Er, yeah, me again.

Feel like I can hardly keep up with our weeks now. I have so many photos to post, but haven't loaded them up yet, so a quick whistlestop tour right now and then I'll get around to doing the photos soon. Promise. No more boring posts, after this one. Go on, sue me.

We had a day out on Saturday with friends at a little theme park to celebrate dd's 7th birthday (half-price voucher for tickets, always a bonus). Then she had her birthday with home-made hedgehog cake, a wolf suit (which was kinda purple when it arrived rather than grey, but she was dutiful enough to try it on) and a visit from her auntie. Then on Monday it was cinema in the morning (Schools Film week - free films) and her 'animal-themed' party in the afternoon. All surprisingly chilled. Today, cinema again, this time to see Ponyo, one of the Japanese animations by Studio Gibli that we love.

Previous weeks the kids have been creating knex crossbows at HE group, doing poetry (well, doing 'Mutant Wordsworth' more about this when I post up the photos), ice skating, and er lots of stuff. I find now if I don't keep a note of it all it's soon forgotten. Ds2 has done a long hike and overnight camp with cubs, ds1 has been film-making with a friend.

Part of me feels I should be booking some group workshops at museums, or doing some outings with the kids, but another part of me knows that I can't really take anything else on at the mo. If you read my other blog (http://www.the-idle-pen.blogspot.com/) then you'll know that I have other things to fret about, like Jane Austen and her literary chums.

Sigh.

In order for me to have time to tackle JA and Co, I've been trying to keep some structure to our weeks and a while back I came up with a plan to tick a few boxes. So, we do one week 'writing' (and anything associated with) and one week 'maths (and anything associated with). Writing has included poetry (Mutant Wordsworth), filling in a museum trail sheet, writing a letter to penfriends (it took a whole week for that) etc. Up to an hour a day max. Maths is less exciting and flexible...just workbooks until I can come up with the energy to do something else. Of course I could do cooking or some other sort of measuring, but cooking with kids is even more stressful than stapling them to the table to do a page of a maths workbook.

Saying this, I DO have plans to cook with the kids, using the River Cottage Family Cookbook which looks fab (have it on loan from library at the mo). Still at the planning stage though. Or maybe it will just make a nice coffee table book, or doorstop.

The kids started fencing lessons this week. Kindly offered at bargain price by another home ed family, my bunch joined others to have their first lesson on Tuesday. The best thing is that the teacher is a boy who was home educated himself, AND his mother was the first ever HE contact I ever made, about 8 years ago. Lovely stuff. Amazingly dd did not bark, or miaow or growl or make bear noises or crawl around the floor on all fours or hug the tutor's legs until he fell over. No she participated and cooperated and enjoyed. Miracles do happen.

Christmas is approaching. Am very aware of low funds, bulging credit card, and children's expensive tastes (and, more importantly, very few relatives left alive to meet these tastes, or even any to buy them some cheap tat so they have something to unwrap on Christmas day.). Oh and the small matter of nearly 2 grand's worth of course fees, still to pay this year. I'm going to blame it all on Jane Austen.

p.s. check out this wonderful explanation of the defence cuts:
http://archers-at-the-larches.blogspot.com/2010/10/defence-cuts-explained-simply.html

January Catch Up

I've been so focused on the snow that I haven't really posted about anything else for several weeks. So this is a bit of a catch-up of non-snow-related activities.

Ds2 has been working on three cub badges: 'Home Help', 'Martial Arts' and 'Scientist'. For part of his Scientist badge we made a magnet out of a cork and a magnetised needle. I think the cork was rather large, but it still worked. We tried another with a smaller slice of cork too. Both pointed the same direction as a compass, so methinks that was a success.

Next we have a telescope to make. Watch this space.



The 'Home Help' badge has been rather a shock to ds2. Making his own bed and keeping his room tidy for A WHOLE WEEK! Just clearing his room (which he shares with ds1) was a whole morning's work! Washing up, emptying the dishwasher and sewing on a badge, all rather a challenge. Hopefully the effect will last longer than a week.



Ds2 has also been working on a film presentation about Capoeira for his Martial Arts badge. I'll try and post it up here if I can. I introduced ds2 to the programme 'Windows Movie Maker' and he hasn't looked back. Ds1 has also started using it, putting together some of his photos to music.



I gave ds1 and ds2 building sets for Christmas. Here is ds2 working on his:




It's a good test of his temperament when parts of the building fall apart :)



At the weekend we did the 'tourist' thing with my sister and visited the museums in town. Ds1 didn't want to come with us, but dd and ds2 were willing enough. Here is dd doing a museum 'trail', filling in numbers on her sheet. oooh my 6 year old doing writing! (One has to grasp on to these moments).





And here is ds2 playing with the hands-on technology in the newly revamped museum:





The museum is so much more child-friendly since it's renovations. I've already checked out the family-friendly workshops and I think we will be visiting more frequently. The Ancient Greece gallery might be handy as we are doing some work on Ancient Greece at the moment.

(Don't look now but there's a naked man behind you! )

We visited the SteamPunk Exhibition again, in another museum:



And made the most of the sunshine:

Today we visited friends and explored the woods. A few bumps and scrapes and some tired children at the end of the day, but it was wonderful to get out in the fresh air with some good company. I feel like we've been shut away since before Christmas and I'd forgotten how good it is to get together with others and get muddy!

On the way to the woods we saw a buzzard, cooly perched on a fence post. I think it's the closest I've ever seen one. It confirmed that the large bird we saw a few weeks ago was also a buzzard; it's a similar size to a Red Kite, but without the forked tail. Whoo, I almost sound like I know what I'm talking about.

Dd's moth 'pet':

She has a thing about pets at the moment. We have a pet lemon in the bathroom (yes, a real lemon) and a pet coconut in the fridge and for a while we had a pet snowball called 'puppy' in the garden. We do still have some pet icicles and pet snowballs in the freezer.

Dd on the rope swing ("If I was a bat sat on here then I'd be the wrong way up")