Rememberall

Today was an At Home Day, daddy took the car to work and we had packing to begin for our first camping trip of the year. Plum, 5, and Pippin, 2, helped unpack and clean and repack the camping boxes. We did four boxes in total throughout the day.

Pippin began the day by watching Bolt whilst eating breakfast and drawing. When Plum woke up, pippin and plum played with the cogs set and watched the different patterns as they spun the cogs.

Bean, 10, and pumpkin, 8, watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire whilst also playing games on Pumpkin's tablet which he was sharing with Bean as i had dropped his and smashed the screen last night.
Bean followed this by playing minecraft on the pc whilst Pumpkin sat with him and played Clash of Clans.

Plum set about trying to find mislaid polly pocket peices around the house in the miscellaneous boxes, this resulted in her tipping all the miscellaneous boxes onto the living room floor and everyone collecting their spoils.

Pippin requested painting in the afternoon and produced about ten papers of black stripes.

We tried to Skype our friends that we had spoken to yesterday and arranged to continue today but they had gone out. There was a lot of Sponge Bob in the evening and Pippin had a bubbly bath.

Bean has been busy building his Star Wars tie fighter model and x wing fighter in the last week. Everyone has bathed, bean enjoys wearing his goggles in the bath and pippin loves the bubbles, plum likes to bath and play with pippin, whilst pumpkin likes the idea of having a bath alone until bean turns up and jumps in and then they have lots of fun together. We have also spent hours watching America's got Talent and been enjoying the ventriloquism and magicians especially the children performers in the last week. It's difficult to remember all the things that happen in a day for four small people, sometimes it feels very unproductive but it is extremely difficult to actually do nothing, as writing this blog serves to prove, and remembering it all is a real challenge.

That's no moon

Friday became our second enforced day at home with mummy's bad back.

Bean, 9, and Pumpkin, 8, and i watched Satr Wars 4, Plum, 5, watched Youtube and played in the garden and with the kitchen set.

Bean has taken over the morning feed of the animals this week and fed and watered them every day, often without reminder too.

Plum and Pippin and mummy painted their nails together and braided two plaits in Plum's hair.

Saturday we took a familt trip to plant flowers on nana and grandad's grave. Bean and Plum made a wreath together from willow and plants and flowers from the hedgrow and field.
We spent the day at FA#3 and mostly played in the garden with cousin C and H.

Sunday was church day, our friends renewed their marriage vows and mutual friends came to celebrate too. Plum and daddy took archie for a walk in the afternoon. Pumpkin played the head/ body/leg/feet drawing game with me and bean and pumpkin and i played mastermind together for a while. We watched the original Charlie and the chocolate factory together in the evening.

Daddy's home

For Bean, 9, he's had a walking Archie (the dog), watching films (Star Wars, War of the Worlds, The Italian Job, Madagascar 3) bbq at friends, trampolining, easter egg hunting, Sims4, Roblox playing, four day weekend.

Pumpkin, 8, has had a Roblox extraveganza, minecraft card gaming, project ideas, rediscovering our hoppers, bbq at friends, easter egg hunting, trampolining, bank holiday weekend.

Plum, 5, has been helping daddy replace fence panels and clear some of the garden, she has swept the patio and washed chairs inbetween playing picnics and chalk drawing, there was the bbq at friend's house, trampolining, swinging, climbing, easter egg hunting, going to the park with daddy, loving daddy weekend.

Pumpkin, 2, has coloured and drawn and chalked, washed furniture and helped daddy load the car for the tip, wearing Topsy hair, watching Toy Story 2 cuddled on the sofa, book reading, easter egg hunting, bbq at friends, trampoling, going to the park with daddy, weekend.

We had a fire in the pit and all the children toasted marshmallows with daddy.

Day Eight

On the eighth day of chicken pox, we went out, hurray. I took Plum, 5, and Pippin, 2, to the little play park near our house. We were out for an hour and they were exhausted! We played on everything at almost hyperspeed and then we did it all again. We had a extra long go on the swings when an inquisitive cat arrived and was loitering for a stroke. We played hide and seek and then one more go on everything before heading home.

Bean, 9, and Pumpkin, 8, opted to stay home and played lego together. When we got home from the park all the smalls went into the garden. Plum had plans to eat lunch out there. She got the playdough out, Bean got out the bug hunting kit and he and Pumpkin set to finding insects, Pippin had the bubbles out.

After lunch, grandma and pops came to visit. Plum showed them her new bedroom and Bean finished off the natural coaster he was making them so that they could take it home with them. Grandma played online games with Plum and Pops played with Pippin.

Once they had left Pippin promptly fell asleep on the sofa and Plum lay on the sofa watching on her tablet. The boys were watching Cartoon Network.

We watched We're Going on a Bear Hunt and Scooby Doo movies in the evening. Pippin, Plum and Bean had stories with daddy before bed.

Home on the Ranch

Still at home. Day 7. One full week for the girls. But Pippin, 2, is still sporting fresh spots. Plum, 5, is truely on the mend and now itching to go out.

We started the morning with The Winnie The Pooh movie followed by more moon sand play. We built different shaped sandcastles using the moulds we have and then Plum got her mini My Little Ponies and Pippin got her Bing toys to play with. Plum hid her toys in the sand and then mummy had to find them.

Plum has also signed up to Teach Your Monster To Read and in the afternoon she and Pippin played mummies and babies together using the soft toys, cot, baby blankets, dummies. There was a brief moment when Plum watched SevenSuperGirls on YouTube and then we put on The Heffalumo movie but she didn't watch it all as she returned to her game with Pippin.

Bean, 9, and Pumpkin, 8, played minecraft on the temple map. They built a tree house, tamed two dogs and a horse, played hide and seek and allowed Plum and mummy to play too. We spent some time trying to work out how to take screenshots from Bean's tablet but were unsuccessful. Bean and i read more Harry Potter in the afternoon followed by a deep bath so that he could practice putting his head under the water and holding his breath. We played more of the paper game he made yesterday and then made a couple of flip books together.

Bean and Plum played lego together in the evening. Plum made a race track with action posed runners and a finish line. We read stories and, for the first time since she got chicken pox, she slept in her own bed.

One hour

Today i set aside one hour for each of the children, just for them, well, almost mostly interupted with requests for food and drink and reading this or helping with disputes, but always returning to the one and playing with them.

First was Pippin, 2, we drew pictures and read books for an hour. She is sat next to me now readin 'i like it when...' to me. She's also good at Not Now, Bernard and Jesus loves me and Brown Bear Brown Bear.

I sat with Bean, 9, for an hour and played Roblox Murder Mystery. He showed me how to play, which keys to use and how to pick up weapons and strike others. I had a few goes with him alongside giving me pointers.

Plum, 5, made messy stuff today with Pippin joining in too. She got a large bowl and added water and lemon and chopped up carrots and added spoonfuls of flour. She added in cashew nuts and black beans and mixed it all together. We transfered it to a pirex dish and put it in the oven. We then spent some time watching Fixies and chatted about friction, surface tension and tools.

I watched Jimmy Two Shoes with Pumpkin, 8, and then we joined Bean and finished the ninth season of Pokemon and began the 10th season.

Daddy was out for the evening. The boys put on What's in the Bible and then Bean chose Winnie the Pooh movie. Everyone helped tidy up the living room. Pippin went to bed about 9 but took a while to settle. I read stories with Bean and we chatted about how humans have progressed over the centuries. Plum was playing on cbeebies games and skipped a story tonight and went straight to sleep about 10. I put on Finding Neverland to watch on iplayer and Pumpkin watched with me until the end.

We Can work It Out

Today has felt like a day of negotiations and somehow we have made it through without incident. Everyone seems tired after the visit from our friends and Bean, 9, woke up still angry with Pumpkin, 8, for not wnting to finish watching Pirates of the Carribean 4, which as it is Pumpkin's means that Bean can't watch it either.

We went out today. We went to Box Hill and met with other Home Educators. They are relatively new families to us who we have only met once before. Pumpkin wasn't keen to get out of the car because he didn't want to walk in the fog. Getting out of the car always takes a while anyway. First we had to pay for parking, then one by one the children decided what they wanted to wear (hat/coat/gloves etc) next i changed Pippin's nappy and then went back to check on Pumpkin. He was adament that he didn't want to come. We talked through the options and negotiated that we would be only an hour and off we went. We walked through the mud and the fog, climbed trees and played on the nature trail. Not one of my children had wellies or walking boots on, in fact, Pippin was even wearing odd shoes. Bean got on really well with one of the other children and asked if she could come back to our house to play. I tried to keep our lot moving so we had time to play in the den area as this is what Bean had said he wanted to do more than anything other. The three families sat in the giant den and ate food and talked about spider's webs. Bean began to recount interesting facts to everyone and then him and Pumpkin moved onto jokes. Before we left we finger painted our faces with some coal that was found in a tree log.

Back home Bean and Pumpkin went to play on the gaming pc and Plum, 5, played with mummy and Pippin, 2. We began with a board game of pirates treasure, then doll's house, cbeebies games, followed by watching Beethoven. Half way through the film she took her tablet upstairs and lay on my bed.

Bean came downstairs and watched Monster's University with Pippin whilst he counted his pocket money ready for a trip to town tomorrow. Pippin played dinosurs and dressing up. Pumpkin and him sat and watched The Loud House whilst i helped Pippin to bed and they also put the dressing up clothes away and got their own snacks. Plum was now lying curled up with her tablet in her bedroom, daddy found the toddler bed mattress for her so she can sleep on that. Plum went to bed in her own room again.

It's Oh so quiet

At Home Day #3 Pumpkin, 7, was positively bouncing with excitement when i said we had no plans today. Bean, 9, discovered that he can watch dvds on their computer so he and Pumpkin chose two that Plum doesn't enjoy and they watched those, star wars and harry potter. They also play the espcapists and watch dantdm and stampy. I set up skype for Bean on his tablet and we play a skateboarding game together. Bean also has a bath today. And him, pumpkin and plum, 5, watch Kermit Swamp Adventures together in the evening.

Pumpkin is in his happiest when we stay at home. After watching films and youtube he plays a capture in the dark game that he has made up with Bean and Plum. This then turned into wrestling. Followed by general climbing, running, chasing, fighting, energetic games.

Plum mostly watched on her tablet today. She has been very restful. She has been watching Steve and Maggie. She helped me make cupcakes in the evening ready for her party tomorrow. We read stories before bed and she read Ketchup on your Cornflakes to me.

Pippin, 2, has been colouring and playing Bing. She has watched Bing and Topsy and Tim today and also found the Peppa Pig dvd on the shelf so we watched that together.

Like Monday Morning

Monday: Plum, 4, is out with SGG and SGS at Little Verse. Bean, 9, and Pumpkin, 7, put on Pirates of the Carribean: Dead man's Chest. It seems to me that they like epic trilogy good vs evil type films.

We mostly eat all morning and then ate more when Plum gets home before we go to lego club.

We set up Lego Club last year as Bean was wanting to have more friends. We wanted to make connections with others who had similar interests. It has become a great place for children of all ages to come together and share their knowledge and love of lego. Sometimes it's busy and noisy and vibrant, sometimes it's just a few families and everyone is engaged in the same game or build together, and sometimes, like today, it was just us. And we had a great time together playing games that the children had made up, building duplo with Pippin, 2, doing Build Battle together.

Back home we watched Ice Age and ate chicken. Pumpkin bathed whilst i got food together, Bean  bathed four hours later. Plum, having slept 5 nights in her top bunk, slept with mummy again as the previous night she had had lots of nightmares.

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.

Making friends

Monday is a lovely day for us. We were watching an episode of the Simpson's this evening and they were grumbling about Monday and Pumpkin was asking why they didn't like Monday. Monday is just another day for us another day except i find it made al the more straight forward by the regularity of Plum going to Little Verse with SSG and SGG. And this afternoon we had Lego Club.

Bean, 9, and Pumpkin, 7, watched the final disc of The Return of the King whilst Plum was out this morning. They also began a 102 piece puzzle together.
Whilst at lego club they began rolling the giant lego wheels together to see who could get their's the furthest. As others arrived, they joined in too. Bean wrote up a competition chart, with rounds on it, to show who vs who, and who progresses to the next round. Pumpkin made three trophies using the lego for first, second, and third place. Six of them played this game repeatedly for an hour. After this they played several rounds of Build Battle together before two hours was over and we had to clear away. Pumpkin struggled after an hour of not coming first in the wheel competition but the moment was rescued with some time in and wet willies.
On the way home we drove via more than 10 pokestops to collect as many pokeballs as we could ready for our big pokemon hunt planned for later this week. Pumpkin hatched a magmar and leveled up.

Plum, 4, went to Little Verse and then spent the remainder of the day singing all the songs to me and Pippin. She joined in the wheel tornament and Build Battle at Lego Club. She watched iplayer when we got home and played Othello with daddy and Bean, followed by bath and bed.

Pippin, 2, has been under the weather all day. She went back to bed for a nap at 10.30 and then sat in the buggy for most of Lego Club this afternoon, dozing on and off. She managed to eat some dinner before she took herself up to bed.

Spontaneous rhythms

We had a trip to sheffield Park planned today. We had only been there for the first time recently but wanted to explore more. We arranged to meet Mr T. Pippin jad had a disturbed night so we slept in until 8.30. This put us a little behind schedule. The smalls all watched tv and played dens for the morning whilst i prepared a picnic and got everyone dressed. We were almost an hour late leaving.

On the way we played i-spy with the spotter sheets i made two years ago for a long holiday journey. We talked about American road signs and vehicles and the similarities and differences bewteen ours nd theirs. It was busier than last time when we arrived and we had to park in the overflow car park. We walked to the entrance where there were toilets and picnic benches. We meet our friends and climbed trees and ate lunch. Sheffield Park tie orange ribbons around the best trees to climb. Bean especially seems happiet up a tree at the moment.

When food seemed to come to a natural end, we went to move on and find the Nature Trial but Bean had put his head on the bench and said he was tired. We looked at where we were planning on heading on the map and reassured Pippin that we were not going near the ponds (he has a recent fear of people drowning) and suggested we walked back to the car and then see how we feel. The reality was that going home was not an option but Bean did not know this and i couldn't really explain that to him either. When we got to the car he lay down on the back seat. My friend rescued us by offering for us to come to their house to play. So, dispite us being an hour late, and travelling 45minutes to our destination just to have lunch, we then accepted the invitation back to play. Everyone was happy. And i am glad to have friends who understand us.

Plum spent our time at home making dens today under the coffee table. She took her cuddly toys in and her tablet to watch on. We watched Bolt in the evening and the boys both opted for a bath.

Changing Rhythms: school holidays

School holidays change our rhthym too, as does the changing seasons. We don't celebrate halloween, for lots of reasons, the dressing up part scares the children. For this reason we avoid anywhere that has decorations up during the half term holiday which mostly means we stay at home or have play dates. Today we met church friends and used the church hall as a space to play together. The big ones began with an extended lego session, Plum and me built a railway track with the brio. Games soon turned to dressing up and chasing the one dressed as the tiger. Bean was Superman and then a clown. Pumpkin was a pirate. Plum a policewoman. We also played four rounds of uno.

Bean had a problem with his phone today and tried several ways to fix it. He patiently waited for daddy to come home who spent some time with google and fixed it in 30 seconds. We spent a large portion of the day watching cats being funny in compelation clips on YouTube and moved on to You've Been framed in the evening.

It all began with Pumpkin and DanTDM and the Don't Laugh challenge, which is very hard and very funny.

Plum slept in late this morning, i was glad it wasn't Little Verse day due to half term, she would have hated being woken up but hated missing it too. She pottered around with the happy land people most of the morning. She is mostly into nesting them and her dollies at the moment.

And Pippin is watching Bing on a loop.

We ended the day watching Wreck it Ralph and all four smalls having a bath. Neither of the boys felt they had had long enough to finish the games they were playing so we will probably repeat it all again tomorrow.

All things Japenese

We've got into a bit of a routine on a Monday. Plum goes to Little Verse with SGG and SGS. Bean then puts on a film that we know Plum does not want to watch. We are working our way through Lord of The Rings. Today was the second halfloor of the Two Towers, we watched the first half yesterday whilst Plum was at a birthday party.

We spent the afternoon at a HE Japanese Event. Some children and their families had put together several table with various Japans related items for display. Some even came dressed for the occasion. The boys spent most of the time at the Pokemon display, looking at annuals, but Bean and Plum also did some origami and we all played retro games on the wiiU.

( In the evening daddy and I went out. Not because it was our birthday or anniversary but because we could. SGG and SGS came and no played with the children)

We tried to go slower on Tuesday. Mostly the children plaged on tablets for the morning. We went Pokemon hunting in the afternoon mostly encorporting PokeStops as we needed the balls. We also stopped for guinea pig surplies at the shop which including spontaneously purchasing grapefruit for the smalls to try. And, thanks to Pippin's endless watching of Bing, webrought strawberries to make smoothies with. We also played in the play area for a while where we met a lady with boy twins who had the same names as our boys. We've never met anyone with the same name as Pumpkin before so finding a brother match is probably a one off.

Bean came home and got busy measuring the garden so he can make a tree house. It will go under and around a tree as we don't have a big enough tree to climb and put one in. He drew a design, inside and out, and put measurements on it. Daddy looked at resources with him.

We rounded the day of with a viewing of Beethoven and all four had baths/showers.

Amazonian

The boys went to the cinema on Saturday morning. Daddy went with them and they met friend T there. They saw The Secretary Life Of Pets. Plum stayed at home and we made popcorn and watched Nanny McPhee.

Sunday was super busy. We went to church in the morning and then Plum had a birthday party to attend and then back to church for afternoon tea. On reflection, it was too much. Plum was overtired and after all that activity and getting up at 6am, she became really upset when a friend choose not to play with her. We left and sat in the car but she wasn't happy with this either. Meanwhile,  Pumpkin had had his fill of sitting and was throwing things at Bean, so daddy left with him. Bean, on the other hand, was really interested in staying and listening to the speaker talk of his life in The Amazon. Balancing everyone's needs can be tricky sometimes.

We ended up doing a parent swap. I took Pumpkin to look at the Amazonian artifacts the speaker had brought, including spears and a crocodile skull. Daddy calmed Plum and went and sat with Bean and Pippin.

Plum

Saturday 7th July


Mummy and Plum had a girls day today and daddy took the boys to Amberely Museum with SGS and his grandson. We went shopping in town where Plum wooed the crowds with her big saucer blue eyes and curly hair and winning smile. We drop roasted a freezer and hoovered and made a lovely sausage flan for tea. I was most intrigued to discover that her sleeping is not altogether improved by the lack of boys. I have been wondering if her daytime sleep would be better/ longer if the boys were not disturbing her and we were not constantly moving from car to sling to car to buggy etc. sometimes she will be happy with ten minutes and sometimes 2hours, sometimes half an hour and sometimes an hour. She doesn't seem to have any repeating pattern to them. Nor does she have a standard 'bedtime,' not even variable within an hour of each other, sometimes it's 6.30pm and other times it's 9.30pm or anytime on between. She definitely moves to her oun rhythm! 

During the afternoon we went to a birthday party. Plum enjoyed sampling yellow and orange pepper and some carrot sticks. She has also eaten this weekend, avocado, porridge, rhubarb muffin and broad bean risotto. She particularly liked the broad beans. 


 We did end the day with a family movie night. We struggle to find films that Bean will get past the opening sequence of. He gets very nervous about anything mildly traumatic or frightening and doesn't like it when things go wrong. But today we watched the Disney version of Robin Hood and he loved it. It was funny enough that even in the frightening parts we could show him the funny side of what was happening and tell him how things were going to work out. I should also mention that I found a copy of Cars on the market this morning (which we know he loves) so that has been put aside for the next movie night.

The road is long

Bean returning from Grandma and Pop's has been a bit traumatic and it has taken most of today to find our equilibrium again. He came home yesterday lunch time which was followed by a second viewing of 'cars.' I knew he would need the down time when he got home. This time I watched it with them (my first time, and I quite enjoyed it.) We struggle to find films that don't upset the boys, Bean especially. I invested in Stuart Little recently thinking it was fairly low key but we only got part way through before we had tears and anxiety.'Cars' we manage. It always amazes me how much Bean remembers after only one viewing. I had a constant commentary all the way through telling me what was going to happen, if not that he was asking me questions about racing and sponsorship deals.

The rejected Lightning McQueen

A flurry of activity followed. Grandma and Pops, by chance, had bought a cars painting poster set each for the boys so they wanted to start painting these. This progressed into Bean wanting to paint his own picture of Lightning McQueen. It has only been this side of Christmas that he has really taken his own interest in painting and drawing and crafty activities but his development has come on rapidly as he now paints and draws recognisable objects and their placement is well thought through, including colour and shape and space. The painting was rejected by Bean as he put a sad face on the car instead of a happy one. I tried to suggest some ways of fixing it but to no avail.
After much painting he then wanted the car garage out and the box of cars we have. These haven't been out for a long time. Some toys can sit unplayed with for weeks and then suddenly they find new life! He sorted out all the cars that were small and metal. He got very agitated when Pumpkin pulled out some cars that were small but wooden. In schools I know they test children in reception to see if they are able to sort. Mostly this is done in a setting made up by the adults and then the children are asked to sort whatever toys they have been presented with. I wonder if the adults observed children at play more whether the results would be different. Does Bean actually know that what he is doing is sorting and would he do it if I asked him to? mmmmmm....
He proceeded to line them all up in a queue like fashion and send them up the lift one by one and park them on the top floor. This was followed by them coming down the ramp one by one and being lined up adjacent to one another round the back of the garage. This is not the first time that arranging toys in such a way has appeared in his play...and it wont be the last.
Today we went to our local Family Centre. It's a lovely place for us to hang out, it's not too far from our house and has a warm welcome whenever we go. The boys played for hours in the hall with two of their friends. It was a game based around 'Octonaughts.' They rearranged all the toys to build themselves a house, where the large soft skittles were lined up as pillows, a tent in one corner was their 'pod' where they lined up the vehicles outside (as if parked in bays) and the car mat was used as the mapping system. Other than these observations the children were left to it, they understood more of the game than any of the adults!!

Example of trajectory play (found in the archive)

For me I can't help but observe my children's play and analyse it. So here is my diagnosis: Bean is currently using a trajectory schema in his play. That is he has a repeatable pattern of behaviour (schema) which takes a trajectory pattern. It's also displayed when he kicks a ball around; shows a preference in play equipment at the park: climbs up and down the crows nest, and using the slide; repeatedly asks to climb the ladder into the loft; insists on playing at falling of his chair at the dinning table; practises repeatedly what can only be described as a long jump and I'm sure other things that I haven't noticed! 


Found out a bit about lapbooks today thanks to HEWS. Very interesting.