Monster & Teeny

Monday - We did some poster sized drawings of Lazy Town characters and Monster did some plasticine modelling to enter a competition to make a new friend for Wallace & Gromit. We popped into town for a few things and chatted about the patterns that various building materials made. We talked about the paving stones - some were hexagonal, some rectangular and some square - all were laid in a staggered pattern. We looked at some herringbone laid ones which Monster said looked like arrows and then we looked at various sized bricks and blocks on buildings noting how the staggered patterns were evident there too. We talked about why this was and how staggered blocks make a stronger wall / floor relating it back to lego creations of the past.

In the late afternoon Monster had Badgers - St Johns Ambulance group for 5 -10 year olds and wore his uniform for the first time looking very smart and very, very grown up. He had a great time and went in without me for the first time - I stayed in the waiting room next door reading my book instead - great steps forward in independance there. They are covering ‘Global Badger’ this term, working towards a badge and concentrating on Germany so there is a planned schedule of activities relating to that over the coming weeks which I plan to supplement slightly with some library books on Germany sitting waiting for us to look at them - if we get round to it!

Tuesday - I had a huge list of tasks I needed to get done including various housewifely tasks, general stuff like phonecalls and letters and some work too. We seem to have found the balance for the children getting on with their own stuff while I get on with mine by me making myself available as soon as possible when they do require my attention rather than putting them off and putting them off until we all end up getting cross. The children therefore played independantly including a storytelling and music session using our play instruments, making some sock puppets and practising and putting on a show for me using them, making a geomag border all around a playmat and creating patterns. We watched some Science shows on Discovery Kids, Davies dictated some details about his competition entry from the previous day to me and there was some drawing going on too.

Wednesday - We watched some Cbeebies and Nick Jr in the morning, I did some baking and the children played and then friends came over for the afternoon. The children played indoors and outside with sand, mud, water, sticks and lots of imagination. Plenty of running about, exercising bodies (and lungs )  and enjoying being children in the sunshine.

Thursday - Geomags play in the morning while I finished off some work followed by meeting up with my SIL and the childrens’ cousins plus another friend and her two children at the local soft play centre. All six children imediately ran off and started playing, running about and yelling, leaving us to chat . We had lunch there with lessons in table manners and group eating followed by another play and a trip to the main town library which is across the road from soft play. We arrived at the beginning of story and craft time by pure coincidence but the children were still hyped up from playing and not in a sitting down participating mood so we perused the book shelves, gathered a pile which pretty much takes us up to the maximum of 20 books per ticket each (and we have three tickets!) with the pile already here at home and Monster and I had a cuddle and story on one of the beanbags there too.

We came home via my parents where I left the children with my Dad while I did some food shopping and my Mum, and later A arrived after work too. So lots of family time crammed in there.

Friday - over to Ali’s  for the day as seen in photo blog below.

Saturday - a lovely day courtesy of The Beans celebrating SB’s official Home Education and the first anniversary of moving into their lovely house. A fab day with lots of friends, lots of food, lots of drink, the sun shone, the children played and in all of the games, imaginative play, socialising, garden exploration and general interaction I would imagine they all got a full term’s worth of everything a school could hope to offer all in a day. Arrived home with two sleeping children around 1am.

Sunday - A quiet day recovering from yesterday with tired and fractious children. Teeny and I went food shopping which was actually very pleasurable. She loves being an ‘only child’ for a short time and revels in the girly attention so we enjoyed looking at clothes, trying on hats and sunglasses and looking at the make up. We also got collared for food testing which happens in our local Tesco so sat and tried two samples of custard and then ranked them on appearance, aroma, texture, taste and so on. Teeny discoved she loved custard So we added that to our list as we went round. We chatted as we went, identifying foods, counting in tins and packets, looking at letters on labels and generally chatting.

 In our absence A and Monster had been in the garden picking herbs for dinner and playing Buckaroo. We had roast dinner at lunchtime with the children sitting with us and eating the slightly random selection of elements of roast dinner that they will eat, played with the toy animals and dinosaurs, done some tap-a-shape pictures, made a zebra costume for Teeny for a Madagascar themed birthday party we’re going to next weekend and started a papier mache decoration / wall hanging Alex the lion for a present for the birthday child with assistance from both children.

As in, Monster is now Official School Age.

 I’ve been meaning to do this for a couple of weeks and trying to pick a day. I wanted one which was as typical as possible and of course what I have come to realise is that we simply don’t have typical days here any more. So this is a sort of representative day for us inasmuch as it has some time at home with the children doing their own thing, some socialising with friends and some time doing family stuff - so while we don’t necessarily do all of those things every day it is a good roundup of the sorts of things we do fairly regularly.

 This morning:

We watched some early morning children’s TV together and then I spent some time checking emails while the children were supposed to be getting dressed. Teeny had gone to get some books from her room and Monster was ‘reading’ them to her. He can’t actually read but they both know the book so well he was able to work out what it said anyway. I love it when they do stuff together like this, he is very patient and encouraging to her and I like to think it is a reflection of me at my best he is emulating

Once they had actually gotten dressed we headed out. I needed some sunglasses so we called into Matalan which is on the way to where we were going so we popped in there and ended up getting a pair each

And then we arrived at Ali’s. You can catch the adventures of Ali over at www.wherethedaysgo.blogspot.com  

The children did a variety of indoor and outdoor play including ‘creating grey sand’ - which involved mixing the sandpit sand with the ash from the incinarator handily located next to it, various games involving the swing, the sandpit, the slide and the trampoline, sticks, spades and slugs.

And some indoor play including climbing on and off a table for F and Teeny, which demonstrated some excellent turn taking;

 and some drawing, paint pen and sticker pictures cos as Monster proclaimed ‘there is nothing more fun in the world to me than making pictures!’ He did a fab one of Wallace and Gromit with Gromit in the background. He explained to us that Gromit was smaller because he was in the background and when I asked if he remembered what it was called when things looked smaller if they were further away and bigger if they were nearer, expecting the answer of ‘perspective’ I got the reply of ‘yes, an optical illusion!’ There was then a bumble bee in the conservatory incident which was causing some level of hysteria in the smaller occupants of the house so I released it back into the wild and we suggested they draw some pictures of bees instead. This netted some excellent results with F doing a really good smiley bee picture complete with stickers;

Monster doing a picture of a bee, a tree, a bee hive in the tree and himself;

and Teeny did a picture comprised entirely of dot stickers which I didn’t get a picture of but had a definite bee quality to it. There was also a portrait of a rainbow from F and a portrait of F from Monster. Monster also did a picture of some honey and wrote ‘Thank You’ and his name to the bee, for the honey.

Oh and Ali got to show Monster something on her laptop, while me and Teeny ate cakes

We had a lovely time there and the children all played really well but by nearly five o clock there were indications they’d all had enough by the level of whining coming from the garden and the frequency of children, Teeny in particular, coming in for cuddles. So we headed for home.

It’s only about a 20 minute drive home but as Teeny was fading fast we didn’t listen to music we played I spy (with colours rather than something beginning with…) instead. We got home to find A already here and doing stuff in the garden so the children joined him out there for a bit which seemed to restore their good humour and revive them again.

Monster did some excellent trike riding. Now I know that many a child has long since mastered bike riding and even without stabilisers by a younger age than him but he so rarely gets the chance to practise that even working out peddling has been beyond him for some while. So he is now ready to graduate to the proper bike with stabilisers on we’ve had residing in the garage for years waiting for him. Love the look of concentration on his face in these pics;

Then they came in for a snack - and just to prove that they don’t only eat tinned food, here they are, eating at their own request, a banana and a carrot!

Normally this would be bathtime followed by bedtime, but last month we instigated a new once a month on payday treat of Family Film Night. This involves a trip to Blockbuster Videos to choose a dvd and collecting a KFC on the way home to be consumed infront of the film.

So tonight we selected The Emporers New Groove which we watched tonight, and as the special offer was three films for five pounds for seven nights we also selected The Wizard of Oz and Honey I shrunk the kids. We’d planned Home Alone thinking the children would enjoy the slapstick element to it, but they didn’t have it in.

I went into KFC while the others stayed in the car. It was heaving!

Home to enjoy the food and the film, followed by cuddles and chocolate on the sofa

The children were in pjs by the end of the film and both fell asleep within minutes of going to bed.

Not normal, not typical, but neither are we, so this is as representative as it gets around here!  

Way back a whole year ago in April 2005 a few of us from the blogring captured a photo blog day of Home Ed. Here is ours:

The day started much like any other - too early

Breakfast for small people of cereal and books, breakfast for me of a huge mug of tea and a boot up of the laptop

8.30am Monster asked for his Dr Seuss dvd on and proceeded to watch it while following the story in his book and saying it along with the TV. After the third watch of Green Eggs and Ham he asked for his brio out so he could ‘not eat them on a train’. Remembering that I had planned to do some sort of related activity ages ago I tasked him with finding me something to represent everywhere that Sam I am offered Green eggs and ham. And very excitedly off he went!

I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them Sam I am

We don’t have green pretend food so we compromised by using a green plate!

Not in a box not with a (Swiper the) fox

Not in a house, not with a mouse

Not in a boat, not with a goat

Not in the rain, not on a train

Not in the dark, you let me be (dark represented by a tunnel)

Not in a car, not in a tree

Try them, try them and you may…

Try them and you may I say

At 10am I go upstairs to get dressed for the day. The kids clear up the Green Eggs and Ham scene while I am gone and decamp to the playroom to make some sort of dinosaur area with a battle going on between the carnivores and the herbivores!

I come downstairs and help finish tidying before getting the kids dressed. Teeny first and then Monster, then I make them pose under the clock to prove the time! We so could not get out of the house to be at school for 9am despite having been up since 7!

11am - we made a birthday card for Lynda (family friend) and got it in the post. Teeny was a minx with the pens!

Midday - Quick exit from the house to Halfords to get some dodgy wiring of the new stereo which was preventing the central locking from working fixed. Have never spent any length of time in Halfords before - interesting for the first ten minutes but after nearly an hour we were all bored of the wing mirror replacements, wide array of air freshners and various rubber floor mats! All fixed though and the bloke sorted out my blown bulb in the dashboard clock, which has been irritating me for ages, for free too!

followed by lunch in Sainsburys cafe

After lunch we went round to Mum and Dad’s. My brother was home so the kids bothered him while I made a cup of tea and sat quietly for a while. Then they ate some strawberries and Teeny sat looking at books for ages while Monster played with the brio. It was some elaborate game about a train which could take you anywhere so Bro and I were being asked where we wanted to go and competing to see who could come up with the most outlandish ideas! Dad arrived home and was then collared by Teeny to ‘read more books please Grandad!’ seeing her and him together is really odd cos it’s sort of like a past mirror seeing how he must have been with me when I was that age. Their relationship is very nice despite the teasing - you can tell he just adores her. He was so pleased when we found out we were expecting a girl at my scan and they are exactly the sort of Grandad and adored little grandaughter pairing I thought they would be.
Mum arrived briefly before dashing off again to the dentist and then we came home for tea.

5 pm and home for tea and a Dora fix while I tidied the house up a bit - a cunning plan to sit down for dinner before 10pm tonight was being hatched!

6pm and Daddy’s home, which is just as well as this was my best attempt of a photo when left alone

But with his assistance we took this:

6.30pm, Pjs and milk

7pm, Sshhh! She sleeps…

and he wasn’t far behind, snoring by about 7.30pm

well yeah! But not for me. Looking at things like Illustration Friday and being some of the excellent blogs of children I know it occured to me it might be nice to have a public blog for the childrens’ use.

 So here it is