Embarrassing!

Nearly a year since I last posted. Well that's embarrassing 😳

I think maybe daily posting was setting my expectations to high and so I crashed and burned in glorious anti-climax. 

So what had brought me back? Two things really. Firstly my gorgeous gymnastics crochet buddy has oy gone and left the country (how rude)! Luckily for me she and her family are blogging their adventures so I can at least live vicariously through her as she gets up to mischief half way around the world from me. Her blog entries reminded me that I too had means to collect my memories for safe keeping in blogland and so I popped back in here to have a look. The second kick up the backside was seeing all those beautiful threads of my memories, some of which I'd already forgotten which has galvanised me into action. So on the advice of my beautiful, wise friend, I'm setting the bar lower and am going to attempt a weekly post of what we've been done. There should still be plenty for me to reminisce over when my babies fly the nest. 

So here in the UK right now it is official school holiday season. The parks are all teaming with people, my facebook feed is a mix of family holiday snaps and desperate cries of "need more wine" and "when do they go back?!" We however just try to continue our gentle pace, minus the extra curricular clubs that have all suspended for the summer. 

Since I last posted I have begun to adopt more structure to our journey and we are using a beautiful Waldorf inspired curriculum from Oak Meadow. Our day rhythm goes something like this:

Breakfast

Morning walk

Main lesson time

Lunch

Stories/reading

Afternoon studies (craft, cooking, music etc)

In addition to that, at certain times in the week we also have a weekly history co-op (where we use The Story of the World book and activity books), swimming lessons, our local home ed group and forest school. It sounds hectic, but really it isn't. 

So this week in literacy we looked at the traditional folk tale from Scotland about Grey Friars Bobby. The boys drew their own interpretation and did a summary. 

In science we learnt why we have day and night and seasons and in our history  group we looked at the first writing and had a go at making our own stone tablets with cuneiform letters and parchments with ink made from berries.  

E finished his current topic in maths and is about to start the next topic - times tables! B has been doing his phonics work and both boys have been practising writing the letters a and b, really concentrating g on how to form them correctly and in E's case trying out cursive. We met with friends in Friday to play our recorders, went to a birthday party or two over the weekend and alongside that lot there was much playing and merriment. The weather has been lovely this week. It's all set to change next week- watch this space. 

Day 18

Today the boys did "just acting" at their morning drama workshop. It was their coaches last day so the emotions were high. E loves this particular coach and has thoroughly enjoyed her workshops over the last year. 

This afternoon both boys did a level on math loops and reading eggs and then we completed our osmosis experiment. We had one very firm, turgid piece of cucumber and one very limp disgusting looking piece. Mind you, B the cucumber fiend wanted to eat both of them lol. 

Gymnastics this evening and just watching my baby bear still makes my heart swell. I die of cuteness every week. I just wish I could take a photo (we're not allowed). 

Day 16

Tuesday toddlers as usual this morning. The children made animal pictures based on cut out circles- an elephant, a panda and a tiger and E drew his own elephant which I was very impressed with - he's a reluctant artist at the best of times. 

B mostly played whilst E helped set up the drinks and biscuits in the coffee lounge in between bouts of playing on iPad apps or playing on the foosball table. 

After lunch we did some maths. It was a bit like pulling teeth for E today (it took 59 minutes to do a 10 minute activity). Meanwhile I managed to chuck some food in the slow cooker for dinner tonight and put yet another load of laundry on. 

Next we continued our Open University science course that we started last week. Today's experiment is designed to help us look at the process of osmosis using a cucumber and a saline solution and plain distiller water. We set up our experiment today and we will be recording our observations over the next 24 hours. 

We did some colouring sheets about teeth brushing and B spent quite a long time making stars using a paper stamper and then lining them all up in coloured patterns. 

E has his first "after school" tea date today at a friends house at 5pm. He is beyond excited! 

Another busy day! 

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.