Unintended

Pumpkin, 8, mention this morning that he didn't want to watch Toy Story 2 as it was playing for the second time, it would later play for a third time too. I jokingly replied by beginning to name all the other options and toys and craft and construction and puzzles etc that we have in the house. He and bean, 10, responded by systematically getting out toys and spent the rest of the day building railway track and marble runs.

In the evening, when daddy arrived home, all six of us built a railway track that encompassed the boy's room and mummy's room and joined up along the corridor. Lots of fun.

All by myself

The Sims4. Six plus hours of playing the Sims4. Bean, 9, predominantly with Pumpkin, 8, looking on and advising or contributing ideas.

Pumpkin also squeezed in a few goes on Roblox and had an hour to himself to play in the evening.

Plum, 5, and Pippin, 2, played with the farm set and playmobile together. Plum tidied her bedside shelf whilst Pippin played with the bears. Plum and i also made chocolate cupcakes together and did some puzzles whilst sat in the garden. Pippin read The Little Princess to herself "no, i want to do it by myself" (that is the repeated phrase in the book that she read to herself)

Daddy made a den with them all in the living room in the evening following a roarcus game of hiding and chasing throughout the house and garden.

London, lunch and lego

Friday

We had a home day on Friday with a very relaxed and easy vibe.

Bean, 9, made up a game based on things he has watched. It was called Dare or Dodge? He wrote two sets of cards, one with Dares on the back and one set with Dodge challenges on the back (less risky dares!!) We played one round and then he and Plum, 5, wrote some more and before the third round I got to write some too. We used the monopoly board to move around and the rules were that if you landed on a hotel you picked a dare card and if you landed on a house you picked a dodge. You could also do a dodge instead of a dare if you chose to. It was a great and fun game and we played it several times throughout the day and again with daddy in the evening.

Plum was keen to have a fairy picnic outside but then wasn't keen on the weather so we ate the tiny chocolate chip cakes we had made with pizza and picniced on the living room floor and watched The Lion King together.

Pumpkin, 8, continued playing Terreria and Minecraft PE for most of the day. He joined in Bean's game and helped write the shopping list.

Daddy attended his third funeral so far this year. Food for thought.

Saturday

Mummy and Bean had a day together. We took the train to London, had lunch in a cafe and went to the Lego Shop on Leicester Square. Bean had a fantastic time. He loves earing out and declared the pizza to be the best pizza ever. And we loved the lego shop and only queued to get in for ten minutes. We played Star Wars Top Trumps in the queue. Bean bought a Batman Joker car, nexo knight shield and blind bags for Plum and Pumpkin.

We played Top Trumps and Lego on the way home together.

Back home Pumpkin had spent the day playing Roblox, Plum and Pippin playing dollies and daddy tidying the house as we had a viewing at 4pm (which coincided nicely with picking us up from the train station) and the saga of buying and selling houses continues.

Daddy had i have come up with a plan for Pumpkin and church after last weeks epic fall out.

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.

Tea Time

On the mend can be a tricky place to be. We are happily recovering from chicken pox and energy levels are increasing however we are still growing new spots so not actually able to venture out yet. Plum, 5, struggles with this the most and Bean, 9, would like to go out too, Pumpkin, 8, is incredibly content with staying home.

With energy levels increasing, we spent the morning preparing a fairy tea party. Plum and Pippin prepared food in the kitchen set and lay out a blanket on the living room floor. I made tiny chocolate cupcakes and Plum and Pippin chopped cucumber and baby corn and pepper and we put them on cocktail sticks. I found tiny pasta in the cupboard so we had tiny pesto pasta too and some grapes. I cut some sausage rolls up small too and Plum found her fairy to come to the picnic. By the time we had finished preparing and playing, the girls were all spent and the afternoon we resumed film watching and cuddles on the sofa.

Pumpkin spent the day playing and watching on his tablet.

Bean has been working on a comic strip: The story of the Farting Cactus and later played lego with Plum. We read another chapter of Harry Potter today and Bean made me his first cup of tea...best cup of tea ever. Plum and Bean also slept the night in the living room both on the floor.

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

Jingle bells

So, pancakes are back on the breakfast mene. We began 2016 eating pancakes every morning from January until at least March possibly longer and then at some point it pittered out. Well now they are back to end our year the way we began.

Today Bean, 9, watched more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and we all played a lot of minecraft together. We defeated the ender dragon twice and began to build our homes on sky islands in the End. Bean was desperate to hatch an ender dragon egg on creative pe but after much research, that is googling and youtube watching, it appears that this is not something that is possible in this mode. We walked to the park around the corner this afternoon. B3an's bike wheels were so muddy that his brakes weren't working so he chose to walk. He walked beside Plum, 4, on her bike for a while to help her. Once at the park he invented a pirate game. The two play structures were boats. He was the captain of one and Pumpkin, 7, was his first mate. Plum was captain of the other and mummy was her first mate. They used the bikes as small raft boats to travel the sea inbetween the two ships and had to try and steal treasure from each other. He also took Pippin, 2, on the round about and helped Plum on the way home, when she had lost a race, by racing her again a d giving her a 5 second head start so that she won.

Pumpkin spent the morning on toca mini and skylanders imaginators app and clash royale. He rode his bike to the park. He spent a lot of time being spun fast on the round about. He put Mr Men on this afternoon and was keen to play wrestling, and harry potter, and hide and seek, and escapers, and murder in the dark. There is a myth that unlimited access to technology means that children's imaginations are stunted somehow or not encouraged. These games are all derived from and inspired by films and computers games that the children have watched and played, serving to ignite their imagination not surpress it. In the evening we played magic:the gathering together. He has been singing jingle bells all day.

Plum slept until 11am. She seemed to wake rested and happy but her reactions to things today were extreme in the first instance. She has been joining in the games with the boys but their level of play is often more challenging and more physical than she is happy with and whilst they are often accomodating, they do also want/need to play more challenging and physical games. It is our current conundrum. Plum rode her bike to the park, surprisingly finding the up hill parts the easiest.

Ginger Cat Cake

Another At home Day. This time planned. Bean, 9, had a wedding cake to make in the style of a stripy ginger cat.

Pumpkin, 7, enjoyed not having to share the computer and watched all day. He watched Skylander walkthroughs and Skylander cartoons, he watched DanTDM and Stampy, he watched The Simpsons and probablt other things that I missed.

Plum, 4, also spent most of the day watching on her tablet. After Pippin had a very long afternoon nap, they played together. They each had a dolly and a buggy and they kept putting on coats and shoes so that they could 'go out.'

Bean spent 9 1/2 hours baking and decorating cakes, with food and drink breaks included. It took 2 hours purely to mix and bake the bottom cake. This one on the top was a chocolate cake recipe that grandma gave us. We covered it with a thin layer of marzipan and then had to leave it until last before we covered it with foundant icing and put strips on it. For the following layer we made a Victoria Sponge. We mixed and cooked two layers but he decided only to use one. This was covered with butter icing and orange foundant and then cut out pieces to create the facial features. Next we made a batch of vanilla cupcakes. We used four of these for paws and covered them with orange foundant and decorated them with claws. Bean used a fifth one to make a mouse. The tail is a long roll of orange foundant.

We have used Pinterest to get design ideas for the face and recipe books and people knowledge to get different recipes to try. I have been baking a cake a day this week to try different flavours and sizes and strength and successfulness. Today Bean used YouTube to watch tutorials on how to shape and ice cakes. Daddy went out shopping to find a board to place it on. He couldn't find a cake board big enough so bought a large pizza board instead.

We will all be eating the left over cupcakes and one layer of Victoria Sponge.

At Home Day

An At Home Day today, in which Bean said "i'm glad we had a lazy day, i needed a rest." It's his third At Home Day this week!

Bean, 9, mostly watchedokemon thsi morning and we played mario kart and lego: star wars together on the wii this afternoon.

Pumpkin, 7, played games on his tablet this morning and then watched DanTDM and Stampy this afternoon. mostly he was watching Skylanders playthroughs, he has asked for trap team for Christmas so is getting ready to play.

Plum, 4, played mummy's with Pippin, 2, most of the morning. She played with us on the wii in the afternoon. Bean was amazingly helpful and showed her how to use the controllers and what the buttons did and took her to a place in the game where she could create her own avatar. It was a beautiful few hours of play.

The day ended with A Bug's Life. Plum falling asleep during the movie circa 7pm.

Revisit

 One of the things that I have notived in the last year is how games in our family have become established. One of the smalls will call "let'someone play houses/wrestling/babies/families" and everyone immediately knows what the game so,  where we play it, what role they play, what the story line is, what the rules are.  And each time they play the game evolves. It'seems a beautiful process to watch.

Today it was Bean and Pumpkin wrestling at Nyman's gardens.  We joined friends for a visit and played Pokemon as we walked. The smalls (all four of them) climbed trees and ran around chasing with their friends. Plum wore a summer dress even though the weather was cold and everyone else was wearing coats.

The trip out was topped and tailed with Bean and Pumpkin playing Magic: the gathering. I think it was Pumpkin'so first go at playing but he knew the game play really well from watching so many times and understood the cards in the pack. Bean is keen to introduce new cards to the pack.

The Little Red Hen

Plum is feeding 3 hourly again at night but as it is bank holiday i got to sleep in an extra bit this morning, 7.30 up.

The plan was to make a jubilee cheesecake this morning but when it came to it the boys were more interested in playing. I made it anyway as we bought all the ingredients. I felt a little like the little red hen, i'm sure the boys will enjoy eating it.

Daddy spent time playing puppets and making stories and joining in jokes that only small children understand. Bean has been busy playing with a balloon he got from yesterday's birthday party. He had it attached to an aircraft he had made and was pretending it was a bomb. It was mummy and daddy's job to defend the town using a selection of vehicles and some imagination: hurling mud from the tipper truck or hooking the string with the crane claw. Daddy was better at this than mummy.

Pumpkin has had the car garage out again for the sixth time this week. He had the cars parked on the top floor today and got very upset if they were moved. He also lined them up as if in traffic and then one by one drove them off to line them up parallel to the first line.

We went into town to join the jubilee celebrations, bumped into several people we know. Listened to a lot of music from various decades and daddy took the boys on a bus ride. We even found a random toy soldier in the sand tray outside elc...i wonder how that got there???? :)

Early Learning

I'm really enjoying our relaxed week. Today was little builders at Kingdom Faith Church where somehow I managed to reverse into another car, fortunately she was also reversing so there was no damage. The boys coloured, food crafted and made sun catchers. The actual skill needed for all these things is fairly minimal but I'm sure that it's since we've been attending here that they have become more interested in making things. Bean even picked up a glued piece of paper yesterday without too much caution.
We had good good friends to lunch who helped us eat leftovers and play wildly. Lots of running around, garden exloring, climbing, hide and seek, full body learning.

Plum has napped today presumably because she slept 14 hours last night, with feeds of course. This seems to be a regular occurrence and she is often the last to rise. I wonder why it is third that sleeps so long? Not that the boys slept bad, just early risers.

Today's news seems to bring to light the detrimental effects of an early school age. Of course this is not news to early childhood practitioners. It still amazes me that Joe Bloggs thinks our children have to be in school for Reception class, that is 4, when it is actually the term after they're five and not necessarily in school just in schooling. This means Bean is not legally required to be educated until September which is the equivalent of Year 1. As if we could stop him learning before then! But this is discussing formal education. Sit down learning. I must impart knowledge to you that I think you should know right now. Please don't talk to me about skeletal structure and planetary systems we don't cover that until next year and you're too young to understand that now.
It just seems that some people find it hard to comprehend the 'less is more' approach: slowly slowly; and fail to see that it is detrimental to peoples social development as well as mental health, self confidence, personal responsibility, autonomy etc etc. Maybe I have studied it for too long so it has become second nature, obvious, or maybe I watched play succeed and structured learning crush too many but I am in full support of more freedom to play, freedom to learn.

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. 

Play is...

Making sense of the world around you. Rehearsing the past, present and future. Talking through ideas. Practising. Mastering. Repeating. Perfecting. Thinking. Re-thinking. Organising. Trying things out. Trying again. 
Re-Enacting. Investigating. Experimenting. Hypothesising. Observing. Puzzling. Questioning. Exploring. Co-operating. Negotiating. Compromising. Discussing.
Turn-taking. Conferring. Controlling. Rule making. Rule breaking. Setting targets. Setting boundaries. Setting limits. Limitless. Lateral. Diverse. Problem setting. Problem solving. Enquiring. Searching. challenging. Engaging. Absorbing. Creative. Representative.  Unique. Fun.


and that's just for starters.




n.b. I've also enjoyed reading these articles this week:
the benefits of homeschooling
enjoy reading

Playing is the answer

I'm having problems publishing a reply to those of you who have kindly commented. Thank you for doing so and just to prove I've read them, I've stolen one of the comments as today's title! I'll try and look at why I can't reply but I'm not technologically minded so it might take a while!


This week has been the school holidays and I feel like we've had a little taste of what it must be like to be out the house early. Bean has had swimming classes every morning at 9am. We have managed it on time every day but what a stress! Let's not pretend that there aren't stressful moments in our lives especially when there are multiple smalls involved but we aim to achieve a calm household and unstrained relationships. I'm not sure I could manage that if we had to do a school run every day. Crazy. This morning was complicated even more by the fact that I had arranged for Plum to spend an hour or so at a friends house whilst I took Pumpkin for a swim.

 The lessons themselves were fine but I think Bean struggled with being instructed what do when he wasn't feeling confident, secure or able. He actually plucked up the courage to tell the instructor today that he was only going to watch, which in our house is perfectly acceptable. The instructor was pretty good and seemed to offer him a lot of encouragement and support, so Bean did make it in the water. The thing that brought it all home to me was taking Pumpkin for a swim. We went in the leisure pool to start and he was adamant he wanted to go in the toddler pool so off we went. here he splashed happily amongst the sprays and bubbles and jumping under the water. He then asked to go back to the bigger pool where he was more relaxed and made me take him in the ever so bubbly jacuzzi and under the waterfall, things which 15 minutes earlier he was avoiding! In his own pace and in his own time he had become comfortable in the pool. Definitely, play is the answer.


We were even more tired after all this and a rather unproductive morning followed. We gave Plum a bath and played a game of Snakes and Ladders, Bean's suggestion. I notice he's now able to know how many dots on the die without actually counting. And a well eaten lunch was followed by some down time watching various programmes on the iplayer, I think I may have nodded off. Plum slept for a marathon 2 1/2 hours!

And then, as if by magic, a flurry of activity ensued. I suddenly found myself being torn between Bean who wanted to do colouring and Pumpkin who wanted to make a den, and Bean wanting to make soil (an idea he got from a gardening book he picked up at the library) and Pumpkin wanting to know if worms cry. I was also trying to get the dinner which was shepherd's pie tonight. One of Bean's favourites and we haven't had it for 'ages' as he keeps telling me. Bean also found a disc with some photos on it from his birthday last year and he kept saying he wanted to make them a jigsaw. I wasn't quite sure what he meant or where he had got this idea from but we used publisher to make a collage of the photos and this seemed to satisfy him. We played for about 2 hours, practising our colouring and name writing, building a den together and shoving vegetable peel into a bottle. I often find that their activity is a bit piece meal, we tend to have lots of activities on the go at once which the boys move between seamlessly. Sometimes these activities intertwine but sometimes they are separate pursuits. Often they will involve both boys, either separately or together. Sometimes they'll concentrate on one activity for a moment and other times it will be a lengthy engagement. This afternoon was the totally opposite of our morning; relaxed, fun, full of activity and laughter, comfortable, calm and full of learning. Playing is the answer.