Let them lead the way

Tuesday 26th June 


Can you believe it? The Family and Children Centres in West Sussex are beginning a new session called 'play and learn.' It's only allowed to run if one of their staff members has had training on how to set up the session for 0-5 year olds. Training on encouraging and supporting free play. 


I could give some quick tips: put out a variety of toys, objects, books, sticky stuff etc and let the children play. Don't interfere, help when asked, play with the children the game they want to play, the way they want to play it. I'm guessing what the training is really about is how to record it all for OFSTED and make sure you tick all the boxes. How to plan, execute and evaluate a session. 


There might actually be a bit in there about children's choices and the importance of play but realistically it is an exercise in pleasing the powers that be and a forerunner to guidance and curriculums for under 5's. 


 Rant over.


Here's a few bits and pieces from the day:

Bean drew his 'crossness'

We rode our bikes to the Family Centre

We found more 'pretty flowers'

We tried on dresses at the supermarket

We floated our dresses around

King of the Castle

Wednesday 27th June


Today we met fav auntie #2 at Leeds Castle. We had a great day playing Pooh Leaves, listening to the honking geese (which made Plum laugh,) honking like geese trying to make Plum laugh, playing with giant rhubarb, saying hello to the peacocks, spotting the goslings, exploring some of the castle (would like to do more of this next time,) getting lost in the maze (half an hour with fa#2 wondering around before mummy went and asked a member of staff to help them out,) playing in the play area, watching the falconry display (Bean loved this,) and catching the train ride back.


A car with three sleeping children on the way home.

What a beautiful day

Monday 25th June

A double park day ment that we got to meet up with five home ed families today. One reason why I love Mondays. The boys requested bikes at Horsham Park today so we arranged them into the boot of the car and had our first ride around for months. Bean has not lost the knack at all and even managed to push himself off a couple of times. He did have one large fall but after walking a while got back on and rode away. Pumpkin persevered and slowly walked along from the car to the play area and to the duck pond and back. This is progress from previous trips and I remember going through a similar process with Bean. 

Before we had even left the house this morning the boys had played an epic game of lego.

And Plum and I had a play with the camera phone.

During one of the many discussion I had today with other home ed mum's we talked about a babies need to cry when they are tired. Their inability to recognise 'I'm tired' and just go to sleep. As if to prove me insane Plum quietly dropped of in her chair this afternoon and I didn't even notice, not a tear or a cry to be heard!

A rather serial moment occured early evening when Bean asked to play schools. He had two bags packed with things he would need: an indoor ball, an outdoor ball, notepad and pen, various tickets for outings, wallet and money. I found myself being asked to take the role of teacher! de-ja vu. He led me through what happened at school and he did some writting, where he asked to copy the names of people in our family and he got ready to go on a school trip which involved sorting and counting the money he had.  

Bean took it upon himself to 'practice my swirls.' I remember doing endless pages of dotted patterns at school as a child and it goes to show that these ideas have their origins somewhere in a child's natural pattern of learning, they just got a bit lost on their way around the school system.


After Plum and Bean went to bed, Pumpkin woke up! We have made chocolate cake and porridge for his dinner and he has built towers and played games on my phone. It's almost like having a different child around when 1:1.

Forever blowing bubbles

Saturday 23rd June


A day trip to nana and grandad's ment a less relaxed Saturday morning. I cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast and discovered our kettle wasn't working at the last moment so fruit juice and no caffeine! We headed off to arrive about 11 am just in time for coffee and tea, yippee! The boys were both really tired so the journey there ment they got to rest even though they didn't sleep (although I have no idea how they didn't.) 


 Bean spent the rest of the morning colouring and Pumpkin got busy with the tractor. Daddy and Km went off to the shops to buy lunch (and a new kettle) and after feeding and changing Plum, I read some stories with Pumpkin and played with the vehicles with him. There was definitely evidence of tired children over lunch. Plum wanted to sleep but Pumpkin wanted mummy (usually a sign he would like a sleep but also seems to coincide regularly at the moment with when Plum needs me.) There was some loudness of play and aggravating each other between Bean and Pumpkin whilst eating lunch (too much for nana to bear) and daddy sat between them. This caused further tears from Pumpkin. He did calm once I returned from settling Plum but only after much dramatics. Things did settle down and the afternoon involved some watching on the I player, games on the phone, stories, photography, more vehicle games. 


Bean, Plum, and mummy took Km for a tour around Whistable. A walk down the high street saw a parade of vintage cars go by as they were heading home from a nearby festival. We also looked at the independent shops, quirky buildings, got blown down the sea front, saw The Favourite, checked out nana and grandad's old house, and walked down the alley way named after grandad. 


 Bean found a bubble blower when we got back to nana and gandad's. We made some bubble mixture together and Pumpkin and I made a bubble blower for him from a pipe cleaner. All those years playing with young children does come in handy sometimes! As it happened K found actual mixture and Bean found some more blowers. Pumpkin insisted that he needed water in his mixture. I did try to explain to him that it wouldn't work anymore but we filed it up anyway...it worked perfectly well. Not that clever after all. 


Grandad ordered a take away for daddy's birthday meal and we all enjoyed some Indian food together. Daddy opened presents from his family and ate a lovely coconut and lime cake made by bfg... Yum yum. During this meal the boys simultaneously played a game with the vehicles and two wooden figures. They created a story involving slugs and snails in the engine, robbers and burglars, getting stuck in pink goo, saved by licking dinosaurs, giving rides around a tourist route and other seemingly unrelated oddities. It was a joy and a pleasure to watch and daddy speculated whether I thought they would be future Cohen brothers. It did remind me of an article I once read by a women who had been home educated where she explained that all her and her sister had done for years was play Barbies and now they right sitcoms and plays together.

Please forgive me if I act a little strange

Wednesday 20th June 


 After dropping of Km we stopped by the supermarket to buy a few overlooked things from our delivery shopping and i was reminded why i don't go shopping with all three in tow! We did have a great time at the fish counter though and the assisstant was very good at explaining about all the different fish to Pumpkin who was fasinated. Bean spied some flowers on the way in and suggested we buy some for daddy's birthday. We are ones to watch the pennies but who am i to stop the thoughtful and generous of spirit? He selected a very beautiful display of begonias. 


 I'm feeling like we're having quite a low key week this week, mostly seeing friends and not too much pootling about. This morning w event to Horsham park again to meet a home ed family who we have not met before. It was an interesting time to watch the children get to know each other. I'm noticing more and more that when we meet up with others Bean is off playing withy the other children and Pumpkin becomes left behind and often not through choice. It is sometimes upsetting to watch as Bean and Pumpkin play with each other all the time happily and willingly, it is sad to see Bean leave Pumpkin behind. It is not always like this and often Pimpkin is able to join in too but becomes despondent when he is running around last and he is so used to having his brother next to him. 


 The afternoon was spent with friends too. Brothers of a similar age to Bean and Pumpkin came to our house to play. The played amazingly well together and it was a real joy to watch. The disappeared upstairs and into the garden playing a pirate game and just generally being boys jumping and running around. We also enjoyed banana muffins and oat biscuits with tea and good chat for the mummy's. 

 We played a marathon game of snakes and ladders after tea whilst waiting for daddy to come home. It was an attempt to calm the boys and give them a focus but it failed miserably. pumpkin was once again too tired to concentrate but was also refusing sleep. Grrrrr. 

On daddy's return from work we sang happy birthday and opened presents and ate raspberry muffins. Special times.

Five little ducks

Tuesday 19th June 

 A day of sunshine led to some water play. The ducks were put onto their own private ponds and given some greenery to eat picked fresh from the garden. It is days like these that I wish we had been able to spend more time growing things in the garden this year. We haven't even managed to plant out the six or so seedlings that our neighbour gave us. A mixture of the weather and having Plum have really prevented us this year and it makes me sad because I love planting and growing and harvesting our our crop (hence the title of our blog.)  

Bean spent some considerable time today working out how to make a windsurf using his feather as the sail. He tried twigs and sticks of various sizes but couldn't get the feather to stay in. As it happened I was cooking with wine today and had a cork lying around the kitchen. He found it and asked me what it was and asked me if it would float. We went to try it out. Success! He was able to push the feather into it and even add a Lego man. He spent a long time playing with it in the sink. The Lego man made it fall over but this is normal in windsurfing so it didn't bother Bean. 
              
 The boys have been busy setting up a camp under the slide. It changes moment to moment what it is but can be bunk beds or a tent or a horse or rock climbing. Pumpkin helped me cut the oregano ready for drying. He was very good at it and even spotted when the plants intertwined were not oregano (mostly bindweed...boo) 

 It is daddy's birthday tomorrow and Bean requested that we make him raspberry muffins. He was so excited to make them himself and is really managing with all the stirring and mixing and the two spoon game where he transfers it from the bowl to the muffin tin. 


Pumpkin is fighting sleep at the moment and this causes some wild and upsetting times in the afternoon and a difficult bedtime. Largely he wants me to bath him and read with him and put him to bed but it often co-incides with Plum going to bed and as he is soooooo tired he isn't in a frame of mind to wait or wait quietly. This obviously means that Plum finds it hard to go to sleep too as there can be a lot of noise. Tiring times. 

 Plum has been enjoyed her food trials with apricot, peach, porridge, apple, banana, cucumber, tomato. Although she tends to enjoy the cutlery and crockery more than the food!

Off the Beaten Track

Sunday

We went for a walk in Nuthurst, suggested by daddy. We haven't done this walk since Bean was a baby in a sling. I think daddy remembered that we used to stop at the village pub and have dessert. We planned on doing the same walk through the farms and over the fields but it turned out that Bean and Pumpkin had other ideas.


We parked on the roadside and had to walk back a little to the start of the walk. We walked past the local Parish Church and Bean asked if it was open. It was so we went in for a look around. It had some beautiful artefacts and windows and prayer cushions and a Saxon font. Mostly the boys wanted to play trains as the pews still had the doors on them.They took turns being the fireman and the driver with lots of actions and steam train noises. 


We found this stain glass window which shows the presentation of Jesus at the temple. The lady kneeling down is the prophetess Anna, who our lovely daughter is named after. 


We spent some time exploring the grave yard too which involved Bean showing us how to be dead and Pumpkin being Jesus on the cross! We saw lots of different stones and memorials and the boys picked some of the daisies to put in the flower pots on the graves.

At this point we still intended on doing our planned walk but we became distracted a second time and found an architectural garden centre which also led to one of the studios on the Horsham art trail. The garden centre was closed but fabulous to look at and the boys enjoyed running around the bamboo. The art studio was a linen workshop where the lady weaves her own linens. They also had a small display of acrylic artwork. She was a lovely lady who took time to show us how the small loom works and let the children have a turn too. Pumpkin was particularly taken by the painting below, a boat on the river.

We abandoned the idea of our original walk at this point as we had had to walk quite a way to the workshop but we still managed to stop for dessert!

Baby Baby

Friday

We continued with the baby theme today. We went to a local baby group mostly because daddy had the car so we needed somewhere we could walk to. Both the boys found these large cloth dolls and played at dressing and undressing them and pushing them around in the buggies. 

Bean breast feeding dolly

We have had yet another read read read day. This was just a few of the books we read this morning whilst out (about 2 hours) but we read plenty more at home too.

Bean and I played animals in the jungle using some of the baby toys and sticks that Bean had found outside. It is standing in a yellow box so that it is standing up like a tree.