Monster & Teeny

Way,way, way,way,way back in the mists of time - well 2005 several people on what was at the time the MuddlePuddle blogring did a photoblog day of our ‘typical home ed day’. We joined in then in 2005, again in 2006 and 2007 and I’ve been meaning to do it for a couple of weeks but not been able to select a day that would be a fair representation of what we get up to really. I eventually decided we don’t have typical days here so instead I present to you for this year an atypical day of Home Education at the Monsterteenies .

The day started with breakfast - Monster sorts his own out most days.

Teeny can do her own too but is still at the stage where the time she saves me by pouring her own milk and cereal is doubled in the time it takes me to clear it up after her! She had toast this morning anyway. I had a large mug of tea.

I popped outside to let our chickens out and feed them. We currently have two hens and one very fiesty cockerel bantam living outside.

back in the house Teeny assisted with the first load of laundry

Breakfast over Monster watched a bit of TV. Some Bamzookis which is a current fave and some Ben 10 which is a current obsession!

Teeny and I had a bit of a mammoth makeover session. She needed her finger and toenails trimming which led to them being painted. Purple on her toes and alternate pink and purple sparkly on her fingers. She needed her hair brushing and also putting up securely ready for swimming later today so we decided on plaits. She likes plaits as she gets comments on them, she enjoys flicking them round her head and it means no hairbrushing for the duration of wearing them. She also likes the wigglyness they give to her usually pretty straight hair when we take them out again. Today she ended up with seven plaits:

At this point Monster insisted I take a picture of our cat, Candle. I explained the idea of the photoblog day was to record our Home Ed for the day. He patiently explained that having Candle as a pet has taught them loads about cats, pet ownership and responsibility and also stuff like food chains. Suitably ashamed at my failure to recognise her educational value I took a couple of snaps of the cat

Monster turned the TV off and headed off to the playroom. He returned with a puzzle we have of dinosaurs so we all looked at that for a while, then Teeny went and got a similar one we have of space. We did them both and then they went off to get the k’nex out. They both made something - Teeny’s was a structure big enough to fit her own body through, Monster’s was a ‘rollercoaster type thing’ which had moving parts.

I hung some washing out and made lunch for them. I came into the lounge to see them sitting at their tables eating it

I’m still not at all convinced about the supposed benefits of these tables you know

After lunch friends arrived for a couple of hours. Initially all the children disappeared upstairs to play. There was DSing and chocolate finger eating I believe. Me and L drank tea .

The children also played outside for a while.There was some Ben 10 game:

Teeny sat on the doorstep and dead headed a pot full of plants

Those readers who know our family a little better will be amused to learn those were as seen on TV flowers (our garden is heaving with them) and she was able to give a little commentary about why you should deadhead as she went. Wonder where she gets that from!

They also went into the chicken run and had a face off with the cockerel and checked for eggs.

It started to rain so they came in. There was some X boxing

some puzzle doing

some Polly Pocketing

and then some what is best described as general horseplay as Teeny attempted to get me to bite her nose or eat her toy dinosaur

while Monster did some screaming (as you do!)

We needed to clean out our chicks - we incubated some eggs and had seven hatch last weekend so we have some very noisy, very messy ten day old chicks who need daily attention of fresh newspaper, food and drink. We try to wait for Candle to be outside through choice rather than casting her out and then let the chicks have a bit of freedom for 10 minutes, the children have some cuddles and chick-worship time while I sort out their box. Some have wing feathers now and are starting to practise flapping about a bit so Teeny enjoyed playing Mummy-bird and helping them with flight practise

 There was some more DSing, Xboxing, tea drinking and chatting before it was time for A and L to leave us and us to get ready for swimming lessons. I obviously couldn’t take the camera to the pool and had intended to get a pic of Monster and Teeny outside the swimming baths but it was pouring with rain by then so I got a quick pic in the car instead - believe me we’re at the swimming pool and the bags you see them clutching out of frame contain their swimming stuff

It was a good lesson for Teeny who swam a few strokes, less good for Monster who is suddenly at the very end of the row of children and got sucked into some messing about with a couple of other lads. He still did well and they both enjoyed the lesson though. It was still raining when we came out again.

A was home when we arrived so he caught up with the children and their day while I made their tea

Whilst they ate tea and watched their final Ben 10 episode of the day our food shopping was delivered. We do a whole month’s shop at a time so it is always a massive delivery that fills the kitchen.

With that finally put away we cuddled up for the end of a Famous Five book we’ve been reading. It’s the 3rd we’ve read and Monster and Teeny are really enjoying them although they have raised many conversations and questions about some of the rather odd ideas they contain and have sparked chats about feminism, boarding school, freedom of children now and then and much more.

It was bedtime then although Monster did come back down with a magazine he was doing the puzzles in and read me a few words and Teeny was up and down for a while before falling asleep.

It is rare really for us to have days at home but aside from my regular days at work and the children’s evening groups and activities there is very little pattern to our days. A often works weekends and has weekdays off instead, we often go away for nights either to stay with friends or more recently to London to stay while A is working. We spend lots of time visiting friends, going on days out, walking, popping out and about to do various small tasks and so on. Yesterday we met up with friends in London for the day, tomorrow A is off, Thursday I am working and Monster and Teeny have friends visiting in the morning, Friday we are off with two sets of Home Ed friends to a local zoo park and at the weekend we’re off to a local National Trust property which has it’s underground tunnels open for the weekend. That all sounds very ’special’ ‘extraordinary’ or ‘busy’ but the truth is that while that is not what we do every week that level of activity, busyness and variety of very typical. It’s fun to read back the photoblog days from the previous years and see how things have changed for us and how they have stayed the same.