And its October

The Ancient Egypt project gradually drew to a close at the end of the summer although the books still piled up in the kitchen would say otherwise! Its quite a good topic to have a go at as there is so much to find out that I'm sure he will get even more from it when we do it again. Minni hatched 3 of her eggs. I was a terrible midwife and kept lifting her up to have a look! She hatched 3 tiny little black chicks and was by all accounts a fantastic first time Mum. The boys adored having them in the lounge as did we until Min did her first poo in 3 days then her presence was felt just a little bit too strongly and she and the chicks were relocated to the section under the hen house!

The summer holiday was a camping trip to the Isle of Wight. First time camping and I won't deny that I was a little nervous but we had a ball. The boys loved it. IOW is fantastic for rock pooling and the first afternoon there was spent dibbing in rock pools with the set that terribly organised home edding Mummy had bought from Sainos. It was a really good buy actually, it contained a net (which I will be very surprised if we can find next year but hey!) A Viewing tank with magnifying bits, sandpaper (we're not sure what for) and other bits and bobs for the general poking and prodding of rock pools! The viewing tank was fab and we ended up with a small collection of children oggling it. All was well until a crab started to eat one of the shrimps in the tank.....nature at its most gross and we emptied the tank back into a pool! T, L and I all had a swim in the sea and the regular swimming meant the T came on really quickly. The camping experience suited us down to the ground! We had a three day cross over with my Dad and his lot so T followed L round which drove her crazy but I'm sure she secretly loved!!!

When we got home we had a day to chill then H arrived with 3 out of the 5 kids she has so they could stay with us for 5 days whilst she had a break with her DH. Thankfully it wasn't the carnage I sort of anticipated and we had a laugh. Both T and L had another child thier age to bug/play with. Dan took the older ones off to fish for crayfish which we made into a risotto. We also went off collecting Elderberries to make cordial. The aim was to get loads this time and not give it away so it lasts us throughout the cold season. We have buckets of the stuff. Even though the summer was shit we still managed to have a fairly good crop on the allotment and the blackberries and elderberries seemed to like the crap summer so there were loads to be had.

This "terms" project is space, so after meptying the library of all the books on space they had we laid out the solare system in the back garden using a selection of fruit, marbles, blu-tac balls and a space hopper for the sun (no expense spared then in pursuit of authenticity!!) After various attempts at lay out we ended up with the sun at the back door step and the planets stretching out into the allotment. Pluto was in a good couple of metres into the allotment and when asked how what is must be like being that far away from the sun T replied "bloomin freezing!" which actually isn't a bad description! I was stuggling to find a through line with the project and did want to go a bit more structured, if only so D would have something to do with T when I was at work. After asking for ideas on an EO list I was pointed in the direction of Live and Learn press - http://www.liveandlearnpress.com/ where I bought a fab lapbook from. For those who don't know (and I didn't) a lapbook is like a scrapbooked folder with lots of mini books or fact files within it. I bought the one aimed at older kids Grades 3-5 which is a little advanced in places but we're modifying bits and T seems to be thoroughly enjoying it - along side the lap book we are creating a wall display with using different art techniques to create the planets accompanied by a mini fact file on each on. So far we have done a balled up tissue paper collage of the sun also using shredded sainsbury's bags, foil and glitter - cue many repetitions of the Mickey Smith quote from Dr Who "sit at the back with the safety scissors and gli'oh!!". Mercury has been created with sand mixed with grey paint and pva glue and Venus has given us cause to crack open the marbling inks (which smell but make for very pretty pictures) Earth is goingt o be another collage and then we are also looking at doing planets using chalk, papier mache, water colour over wax and many ways we haven;t thought of yet! We also did some scratch art . Covering a piece of paper in wax crayon then painting over it with back poster paint and using a cocktail stick to scratch out a pic. came out very well and even L enjoyed it!

Summer and things are very fertile in our household - how about you?

So July is .....wet so far but today we have had one of the first hot days in ages so T started the day by pulling some tatoes from his plot which are currently roasting in the oven to go with our - well their - Sunday roast. He got 19 Anya potatos from his plot along with one bean! an green'un. I picked aload from the rest of the plot and they are going in the pot along with some of the broc frozen a few weeks ago and some of the summer cabbage not eaten by the slugs. The slug soup currently steeping in a bucket stinks to high heaven and is collecting quite a nice posse of flies so I'm going to have to nag D to chuck it before it makes me vomit!Mmmmm dried salted slugs yum!!! I've been doing slug patrol every night at about 9ish much to the amusement of fellow allotment holders as I am usually kitted out in green wellies and little miss chatterbox pj bottoms. I'm sorry I have no shame!!! We gave Minni some eggs to sit on from G, our next allotment neighbour. They are bantam eggs and really weeny! I also stuck in some duck eggs from sainsburys to see if they do anything as there has been some talk on home ed boards of kids hatching free range duck eggs from waitrose...sadly I think they are duds - obviously they're not posh enough!!!! We had a try at egg candling but we didn't do it right - rubbish torch and sunny day - So we're having a go again tonight to see what we can see - two of the bantam eggs were definitely opaque so fingers crossed!!!

Loads of the second wave of seedlings are ready to go in - finally and the allotment really seems to be in full swing. T is very proud of his plot, seems to think that he will probably win the sunflower comp AND takes everyone that visits to look at his plot!

T's reading has been coming along really well over the past few months and last week he started playing on Study Dog again. He got half way though level two about 6 months ago but lost interest as his reading wasn't Strong enough to play some of the games but he went back to it and really went for it this time. On Tues he stayed up playing on it till 8.30 when I had to kick him off it and send him to bed (can;t complain really - if it was playstation or another "game" i would limit the time but it was vowel combinations and spelling) He is now about half way though level three and really steaming though asking if there is a Study Dog 4 so I'll have to find something else for him to play on! I tested his reading, very informal and probably not that accurate, but I wanted to put a level in my statement of Educational Provision to give to the LEA as they like levels and numbers ;-) According to this test his reading age is 6 yrs and 2 months - not 1 month or 3 months mind 2 months!!!! tee hee. He has now finished the Oxford reading Tree Songbirds Stage 4 and is now bugging me to buy stage 5! I'm going to take him to the library again next week as all this book buying is getting a little expensive! L will be able to use them too but things are a little tight at the mo so we have to be careful.

Most local libraries and the Bear Factory are running a reading program where by the child gets rewards for reading 6 books, can;t see that being a problem as he tends to do one every couple of days but we're going to join coz we like the free stuff!!!!!

Oh printed off some fab diagrams to colour in from www.enchantedlearning.com I'd forgotten all the fab print outs they do!

Oh and cornflour play.........really really flippin messy - educational but really, not planning on doing it for a good few years again!!!!

Ah well that will probably be the update for July as I seem to be very pants at keeping up with this blogging malarkey! We've probably done loads more but can;t remember!

All things Egg yupt!

So Ancient Egypt is our project at the mo and after a steady start the Peacehill press books really have helped us along - www.peacehillpress.com The Story of the world by Susan Wise-Bauer -Ancient Civilisations was such a fab find. P at home ed group bought it in, in her book box for us to have a look at and I have to say I nearly wet myself!!!! The teacher in my squealed with delight at the fact that there were lesson ideas and activities in the accompanying activity book AND.....activity sheets!!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Added bonus is that it is written by a home educator specifically for home edders!!!! The main book is beautifully written with the sections set up as stories in bite size pieces. You can go through it from start to finish or dip in and out depending on what particular area you are studying. I LOVE IT!!! Although it has given rise to a few challenging questions such as, "Can we visit Mesopotamia?" Hmm Lets look in the atlas shall we? Find out what Mesopotamia is called now?...........Iraq..that will be a no then, yup and the bottom half is Iran.....again I'm going with, no!

So far T has:-

Coloured in a map of Mesopotamia and Egypt including the Fertile Crescent (known as the Fertile banana in our 'ouse!) and the Nile Delta ("Why is it called a delta? coz it looks like a D and D in Greek is Delta. Can you teach me Greek? Erm possibly!!!)

Listened to the Story of Osiris and Set (naughty Set) and on finishing with, "Isis was so sad that Osiris had drowned tat she wrapped his body in linen and he became the first Mummy. But no sooner had she wrapped him that he came back to life....." T comes out with "Just like Jesus!" hmmm not bad RE knowledge for a kid from a Pagan family!!! Have to say I was a little surprised that he remembered this.

Painted the window in the playroom with a sphinx and a few pyramids

Drawn a fantastic picture of the Sphinx, a lion on a pillar and the great pyramid. He's even put his name at the bottom of the pillar! He worked on it for about 3 hours in total.......slightly irritating that I wasn't allowed to look at it whilst he was doing it which meant that every time I walked into the kitchen I got yelled at.....I was hoovering the ground floor at the time!!!!!

We have done a time line to illustrate just how long ago the Ancient Egyptians were doing their thing and its really quite amazing. I managed to demonstrate a shameful inability to count by initially drawing us at 2700 as opposed to 2007 (clever Mummy!!!) T has cut out a picture of the kind wearing the double red and white crown of the united Egypt and drawn a pyramid to put along it in the right place.

The Magic treehouse book was a really nice way into the project and T has referred to it quite a bit. I also bought a ladybird "read it yourself" book on Mummies today which we had a crack at today.

Reading wise he is coming along nicely. I ordered some more Oxford Reading Tree Songbirds books, the next level up at T's request, and he is now almost halfway through 4a on the Peter and Jane series. I am trying to get him to do at least a page a day but we are a bit rubbish and kinda let it slip over the holiday we had last week so I'm trying to get back in it!!! We also bought "First Language lessons for the classical child" by Jessie Wise - Susan Wise Bauer's Mum. These are really lovely and I have been trying to do at least on every other day. There is little or no writing involved in the first 45 lessons just basic grammar, poems and stories. T has learned The Caterpillar by Christina Rosetti and painted a plate to illustrate the story. He ten went on to paint a Mummy on another plate and about 5 other pictures on various plates...at this point we realise that the paint is not meant to be eaten off no matter how hard it dries....so lucky we have LOADS of white plates! From now on only the backs get decorated!!

Today we pulled the first Potatoes from the allotment and yup they were mainly from T's plot!!! I'm on a juice week at the mo so have only tried half of one but it was bloody lovely!! We let the girls onto the plot today to do some slugging for us. Sadly they don;t give a damn where they stand so were shooed off after about half an hour! The seedlings we planted a on Sat are already shooting so we should have a second salad and bean crop on the way for when the rest are peaking.

Right have decided to register most of our reference books on www.bookcrossing.com so I can lend them out. It will hopefully free up some shelf space but mean I can keep tabs on where they all are for when I need them for the shorter one of the two children!!!

Received invite from the LEA for a "Celebration of Home Education" don;t think we'll go as I am far to suspicious of them at the moment...mebbe next year eh!

Fertile Summer

With the Solstice looming it seems like everything has burst into life. We went crayfish fishing and managed to get a very modest haul so hopefully this means the little buggers are in decline in the guildford canal system. T and L loved it and despte muggins ending up chief cracker and desheller of the aforementioned crayfish we had a lovely crayfish risotto that night accompanied with rocket from the lottie - the call of self sufficiency is just SOOOOO tempting!

Lambs jumping in the fields, bunnies just about everywhere and our allotment has gone bonkers! T's plot is awash with green and we got the first sugarsnap peas and strawbs from it a few days ago! How proud was he that his plot has yeilded the first edible non salad crop. The brassica frame is heaving! Everything has been slugged within an inch of its life and from the 11 cucumber plants we HAD we now have 5 and a half left which look very sorry for themselves! So cue many slug hunts which the chooks are very grateful for. The cheeky little moos have now started turning their noses up at fresh veggies from the allotment and looking for for the handful of slugs instead!!!!

This is T's Plot bursting with life!!! Note the really tall sunflower at the back, we're hoping that will win the tallest sunflower competition as its still going!

We had a minor crisis when the potatoes started looking a bit brown, so we dosed them with epsom salts whilst we waited for our comfrey tea to perk! Apparently it's ready when it smells like death! Today it started smelling like death and was liberally sprayed on the plots!

2 yrs old and already a Dr Who Fan

Well wasn't May....wet!!!! ???? L's birthday was thankfully dry and actually quite sunny. On his actual birthday we had A's leaving M/W party which for L meant loads of kids, food AND a bouncy castle! How lucky can a 2 yr old get!!!!!! So he has hit the ground running and only had 3 tantrums on his actual birthday 4 the day after and well we lost count the day after that!!!!!! We had H and the gang over the day after that for a wee party and bbq. And I made a blinkin dalek cake....why I cannot say, lets just say it seemed like a good idea at the time! Cut to 1am and I am still battling with black icing, edible silver paint and shimmer powder!!! Have to say that I was very please with the outcome and L just kept pointing and shreiking "dalek!" So good out come really!!! I also made a TARDIS out of a gazebo frame and lots of navy material, it's still not painted completely but L recognised it so I'm happy!!!

Butser Ancient farm

Yay, yet another Fab activity organised by the lovely J - she really seems to find blinding days! We travelled in convoy with T, M and S and despite a weeny bit of hard braking coz I nearly missed the turning we arrived in one piece to an utterly blissful scene. Round houses rising out of the landscape like sharp wooden hills, acres of oil-seed rape all set against a dramatic hillside. We really did feel cut off from the modern world it was just so beautiful. We started the day by sitting in the roundhouse and having a brief talk about life for the ancient Celts. Maureen who did the talks was fab,she coped extremely well with all the different ages and all the kids got the opportunity to answer questions and make observations about how modern houses compare to roundhouses. T noted that they didn't have cupboards or windows! It was quite smokey in there and we were all glad to get out into the fresh air but not before the kids sampled the must haves of Celt day to day life. Naturally T climbed into one of the beds! We also got to feel the weight of the chain mail used at the time, turn a mill stone and look at a loom and boat. Maureen also explained the significance of the animal skulls that adorned the front of the round houses and the house god/goddess carvings they had in the house. T seemed very pleased that he knew about gods and goddesses!!!

Then we were off to make clunch..........Clunch being an ancient form of cement/mortar/building stuff. either way it involved big ole' mallets made from trunk and branch junctions of holly trees and chunks of chalk. The kids were given a mallet and a chunk of chalk and told to gently (yerrrright) bang it until it was powder. Naturally the kids took the this task with great gusto and soon there were little piles of chalk building up on the treestump tables. Maureen encouraged them to do as much as they could as opposed to stopping after one chunk so we had a good pile by the time all the banging had stopped. She then swept the chalk into a bucket and told us all we could wipe the chalk dust on to our faces and be scary Celt warriors!!!

Naturally we all obliged so a group of slightly paler home edders were seen queueing up for the next stage of clunching!!!

The next stage of clunching was the mixing of the clunch. Which involved very specific amounts...........chalk, handfuls of dried mud, straw and enough water to make it squelch. then each child was handed an blob of clunch and told to squidge and squeeze it until it was less wet and sticky and shape it into a ball. They then went to the back of the queue with their handful of gunk to get on with the shaping. Once back at the front again they were led to a framed corner which will eventually be a forge to press the clunch into wet earth or on top of more cluch to create a series of flat pancaked clunch lumps.......apparently fab foundations............obviously was gonna take a lot more days of clunching!! Not a great activity for those, who like T don;t like to have dirty, sticky hands, especially as they were told to clean them by dipping them in a bucket and wiping them on the grass!!!!! Ah well where there's muck there's brass! "Who has the baby wipes?" was the cry and those of us who didn't willingly handle a pile of mud just laughed!!! So after a good session of clunching it was a wee bit of wattling before lunch. Again I would love to see teachers faces as the staff of Butser gaily hand out HOOOOGE long hazel rods to small people - oh not a safety goggle in sight! the curve of down struts was already set up for them to practice on so it was just a case of weaving the flexible branches into place. Maureen reckons that the fence should last about 6-7 yrs about the time it takes for the hazel tree to grow back the branches to the right size. clever int it? T, S and M had a grand time and once they had been shown how to do it they were allowed to do a couple at the other end of the fence by themselves (well T and I obviously helped a bit!!! ) It was a glorious day but still a bit parky when the clouds went in front of the sun, that being, we sat on T's picnic rug and gossiped while the kids played house in one of the roundhouses. Did you know that the roundhouses didn't have holes in the top for the smoke????? Hmm did you???? We didn't but they most certainly did not have holes or the door way would become a draw and the roof would burst into flames. The smoke filtered out through the thatch, making the thatch uninhabitable to insects and therefore uninteresting to birds. No hole, no nasties.....With hole...no roof!!!!

After lunch we moved onto the Roman villa where we all got to have a look at the failings of Roman architecture in chilly old GB. Roundhouse - very snug, Villa - very chilly, great in the med not so great in good ol' blighty!! We then got to try our hand at spinning with wool from the sheep on the farm. The younger kids were offered mosaics to do but stuck at the spinning for the same length of time the older ones did......at which point all the kids buggered off to do mosaics whilst us Mums stood around attempting to spin......not much changes then!!! The final activity of the day was chalk carving. We were given a chunk of chalk and a sliver of flint. First the kids were told to dye the chalk by rubbing a dock leaf on it and then scratch our their picture. Maureen suggested something to bless a house and explained that Celt gods and Goddesses usually took familiar forms. T decided to carve a rather lovely spider and I did a goddess. She then casually mentioned that you could also dye your chalk yellow by using dandelions which T did round the edge of his spider. We finished the day by walking down to the gift shop drinking in the breath taking scenery. Britain at its best, proper rolling hills and wandering sheep. T came back to ours for Coffee and we set the world to rights whilst the kids went bonkers in the garden. Just a wonderful day!

The view from the Roman villa - now that is a des res!

Days like these

Fairy nuf the weather is down to the evils of global warming but ISN'T IT STUNNING!!!! We had made terrific head way on the lottie and just loved being outdoors - bliss!!!

We have got the potatoes in and the brassica frame made with rocket, brussels, savoy cabbage and calabrase as well as swiss chard currently waiting to grow and salad waiting to go in.

T's plot has grown to take over the salad be next to it as the salad can fit in the brassica frame. So he has planted his carrots, surrounded by chives to deter carrot fly, potaotes, loads of sunflowers and some sugar snap peas. Its all getting very exciting!!!

oops and its April and Jesus and Eric!

So much for keeping a regular blog then!March seemed to fly by in a blur of stomach flu and grumpy children. T's reading has come on no end surprisingly via the good ole Peter and Jane Ladybird Key words series!!!! ya know Peter and Jane, Jane and Peter.......Peter and Jane and the dog. Riveting stuff I know but the repetition and reinforcement really seems to work for him. He seems to be learning words via pattern recognition rather than see-saying but he will revert to that if shoved! I remember teaching S (lil bro) to read aged about 3 using these books and the added threat of physical violence....*shakes head* Admittedly he learned to read but won;t be using that particular method on T.....oh I was a harsh big sis!The wee lad also learned to swim via the letting down of the armbands in the middle of the pool...... I knew he could do it he just didn;t believe me.....LUCKILY for me (and him) I was right and the little bugger is swimming with sharks as I type!
March saw a trip to Haslemere Museum with J and S. L poddled about quite happily in the wake of the two boys whose attention span was typically gnat like! L freaked me out a bit when discovering the bear - Albert I think it is called. He was really unhappy about going near it. Hey what self respecting 1 yr old wouldn;t baulk when faced with a 6 ft stuffed bear! So after I proved it wasn;t alive L looked at it and said "Bear, Dance" and proceeded to do a little shuffling dance..............HOW THE FECK DOES HE KNOW THAT BEARS USED TO DANCE!!!!!!!! So now am getting more convinced that both my chillies have been here before! We saw the Mummie with his toes poking out and all the boys were very impressed with the mummified cat head *sigh* well boys will be boys. on the way home L threw a wob so I turned up Jesus Christ Superstar full blast and drowned out his screams with Gethsemane!!! Had to be done and Rent has too much swearing in it. Talking of JCSS listening to it, after I was asked to turn off Linkin Park, it sparked a luffly bout of questions none of which I was prepared to answer. The questions went something like this

T -Can you tell me about Jesus and Eric?
Me - Sorry who?
T -Jesus and Eric?
Me - I don't quite know what you mean darling there is no Eric in the bible
T - (utterly exasperated by this time) Jesus and ERIC!!! The king Eric who walks on the swimming pool.....the king....
Me - OHHHHH Herod!!! Jesus and Herod! - For those oh you who aren't twirlies in JCSS there is a line in Herods song "prove to me that your no fool, walk across my swimming pool!"
T - So can you tell me the story?
Me - Oh er um yes but erm I can;t really remember the details erm I will have to ask B if she has a children's bible as we sure as hell don't!

There followed a truly appalling, even by my standards, recounting of Jesus's last days. Followed by another stunning battery of questions including highlights such as

So is he the son of god or isn't he?
When you say he came back was it as a ghost or a real person?
did the angel shift the stone?
The sun is a god isn't he so is it the same one or a different one?
Is he the sun of the goddess as well?
Was Mary his wife or just his girlfriend?

The first one just about stumped me and the follow ups left me about on the verge of tears!!!
Than we got the children's bible and tbh it really didn't help that much. it was still very complex and very hard to re-phrase in a non- "this is the total truth" way. questions following this reading were generally based around the blonde bearded guy who featured as Jesus.

Did he really look like that?
Well why didn;t they recognise him? You can see its him!
Why is he blonde on here if he probably wasn;t blonde in real life?
Can we find a picture of him on the internet?
You said he was a ghost when he came back but in this picture he isn't see through!

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I was assuming (stupidly) that the fact that we are pagans would negate any need for indepth christian learning...me and my big fat stoopid JCSS cd and explanation of the Christian side of Easter. That'll teach me to raise a questioning child!!!!!!

But Jesus and Eric still makes me chuckle!!!

We are gonna start a new project on Ancient Egypt which Toby feels should include a visit to the pyramids seeing as they are still there.....unlike the dinosaurs! I see his point but we are still a bit wary of Egypt considering the instability of the middle east - this small tiny weeny comment gave rise to another wonderful discussion. The middle east and what was going on there. SO why did we invade Iraq? oh ho! Yep T, that's the question we all want answered aint it! In a way I think its great that he can see that there isn;t always a definitive answer....its just that at his age he feels he should have one! So I have bought a load of books and trawled through the internet and found loads of resources games and activities. Mummification doesn;t seem to gross him out at all so we are going to attempt to mummify a chicken - not one of ours might I add! He has been playing Senet - and ancient Egyptian board game - has elements of draught and chess. He LOVES playing chess and is good enough at it to manipulate the game to make it go on longer - if he is winning he will deliberately start losing to stretch it out a bit more then start winning again??!!!! He is getting a bit better at losing but still wants to win and be the best all the time - 1st child! He is obsessed with getting 100% on Ed city and gets quite stroppy if he has to struggle with something. The explanation that you learn as much from mistakes as you do from success infact probably more does NOT wash in any way shape or form so we help him out a lot and get him to re-do exercises so he can get his 100% in the end!!!!He did really well at a maths exercise so I printed him out the certificate and he was very chuffed! I am guessing this may have a detrimental effect on our printer but heigh ho!

Had T and the family over for lunch and got loads of ideas from her. So have been on Amazon and ordered the Magic Treehouse book on Mummies as well as the non fiction accompanying book. Am also going to intro Songbirds - Oxford *yuk* reading tree books. These are written by Julia Donaldson (her of the Gruffalo) and came highly recommended from T. Just so long as there is no Biff or chip in them!!! oh those names make me cringe!!!

T has been busy measuring - LOVES the measuring! And now has 4 potatoes and 5 sunflowers in his plot. Whilst we beaver away building brassica frames to keep out the evil caterpillars T and L irritate the crap out of the gazillion tadpoles growing in the lottie pond. Sadly L tends to kill them but T like to catch them, look at them and send them back! He is very concerned that they might get sucked into the watering can.

The summer appears to be here...in april? So tis the time for hats and sunblock tra la la la la la la la la!

Where'd Februaury go????

I know it's a short month but really this is ridiculous! The month seems to have flown by in a blur of denbuilding, birthday parties and home ed meet ups! Half term (for me not the boys) zoomed by and despite daily visits to EC and Starfall not to mention endless discussions about dinosaurs, a dinosaur birthday cake AND pin the tail on the dinosaur the lack of structured activities has made me blanche a little so writing it down helps to see all we have done. Drama started back and despite me nearly crashing the car on the way there T had a ball. Wk beginning 19th Feb was just plain bonkers to the point we had to cancel the Tuesday outing. Mon Drama and bog ole long walk with J and S. Tues mass baking and house tidy in preparation for the imminent arrival of H, P and the 6 kids for an overnight stay. Wed, Denbuilding with the W's who didn;t stay the night because my lovely mate was very poorly. (hugs to you my dear) and Mini party (as mini as you can get with 8 children) in the eve. Thursday, another party with T's mates from home ed groups all over and Friday? Well Friday we crashed, I had my lovely Mummy down from Tues night onwards to help with the carnage and all in all much fun was had.

Obviously I have to show of my handy work. T sat with L and played puzzles, picture lotto and dinosaurs while I iced this beauty. I am very proud of it and T just loved it. I also painted a Harry and his bucket full of dinosaurs style apatosaurus for pin the tail on the dinosaur which was won by S. I had planned quite a few other games but when it came down to it the kids played so well that none were needed. D made Pizzas with them and all in all a good time was had by all!

This month T has really cracked on with his reading, by means of Starfall and Ed city. We moved him on to KS1 as the reception stuff was getting a little tedious. We bought him a wheel barrow and gardening gubbins for his birthday and he has been out on the lottie today planting seeds and getting his plot ready. The potatoes arrived and he helped me chit them, which aint easy on Anya and Pink Fir apples. Finding the rose end is a little tricky. I am sick with an evil bug and have missed our two lottie days but T has revelled in them. Must get round to writing our Ed Phil soon or the LA are going to be on my back. So all in all a busy old month.

Pizza party!!! See I fit in the education when they aren;t lookin ;)

a productive day well disguised!

One of those days where you feel its been a write-off but actually quite a lot has been achieved. I have a stinking viral bug thingy and had to attend a childminder briefing meeting today to investigate new ways of making enough money to stay home with my boys with out going to work!! Yet this morning over breakfast I found myself explaining Roman numerals and having a discussion about how they might make maths easier....which hadn't occurred to me, I am ashamed to say. Meeting - Sat there slowly losing the will to live feeling like I was drowning in a barrel of snot. Really the whole thing could have been covered with a website and a letter but Ofsted and the CC just LOVE standardising people don;t they, so a meeting it was. Came home and we were all knackered and decided to have a Harry Potter afternoon.....well they boys did, I went to bed! D then went off to work and I decided to do some reading with T. Totally forgotten about www.starfall.com but went on there as his choice of book was one he knew off by heart! So he read Zac the Rat and Peg the Hen. I had both of them on my knee and T has a really bony bum!!! Anyways tired of trying to keep L's hands off the keyboard I surrendered the lap top to T who then went on to find "games" related to the stories. I sat in the lounge when I heard the printer go....which is never ever a good noise coz T has very little patience and expects the printed item to appear the second the big, fat, print button has been pressed. (God love these sites for suggesting you print every thing) So when said print item does not materialise instantly the button gets pressed again....and again and again so when I come to try and print out something vaguely important? NO EFFING PAPER!!!!! Anyways on this occasion something else on the site distracted him and print was only hit once (that or all the shouting a have done in the past about finding 3 million copies of the numberjacks e-card as permeated........I'm putting my money on the distraction) SO then he wanders in with this print out. "Look! Tracings so I can do writing then I am going to do a picture of a net." T sits himself at the table and off he goes, tracing letters then copying them then drawing a lovely picture of him and Daddy fishing.

Then I mention that one of the ladies on my list has organised a campaign defending home ed http://handsup4homeed.blogspot.com I explained that we were going to draw round his hands and decorate them then write a wish on them. Then this lady is going to deliver them to the government to show them that they need to leave home edders alone. Cue a painfully detailed discussion about who the government is and what they do and how we need laws and who makes them etc oh made me brain ache. So T disappears off and returns with two decorated hands and then tries to do L's....L was having none of it and buggered off to eat a Santa stamp, returning with a blue mouth.....sometimes they make me so proud!!!!!!

More lottmenting

So today we measured and planned the allotment whilst T dug for pig bones! The allotments were a pig farm during ww2 and there are loads of bones in the soil....can't quite work out why but there are! T has decided he wants to plant sunflowers, potatoes, carrots, lettuce and tomatoes and peas...... He has never eaten lettuce or tomatoes (cept from in pasta sauces etc) or carrots but assures us that he will if he has grown them so that told me! I have dutifully planned how we can fit the amount of plants I have just bought (possibly more than last year and they were supposed to be for an acre) in our weeny half rod plot but with my trusty calculator and ruler and scale plan of the plot I might have done it. I was working from the point of view of "Whilst it says plants should be placed 45 cms apart, 20cms short of that isn't going to make that much difference and if the plants are closer together then there is less room for the weeds!!!" that's my story and I 'm sticking to it!!!! In tribute to my Aunty Wend we are planting potatoes but proper tubers that we will chit.......(when I work out what that entails, so far it seems to involve egg boxes and peat) Any ways initially it was "hey lets have a go at planting potatoes!" now its "We have 4 different varieties of potato. First Early, Second early, early main and late main............and I have gone for the ones that Hugh Fearlessly eatsitall suggests as he is our gardening guru!!!

So this year we will grow:-
Potatoes
Carrots
Leeks
Broccoli - purple sprouting - oh get us aren't we posh
Calabrese - NOT broccoli just billed as it in supermarkets...hopefully this time totally caterpillar free coz last year it made me feel a little queasy!
Brussel Sprouts
Savoy cabbage
Spring cabbage
French beans - purple and green
sugar snap peas
Cucumbers
Butternut squashes
Pumpkins - giant of course
Sweet corn
Strawberries
Tomatoes
Peppers
Chillies
Courgettes

And they will be in the ground at the time they are supposed to be.....not in May!!!!!!!!
Truck load of horse shit being delivered this week and we'll be away!!!!! yay for horse poo!

Need a weekend to recover from the weekend!!!!

Saturday was a jolly down to Dorset to see H and the gang. We arrived at about lunchtime and I lost T within minutes of entering the house........he kind of gets absorbed!! B and L spent the day alternately arguing and kissing! Where as T and S did lots of very boysy wrestling and chasing!!!!!I was pleased to see that T could hold his own, not having any older siblings. T did manage to come home with a split lip but that was nothing to do with the wrestling or the chasing, he merely smacked himself in the mouth trying to lift the handle of a push along toy out of the toy and it came away quicker than him thought!! And made a nice mess too. We went up to Bond's folly on the purbecks and walked back down again to see the sun setting over the sea and to the dulcet tones of L have the worlds most monumental tantrum. Sadly he had forgotten what he was having the tantrum about approx 30 secs into the tantrum but it didn't stop him from hollering like a good'un all the half mile walk back down the hill. D naturally had to climb on top of the folly just coz he could........and this is where the kids get it from!!!!!

Then we went to have a look at H's new house before going back to let the men cook tea! L decided to continue his tantrum and general clinginess, which was nice. Then we all played on H's Wii which I have to admit is bloody marvelmouse! Shame we can;t have one!

Sunday and we decided to get a head start on the allotment. D had borrowed a rotivator and the Steward had told us that we hadn't taken as much of the plot as we were entitled to, so we moved the boundary fence, shifted where the compost bins were (hmm that was a nice job) and re arranged the plot completely. T wants a patch of his own so we created a big bed behind the green house and have set aside half for him. We picked the last of the leeks and broccoli and about 3 million brussel sprouts. The noisette ones were the tastiest and most successful so we'll be doing them again this year! Then D rotivated the whole plot and I laid a carpet path. Then T and I set about trying to rid the new bed of evil convulvilus (bastard evil plant) T raked and sifted though with his fingers removing bits of root and big rocks from his bed and is very excited about what he is going to plant......Although I am not that sure how well an orange tree is going to fare in Surrey!!!! We are thinking about getting an apple tree for the main garden tho, well we need something to plant L's placenta under as it can;t sit in the freezer forever!!!

Was looking at the science section of EC today and I am guessing that the allotment will cover most of reception and KS1 science so there's a plus!!!!!! Who knew?

sociable?? us??

SO this week on an all out "shit we need to be seriously more sociable" drive (its the only thing about home ed I panic about, its periodic panicking but its still there) We did the soft play on Tues. It was supposed to be ice skating but the time is hard for us as it is at least a 45min drive and it means waking up L early which is never a good thing! So Ice skating has been relegated to once a month. Arrived at the soft play about 4 ish and stayed for about an hour and half. T palled up with a gang of boys almost immediately and soon progressed from being the much needed "Baddie" in their game to a "baddie turned goodie who is cool" and apparently a greater honour is hard to find among the under 6's!!! Had a ball, then had a bonfire on the lottie and toasted some marshmallows - L got absolutely covered in sticky goo!

Wednesday we met up with J and her son S. We got together to chat about starting a home ed group near here but blatantly did very little *shop* chat and just had a damn good natter. T and S totally clicked and were chasing round the playground within minutes. We left the playground when the kids got out of school and moved to the park where S showed T the joys of bamboo. We didn't see them for ages but w could see the bush moving and hear chattering and giggles. When D arrived with L the boys even took him into the bamboo. S was so good with L bless him. Helping him through the jungle of bamboo!!! Both J and I were told that the boys wanted to play at our houses again so very pleased with that! J is lovely and a good friend of a divine IM we both know. As soon as I knew that I knew we would get on!

Thursday it was off to the home ed group in Hants. Naturally I got lost on the way so arrived very stroppy but the kids were having a ball. Huge garden area, apparently empty but for the very strange hedge. The hedge wobbled a lot and chattered, shrieked and giggled, particularly when approached! It also had many different heads that would pop up on top of it periodically! Sod all the toys and the big space to run in, the kids wanted THE HEDGE!!!!! S was there as was another boy F who T had clicked with the week before and there were some dinkies for L to bumble about with. Both boys had to be forcibly removed when it was time to go and had hugely red cheeks. I got to meet some more home edders inc our old next door neighbours from about 10 yrs ago! Small world! Their baby is now 10!!!!!! OMG Then got home and almost forgot about ballet! Silly Mummy!T's jumps are a lot better yet he still lands like an elephant....can;t think where he gets that from *blushes* At least he doesn't jump like he has wellies on anymore!!!!!

Worreid about socialisation? Who, Me? ;)

Fossils and not fossils

Can you tell the difference between a trace fossil and a body fossil? Hmm can you? Can you? Well T can! Body fossils being actual bits of body and trace fossils being stuff left behind by the thing that created the body fossil! So I googled images of trace and body fossils and printed them out. During my googling I came across a fab body fossil on Christian answers .net.........feck me what a load of tripe! It goes on about dinosaurs being on noah's ark.....no really and cites the proof as being that it doesn't say in the bible that they weren't.?????? Oh and it also challenges the dating of dinosaurs......coz loads of ancient human writings talk about t-rex's.....don't they? I was gobsmacked that people would tell their kids this. Admittedly be open minded but plain stark raving bonkers???? really! Anyways the pic was good so I printed out a load of pictures of different fossils ready for T to sort and stick in his Dinosaurs folder. Then we had a go at creating a fossil, now admittedly it wasn't gonna be 80 million yrs old more like 38 hours and created in our kitchen but we still had fun. We created trace fossils of dino foot print fossils with toy dinosaurs (T rex and Brachiasaurus so both veggies and meaties were equally represented!) clay, sugar and water. First we dinosaurs left footprints in the soft clay of the river bed. Then we covered the clay bed with a thick sludgey sediment (sugar and water) and then we left the sediment to settle so most of the water could be sucked off and then left it till the sugar hardened off.

Obviously this required daily prodding and finger sucking to "check" whether the sugar had set yet! But when it finally had T was finally allowed to take a hammer and one of Daddy's screwdrivers to it and chip away at the sugar until the clay bed was revealed. Once the clay was visible we used a brush to remove the loose (and slightly soggy) sugar and soon we were able to see the footprints. Oh then the fun really started as silly Mummy in her wisdom had run the hot tap on the sugar at the beginning of the exercise, by mistake, so a few of the footprints were filled by a rather lovely hardened sugar syrup but they were still very clearly visible and very clearly footprints!

First, like the true scientists we are we measured the foot prints.......Oh, I hear you cry,to estimate the size of the beast that encountered your cunning clay bed........noooooooo T is only 4 ffs we measured them coz if we wanted to we could estimate the size but we didn't want to we just wanted to know how big our t-rex and brachi's feet were....and they were 2.5am and 1.5cms respectively. So, then it was off to the sink to test the theory that sugar is water soluble and running water on to the crystallized syrup should shift it! Hampered only by the slight problem that the clay is also water soluble. Fortunately I was semi-confident that the sugar would dissolve before the clay did and thankfully I was right......note the cunning use of Daddy's pastry brush which was cleaned and returned to the drawer before any complaints could be made! Voila! A gorgeous replica of what trace fossils in the form of dinosaur foot prints might look like if dinosaurs were only 12 cms tall and had once lived in my kitchen!

......And if you could just ignore the two footprints that are still filled with sugar syrup that would be fab.......didn't want to test my clay versus sugar too much and T was getting a teeny bit heavy handed with the pastry brush!!!

Natural History Museum

"Ah look he ish shmilink at uss"

23rd of Jan saw a jolly up to London for to see the dinosaurs! South west trains did a sterling job of delaying us by telling us of the signal failure at Clapham just after we had pulled away from woking station where we could have changed ARGGGGGGGHHHH. Never mind tho we made it just on time and met up with the other home edders under the diplodocus's head. First was the battle of the picnic table in the basement with possibly every school child in Britain vying for a table, then it was off to Dino Jaws. S had secured us an Ed disc which was fab coz it only cost us £3 to get in as opposed to the £21 it would have cost without the disc. Quite a good exhibit, quite short but worth a butchers! I would have been a little miffed if we had paid full price as some of the touch screen stuff didn't work and the interactive stuff was a bit random *so thanks again to S* but on the whole lots of animatronic dinosaurs including feathered velociraptors and dino poo! The kids had a ball rampaging round the museum and Sp and T were thick as thieves and had great fun play fighting. I loved that none of the kids seemed even the slightest bit perturbed by dinosaur heads poking out of a black screen, half skeletal, half flesh...........

I wanted T to get a feeling for the scale of them which I think he did.....not that you can tell what goes in or indeed goes on in the head of a 4 nearly 5 yr old boy!

This one was behind a screen warning us that younger and more sensitive patrons might find it frightening.....

I was expecting blood, gore, perhaps even mild sexual references but no....its a small dinosaur with a floppy lizard in its mouth....as you can tell T was PETRIFIED!!!!!!!! (although the floppy lizard did make it look very lifelike!)

Then it was off to the skeleton bit where we wandered around looking at the casts of fossilised dino bones.

H and T giving a lovely demo of what big buggers the dinos were!!!! Then it was off to have a gawp at the T-rex which was according to the museum a teenage size T-rex....wouldn't like to be around for his stroppy tantrums! So all in all a good day, really illustrated the size of the dinosaurs and gave a interesting adventure to add to our dinosaur project.

Dinosaurs-r-us!

So Dinosaurs are our project at the mo and the house is filled to the brim with all things dino. I found a scheme of work on the web for KS1 (well grade one in America so I'm assuming near enough the same) It is very american talking about "encountering the idea" and experiencing the idea" *puke* but a good frame work to dip in and out of and the teacher in me loves the structure!!! Our home education is about as autonomous as a control freak like me can manage! So we started a few days after xmyth with T using one of the Dino books he got that was Internet linked. He had a shufie round some of the links and spent a good hour watching mini video clips on the National Geographic website and playing a couple of dinosaur based games included in the Usborne internet linked books.

One of the first tasks on the SOW was to make rice pictures of dinosaurs, cue me cutting out seriously stiff cardboard (which hurts) to make dino templates. The I got little glass jars. half filled them with rice then added a few drops of food colouring and shook them like billio! Then it was just a case of using them like glitter - spread the glue and shake on the rice! Not a bad out come really ! Although it did take an over spray with glue to keep the rice in place.

So idea fully encountered *raises eyebrow* we went on to dinosaur characteristics. We had a few plaggy dinosaurs lying around but defiantly needed more so we borrowed some from B next door. We then split the dinosaurs into groups; Carnivore, herbivore, biped, quadraped etc. I initially asked T to split them into land, air and water until we discovered that dinosaurs only lived on land , the others are prehistoric reptiles!!!! Well even with a total of 13 dinosaurs it was clear we needed more so off we went into town and thanks to the ELC and Natural World sale, came back with 40 mini dinosaurs, 10 dino babies, a braciosaurus and a T-rex as well as a remote controlled T-rex (never ever taking my bro on a shopping trip again) some dinosaur bones to assemble and a dinosaur sticker book, phew!

Now this is where the ex-teacher in me rears its head! AND THUS THE WALL DISPLAY WAS BORN!!!! You have to admit it is pretty impressive! And serves as a constant reminder of our topic!!! Needless to say I bored of cutting out the fiddly little feckers after about five minutes but T loved sorting and sticking his dinos and using the sticker book to add more to the different categories. He even caught me out on a couple of dinosaurs, I assumed one of the mean looking ones was a meat eater but no, apparently just coz it has an evil glint in its eye its not necessarily a carnivore!

We then had a few chats about how many dinosaurs there are around today, ie zero none nada! and how long ago they lived which is a really tough concept to get a wee ones head around. We then talked about why they might had died and what other areas we were going to cover in the project. All in all a good start although I am SICK OF TREADING ON PLASTIC DINOSAURS!!!! they really bloody hurt and are far too spiky IMO!

The cold wind will blow and we shall have snow!

Woken up at seven thirtyish this morning to T telling us we HAD to look outside. Didn't for a second expect snow but there it was!!!! And a decent amount!!! So after a phonecall from B to say that he couldn;t get through to come and have the boys, I called into work and we had an official SNOW DAY!!!!! Wooooooo

So first there was the obligatory wrapping boys up like michelin men! The youngest one got the most padding!

Then it was snowman time.

T was out there like a shot and had half the grass clear before L had even got his coat on. Have to say the waterproof dungarees we bought from www.waterproofworld.com are fan-bloody-tastic! L got waterproofed as well as did I so the wet bits were limited!

Then it was off to the dog walk to use the sledge we bought about 3 yrs ago! Not that easy wrestling 2 michelin'd kids and a stoopid dog AND a sledge but we managed and L was totally knackered on the way home bless him. He sobbed and fell asleep as soon as I got him upstairs. But he LOVED Sledging with T....not sure T was that keen on the sharing. I wasn't that keen on the amount of dog poo but that will be a side effect of a dog walk! L face planted a couple of times but that didn't stop him!