Stumble trip

Tuesday 31st July

FA#1 took us to the woods again today with all six boys and Plum. This time I took the sling and Plum was one very happy baby. 
We walked to the bomb crater and played happily in a cave made in the side of the crater with the stump and roots of a very large tree forming the roof and sides.
One of the boys decided to build a bridge across the 30ft bog and began dragging large branches to the site and placing them and levering them into place. There were already a number of branches and cut timbers already there which were used too but soon all the boys were helping out from Pumpkin, 3 to cousin B, 10. They carried together and put them in the right place and levered them and tested them and talked through what they were doing. Bean became chief tester and walked as far as he could across the bridge until the next set of branches were in place. It's a shame there are no photos but the smallest branches were probably 10cm in diameter and 6ft long and they got much bigger! Bean crossed 30ft of bog on this make shift bridge, it even had a hand rail in on place which was supported by two stumps in situ. 


The rest of the day was spent watching olympics, reading books, playing with lego, trying out the skateboard, playing basketball, and playing cars and diggers. 
Pumpkin fell asleep on the sofa about 5pm. 

I want to be a tree

Friday 22nd June

Making use of our National Trust Home Ed membership again (although we have already made up for the mere £36 that it cost us) we took a trip to Polesden Lacey. We spent most of the time walking through the woods, climbing trees, balancing on fallen trees, bird watching, climbing tree stumps and announcing 'I want to be a tree' (Pumpkin) whilst standing on top of a tree stump. 


We did manage to eat a picnic lunch, play a giant game of chess and spot some mushrooms before the drizzle came. It was incredibly windy today and they have lots of wide open space for flying in (one of the 50 things to do before you are 11 3/4.) 


We made it to the house just before a downpour. Unfortunately Plum had just fallen asleep in the buggy and although I had the sling I was reluctant to transfer her as she is often disturbed by one thing (boys!) or another (outings) so we got to sit in the entrance. The staff very kindly radioed for a lift to take us to the car park which was great as Pumpkin was getting tired.


As with other National Trust properties there was plenty of activities and trails for the children to do although we didn't do any of them today we did help ourselves to a pair of binoculars. Unfortunately as we were returned to the car park we forgot to return the binoculars to the kiddies corner so we now have a bright yellow pair in the glove box of our car...ready for our next visit :)

squelch squerch

Wednesday 6th June

Argh! How could I forget to write about our trip to see fav auntie #1 and #2 and cousing B. I uploaded all the photos and forgot to write anything. So, here goes...

It was a wet day and during a break in the weather we took six boys and Plum to the woods for a walk. Unfortunately fav auntie #2 had to unexpectedly go to work (boo) and fav auntie #1 chose to wear walking boots instead of wellies. Fortunately I had made the decision to bring wellies and wear them (both of which could have easily been decisions that I did not make, I could have been in walking boots or even trainers - that would have been disastrous!) There was a lot of mud moving, dam building, dam breaking, river making, puddle splashing, mud sucking, mud jumping, and, of course, getting stuck in the mud, which is where my wellies came in handy. We lost and retrieved two wellies to the pull of the mud. All the boys enjoyed climbing through the woods and the wet, we walked through the area where they were tree felling and we found a den with a door mat in! And just in case you looked at the photo of Pumpkin above and wondered if I had taken spare trousers on our visit...I had not. So on returning to the house he wore his pj's for the rest of the day.

The trip to the woods was sandwiched between, marble run, lego, playing with remote control cars (thank you fav auntie #1) and playing battles, hide and seek and dens outside mostly in the rain. The picture of the empty sofa is a record to show that even when the tv is on (which it was) the call of the wild outdoors and playing with friends can be the more attractive pursuit- all six boys were in the garden.

Rainy days and Mondays

 Roopt

'A word is dead once it's been said, some said, I say it just begins to live that day.' Emily Dickinson.

After a lazy morning for me (thank you daddy for the lie in) in which the boys got busy building railway track and drawing pictures we headed for Owlbeach and Leechpool woods dressed for rainy weather. 
         
It was a good job as not only did it rain but unsurprisingly the woods were wet and muddy. The boys loved it. Bean and Pumpkun both struggle with walking (as such) and either stand still or run! Standing still involves looking at a twig that could be a slug, or watching where the river runs, smelling the flowers, discussing which path to take, listening and looking for the birds, splashing in a puddle, squelching in the mud or just pausing to climb the fallen tree or drive in the rotten tree stump. Bean was particularly taken by the 'blanket of bluebells' (his words) and Pumpkin interested in the puddles and mud.              
           
Bean's use of words to describe the bluebells really impressed me and daddy. Our children's language development has always impressed me, it seems to be something they are good at and enjoy playing with words. Bean regularly asks what words mean or who might use them.I felt sorry for the boy in the synthetic phonics training video who was marked wrong on his hestitation to pronounce 'roopt,' which is a great non-word but is clearly a word he knew was wrong and therefore hesitated to read it as such. I think the world may have gone slightly crazy when it asks a child to read a word that is not a word and tell them they got it right and when they pause to question the non-word tell them they are wrong. I think maybe we have forgotten we are dealing with people and not processes (rant over.) 
          
We ended up in the play park where I fed Plum under the play equipment in the only 20cm squared patch of dry bench I could find. Bean hasn't been too well and rode back in the buggy but Pumpkin managed the whole walk there and back again.