Wow it's been over a year since the last blog post! oops

The chaos of home edding 3 kids, running my own little business and keeping on top of the housework is more than enough work with not enough hours in the day!

Kids are still plodding along on their homeschooling journey despite the occasional threat of school enrolment when they aren't cooperating.
Mostly it seems that we have slacked off lately with the structure. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing. The boys seem keen to get on with their own thing, if C (now 13) had his own way it would be an entire day gaming online with a home school friend that he randomly bumped into online....they have been the best of virtual friends for months now and speak every day.
He is still playing football which I thought he may have dropped at this age but he's just as keen as ever. Lots of wanting to stay up late and refusal to move out of bed in the morning has not been putting him in my good books but he's a good kid and keeps out of trouble even if he isn't very enthusiastic about doing any workbooks lately he does do them when prompted!

H has spent more and more time playing out with his friends. He is constantly making something out of sticks and duct tape. Building go carts and making dens. He's having a great time. Far cry from my childhood at 10, again he would really rather not do any sort of book work, he's a hands on sort.
M is going along nicely with the reading, writing and counting which is pretty much what we are concentrating on for now. Mixed in with the home ed trips, visits to farms and museums, then starting dance classes this week, she's soaking it all up. Friend wise, she's got a nice mix of schooled friends and home ed friends that we meet up with on an at least weekly basis.

Highlights of the last year- mini break in Croatia and holiday to the Isle of Wight both filled with educational experiences. We don't do sitting around the pool/beach type holidays, we usually need a rest when we come home as we tire ourselves out visiting places!

World Cup

The morning was scheduled as a theme or project day. I had pencilled in World Cup and the boys got on with some themed worksheets. Labelling where all the countries taking part in the World Cup are located on a map. Took quite some time. M joined in by colouring hers in whilst dressed up..

She wore it most of the day, all the way to the shops and back too. Where we popped in the charity shop and picked up this little gem from the 60's. We needed a new globe so couldn't resist.

The rest of the day was taken up with playing shops and building tents in the garden. M spent some time on reading eggs too.

Timetables & Rodents

I have spent the last few days trying to come up with a timetable to ensure we get some structured stuff into our day and in the right quantity. We have been getting structure in but for my own sanity want to make sure we cover a bit of everything. Having 3 kids to juggle needs some sort of planning as I was finding it difficult to remember what I wanted to cover with each of them.
Anyway after a good few tweaks I came up with something which just basically states what work/projects each of them need to get done each morning and also notes what commitments we have such as groups/sports etc.
It's gone down well so far as the kids and I can see what we need to do. We've actually got more done as extra things have cropped up for us to learn about.

Today for example before we got on with the days work our cat decided to bring us a baby vole which was very much alive and unhurt with eyes still sealed. So we spent the next hour or so learning about voles and what to do with the poor thing and colouring pictures of them in.

Then we got on with work, H=Maths games, C=Science book and M=some literacy in the form of an alphabet song and jigsaw. Have tried to leave our afternoons free for either crafts or out of house time. Today we went off to see nanny and grandad. Having no car this week (due to nails and tyres) our options are a little limited.

Home Day

Having spent some time looking around I have been considering changing our books to Galore Park. We are going to finish off the cgp books we have for now but will probably make the switch when I have the funds.
Today C covered English in his book.
H worked on his mod design programming course, we had a few issues with it and we spent quite some time fixing errors that shouldn't have been there. However it's all part of learning programming I suppose and I'm learning it alongside him!
M= Did some cutting and sticking after finding the worksheet I had printed out for her to do later on in the week. She spotted it and wanted to do it straight away. She needed to work on her scissor skills and I was very impressed at how much she's improved.
She also spent time on reading eggs.

Loom Bands

Monday went
C=Rm easi maths
H-geog cpg
M=writing practice

We then went to the shops to find loom bands, kids had been going on about them for a while. Had to stop at the park on the way as you do, fed the ducks and stop at the park on the way back too. A half an hour walk to the shop which actually took 2 hours in the end.

We spent the remainder of the day making bracelets, world cup flag themed ones for the boys and sparkly ones for M.

Plymouth

We spent a few days in Plymouth camping last week with the dog tagging along too we had to choose dog friendly things to do. Lots of walks and nature spotting and a lovely day at the beach rockpooling where we found so much sea life!

Little update

Where has the time gone? Been far too busy for the blog which is not good as I had the intention to keep up with it so I could look back on things we've done. Going to be a big gap missing lol

The last few weeks have seen a half term, usual playing out and having friends around. A bee workshop and the eldests 12th birthday!

We've had a fab holiday to Germany, what an epic drive that was! A experience I hope the kids will take a lot from. Our holidays are not what most people would consider a holiday. We love to go sightseeing, visit museums and the like. We didn't have one day during the 10 we were away where we just did nothing!

Not going to fill the thread with holiday pics so a quick run down will do. We spent a day in Nuremberg at the Nazi party rally grounds and Nuremberg castle and shops.
We went to Munich on more than once occasion to visit the 1972 Olympic park, the BMW museum and general shopping.
We all learnt a lot about life in Germany, a little of the language and about some of it's past. I hope the kids will remember it in years to come.

Other than that the last couple of months have been filled with the usual book work and kids clubs, workshops and general get togethers with the home ed group.

Will attempt to keep up with the blogging!

Today was spent at Porchester Castle for a handling session and picnic afterwards looking around the castle. All the kids had great fun playing hide and seek in the ruins and running around playing after. Obviously I'm sure they got something from the museum and handling session but they had the best fun after!