Now as long as I write my blog at the end of the day I can remember mostly what we did. Which is why I find writing it so helpful. If I can't remember what we did only two days ago you can see why I would think we hadn't achieved much over the course of a week!

Anyway with dad at home we thought we'd take him out for what we would call a typical home ed day. We decided to go up to Fort Nelson which is a very good museum and has the added bonus of being free entry. Fort Nelson was built to defend Portsmouth from a possible French invasion in the 1860's. The museum has updated so much over the last few years and it makes things much easier to explain to the kids. There was a good interactive map to demonstrate to the kids exactly why it was built on top of the hill and not where you would imagine a fort should go. I really think mine take things in much better if they have a visual to aid it. So they had this map/video which shows that if the French had landed they wouldn't have necessary gone straight into the city and attacked. The theory was that they would land their ships further away and go up and around the land to attack Portsdown hill from behind. Having 'won' Portsdown hill they then would have had free reign to shoot down at Portsmouth from a very good vantage point. Obviously this invasion from the French never happened and the Fort wasn't really needed. It was however used again in WW2 and we had a look at lots of different things that had been added to it over the years.
There was a nice section of Florence Nightingale which 'H' seemed very interested in.


After a picnic lunch in the car we went into town to the library, spent a good hour there. 'C' was pleased as we finally found him some books on graffiti with the help of the librarian. I picked up a couple of the home ed books I had been after by Gareth Lewis. I picked 'H' up a Florence Nightingale book which he was very happy with. 'M' wanted a book about babies but I couldn't find much that was really all that suited to a 3yr old. So in the end she chose a book about senses.

On our way back to the car we found a conker tree so the next half an hour was spent finding conkers in the grass. We collect them up every year and then don't do much with them. I really must make sure we find a craft to use them in.

Back home for a tea, play with friends and 'H' went off to Jujitsu.

Although not really HE related I'm quite pleased with myself that we finally made a start at tidying upstairs and finished our room, 'M's room and started the boys. Anyone who home eds probably knows trying to fit in housework is last on the list of priorities. I try to stick to my own rule which is I don't care about any other room as long as downstairs in tidy enough. I need to have a clear space to work with the kids which is the kitchen table and a clear space to sit in the evening. That usually means though that upstairs gets used as a dumping ground. I have cleared a whole box of work that needs to be lofted from the top of the stairs. The rest was mostly toys and washing to be fair. I do dread the boys room and although they do tidy it when I tell them to they don't quite do it properly and every now and again I need to go in there for a proper crack down on the junk!