I bet you look good on the dancefloor

There was a time when we had the radio on every morning at breakfast but a some point, over a year ago now, I turned it off, a combination of sensory overload in the morning (tiredness and two demanding boys) and not enjoying the daily news report followed by questions from boys too young to grasp most of it. But today...I felt like listening to music in the morning and a dancing kind of day followed. We danced in the kitchen, the dinning room, on the chairs and the sofas. We danced to music we knew and songs that were new. We danced moves well established and new moves in the world of dance. The music stayed on all day until Bean got tired and it was irritating him. It was a good day.

We did manage to get out today. We went to Warnham Nature Reserve. I had thought there would be little to see but a walk around that normally takes about an hour, took us two hours! The place was full of people (unusual) and birds birds birds. We went adorned with waterproofs, Wellies, angrybirds hats and binoculars. (I wish my phone was working, there would have been some lovely photos) Plum rode in the sling as I had correctly predicted that it would be muddy and wet, and it was. Plum slept the whole walk around and me and the boys slipped and slid and squelched and squelched and jumped and splashed our way around. We stopped in all three hides and had great fun using our binoculars (even when the birds were right in front of us.) it was a great little trip out with nothing particularly in mind but we managed to cover topics like seasonal changes, hibernation, nocturnal animals (we w a fox,) naming birds, categorising and sorting, counting and recognising numbers (there is a number trail around the site) as well as the difference between salt water and fresh water, mushrooms, fungus, moss and mould, measuring the depths of puddles, seeing who could throw their stick the furthest, orientation and map reading and wearing appropriate clothing (observing those who had not come prepared and were covered in mud) and probably more but I think that's quite enough in two hours and all in the context of the real world and real living. I love home ed!

The rest of the day involved dinosaurs, constructing and knocking down angry birds sites, more teachyourmonstertoread, games and watching. Pumpkin asking why French bread is so frenchy and Bean picking up his space book and asking me to read it to him (not unusual) but pointing to some words and trying it out for himself...'mum, does that 'milky way'?' yes, it does (massive proud grin from mummy, big kisses and a little celebration army dance) I try not to place my own value and importance onto the smalls chosen activities. I try to enBcourage them and support them in the things they are interested in but it does excite me that Bean is on the road to reading for himself, the world will really open up to him when he can read and that excites me (I also have a personal love of reading and I would love for the smalls to enjoy reading for pleasure too)