to a soft play centre for a leisurely play and spot of lunch with friends. And much to my 7 yr old's delight there were two other 7 year olds there whose school was closed due to a power cut apparently. So these four boys all had a fabulous time running around and organising make believe play. 

When we got home I read about 5 books to them - pretty much read myself to sleep lol. 

This evening at Beavers they had a commercial pilot visit along with an exciting suitcase of interesting artefacts related to his career. 

I enjoyed today. 

Day 13

Saturday = kids play randomly whilst I do "stuff".

The boiler was serviced, the airing cupboard sorted out, 3 sacks of unwanted linen delivered to charity clothing bank, £115 spent on two boys' pairs of shoes for winter (ouch!), table cloth purchased to hide damage from leaking batteries B left on it yesterday, large(r) storage box bought for ever expanding dressing up clothes collection. 

Not sure how much actual education happened (it is the weekend after all) although I did notice the boys were playing a competitive maths game with each other on the iPad at one point. 

Day 11

So I'm behind again!

Thursday (yesterday) we did straw pictures and made autumn play dough with lots of lovely spices in the morning the played out in the garden. 

Straw craft 

Bowling balls: 

Some trees:

The afternoon was mostly a mix of free play, a bit of minecraft and a game of guess who?  A lovely visit from a lovely Aunty with delivery of gifts and cards for one of my birthday boys, eating cake and drinking tea. 

Day 12

Fabulous Friday!

Our home ed group was this morning and my co-organiser was on holibobs so I was on my own! Slightly apprehensive it was going to remain that way as messages trickled in from the regulars to say they weren't coming. 

I needn't have worried!

By 10.30 there were 12 families with 22 children, many of whom were brand new attendees. The atmosphere was buzzing and there was a fantastic "teen" contingent which was wonderful to see. 

We had a craft table of adhesive vinyl coloured sheets, paper, scissors and glue

A Pom Pom craft table

Play dough

Braid making and yarn craft table

K-nex table

Chess, puzzles and Lego games

And a minecraft laptop network/hub. 

The weather was still a balmy 23 degrees today so there was a lot of spillage into the adjacent skate park too. 

Next for us was a quick stop at the chippy for lunch then a drive to forest school for the afternoon. I managed to leave the boys there and grab a coffee with a friend. Bliss!

The evening finished with a birthday takeaway and mars bar-malteser cake for the newest 19 year old on the house. 

Happy happy day :) and now to settle down for the first Strictly Come Dancing of the year!  Wish every day could be like this. 

Day 10

Oops. Bit late, but here goes. 

This Wednesday saw the return of our weekly drama session at the local(ish) youth theatre school. There has been some issues about numbers last week following a restructuring of the groups (there are so many children now that they've split to 3 age groups) and with change often comes uncertainty. However, they ran with it today and I'm hoping enough of us were there to keep it sustainable. 

This morning they did a "study" on the story The Giant Jam Sandwich; I was delighted to hear that B played the part of a slice of bread lol and E was a villager. At the end they were all wasps! After the session we spent an hour playing (chatting for parents). 

This afternoon B did some maths seeds (lesson 12, number 7 finally complete) and some reading raven phonics. E did the next stage (9) on the code.org learn to code program. He (and I) are really enjoying it. 

Next came some general browsing which lead to E starting a Christmas present wish list. On it he's written Xbox 360, ps4, wiiU, own iPad, Disney infinity. I can't help but think he's going to be disappointed come December 25th. B would like a red power rangers suit. And belt. And gun. 

Gymnastic next; live watching my tiny boy listen and join in with such earnest. He is with another particularly tiny 4 year old girl and they are just so stinkin' cute together. Makes my heart melt. Every. Time. These years are slipping by so fast. 

Day 9

Tuesday toddler group day - big mainly watched stampylongnose on the iPad whilst the smalls made play dough pies and cakes and pretended to bake them in the play oven, scooted on the clatterbug bikes and generally played. 

After lunch we began our "Basics of Science" course delivered by the OU through FutureLearn. The objective was to find out how much water a potato contains and learn how to present data in a meaningful way using a graph. 

E carefully selected a reasonably sized potato and he took charge of weighing it and microwaving it for 1 minute intervals until it pretty much ceased to exist. We found out that our potato was approximately 80% water and we made a great graph to show how the water left the potato. 

Meanwhile I could hear lots of splashing and running water coming from the cloakroom. "I'm doing science" came the explanation from B.  He had filled the sink with water and was placing different objects into the water. So we decided to make a chart to record our findings about which things sink and which things float to see if we could find a pattern. 

Next we popped to the shops to but some A1 coloured paper for some BIG paintings and some autumnal shades of food colouring gel for our next batch of seasonal play dough. 

There's been more iPad/you tube watching this evening and some note taking of wish lists for Christmas (we're starting early lol). 

Days 7 & 8

Oops! Missed yesterday. Probably because I was buried alive under mountains of paper work whilst my boys played happily. There was a chapter of Mr Stink by David Walliams read at some point and a trip to the supermarket for the weekly shop. The funniest part of the day was that B (aged 4) has discovered the old American series of The Monkees and spent most of the day watching episodes, along with videos of random 1960s and 70s pop songs. He can do a mean rendition of Mungo Jerry's "summertime", including beatbox percussion. :)

Today we did junk modelling with quite a lot of Sellotape and string. B has a but if an obsession with tying things up or together. Nobody can ever find belts for a thing as they have usually been repurposed as some elaborate "baddy" trap. 

Once everything was securely tied up we quickly moved onto play dough and painting (continuing our Elmer theme) Lego (red bricks only!) dressing up and we did some action songs. E finished writing his prayer out for Beavers tonight and completed Bertie Beaver's diary using Word on the laptop. 

Next came some bubble making. E got the bubble science kit out and we tested a few different bubble mixtures to see which was best. The best recipe was this:

1 cup of warm water

2 tbsp dish soap

1tsp glycerine

1tsp white sugar 

We briefly visited a friend and the children played in the garden whilst I had a quick cuppa and a chat. 

At Beavers this evening  E got his Chief Scout award, his faith badge and another which I have no idea what for! 

I sewing is on the agenda next. 

Day 6

It's the weekend! I always feel like we "waste" our weekends by doing very little. Or that they are stolen from me as I have so many jobs that need doing that they get gobbled up and suddenly it's Monday again!

Saturday has been a case in point. 

We kicked off the morning with some stories in bed. Loved the illustrations in this one. A really cosy read for the impending autumn. 

E normally has gymnastics on Saturday mornings but he has decided to stop. I feel a bit torn about it really. I understand why he wants to stop - the building is really grim, delapidated, leaking and probably a health hazard and many if the young coaches, who probably have no idea about gentle attachment parenting, often use shouting and coercion to control children, which I hate, but felt "ok" about it  as my boy didn't experience this the other 5 days a week when most other kids get this all day at school too. It was just a small part of the hour, after all. That being said, I liked to either watch him doing really well at something g he enjoyed or liked the time at home without him if his dad took him that week. I guess our Saturdays will just look a bit different from now on. 

So when we finally got out of bed, the boys played practically all day -either in the playroom, in their room or on the wii or iPad. 

I spent the whole day doing "jobs" - catching up on work paperwork (10-2pm!), an opticians appointment for sight test and lens check (2.45-4.15pm), birthday present shopping and delivery and then home to cook dinner. 

We finished the day curled up on the sofa and watched Monsters University. 

Day 5/30

It was Farm Day Friday today and we all had a wonderful day dispite the gloomy weather and ocassional downpour. 

We learned all about cold smoking food and how to build your own smoker. I feel so inspired to have a go at this myself. Alister (the farmer) has utilised easily available  items to make his and after tasting (read: scoffing the entire block) the amazing smoked cheddar we ended up with at the end of the day we are all hooked on the smoked applewood flavour! It beats shop bought any day. 

Whilst we were waiting for our cheese to smoke (which can take as little as 30 minutes depending on how mild or strong you like the smokey flavour), there were opportunities to help erect a new poultry enclosure - E enjoyed doing this, especially bashing in the fence posts, feed the rare breed sheep, play on a decommissioned tractor or just play with your friends. There was a lot of team work involved in whichever activity the children chose to be involved with and everybody contributed to their particular activity. 

The boys made the most of bashing in fence posts, playing around the farm, paddling in the stream and dancing in the rain. We all came home tired and happy. 

At the end of the session a new home educator told me she could almost have cried seeing how much her children got out of the day and how much joy she got seeing the children having such a wonderful day; Today was a happy day. 💕

Diary day 4

Mmmm. It feels like we've not done anything particularly educational today. 

Here's the list of what I can remember:

Early morning play in the park. 

Just Dance on the wii. 

Pretend play. 

A few more sentences written for Bertie Beaver's diary and prayer for faith badge. 

Trip to the library to exchange books. 

Trip to the supermarket to buy play. dough ingredients and utensils for our "project mud kitchen" which is hopefully going to begin this weekend. 

Lunch - made pizza. 

Walk around the woods and another play in a different park. 

Ninja sword warrior play. 

Toilet training. 

Reading stories. 

Building Lego. 

Swimming lesson. 

I'm guessing as the weather turns cooler  (it was another 23+ degrees again today) we'll do more "indoorsy" stuff that might look more like school. But we'd be fools to miss out on learning under the trees whilst the warmth of the fading summer is still with us. 

Home ed diary day 3

We've been making the most of the glorious 23 degrees Celsius sunshine today before Autumn really sets in and spent most of today outdoors. It's been glorious weather today. 

B did a quick level on maths seeds when he first got up (recognising the number 7) and then we did some gluing - a tooth craft to support the learning we've been doing about teeth and healthy eating. Oh and we read about a hundred books whilst waiting for friends to arrive. 

We then headed to the park/rec with our best friends plus the dog in tow and spent a rather interesting morning together. E has been extremely emotional today; what started out as a general grumpiness, which I attributed to our regular drama workshop being cancelled this morning, continued into taking out those negative feelings on your closest friends (I'm not talking about myself, honest!) There was much tormenting and eventual fisticuffs at one point that we all felt very drained by the time we came home. This was topped off with a full on sobbing into the sofa (again, not me 😉) when our friends had gone and a general sombre mood from E for the rest of the day. Even my normally not terribly observant 22 yr old son noticed there was much "brooding and listening to rock music" coming from the 7 year old's room today. Is 7 a particularly hormonal stage for boys? I must do a bit of reading up. 

Anyway, it was a real opportunity for me to talk to E about feelings and how we handle them and how we sometimes take our feelings of upset, anger, isolation, disappointment, (the list here is endless) out on our closest friends without even realising we're doing it. (I should like to apologise at this point to my Dad for all the years of being so awful to you when all I really wanted to tell you was that I loved you most in the world). 

This afternoon we popped to see another friend for a much needed change of scenery and had some therapeutic cups of tea, playing,  trampolining and jigsaw puzzling. 

Wednesdays is gymnastics day and both boys thoroughly enjoy their hour of "after school" gymnastics at the local club and I enjoy a good natter and crochet with a lovely home educating mummy friend of mine who always brings a little spark of light and love to my day for that hour every week. 

That was hump day. More antics tomorrow. 

Home ed diary day 2

We hit the wall running this morning at 8am with some handwriting practice. I laminated traceable handwriting labels with their names on yesterday and they were keen to practice writing their own and each other's names with dry wipe markers first thing. 

Tuesday is toddler group day and whilst I set up and played with the younger children E was very keen to write his diary for Bertie Beaver 's morning activities, which apparently included playing minecraft on the iPad. 

B had a great time in the climbing equipment ...

And we all made an Elmer:

After lunch E set to work thinking up a prayer for his beavers faith badge and writing it out ready to take with him next week. He managed about half of it. Meanwhile,  B and the little ones played in the "home corner" making various dinners and being  the mum or the dad or the baby and I managed to sort through some laundry. 

The rest of the afternoon consisted of imaginative play together in the tent, a story, some more comic workshop tutorials, some drawing and watching some youtube videos by stampy long nose. 

Bring on day 3. :)

Home ed diary day 1

So today was a Monday. I always enter the week with a renewed sense of optimism that education in our household will be engaging, exciting and efficient. I think this lasts until around lunch time and then, like the perpetual dieter, I promise myself we'll start afresh tomorrow with renewed effort and purpose. 

So under the influence of Monday enthusiasm we painted some autumn colour pictures at 8am. I was actually pleasantly surprised that E decided to join in with the littlies as he noslly runs a mile from anything remotely arty. 

 

Next up E spent 50 minutes completing some "levels" on Math Loops (odds and evens and counting in 2s, 5s and 10s) followed by about an hour on the game Math Breakers, trying to make 0 by using positive "bubbles" to cancel out negative value "bubbles". I think we can tick off maths. 

Next E set to work on a new game on his DS called Comic Maker. It shows a range of tutorials oh how to produce drawings and add text boxes and content. He managed to watch the first 9 tutorials before he moved on. 

Meanwhile, the little ones did more painting, played on the slide, did some glueing, played on ride-on toys and sang some action songs. 

After lunch I read about 5 books to the little ones and E went on minecraft. We dressed up in superhero cloaks and the walked to the park. 

iPad apps provided entertainment whilst I prepared dinner and E went off to Beavers where they designed and made parachutes for a teddy bear. He was delighted to be chosen to bring Bertie Beaver home for the week and he has to keep a journal of what he and Bertie get up to all week. Well, that's handy! 

Home Ed diary challenge

One of my lovely home educating friends has challenged herself to keep a daily diary of her home educating life for 100 days and so far I've  felt encouraged and inspired by her writing. It makes me feel less isolated, less incompetent and gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that I'm on the right path.

So..... With that in mind  I've felt inspired to reignite my own blog and challenge myself to 30 days (I know, I know, not 100 days but at least it's a start) of blogging what we do each day. From the sublime to the ridiculous! I aim to include the mundane, daily things and not just the super super all singing, all dancing "look at us doing brilliant home education" stuff, because, whilst that sort of stuff  can be inspirational, it can also produce feelings of inadequacy. So I want to share the normal every day "not so super" stuff too. After all, it's still education and schools make an  entire school career out of it.