Chasing Butterflies and Robots

Thursday and the Big Three did gymnastics.

Friday we went to a Robot Wars workshop. It was originally booked for bean, 10, however Pumpkin, 8, said he'd like to do it too. I managed to secure a last minute spot for him during the same session as bean and our friends A and J. The venue allowed for me to have the girls outside on the meadow. Plum, 5,  and i made a daisy chain crown and pippin, 2, chased butterflies around the meadow.
Inside the hall, the boys got to watch a few robots built for Robot Wars in action including 'Matilda.' Then they worked in a group to build their own robot (125g) and battle it against other group's robots. They had met everyone in their group before and they all had a turn or more at operating the robot. Pumpkin won every one of his three battles.
We played in the play park after and ate more of our lunch and then headed home.

Saturday. We went to a friend's 60th birthday party in the afternoon and then went on to a bbq on lancing beadh with our church friends. Bean and plum and daddy all went in the sea. Pumpkin wnjoyed playing on the rocks.
Unfortunately pumpkin was sick in the night.

Sunday. Church day as always, except daddy, pumpkin and bean stayed at home and mummy took plum and pippin. We spent the afternoon resting and fixing FA#3's car. Daddy also fixed the wii so Pumpkin spent several hours playing lego harry potter.
The children decided that they would like to try staying up all night again. Plum was still awake at 12.30 but asleep by 2.30. Bean and pumpkin were still awake at 4.45am but asleep soon after. Bean woke at 9am but he took my suggestion to go and rest on his bed and went back to sleep until 12 noon. Pumpkin woke just before 12 noon.
Plum and Pippin had spent the morning with me playing Polly Pocket and doing various household tasks. Pippin took a nap between 11 and 1. By 1pm all four children were awake at the same time. We watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban together.

Tuesday we took another At Home Day as Pippin keeps spiking a temperature and is ever so lethargic and keeps napping at unusual (for her) times. Plum and pippin and i face painted each other as tigers and the girls mixed kitchen ingredients and cooked them. Bean began setting out the base of his tree house and marking which sections he would like to cut and/or replace. Pumpkin suggested a game of nerf wars but it has been put on hold until the morning. He also has plans to build his own robot using a remote control car as the base. We watched some robot wars clups together on youtube.

See the sea swash

After a bit of  rocky morning and putting a lot if effort into encouraging Pumpkin out of the door, we ended up spending five hours on Worthing seafront. Bean, 10, and Pumpkin, 8, ate bubblegum flavoured ice cream, Plum, 5, had chocolate and Pippin, 2, had strawberry. They all bounced on the trampolines and then we headed to the beach for a late picnic and everyone put on their swimmers and went paddling, splashing, running around, in the sea.

We then headed to the arcade. Plum beat both Bean and Pumpkin at air hockey and Pippin was her usual successful self on the 2p machines and they enjoyed the horse racing game together. Then, Bean and Pumpkin found a shooting game that they could play together and they loved it. They played it three times and have arranged to come back with their pocket money for another go.

And all of that took five hours. Pumpkin, Plum and Pippin all fell asleep in the car on the way home and we only got home tw minutes before daddy. Fortunately i had thrown meatballs in the slow cooker so easy food prep for a meal.

And, dispite the rocky morning, the children are in the midst of planning two more beach trips.

Blown Away

Bean, 9, has been asking for a while to go to the arcades in Worthing and Pumpkin, 8, was keen to go to the beach, Plum, 5, has been planning a picnic in the sunshine for days so today was the day. It was beautiful and sunny but windy. We walked in no time from the play area on the sea front to the lido and ate ice cream and cake together before going to the arcade.

The children each had a pot of pennies to put in the penny machines. Pippin, 2, put in a few pennies and won a lot more, this happened repeatedly, she definitely left the arcade with more pennies than she went in with! Bean played splat a rat and we found a star wars pod racing game that he played with Pumpkin. Pumpkin and Bean played twice on the air hockey and then Plum and Pippin had a go too. Pumpkin also had several turns on the grabber machines to try and win Pippin a toy. He also won a fair bit on the penny machines and betting on the horse race. Plum was struggling with the idea that you don't always win and that you have to put the pennies in the game to even be in with a chance, she prefered to go on the rides.

Pumpkin found a bag of shells he liked in the beach shop on the way back.

We sat in a shelter on the way back to the car and ate as it was so windy no one wanted to sit on the beach. Pumpkin found a stone in the shape of a heart and Plum talked about an episode of Bing with diggers on the beach as we passed a construction team working on a new set of defenses.

The walk back to the car was longer and more difficult. Pippin walked the whole way as we walked into the oncoming wind.

Back home and daddy was home early. We replenished drinks and snacks, mummy emptied all the bags and daddy cooked dinner. Bean put on the Lego Movie and then after we'd eaten, Bean and daddy watched episode two of Fungus the Bogeyman with Plum.

Rejoice with those who rejoice

Sunday 8th January 2017

There are lots of things that we love about Home Educating and especially Unschooling. There are lots of things that are a direct result of us choosing Home Education, choosing to spend our days together. We can rejoice together in our good times and comfort each other in our sadness without the interuption or forced separation of school.

Today we travelled back to Kent and dropped daddy off at Nana's place where we left him with FA#3 and drove to her house. We unpacked, Plum, 5, immediately found CousinC and CousinH and picked up playing where they left off yesterday. Bean, 9, and Pumpkin, 7, went and settled in their beds and were playing on their tablets. It wasn't long before daddy called to tell us that Nana had died peacefully. And not long after that that daddy and FA#3 returned home.

Over the next few days we stayed at FA#3's house. Ten of us in total, 11 on occasion. We cooked and played with the children, there was a lot of negotiation and refereeing, mummy took the children out for a walk to the beach, we collected stones and caught Pokemon, walked along the wall and climbed steps and stairs, and played hide and seek. We talked about fishing boats and the wind whistling, islands and land masses, oyster shells, harbours and housing development. We walked down Harbour Street and the boy's thought it could pass for diagon alley and renamed all the fabulous looking shops. We stopped and bought food at the supermarket and cousinC asked to buy flowers so we got some for FA#3, their daddy and our daddy. We played board games and puzzle games, magic:the gathering and top trumps and cheat. We watched movies and cbeebies, Pippin followed the cats endlessly around the house. By the third day the boys were beginning to long for their space at home. They were too tired to successfully take out but not comfortable or relaxed enough in the space they had created for themselves. That evening we came home.

Romans 12: 15

Pikachu

I think the boys would say this day was one of the best ever, we caught three Pikachu today. We went down to Littlehampton, which we love because of the beach anyway, but specifically went today because friend had said it was a good place for Pokemon hunting. And it was. We caught lots of new Pokemon and there were pokestops in abundance. Bean, 9, and Pumpkin, 7, had a great time and were really pleased. We will definitely be going again sometime soon.

It was, however, freezing. Plum, 4, refused to wear soacks although did gradually add gloves, hat and coat to her outfit. Pippin, 2, cried the entire time that we were outside on the seafront and she was wrapped up warm.

We snuggled up watching Scooby Doo movie 2 when we got home and journeyed out again for a McDonald's for dinner. We popped to the cornershop on the way out and went to try and find our friends who had broken down nearby to deliver supplies whilst they waited for rescue however we didn't find them. It worked out okay though as when we arrived home I discovered that i had forgotten our front door key. So we ate through the supplies I had bought, watched youtube on my phone using wifi from the house and sat in the car and waited 25 minutes for daddy to arrive home.

We cooked sausages for supper, the girls bathed and the boys watched Pokemon, Pumpkin and Plum played Othello with daddy and everyone was asleep by 10pm.

Don't build your house on the sandy land

Tuesday 24th July


A day at West Witterings with fellow home educators. The journey there took twice as long as usual due to it being the first sunny day of the school summer holidays and sunny weather is not guarenteed to continue. Plum woke up on the way there and wanted feeding, with no where to pull over and the friend we had given a lift unable to drive we were stuck with a screaming baby in the hour long cue to the car park.


It was a wonderful day once we arrived, sandy sandwiches, ice -cream, building sandcastles and an entire house arrangement with friends, several trips to the sea where we learned to bodyboard. 


Officially today was learn nothing day ...we failed miserably.

See the sea swash

Thursday 26th July

Bean writes his first word

Paddling in the sea

Building a castle with a moat and filling it with water

Building a bed (first attempt made on Tuesday)

Playing diggers

A planned day at home turned out to be an unexpected second day trip to the beach in one week. This time we went to Littlehampton. It was quieter and felt cooler today than our trip on Tuesday. We went with SGS and SGG and their grandson. I went into the sea with the boys much deeper than we have ever been previously and I even had a very brief swim. We played diggers and made sand castles and dug ourselves a bed, we buried each other, moved camp to avoid the rapidly incoming tide, we jumped through waves and sat down in the sea, and Bean wrote his first word (other than his name) in the sand...'pop'. I'll be honest, as he wrote it, I was slightly worried his first written word was going to be 'poo.' Very glad it wasn't. 


Bean was amazing this morning. There's nothing like the excitement of a beach trip to encourage some helpfulness. All of his own accord he offered to help pack for the beach and he did it very well. I was amazed at how much easier it was with his help.


All three smalls fell asleep on the way home at 4.45pm. Bean stayed asleep on the sofa until 7pm when daddy came home and carried him up to bed. At this point Pumpkin woke up. We've eaten dinner, played on my phone, brought in the laundry, played Ludo and Snakes and Ladders and read some books. It is now 10pm and I would like to go to bed but can't leave a three year old up on his own. Hoping he will go to sleep soon.

I'm glad I spent it with you

Wednesday


We spent today at the Wittering's Beach with Grandma and Pops. It wasn't as sunny as last Friday but it was a great day none the less.
Today Grandma asked me the question, 'so what is he [Bean] learning today?' So here is my reply....


The journey to the beach involved Bean map reading, this mostly involved asking about the different coloured roads and guessing what the symbols meant, We looked these up using the key when we arrived at the beach to see which ones we had guessed correctly. He even spotted a National Trust sign on the roadside on the way there! (Would you like me to give them subject headings, let's call this geography.)


He also spends a lot of time trying to read the speedometer and speed limit signs. This involves reading numbers and understanding there value in relation to each other (Maths)


Today the sand was used for: building castles, which involved digging deep for wet sand; making a flag from a stick and a tissue; burying Bean; and burying the frisbee. The sea was used for: paddling in; exploring seaweed, mostly Pumpkin avoiding it!) pouring water and running through. The beach is a whole day of sand and water play, which is an unquestioned activity in most early years settings, our advantage being having them in their natural habitat. Discovering about materials and their different properties, how they change when you add things to them i.e. water to sand, or how things change over time i.e. tidal movement. This play also involves physical dexterity, problem solving, social skills, communication and a multi sensory experience all contributing to their congnitive development and knowledge (language, science, maths, social development)


Bean also set up a game of cricket using two spades and a stone. One spade was the bat and the other the wickets. Being able to use one item and pretend it is another is not only very useful for when you think you have no toys available and are able to gather together a few odd objects and they become a whole new world but is the same process of thought used in successful problem solving in adulthood (seeing a use for things that they were not designed for.) (Creative and physical development)


Pumpkin continues to be a very sensory learner and spent a large amount of time lying in the sand, head and all! Very messy but soft sand is very pleasing to touch so I could see the appeal, I just wouldn't put my face in it.


Spending a day with family and multiple generations also contributes to their social and emotional well-being. Feeling valued and cared for by those closet to them and respecting and caring in return. Today Bean took 4 pennies each for grandma and pops to buy them an ice-cream. 



We went over to the cafe to buy ice-creams where the boys learnt to select and order and pay for their own purchases, although we did have an odd moment when the shop assistant looked at me and asked if I knew that they had ordered dark chocolate even though I was right next to them when they were ordering. However, instead of merely role-playing the situation they were able to learn from a real life experience. (Maths, communication, literacy, social.)

Unbeknown to me the boys had also been watching the life guards closely and three days later (Saturday) have been playing with the playmobil men and quad bikes and walkie-talkies in the bath enacting what they observed. (observation-science; story telling-literacy, communication, language; memory recall; shared experience - social; making sense of the world around them-humanities.)



And all this was just whilst we were at the beach and I know they learnt far more than I have recorded here. All three smalls slept on the way home and consequently up later again. Pumpkin spent a happy time entertaining friends looking at books and Bean set up the dolls house on his bed having a picnic.

Oh, I do Like to be Beside the Seaside

We started our day early and had bacon and eggs for breakfast. The boys mostly sat and listened to the new CD Bean ordered for his birthday whilst I packed a picnic and did the laundry before we headed off to the beach. They also spent some time playing around on Google maps as I had it on to get directions for today's adventures.


I love car journeys with my boys. Bean is full of chatter and questions. Today he wanted us to work out how we were going to share the jubilee cheesecake we are planning on making with the Queen and is most perplexed as to why people will be celebrating if we are not invited to Buckingham Palace, and who is invited? He also wanted to know the name of every village and town we drove through and who lives there. There were some real areas of beauty on our way to the beach as we have to drive over the south downs and on more than one occasion he exclaimed 'Wow' or 'that's pretty' or 'it's beautiful here.'


Today was definitely one of those days when you think there really is no need to holiday anywhere else, we have it all here. The beach was beautiful and sunny and cool. Our friends have the perfect spot, close to all the amenities, the sea, a shady play spot in the trees. It was perfect. The boys played in the sea for hours, although Pumpkin did express at the end of the day that he didn't like getting wet. They were far more courageous than they have ever been before: jumping over the coming waves; having races into the sea; sitting down with their backs to the sea and being pushed by the coming tide; Bean even went under at one point and it didn't phase him at all, he just laughed.


They also spent a long time playing in the enclosed small shady tree spot and I even spied some more climbing going on. There were a few attempts at sandcastles but the sand was too dry.


Plum refused to sleep all day, although she did dose off a couple of times as I was feeding her. One sleep was rudely interrupted after about 3 minutes as the wind blew the picnic bag on top of her. She finally gave in about 4pm and slept for about half an hour. She was perfectly happy most of the time but her demeanour changed for the better when I took her with me to the toilet block with Pumpkin. Maybe the combination of wind, sun and sand was a little over whelming for her.


The car journey home consisted of a massive game of I-spy. In which I  realised that Bean's understanding of initial sounds is progressing dramatically and Pumpkin still insists that every time it's his turn he spies 'something beginning with D' and it's always a dingo!


The only real downside was, even after three applications of factor 50 sun cream, I burnt my feet and legs. The boys were fine.