Sun & Showers

The day started out wet so our plan to head to the park around midday was hanging in the balance. We got on with our work for the day, maths.
C has taken a break from work books as he just doesn't get on with them. He started RM easimaths which according to others is very similar to maths whizz but a lot cheaper. I can see what they mean and we will keep going with it as C enjoyed it. I could see he was learning from it but I'm not keen on the point that there doesn't seem to be any help available when you get stuck on a question. You have to keep trying until you get the right answer but that doesn't really explain why it was the right answer.
H got on with his cgp maths while M traced letters in her letterland workbook. I stood somewhere in the middle of the room so I could act as problem solver! Juggling 3 kids doing different things is a challenge sometimes.
M went on to playing on maths seeds which is part of reading eggs. She still had some free trial left and we hadn't tried the maths part. We went ahead a couple of days ago and subscribed to reading eggs and it's a little annoying that the maths section isn't included. Although she played it well I'm not concerned she needs it just yet.

Getting closer to midday we decide it's bright enough outside to head over to the park in Portsmouth. Friends were going to the orchestra so we met up for a quick play and to look at the lovely birds in the aviaries before going into the city centre to pick up a few thing we needed.

Squirrels too

A few hours later we get home and warmed up with hot chocolates and jelly, impressed they actually came out of the moulds. 

Then realised we needed to go out again.  M has her own iPad now as it finally arrived today and we needed a screen protector for it. Should have been an easy thing to find but took three large shops to find.

Dinner and jujitsu to finish off the day. 

Home Ed Group, Australia Day

Home ed group consisted of a quick intro about Australia Day followed by some aboriginal art pictures using cotton buds.

Next the kids took part in bushtucker trials to win gold coins, hands in mystery boxes to dig out the coins then onto drinking crocodile blood (tomato juice). A few bug challenges and then digging in jelly and mucky water for more coins. They all had great fun but I was too busy to take photos so just the one at the end.

They then moved on to making Sydney opera house paper plate hats.

Once home we carried on with the Australia Day theme and they coloured in a map of Australia by following the instructions.

Our Saturday didn't get off to the best start we spent a good part of it getting lost as the sat nav crashed on the way to C's football match. Just about got there in time after a lot of driving around in circles in an area of Portsmouth I have never been to before.
Me and the kids then preceded to stand around in the cold for a silly amount of time, the game kicked off 15mins late. The referee really didn't know what he was doing. I've seen some bad decisions over the years that I've watched football but this really was something else. As a result of a lot of rolling around by players on the other team and a feeling that the gentleman didn't really know how long each half should have been, we ended up with a 1hr30 match. Which actually should have been 30mins each way! More than 2 hours in the cold later we started the drive home, quick lunch and then time to get M ready for gymnastics.
Another 40mins driving for me there and back and then dinner.

I spent a little bit of my evening time preparing some mystery feel boxes for home ed group tomorrow, theme being Australia. The kids are doing a bushtucker trial. Idea is they wont know what is in the boxes but they have to reach in to get the stars.

A late night for the boys as we had agreed to a family game of scrabble once M had gone to bed.

Well and truly shattered!



Sunday needed to be a chill out day, although my sort of chill out day involves housework and work usually!
The kids and dad went out to pick up some more wooden train track I had ordered from Tesco. C used to have a giant train set but I got rid of most of it when M was a baby as although I thought she might play with it I didn't think it needed to be such a big set. Years later now and I have all 3 of them moaning at me that they wished we had a bigger train set. So gradually we have been building it back up to a pretty reasonable size. They spent the next few hours playing with that and dad made a pretty good attempt at a Sunday roast under my instruction of course ;-)

We ate whilst discussing Christopher Columbus and all the bad things he did in his life, slaves and the like. How he didn't discover America and about Red Indians.  No idea how we got on the subject but made for a nice meal conversation.

Home ed group tomorrow so everyone is going to be in bed on time tonight!

Fun day

I think Friday tends to be either our day off or trip day. We normally just want to chill out or go on a day out somewhere instead of doing 'work' as such. Just seems to be the pattern we have fallen into over the years. I suppose it's the start of the weekend feeling!

Well today that meant none of us were in a get up and go mood so it was option A, chill out for the morning. We had plans for the afternoon so chose to let them all get on with whatever they wanted for the morning, mainly Minecraft.

I downloaded eggy phonics 3 on one of the boys ipads for M the other day, at the moment it's free so I thought we'd give it a try. She loves using the app and has spent some time on it over the last few days with my help. Although I imagine it's probably for slightly older kids she's learning letters and the sounds they make from playing the games on it. Really like it and think we will invest in stages 1&2 so she can start from the beginning.

This afternoon we met up with a friend at one of the soft play areas and spent a couple of hours chatting and playing. Nice way to start another busy weekend.

The Snowman

The start to our day involved using up the shells we collected at the beach yesterday. We nearly always come home with a bag so for once I found a use for them.

A shell mobile

At the moment it's hanging on the wall but hopefully I'll find a nice spot for it, M had luckily brought home the big stick from the beach too and I had some garden twine in the shed. A lot of the shells already had holes in them and those that didn't weren't too hard to poke a hole in with a pair of scissors.

We spent the rest of the morning chilling out as we were off to the theatre in the afternoon with some home ed friends. 

Leaving over an hour early to get to The Mayflower in Southampton probably still wasn't early enough as we hit roadworks and got a bit lost following the sat nav. Should have just gone the way I knew! Couldn't find the car park I had planned to park in but got lucky with a spot right outside the theatre so we made it in time anyway. 

The usual sweets and drinks purchased we took our pretty high up seats. Probably should have taken my glasses...Regardless we had a lovely time, close call waiting it out for the interval to take M to the loo who was wriggling like anything by the time the curtain went down. Apart from the close call she managed the nearly 2 hours without much fuss at all. Lots of music and dancing to sit though and we even got snowed on at the end which the kids enjoyed. 

Mad rush to the car as the parking spot was a 2 hour one eek! We made it without getting a ticket then managed to get home in pretty good time too considering it wasn't far off rush hour time. 

Beach fun

Wednesday we needed to get out of the house for a while so I had come up with the idea to go on a beach scavenger hunt. We used this spotters guide http://www.wildlifewatch.org.uk/images/Downloads/spotters/shoreline%20detective%20compressed.pdf  to identify our finds, although they probably already knew most of the things on it.

Lucky for us it was the perfect day for it, tide was reasonable and it was lovely and sunny for a change!

We didn't find  much that was on the list. C had a the shock of his life when he picked up a tampon and asked me what it was! Thinking he had found some sort of strange sea creature! Obviously once I had explained he kind of freaked out and insisted on washing his hands in the sea, poor kid.

We enjoyed the sun for quite a while, found a little bit of sand to play in and grabbed ice creams in the cafe before heading home for lunch.

Some finds

M invented her own way to carry the shells

M's crown

M's Bird

Home in the warm again and we got on with some worksheets, M practiced her letters and the boys did some maths.

We played junior scrabble which the boys really liked, M decided she didn't want to play until we we half way through a game at which point she knocked the board flying so we called time on it. I promised to get the full version out for them later which we did when M was safely tucked up in bed!

The usual Minecraft and drawing went on, we go through a lot of paper in our house, football club and another day over.

A foggy start!

I was awoken this morning to "mummy, mummy, look out of the window"
For a moment I thought we might have been spending the day throwing snowballs. Alas no, it was just very very foggy! H had got a little excited about it though.

The theme of the day was fractions. First up the boys made a booklet, again from enchanted learning. It didn't really involve much in the way of work per se just constructing the booklet. I used it as a tool for refreshing and talking about fractions though and it did the job.
They then went on to drawing their own fractions.

M started an alphabet booklet again from enchanted learning (seems to be in favour at the moment) to reinforce the letter sounds she knows and practice the ones she doesn't. She really is picking up on the phonics now. I keep hearing her randomly sounding out words to herself. She coloured the front cover in really well. I was impressed as she is very much a scribbler usually.

We then played a fractions board game which we seem to have had for years, I remember playing it with C when he was about 5. M won which very much pleased her, she's a bit of a sore looser but we've been working on it.

The rest of the day was again spent minecraft homeschooling, colouring, and playing with toys.

H went to jujitsu and now we are all settling down for the night.

Need a day out tomorrow I think.

A sunny Monday

Today I had my organised head on. I had printed out what I needed last night and after a few complaints the kids finally found some motivation to come and join me at the table.

First activity was a printable book from enchanted learning 'all about me'. I had done a copy off for each of them so it was nice to be working on the same thing. Book contents were a self portrait, writing about favourite things, family tree and so on. The self portraits I hope aren't that true to life but they tried.

The next task for the day was meant to be a simple trip to the shop so M could spend her much awaited pocket money on a magazine she wanted. Could we find the car keys anywhere? NO
Considering I had spent what spare time I did have over the weekend getting the house into a much tidier state than what it normally functions at. This what not amusing. Spare car key, non existent.

There was no other option than to take a stroll, nobody wants to disappoint a four year old. Luckily for us it was a lovely sunny late morning.  One pink bike dug out of the shed later and we were on the move.
Unfortunately for us the nearest shop is a petrol station and that is still a good 15 mins away at kid speed. They didn't have the magazine.
So off we walk to the next shop another 15 mins away, no magazine again but we did pick up some goodies in the charity shop forgetting that we would have to carry the four bags home. Gave up on finding the mag and bought lunch instead which we ate on the half hour or so trek home.

Nearly two hours after we left the house, not getting what we had set out for, we made it home. I now appreciate my car just that little bit more.

Nice hot drinks and some minecraft homeschool about castle architecture.

At some point M did some ink stamping and made pictures with plastic shapes.

M did eventually get her magazine thanks to dad picking it up on his way home from work. However if the missing keys hadn't later been discovered in dads jeans then we could have got it ourselves. I think he made up for it and we did actually enjoy at least the first half of our walk.

Shattered Saturday

Very much a tiring week for us all and now finally at Saturday night we all have a day off tomorrow. Dad has been working extra hours all week and the whole of today which isn't the norm but had to be done. Does mean though that we are all a little tired!

C's football was cancelled due to the waterlogged pitches much to his annoyance. So the boys spent the morning tidying their room which was very much overdue. After that they went out to play for an hour or so. Later in the day the boys went to Nanny & Grandads while I took M over to gymnastics. Back to the in laws for a quick cuppa, shops and then to meet dad and home for dinner. Kids are all happily playing with dad and toys before bed which should probably be happening right about now! I doubt we will venture far tomorrow and have a recharge day at home, much needed.

New group

Today was an early start for us, we generally are a lazy bunch in the mornings. We had to be at a new group that actually started back in November but due to illness etc we hadn't managed to get to it. It's a monthly meet with a few members that I already know but lots that I don't too.

The session involved lots of free play in a room that had been set up with wooden train track, real mini bricks (the room is on an old brickworks site) colourings and the like. The kids were also split into two groups and took it I'm turns to do a cookery session. When it was our turn the kids were shown a simple biscuit recipe that didn't need scales. They done everything themselves and later after some more play time they decorated them before heading home.

A quick stop at the shops on the way home and we enjoyed a peaceful evening playing education city with M while the boys went round a friends house. H had jujitsu too.
Before bed me and the boys finished the book we were reading, 'my big fat zombie goldfish'  not the best book ever but the boys found it amusing!

 M's podium made out of bricks 

Aim of this one was to build a bridge for a boat to fit under. 

M's self portrait

H's swimming pool

Finally the yummy biscuits, we will make them again. 

Hot choc & gingerbread

Again I seem to have lost track of updating the blog. I do have a little excuse, it was my 30th birthday big weekend! I don't normally celebrate birthdays (well my own) in a big way, a meal out is the norm. This one we decided to make a deal of though after spending a good deal of the last few years being pretty ill I wanted to mark it and have something to remember. I'm glad to report that I wont forget it!

All the boys football and martial arts classes started back this week. M started her first gym class on Saturday at a new group which is much better equipped that the toddler classes we had been trying to avoid at her request. She enjoyed herself and although it's 20mins drive away it should be worth it.
We then went on to my birthday party venue to set up my Tudor/Medieval themed evening. I would class it as having educational value. Seeing as we had to research medieval food and décor with the costumes and entertainers from the period who performed for us for the night. The music of the period and games played with the guests. We even had medieval dancing. It was a fantastic night and I imagine a lot was gained in an educational way too!

We had family down so the kids went ice skating with their cousin the next day.

For my actual birthday we spent the day together as a family, breakfast out, shopping with hot chocolate break..









then later a meal out with extended family.

The rest of this week has seen a good few nature documentaries, some great hama bead creations, worksheets on Europe, minecraft homeschool on middle age battles and education city for the boys to name a few. M has started a river project and been on reading eggs and education city.

We have been down to the museum and library, had a stroll around the pet shop and been out to the shops. Not strayed too far as the weather still isn't great!

Today we had a gingerbread cookery lesson where I let the kids have their own bowls and measure out all their own ingredients. I even dared to let them use a hob each to melt the butter/sugar/golden syrup mixture.  C did some of his Science workbook and H chose Geography again. Later in the day C went to football training while we popped to the supermarket.

Planets

After a lazy slow start to the morning we finally got out of the door about midday to head off to the science centre and planetarium. It was an intentional slow start as I knew the show we wanted to see didn't start until 2.30 and having visited the centre quite recently we didn't want to spend too much time in there.

We had a really nice time and the highlight of the day was definitely the planetarium show. It was half an hour long and went through all of the planets in some detail as well as a few stars and moons. C loved it and even hovered behind for the after show questions. H was listening, and I think he enjoyed it. Very hard to tell with him sometimes, you think he hasn't taken something in and weeks later he will spout out a huge amount of knowledge on the subject. M listened really well for the first ten minutes then decided to ask me if Santa lived on every single planet that came up during the rest of the show. She was a little fidgety too but she did whisper rather than talking loudly and there's only so much you can ask of a four year old.

Boys playing a brain activity game which moves the ball apparently based on your excitement level, H won both times! 

C doing a shape puzzle, he had to make a square. 

Home for a quick dinner, more minecraft for the boys while dad took over child minding so I could go shopping.

Too much time at home

Today wasn't plain sailing, partly down to the kids moods and partly because we've spent too much time at home lately. Kids staying up late really does no favours. I will say though that we persevered with it and we did achieve quite a lot although getting there was hard. Lots of silliness and lack of enthusiasm spread out between them all at different times of the day. We have more good days than bad though so I shouldn't complain.                    

We eventually got through some education city & book reading for M, a river project for C & H.

Fimo models and Hama beads for all.

Furby's and the confused.com robot called Brian! 

Furby eggs

We read some of a space book together. Lots of minecraft homeschool and football training for C.

They have all settled down now, we watched star gazing live and had a look at Chinese new year animals. H spotted some work I was printing off which sparked his interest in it.
We are off to the science centre tomorrow to improve the mood!

C's finished timeline from yesterday now on the wall.

Productive evening

Kids spent the evening watching star gazing live. At the same time I was lurking around the internet looking for resources as I tend to do quite often. I came across a telling the time game which H turned into a booklet and he had to cut and stick the right answers into it. He then went on to do his CGP English book while C cut out and made a Victorian invention timeline.

Amazing how much work they can do when they get to stay up a little later than usual.

Some quiet time

Kids have all gone swimming with dad and I have a little bit of time to myself, what did I do with that time? Well tidied up of course.
With the short amount of time I have left before they all pile through the door with a big bag of towels for me to wash I thought I'd update the blog.

We haven't left the house today but have managed to achieve a fair amount. The boys started their new minecraft homeschool assignment which is all about the middle ages.
They spent more than an hour watching a bbc documentary on peasants and then reading though a document on it. They then had to take a quiz which gets graded over the weekend and the score on that determines how much money they have to play with in game next week. Having completed all that they could finally join the server and H has started building his peasant home while C has decided to save his for tomorrow.
C spent some more time on his maths app (doodle maths) again and I have since found out that I will have to part with £6.99 if he is to get any more games to play on it. He's completed all the free ones and as he seems to like doing them I can't really say no :-)

M has played with the usual toys and made a necklace with me, she and C did some of a Usborne body sticker book together. She also done a page in her letterland handwriting practice book, which is just tracing letters really but it's helping her learn to write and her letters at the same time.

We made our own little experiment to test how much warmer the living room got using a couple of garden pots, tealights and a thermometer. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2492549/Video-reveals-heat-home-using-just-TEALIGHTS-FLOWERPOTS--costs-just-8p-day.html
2 degrees difference, success!

A fair amount of tea and hot chocolate later and we are at the end of the day again.

Getting back to normal

I have to say we are getting our way back to a normal schedule, but probably at a bit of a snails pace. The kids all seem quite happy to remain in the house which is most unusual for the boys especially.

The crazy weather is taking its toll, it's even affecting a lot of our plans for day time activities. We headed down to the beach and park around midday to meet up with a couple of others for a bit of fresh air. Not before checking the tide times though and the weather to ensure we weren't going to be swimming around the park. We've got fallen trees, fences and a flooded garden but there is one benefit to it all. We've spent lots of time talking about weather and tide times.

We certainly got our much needed fresh air in a large dose!

Back at home the boys put their new iPads to use in the way that I had intended for them to be used by playing educational apps. H had a go at a telling the time game which helped a lot to reinforce what we had done already. C decided to start his maths app before I even asked him and managed half an hour on it without me having to nag at all. He's really not keen on maths so I'm pleased he's found something he doesn't mind doing. M asked to go on education city so I was only happy to oblige.
Plenty more crafts and colourings and the boys went out to play for an hour followed by H and his first session back at jujitsu.
We haven't yet cracked out the workbooks but I'm hoping we will get ourselves into gear by the end of the week.

New Year- Not so new start

I'm quite happy and so are the kids with the way things are going from our September review so not much is really going to change for us.

Back in September we all had a good chat about what we wanted for the new 'school' year, the boys wanted to join in with a home ed group and I wanted 'm' to have some contact with other kids around her age. We also wanted to go out more on educational trips and for my sake more than the kids wanted to get a bit of routine going with the work books and get a few pages done everyday.

We have managed to get involved in a fortnightly home ed group since then which is great.
The kids all have clubs to go to, gym, football and jujitsu.
We have got out of the house a lot more and think the balance is pretty good between being out too much and not having time to do our work and being stuck in all week. My only aim now would be to try and make sure we don't have too much to do one week and nothing to do the next, which seems to keep happening. So a bit of fine tuning needed to not over book ourselves.

Kids book work seems to have slacked off some days and then others they will get a load done. so again a bit of fine tuning needed so we do a little bit everyday.

Overall we are pretty happy with how things are going home ed wise. I've got a couple of home ed trips to organise which are in the pipeline so that we can do a few more things that are aimed at all the ages of my lot. Quite often there will be trip or workshop that one of them is left out of because of their age. Either too old or too young so the only way to solve that was to organise some myself so it's suitable for them all. As much as I don't mind the boys for example going off to do a workshop now and again with a friend  I do miss joining in with them. One of the issues when you have a spread of ages. So to counter that I thought I would run some family friendly trips, whether or not I choose to run any more will depend on how they go!

We still haven't taken the tree down as I have a mini protester protecting it. She seems to think we need to keep it for next Christmas despite the fact it's a real one and bits are dropping off all over the place now. Once the tree goes I think we may get back to some normality, I have to win the protester over first though.