{Feeling Yuck}

I have had a horrid few days of feeling really rough. Awful flu like symtoms that have really knocked me back. The children have been pretty good and managed to just get on with what they could.

So, what has been happening? Well, Wednesday was the worst day for me, with sickness thrown into the mix. Chelsea was really good and got on with things without being asked - she covered Numeracy, Literacy, and started a project on Italy. She also sat with Tiegan and helped her with a Maths workbook. Joseph read the Our Island Story for me - that's our family chapter book at the moment that we read together. He also did part of his Maths workbook, and a bit of copywork - copying a poem from a book, then illustrating it.

Our caterpillars were checked and were growing nicely - I took this picture..


Thursday was a great day for Tiegan as it was her first day at Brownies! She thoroughly enjoyed her Rainbows experience and was eagerly anticipating Brownies, so much so I was nervous about it living up to her expectations. It seems that my worries were unfounded though as Tiegan came out afterwards absolutely buzzing with excitement and chatterings about how it all went and what they did. I knew she was going to be alright though when we walked in and she was immediately surrounded by her new pals with crys of "oh it's Tiegan!" from those she had met previously at Rainbows, arms flung around her, the works. Very cute and reassuring to see.

Today (Friday) was a disappointing one in that we were meant to be joining the local HE group for a visit to a Deer Farm. I really just couldn't face it though, still not feeling at full strength, and Callum was still suffering from a horrendously snotty nose (sorry for the graphic description) so we thought it best to rest ourselves and protect others from our lurgy. Instead I have had another day of resting and wiping Callum's nose - whilst the children pottered around on laptops, projects, workbooks and playing with the kids next door (who weren't at school again...) I ordered Tiegan's Brownie uniform :o)

I took photos of the caterpillars who have made yet more progress on the growth front...

I am strangely fascinated by the process, I really should grow up I think, but I think this is part of the fun of home-educating I guess, being involved and experiencing what the children experience. I wouldn't change it, even on days when we struggle to keep everything together.

"School Time"

It's so good to be back into the swing of things again - my enthusiasm for Home-Ed had dwindled a little and so we were just trundling along with no particular routine going on, and our family just doesn't work well that way.

After my "spring cleaning" session of yesterday, the children were looking forward to trying out their new "classroom" and even went so far as calling me Miss...and giggling everytime they did so. We covered a little Maths together, Tiegan did a bit of work on sentence building, Chelsea wrote a sweet poem about Kira, and Joseph read poems from his football poem book to keep us all amused. Then Tiegan read her modernised version of Princess and the Pea that she borrowed from the library - and Chelsea read us all a chapter of Twilight, her new book (which was a bargain price of £3.87 at Asda if anyone is interested and doesn't want to wait for delivery...)

As you can see in the picture, Callum joined in. He has a workbook to encourage pencil control. He is supposed to draw over various shapes, silly patterns, pictures etc. He didn't want to do it today, but insisted on doing work like the others, but nothing I offered was right, so we came to a compromise. He drew over it with his finger, and I did it with the pencil - at least one of us has good pencil control now... ;o)

(Btw, it's just the photo making it look really dark - we don't work in the dark honest!! lol)

This was a "lightbulb moment" when Tiegan finally understood something that had been perplexing her for a while - so nice to catch this moment of hi-5 congratulations from Joe. I love the way they help and encourage each other.

Tiegan's reading session...

and Joseph reading his football poems...

Our caterpillars have grown amazingly fast already - we have all been surprised by their growth in just a few days.

I'm happy now as their future home has arrived and I no longer have visions of last minute panics to find them a suitable container when needed - I do like to be organised lol. Along with the butterfly kit, I also bought a simple (and cheap) plastic model set that shows the various lifecycle stages.


It has proved to be a hit with the children, and Callum has been "playing teacher" and telling us about the different stages from egg to butterfly. Very cute.

Talking of cute - Callum had us all giggling yesterday with something he said. He asked Chelsea something and Chelsea said "You'd better ask your Mother..."

Callum - "What's her name?"

Chelsea - "Julia"

Callum - "Where is she?"

Chelsea - "There, next to you!"

Callum - Looking at me with the utmost confusion - "Nooooo, that's Mummy!!! Silly Chelsea!"

I love my life....

{All Change - New "School" Room}

We've had a busy but very fruitful day today, one of those days when you can sit back and reflect and think we did ok :o)

The morning started with a quick visit to the library. The children came home with a variety of books, both fiction and non-fiction, whilst I chose one book about the history of our village. I have a plan that we will put together a children's guide to our village. If successful, I would like to run off a few copies and give them to our library, I know that the children would like the idea of others enjoying their efforts. Anyway, we returned home and the children all immediately opened their books and started reading - so I left them to it and decided to potter about and tidy up our "school" area. Why is it, that my "tidy up" always leads to a huge mega rearrange and sort out?

I have moved our "school room" back to the back room - and it now looks like this...

View from the Doorway

I wish my window had overlooked palm trees when I was at school...

To see the photos with explanation notes added, you can visit the set on flickr here...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/classroomfree/sets/72157617003593175/

{Our Weekend}

Wow, what beautiful weather we have had - so warm, with blue skies and glorious sunshine. Everyone had dug their shorts and t-shirts out and life felt good - well it always does when the sun is shining doesn't it?

We had a lovely day on Saturday - lots of family reading time, planting things in the garden, then enjoying the football on TV together.

On Sunday we went for a quick walk around a local town, before heading for home, unpacking the shopping, and going to the park for a play :o)






Joseph was with us too - but he was on the other side of the park playing football with his dad :o)

{We have Caterpillars!}

At long last, finally, we have caterpillars!!! I have wanted to do a Butterfly project for years, almost since the beginning of our home-educating adventures, but have never got around to actually doing anything about it. Yes, we have discussed the life stages of course, and touched on various aspects of growth and development - but I wanted to give the children an opportunity to experience it first hand, in front of their eyes so to speak.

To help with this, I have purchased this kit from Insectlore, which includes live caterpillars. We have 5 little wriggly jiggly things in a pot as I type. We haven't yet received their new home to be, but at least progress in the long waited for project has been made :o)

The children are, as to be expected I guess, pleased with the new arrivals. Well, Chelsea and Joseph are pretending to be uninterested, they are obviously too old to be concerned with such creatures - I won't mention that I have seen them have sneaky little peeks more than once - or that Chelsea was sat talking to the little fella's this morning when she thought no one was looking..., but both Tiegan and Callum are suitably obsessed. Callum doesn't think that they will be turning into butterflies though, he would prefer worms if possible. I guess that will be learning curve...

So, be warned - plenty of photos and general progress obsessiveness will follow. I apologise in advance for any offence this may cause...

{The best laid plans and all that....}

Why is it, whenever I get all enthusiastic about "home-ed" and make plans, something happens to delay things. Today Tiegan and Callum have become poorly little beings, and have spent the day under blankets on the sofa, needing lots of TLC. I reminded myself that the schools are on their Easter Break, and shook the guilt ;o)

So, what got done instead? Well Chelsea got on with her "Paranormal" project - she is finding out all about ghosts and things that go bump in the night...actually, so far it makes pretty interesting reading. We read a few stories together, including a few chapters of Our Island Story, and Joseph read through a Horrible Histories book (we are all looking forward to the HH programme starting on TV on Thursday).

I haven't got any pictures of our day to share - but I did have a look through the latest pictures and chose a few to show you...

{Plans 2009}

This will be added to and adjusted as time progresses.

Plans 2009

General Ideas
· Increase family cooking and baking sessions.
· Record progress of our Vegetable Garden.
· Increase amount of Arts & Crafts to include various mediums, including clay, paints, fimo, and Salt Dough. Encourage each child to try various crafts to include knitting, sewing, cardmaking, scrapbooking etc.
· Make more use of the library – weekly visits?
· Butterfly Project – Life cycles, caring for living creatures.
· Middle Ages history project.
· History and geography of Dartmoor.
· Science Projects – Weekly Project to include written, illustrated, photographs, and experiments.
· Countries – Fortnightly Project; Cooking, Crafts, History of, Present day life, Geography, Climate, Famous events, Famous People, Wars/Disputes.
· More poems and story writing.
· Family Reading sessions.
· Plan, write, and create puppets for a puppet show which can be filmed on completion.
· Making use of time when walking the dog – Walks by theme, such as Alphabet, Colours, Smells, Animals, Flowers.
· Photography – Daily themes? Alphabet, shapes, expressions, movement, nature, weather.

I also want us to be involved in the groups more, getting to know and spending time with local home-educating families.

Chelsea 2009

As general plus -

· Maths work – textbook and everyday life, build confidence in ability.
· Introduce running a home – Meal planning, bill payments, managing budgets etc.
· Work through Human Anatomy and Physiology book with me.

Joseph 2009

As general plus:

· Handwriting and spelling work – encourage an increase in neatness and concentration.
· Encourage more out loud reading where possible to help with speech.
· Joseph would like to do his own project on the History of Football, to include changes through the ages, famous footballers through history, league tables – history of and how they work, and football disasters.

Tiegan 2009

As general plus -

· How flowers and vegetables grow – Tiegan has developed a keen interest in gardening which I would like to encourage and facilitate. It was at her suggestion that we have planted various vegetables this year, and she has shown great enthusiasm for learning more.
· Introducing Lapbooking – this is something that we have touched upon before, but I think Tiegan is now ready to progress further.
· Volcanoes – At her request, along with Callum.
· Handwriting – concentrating on neatness; letter size, spacing, capital letters.
· Maths – Basics, textbook and everyday. Introduce Timetables.
· Reading – Tiegan is already a (self taught) fluent reader, but I would like to encourage her to read with expression and think of the context the words are written.

Callum 2009
Callum will more than likely join in with whatever he likes the look of when we are doing group work together. In addition to this, I’d also like to facilitate his interests which currently include –
· Volcanoes
· Sharks
· Dinosaurs
· Vegetable Garden

I am planning on introducing Callum to lapbooking as a way of collating what we do.
I’d also like to encourage Callum to try more arts and crafts.

{Torquay Museum Visit}

Today we joined one of the local home-ed groups and headed off to Torquay Museum. Now, at this point, I should shamefully admit that despite living in the area for over 20 years, I have never ever set foot in there before - that's bad isn't it?!

Anyway, that aside, we had a rather lovely day. A talk about Charles Darwin had been arranged, and actually it was very interesting and rather informative - certainly my lot were given food for thought as we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening fielding questions about theories and evolution. I enjoy days like this when an interest and enthusiam has been "sparked".

So, here are the pictures:

This display is at the top of the staircase of the entrance hall...

After the Darwin talk, we were able to get a closer look (and feel) of some of the exhibited animals.

Hmmm, these lot were meant to be listening to the talk about the animals...

Rhino and Hyena skulls...

In the galleries, some of the displays were pretty fab. Callum loved this Anaconda...

There is a gallery with "Old Devon Farm Cottage" type displays...

and Egytian displays...

All in all it was a really pleasant day, one I am certainly glad we participated in. It actually gave us a lot of food for thought with regards to our home-ed group life, and once home we discussed how we would all like to be more involved in the groups again. We have talked about the possibility of setting up our own Teignbridge and Torbay area group - not to compete with those already available - but to run in addition. We are happy to host the group at our home, at least initially, and we see it is as more of a social meeting get together rather than a "learning group", although obviously activities and crafts can be brought along if desired. You wouldn't have to make a weekly/fortnightly/monthly commitment, it would just be a group to dip in and out of as wanted, whether we meet up here, or head for a local park or beach for picnics etc. If any local HErs are interested in being involved or exchanging ideas, please email me at Julia@creativemakes.co.uk.