Bean requested a total home day today (phrase stolen from our friend O, 4) I was apprehensive, it could have been better, it could have been worse! The boys busied themselves all morning playing cars and lego, minecraft and watching iplayer. Plum pottered about. She is particularly enjoying the cars atm.
After lunch we spent one hour playing hide and seek. We managed to find some very cool hiding places, i'm just a little worried we may have exhausted all possibilities before the winter sets in! Bean then asked for a piano lesson, so we played hot cross buns together and then we built lego spaceships. Bean asked if we could have hot cross buns for breakfast so tonight's research will be finding a recipe.
We let the guinea pigs out today too as it was dry and had a great time playing with them. Alex is still the more confident of the two but Charlie is fine once he's held close.
As i put together dinner this evening the smalls all did their own separate thing, so different from yesterday. Bean played minecraft, Pumpkin played on cbeebies and Plum played with the cars and garage.
no photos today. disappointing as i wanted to take one of the pulley and wheel design that Bean did showing how to collect, lift and transport items across the room...it got water spilt on it.
Our Tribe
Tuesday, 10 September 2013
Monday, 9 September 2013
Hair today
Our Monday rhythm is so much more relaxed now. Love having no commitments and being able to ease our way at our own speed into the week. Plum was up late, as is her habit atm, and woke at 9am. We ate breakfast altogether and Bean demonstrated, again, his need to eat earlier. n.b. must consider how to accommodate this.
By 11am we were cutting Bean's hair...yes! I don't think he's had his hair cut since Plum was a few weeks old. He asked last night if we could do it today. He sat watching on the ipad, Pumpkin stood next to him and Plum pootled about, playing piano and playing with the kitchens set.
We went to Horsham Park and met up with several other home ed families in the semi overcast and drizzle but it was mostly dry and warm and the smalls had a great time.
When we got home Plum was sleeping and Bean requested to play another letters game so I showed him two phonemes we've not looked at yet and we played a game running around the living room. Pumpkin joined in and we had a great time for about half an hour before things moved on. The boys have found Denis and Gnasher on iplayer. And then we got the cars out and garage and all three smalls played happily together whilst I was preparing some dinner.
By 11am we were cutting Bean's hair...yes! I don't think he's had his hair cut since Plum was a few weeks old. He asked last night if we could do it today. He sat watching on the ipad, Pumpkin stood next to him and Plum pootled about, playing piano and playing with the kitchens set.
We went to Horsham Park and met up with several other home ed families in the semi overcast and drizzle but it was mostly dry and warm and the smalls had a great time.
When we got home Plum was sleeping and Bean requested to play another letters game so I showed him two phonemes we've not looked at yet and we played a game running around the living room. Pumpkin joined in and we had a great time for about half an hour before things moved on. The boys have found Denis and Gnasher on iplayer. And then we got the cars out and garage and all three smalls played happily together whilst I was preparing some dinner.
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| Pumpkin sticking buttons on his shirt and a beard |
Wild Horses
Thursday 5th September 2013
We went and met grandma and Pops today at Hickstead to watch the show jumping. It was a hot, definitely need to sit under a tree, mummy doesn't like the heat, kind of day. Pumpkin was absolutely amazed by the horses and enjoyed standing as close as he could (about one foot away) and watching them being ridden around the grounds. At one point he asked if he could touch one, this, of course, was not the place.
We watched the horses jumping and exercising and watched the riders walking the course on mass. The boys did a lot of walking around and running about and, also, made a picture of a horse and a jump from some sticks and stones and pine cones. We left before my parents and all three smalls fell asleep on the half hour journey home. Bean woke briefly as I carried him indoors but then fell back to sleep on the sofa, Pumpkin remained asleep as did Plum and I fell asleep curled up with Plum on the bed. We were woken 2 1/2 hours later by daddy phoning. Bean had woken earlier and organised himself with minecraft, I have no idea how long he slept for but he did also fall asleep on the sofa about 9.30pm (unheard of) but it was an extra few hours before Pumpkin went to bed. He spent the later hours of the evening building scenes with bricks, including a show jumping arena.
We went and met grandma and Pops today at Hickstead to watch the show jumping. It was a hot, definitely need to sit under a tree, mummy doesn't like the heat, kind of day. Pumpkin was absolutely amazed by the horses and enjoyed standing as close as he could (about one foot away) and watching them being ridden around the grounds. At one point he asked if he could touch one, this, of course, was not the place.
We watched the horses jumping and exercising and watched the riders walking the course on mass. The boys did a lot of walking around and running about and, also, made a picture of a horse and a jump from some sticks and stones and pine cones. We left before my parents and all three smalls fell asleep on the half hour journey home. Bean woke briefly as I carried him indoors but then fell back to sleep on the sofa, Pumpkin remained asleep as did Plum and I fell asleep curled up with Plum on the bed. We were woken 2 1/2 hours later by daddy phoning. Bean had woken earlier and organised himself with minecraft, I have no idea how long he slept for but he did also fall asleep on the sofa about 9.30pm (unheard of) but it was an extra few hours before Pumpkin went to bed. He spent the later hours of the evening building scenes with bricks, including a show jumping arena.
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| Tower block, camp and river with bridge |
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| Town |
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| Pumpkin 11pm building jumps for the horses |
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| Park with band stand |
White Horses
Wednesday 4th September 2013
I had previously made up my mind not to play catch-up with the blog but as this was Pumpkin's first official week at school I wanted to capture it. By 'official', I mean he would have been entering Reception Year this week although legally he doesn't have to be in school until next Easter, that is, the term after he is 5.
Today would have been Pumpkin's first day at school. And for the second time that I remember, I felt an overwhelming sense of freedom, on our home ed journey. For lots of personal reasons, school is not the place for Pumpkin. For starters, he continues to regularly sleep in the afternoon, which, although we could change by force and manipulation, actually makes him a much better tempered boy to be with. And then there's the constant need to move. He would be the child with the sticker chart at the back of the class, the one that every other child knew the name of before the week was out because the teacher would have to have said it so many times. And I'm glad he doesn't have to go through this. And then there is his love of nature, climbing, collecting, trains, shadows and light, drawing, cutting up paper and assembling it to make a picture, and whilst I appreciate that this school year is full of play, I wonder how much his passions would be accommodated on a long term scale.
And, most importantly, we like to be together and we like to go to the beach on hot summer's days, like today. We met our friends, about seven other home ed families, and spent the day playing in the sand and splashing in the sea. beautiful. It could not have been a better way to spend Pumpkin's first day at school than this, it was only really missing daddy.
And some updated photos of the guinea pigs, mostly Charlie as Alex went a bit camera shy
I had previously made up my mind not to play catch-up with the blog but as this was Pumpkin's first official week at school I wanted to capture it. By 'official', I mean he would have been entering Reception Year this week although legally he doesn't have to be in school until next Easter, that is, the term after he is 5.
Today would have been Pumpkin's first day at school. And for the second time that I remember, I felt an overwhelming sense of freedom, on our home ed journey. For lots of personal reasons, school is not the place for Pumpkin. For starters, he continues to regularly sleep in the afternoon, which, although we could change by force and manipulation, actually makes him a much better tempered boy to be with. And then there's the constant need to move. He would be the child with the sticker chart at the back of the class, the one that every other child knew the name of before the week was out because the teacher would have to have said it so many times. And I'm glad he doesn't have to go through this. And then there is his love of nature, climbing, collecting, trains, shadows and light, drawing, cutting up paper and assembling it to make a picture, and whilst I appreciate that this school year is full of play, I wonder how much his passions would be accommodated on a long term scale.
And, most importantly, we like to be together and we like to go to the beach on hot summer's days, like today. We met our friends, about seven other home ed families, and spent the day playing in the sand and splashing in the sea. beautiful. It could not have been a better way to spend Pumpkin's first day at school than this, it was only really missing daddy.
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| Pumpkin on his first day of school, with Bean |
And some updated photos of the guinea pigs, mostly Charlie as Alex went a bit camera shy
Thursday, 5 September 2013
Tospy Turvey
Tuesday 3rd September 2013
Today was 'opposite day' in our house. I've seen 'opposites' done as a topic in school (how dull?) but this was in a league of it's own. It was Pumpkin's idea. We had fish fingers and mash and beans for breakfast (not that far removed from mackerel and potato cakes and grilled tomatoes, i thought) and we had breakfast at lunch and lunch at dinner.
We spent the day saying 'yes' instead of 'no' and vice versa and asking each other not to do things instead of doing them and thinking of opposite words for feelings and directions and peoples names. It was great fun and we laughed a lot. We swapped turns at things and said 'please' instead of 'thank you' and got in muddles all the time as we tried to work out what the other was saying.
In amongst all this we rode our bikes to the local charity shop and bought a spiderman puzzle for Pumpkin and an acid rain experiment kit for Bean. Both of which we played with in the afternoon. It turns out that our rain is pretty good.
And in other news, Bean finished painting his clay pot today. It has taken over a month but he has finished a project that he set out to do (one that takes more than a day due to the drying requiements) Hurray!
Today was 'opposite day' in our house. I've seen 'opposites' done as a topic in school (how dull?) but this was in a league of it's own. It was Pumpkin's idea. We had fish fingers and mash and beans for breakfast (not that far removed from mackerel and potato cakes and grilled tomatoes, i thought) and we had breakfast at lunch and lunch at dinner.
We spent the day saying 'yes' instead of 'no' and vice versa and asking each other not to do things instead of doing them and thinking of opposite words for feelings and directions and peoples names. It was great fun and we laughed a lot. We swapped turns at things and said 'please' instead of 'thank you' and got in muddles all the time as we tried to work out what the other was saying.
In amongst all this we rode our bikes to the local charity shop and bought a spiderman puzzle for Pumpkin and an acid rain experiment kit for Bean. Both of which we played with in the afternoon. It turns out that our rain is pretty good.
And in other news, Bean finished painting his clay pot today. It has taken over a month but he has finished a project that he set out to do (one that takes more than a day due to the drying requiements) Hurray!
And some from Pumpkin, who clearly had a fun few minutes with my phone (unnoticed until i went to upload photos this evening)
Monday, 2 September 2013
In a galaxy far far away
We covered a lot of maths related questions at the breakfast table this morning. Including measuring this man both inside and outside the egg cup and trying to work out why his head is lower than the top of the cup when outside.
We met up with our NCT friends today, who we haven't seen for a really long time (too long) It was great to catch up and remember where our natural birth, breast feeding, baby led weaning, journey started and so amazing to see a group of children, and now siblings, all playing together happily for hours on a sunny afternoon. And I am beginning to realise just how far from 'the norm' our lives are, with a large amount of talk revolving around preparations for the coming school year and managing work and childcare arrangments.
Tomorrow Pumpkin has requested an opposite day with fish fingers and mashed potato for breakfast and cereal for tea and i must remember that when I want him to sit down I must say 'stand up' and when i want him to stand up I must say 'sit down.' I think Pumpkin's first official day of school will be a fun one :)
Sunday, 1 September 2013
The night before...
Yesterday evening saw Pumpkin falling asleep as daddy was reading him stories and Bean giving mummy some minecraft lessons. I had a go at building a house and was told calmly by my number one son that 'it takes practice and skill mummy,' wise words! We then played a board game together before Bean took himself to bed.
Today is church day in our house. The boys are putting together a collage of the parable of the sower, along with the rest of the children, and today enjoyed drawing pictures of birds and i decided that my life needs weeding!
The afternoon saw us playing with Alex and Charlie, glazing the clay pots mummy and Bean made a few weeks ago, and the boys visiting our neighbours with daddy to see the model railway he has in his loft. Our neighbour is a railway enthusiast, especially steam and the boys have long enjoyed visiting his house and watching steam engine videos and looking at steam engine magazines. We have known about the loft exhibit for a while but it is only now that we felt the boys would be able to get up to see it. As it was, Pumpkin didn't make it up the ladder but Bean had a lovely time.
And this evening we took our traditional, family, annual, Sunday before Autumn Term starts, visit to Worthing Seafront for a stroll and fish and chips. It was not initially designed to become an annual thing but I remember the first year we did it, two years ago, sitting with our boys late in the evening, eating our fish and chips, the night before Bean would be beginning his school journey. In fact, all his known friends at the time were just starting their school journey and here we were, not at home, not ironing uniform, not trying to get our kids to have an early night or sewing name tags on everything. We were out enjoying a summers evening together and it was our first sense of 'not going to school' freedom. So we did it again last year and this year felt extra special because it is Pumpkin's turn to join his brother and officially not go to school.
It wasn't as warm as it could have been but the boys rode their bikes a bit and we played in the play area and ate fish and chips together on the beach. lovely.
Today is church day in our house. The boys are putting together a collage of the parable of the sower, along with the rest of the children, and today enjoyed drawing pictures of birds and i decided that my life needs weeding!
The afternoon saw us playing with Alex and Charlie, glazing the clay pots mummy and Bean made a few weeks ago, and the boys visiting our neighbours with daddy to see the model railway he has in his loft. Our neighbour is a railway enthusiast, especially steam and the boys have long enjoyed visiting his house and watching steam engine videos and looking at steam engine magazines. We have known about the loft exhibit for a while but it is only now that we felt the boys would be able to get up to see it. As it was, Pumpkin didn't make it up the ladder but Bean had a lovely time.
And this evening we took our traditional, family, annual, Sunday before Autumn Term starts, visit to Worthing Seafront for a stroll and fish and chips. It was not initially designed to become an annual thing but I remember the first year we did it, two years ago, sitting with our boys late in the evening, eating our fish and chips, the night before Bean would be beginning his school journey. In fact, all his known friends at the time were just starting their school journey and here we were, not at home, not ironing uniform, not trying to get our kids to have an early night or sewing name tags on everything. We were out enjoying a summers evening together and it was our first sense of 'not going to school' freedom. So we did it again last year and this year felt extra special because it is Pumpkin's turn to join his brother and officially not go to school.
It wasn't as warm as it could have been but the boys rode their bikes a bit and we played in the play area and ate fish and chips together on the beach. lovely.
Only one photo today, of Pumpkin and Plum playing beautifully together :)
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