Bignor Roman Villa

Wow. Today we actually did something educational. It's been a while since we last joined a group instructed session (Pizza Express.) Today we went to Bignor Roman Villa. It totally ticked all of Bean's boxes. He even chose to spend time looking at the mosaics and the water system whilst his friends ran around playing. It was the perfect combination of instructed/organised time and walk around at your own lesuire. The staff were really helpful and able to answer the children's questions and there was a goos selection of dressing up/games/puzzles/historical items to play with.

All three smalls spent time copying and completing mosaic patterns, trying on Roman helmets, amd Bean and Pumpkin wrote Roman numerals and Pumpkins name in Latin script. Bean was especially interested in the map and the model and working out the building and its situation. The organised part allowed them the opportunity to crush wheat corn to flour, something that Pumpkin knew lots about thanks to minecraft, and spin wool.We came home with an activity book about the Romans, some Roman coins and some Roman figures. That time line that i've had in mind for the past two years is getting a bit desperate.

We followed this with a play at Pulborough Park with the same group of friends. Pippin sat solo for 20 minutes whilst eating her lunch and Plum waited patiently to go on the roundabout this whole time. Plum enjoyed the roundabout and slide today. The boys played with their friends for the whole two hours that we were there. And a trip to the Butchers on the way home.

Back home late afternoon the Skylanders (scheduled to arrive on Monday) had arrived and the boys disappeared to play on the Wii. They gave the double they received to Plum. There was a small amount of playing in the garden but mostly it was dinner prep and baths and helping the smalls to bed. Pumpkin was exceptionally and was constantly running to the kitchen to ask for more food. Bacon sandwiches were a big hit.

Dizzy

An At Home Day today and the only one this week. I think we need at least two. 

Today was the day that Bean decided we should begin to build his Eiffel Tower project. We have been collecting toilet rolls since Christmas and with help from friends we have sourced a fair amount. So the building, knocking down, building, falling down, building, toppling over and building began. 

He wanted the free standing and balancing. He had the ruler out so that he could measure them all because, being from several different source, they were different heights and this effected the tower. He then moved on to joining sets together with elastic bands. And I was reminded that we are running low on basic craft materials,

And in the background Plum, 3, was trying to build a castle. We found a picture on Pinterest that she liked and then we collected additional boxes and tape and glue and cotton wool and set about making a castle. It does bare some resemblance to the Pinterest version but the turret placement and use cotton wool was all her own design. She was so excited that she wanted to ring daddy to show him. I managed to get her to settle for me messaging him to ring us when he was available, which he did. 

This is Bean's doodles on the calendar for when his Skylanders figures are due to arrive. You can also read what else we are up to next week :) 

Other things today included weeding and planting flower seeds with Plum in our garden, and then playing bubble blowing too. Puzzles and games with Plum. Leaf collecting and chocolate sharing with Plum. Feeding Lydia and watching cbeebies with Plum. And Pumpkin seeking me out every so often to tell me something amazing about a mod he has seen for minecraft. 

Legomania: take two

We adventured our way to Milestone's Museum yesterday for a second trip to Legomania. I had, by chance seen on Trip advisor that a return visit was free for the smalls. I didn't have a receipt to prove it but they honored it anyway which was a blessing. In all none of the smalls were that interested in the exhibition this time around. 

We all worked hard to put this viaduct together. Plum collected the foam pieces that we needed, Bean and I held them in place and Pumpkin told us where to put them.

We spent most of our time in the lego building area. They loved the finished spaceship. They spent about 15 minutes playing and reenacting the story of The Three Little Pigs. Each of them was one of the pigs/wolf and they all swapped roles and acted it out again and again. Then Bean built a basic story board from the lego and used the peices as characters and retold the story again and then Plum copied him. 

Plum, 3, building 3 pig houses plus a cave for the wolf

Bean, 7, built a Creeper

Plum, 3, copied him

Taking our time building minifigures. 

The boys built several minifigures each and then spent some time discussing and deciding which one they would take home with them. Pumpkin, 6, decided that really he had made one for Bean. After some consideration Bean decided to accept this gift as his choice to take home but swapped the minifigures weapon with Pumpkin's consent. 

In truth we spent a large portion of our time dressed up and exploring the more permanent exhibits. They were particularly interested in the household items. One lady dressed in character took us into her house and talked to the smalls about her life and her family. She showed them around the house and demonstrated the household items that she had and let the Smalls have a go. When we left Bean said "that was really interesting." 

We spent an equally long time in the penny arcade. Plum enjoying the ride ons and puppet shows, Pumpkin and Bean spending their coins on the puppet shows and sweet machines (which seem quite lucrative!)

It was the first big trip out for me in our new vehicle. It was well worth doing a long stint in it as it feels really comfortable to drive now. Not much longer before I will feel totally at ease with it. 

Don't do that

I spend a lot of time writing about all the things that we do, but home ed and life are not all about being busy and 'doing.' What follows is a list of things that we don't do.

In this household:

We don't teach our children.

We don't follow a curriculum

We don't quiz our children

We don't have bedtimes

We don't finish projects

Sometimes we don't even start projects

We don't stay at home all the time

We don't always get dressed

We don't tell our children what to do or when to do it

We don't do chores

We don't do math drills

We don't always tidy up

We don't always eat our savoury before our sweet

We don't have a timetable

We don't have reward charts

We don't sit at tables and do worksheets

We don't all learn the same thing at the same time

We don't all get up at the same time in the morning

We don't tell our children what or when to read

We don't have sweety days

We don't do handwriting practice

We don't limit screentime

We don't seperate learning from living

We don't do subjects

We don't do tests

We don't do school


We get busy living and the learning goes on.

Never Bored

What do you do all day? It's a fair enough question when you don't go out to work and your family is together all the time, most people don't know what your day looks like.

Midnight: daddy and mummy are awake with Plum who had a very late nap at 6 pm for 2 hours. The nap had happened in the blink of an eye. I was feeding Pippin when Plum came and curled up next to me. "Are you going to sleep?" "No. ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"
Shortly after midnight mummy and Plum are asleep together.

3am Pippin wakes up but is happy with a feed.

7am daddy leaves for work and comes to say goodbye. Pippin is woken up but settles for a feed and sleeps for another hour and a half.

7.30am Bean and Pumpkin get up and go downstairs. The start their day by watching Stampy. Mummy is in bed feeding Pippin and generally stuck between two sleeping girls.

8.30am Pippin wakes. Feeds again and then we get washed and dressed. 

9-10am We are eating and playing minecraft. Bean and Pippin have pancakes for breakfast, Pumpkin cereal and Plum (who gets up about 10am) has pasta with pesto on, tomato sauce and salad cream. Pumpkin wants me to play minecraft with him. This involves me having a tour of his biom and him demonstrating all the games they have built but not being allowed to break, build or play anything myself. 

10 - 11am Plum and I feed the guniea pigs. Bean wants to play chess and sits with the instructions next to him. We analyse and play around with the moves of the knight and he plays both sides for the end game. Plum puts odd pieces on the ludo board and instructs us on her own unique way to play, and then we play 'shut the box.' Pippin sits and watches us the whole time.

11-12noon I am feeding Pippin, whilst playing board games with Plum. Then Pippin lies around nappy free for a while. We discovered that she seems to enjoy this quite by accident. Bean reminds me that we were going to look at how to download Mods onto minecraft so we look at a link from a friend and download a launcher. This takes more time than Bean has patients for and mummy has to remember more account names and passwords than she cared to. 

12-1pm I cook food and Pumpkin asks to go to the park. Plum chops cheese and carrots and cucumber for lunch. The boys get dressed and washed and we eat. Pippn falls asleep peacefully in her chair, which is the first time ever. It seems a shame to move her into the buggy but she wakes anyway with a sudden sound of a passing motorbike.  

1-3pm We walk to the park. We make a daisy chain and plau IT and Hide and Seek, I spin the smalls on the roundabout and then they run off and play together, Plum befriends a boy of similar age and they share his ride on car. I feed Pippin and then she lays in the sun on the grass for a while. The smalls are all unanimous in their decision to eat ice cream when we get home. Pippn falls asleep on the way home and continues to sleep in the buggy in the garden.

3-4pm The smalls eat ice cream. Bean settles in his cave on the sofa, Pumpkin and Plum and mummy sit/play in the garden. I continued to look at the Mods launcher with Bean and we trialed the downloading of a Mod. So far, no virus or spam. 

4-5pm Pippin wakes and feeds a little. Plum gets various items from the doll's house and brings them into mummy's bedroom to play with. Pumpkin is keen to play with Pippin.



5-7pm Mostly food prep and housework. The smalls have been helping themselves to snacks and fruit all day so none of them are overly hungry. I wash up the days dishes.Plum eats more pasta and sauce, Pumpkin has beans on toast and Bean is not hungry. I open the vegetable box that was delivered this morning and prepare dinner for me and daddy. The boys are playing minecraft together, Plum is playing with her Peppa Pig toys. They play Simon Says together. 

7-8pm daddy come home. Pippin, mummy and daddy eat dinner together. 

8-9pm Pippin is very tired and so I take her upstairs to change and feed her. Plum comes too and rolls around on the bed whilst Pippin feeds and sleeps.

9-10pm I have a bath and then feed Pippn again as she falls asleep and lies in her bed for a sleep.
Plum is very tired but is finding it difficult to settle as mummy can't cuddle her until Pippin has finished  feeding. I read her stories and try holding her hand.

10-11pm The smalls have stories altogether with daddy. Mummy starts to blog. There is a scuffle with Plum and Bean. Bean is upset. Plum asks to go to bed. Mummy takes her for a cuddle and Bean returns to stories with daddy. Plum falls asleep in mummy's bed with cuddles. I finish the blog post. After this I shall drink tea and knit a row or two before going to bed.

Today I have also phoned the car insurance company, had several conversations via text/messenger and spoke to my mobile phone company and probably a whole bunch of other stuff too.

Imagine

Imagine being able to sleep when you are tired, get up when you wake naturally, eat when you are hungry and go to the toilet without having to ask permission.

Sometimes home education is a simple as that.