Our Tribe

Our Tribe

Friday 28 September 2012

Pumpkin

Not deliberately so but all the photos seem to be of Pumpkin today. 

A flower shaped like a butterfly spotted by Pumpkin

Today's main activity: painting
Bean (re)discovered the baskets full of sponges and brushes so they gave them all a go!

He told me he was painting a tiger!

Cooking 'Explorer Pancakes' for tea.
Bean's choice of recipe but he declined to cook even though he had said he wanted to all day!
At crunch point, Bean choose to play with the moon sand and Pumpkin choose to help.

Where the wild things are

Friday 20th September

One of the joys of home ed is that you can up and go whenever you choose without the imposition of school days. This weekend we took four days to go and visit Grandma and Pops. We spent Friday afternoon exploring one of the nearest haunts to their house and one of Grandma's favourites. I have photos of Bean in this same tree stump, rowing, from three years ago.


Bean spotted these bricks in the path that are shaped like the letter H (who needs to sit at table and chairs to learn their abc's?!)


We saw some rare flowers (Pops is always good for wildlife info)


Played hide and seek in amongst the bushes.

Saw a difficult to see butterfly (Pops again)


Climbed trees. This is a photo sequence of Pumpkin climbing. It really challenged him but he did it :)








Found evidence of deer in the forest, eating the soft bark of the holly tree.


Saturday 21st September

We were treated to a day out at a Wildlife Centre. We found these owls to add to our Australian animal collection.



We spent a long time in the play area. Pumpkin particularly enjoyed this hammock and the digger in the sand. Although he didn't enjoy it when is brother spun him round on it!




We sat and watched an otter showing off in the pool and spotted these tiny field mice. The boys wanted to use my phone to video lots of the animals unfortunately we forgot to video the tame deer that walked along the path towards us and stopped to say hello!


Sunday 22nd September

Sunday was a wet day and there was a lot of tv watching. Pumpkin had expressed the desire to cook cakes so we found some recipes and went shopping but I made them on my own (and very nice they were too.) Of course, Pumpkin enjoyed eating them, as did everyone else. I read this the other day, it is part of a much longer article but this section really applies to how we roll and served to make me feel that it is okay for my children to spend a year dipping in and out of a project, rather than start to finish in six weeks, or to start something and never finish it, or to seemingly flit from one thing to another with no apparent connection. 

"Henceforth you shall neither be required nor expected to finish every thing you start. Projects, books, experiments and plans may be discontinued as soon as something more interesting comes along (or for any other reason)without penalty, and picked up again at any time in the future (or never)." (Sandra Dodd)




Monday 23rd

More treats as we were taking out for a very extended lunch. yum yum.

Thursday 27 September 2012

I'm stickman






Tuesday 25th September

I've been struggling with where to put Plum when she falls asleep as she has long outgrown her moses basket and she does like to be cuddled or nursed to sleep and transfering her into the sling can be tricky and disturbs her. Sometime I put her in her car seat or buggy but she is getting too big for the car seat and the buggy is often in the car. So, today I put her on a warm fleece on the floor and there she slept for over an hour. Happy and peaceful. 

Bean and Pumpkin spent the whole of this time making and sticking. There were puppets and aliens and birds and mobiles, they were quite productive! We then moved on to preparing more of the bug hotel which has been an ongoing project since February. I'm hoping to get it finished soon ready for the bugs to sleep in over the winter. Today we filled milk cartons with natural materials that we have collected: leaves, twigs, pine cones and shredded cardboard. Pumpkin wanted a vase and put some carefully selected items in it and presented me with 'a collection.' 

If you go down to the woods today







Wednesday 26th September

This week has been the first real realisation that wet cold days are coming and play parks and beach trips have ended for a spell, what to do? We can manage maybe one or two days a week at home but we are used to at least an hour of running around and a walk from here to there or maybe a bike ride. A lot of the boys play is physical and energetic and this is not conducive to many days at home.

Today's answer was a trip to the woods, hoping that we caught a break in the rain (we didn't) and that the branches overhead provided some protection (possibly but we still got soaked.) The waterproofs and wellies  did well though. We went to Leechpool woods and did a circuit route we haven't attempted before. It was about 1 mile and very muddy with hills up and down and very uneven ground. The boys loved it. My thoughts today turned towards the way in which Bean assesses his own risk and would judge whether to ride or walk the section of path ahead. Mostly the path looked treacherous but he didn't fall once although he did get stuck whilst pushing the bike through a muddy area. I like the idea of the smalls assessing their own risk (obviously I'm always close to hand in case something goes wrong or the assessment is wrong) but it gives them the chance to give things a go, take chances that they weighed up the options on, test their limits, set some goals and challenges and push themselves when they're ready. In essence they do their own risk assessment! 

Bean is slowly, on and off, doing writing. By this I mean the emergent squiggly shapes writing but he is also asking how to write certain words. What fascinates me is his choice of words. In a Reception class there are 40 words which are selected 'sight words' that are common and often don't follow a phonetic pattern i.e. they have to be learnt. The word 'love' is not on the list but children frequently use this word in there homes and when writing cards and it is one of the words that Bean was asking me about today. We wrote 'love you' on a piece of paper and then he covered it with kisses and presented it to me. So special. This choice of words has come after wanting to know how to write his name, his siblings names and his cousin's name. I'm guessing that it's significant that the words he's inspired to write are words that are important to him and people that are important to him. (And just in case you're wondering Bean can neither read or write any of the words on the Reception list mentioned and it is not something we are concerned about.)

Lazing on a sunny afternoon






We spent a whole four hours in town today whilst the car went in for a service. It reminded me of the question we are frequently asked, 'how do you get anything done?' Today was a necessity. We use our car almost daily and it needs to be functioning. So we use a garage that we've used before and we choose one close to town so that we have somewhere to go whilst we wait. We filled our time with a library visit (always a popular outing,) a lunch out (bit of a treat,) interspersed with some shopping. 

I found a couple of pound coins in my rain coat pocket the other day so gave them to the boys to spend. After much deliberation they both chose a motorbike toy. Interestingly Pumpkin was adamant that this is what he wanted from the off, Bean took more time contemplating his options and only at the last minute changed his mind to the motorbike. Normally Pumpkin would choose the same as Bean and wait for his decision not the other way around, maybe the tide is turning!

The weather was on our side today and the town was buzzing with the market and a musical man. We stopped and snacked and chased the pigeons and read our toy magazines for a long, relaxed and pleasant while, in no rush, I felt truly blessed to have the time to sit. 

Tuesday 25 September 2012

Surprise Surprise

Wednesday 19th September






Our first visit to a National Trust site for a while and somewhere new to explore. We rolled up at Petworth House at exactly the same time as some home ed friends of ours and so had a lovely if unexpected time together. We spent the time eating lunch and exploring the house, we will definitely be returning to explore the extensive grounds some more. 
We had great fun in the house dressing up and investigating the many children's boxes throughout. Pumpkin loved this wind up piano which played Brahm's lullaby and spent ages 'playing' the music on the piano. Bean spent a large and very focussed time making this rainforest picture from the fuzzy felt and then took some pictures of the grounds from the window (I have included one above.)



The boys both keen to help with some housework this evening. We hoovered and dusted our living room. Plum looking on.



And a late night request to wear our toys. Fortunately I had some spare scarves long enough for the boys to wrap around themselves and extensive memories of you tube videos demonstrating how to wear babies. Worked very well and the boys were both pleased.