Spring Walks

Although the weather has taken a turn for the worse in recent days with 70mph winds being recorded I am still excited to see that Spring is here. New life is blossoming around us and there are some beautiful flowers coming to life in our garden with an array of colours. Vegetables and flowers are growing on our windowsills and greenhouse and buds are showing on our fruit trees.

Before these mighty winds came we had been enjoying exploring our local parks on our bikes. We have been looking at different textures in nature. This tree bark was particularly fetching...rough and cracked, worn by time but mesmerising.

The boys then obviously had to have a go at climbing the very same tree and both managed it with ease and plenty of enjoyment. This is now their favourite tree in the park.

Whilst the boys were climbing I was marvelling at creation and the beautiful green grass. This may be beginning to be an obsession of mine. I remember my husband taking me to a football match at a premier league football stadium and on entering the ground I proclaimed quite loudly...wow that grass is green! A football fan I am not and maybe this was not the most sensible thing to say amidst a lot of very serious football fans. But it was true. The grass in the stadium was wonderfully green and since then I have been comparing grass colours. The local park this springtime is producing some lovely colours (I know I am odd).

What a lovely walk...so much to see and do. We were also treated to a show from a squirrel who was intent on throwing the new leaves from the trees at us (well it was dropping them to the ground but the boys thought it was throwing leaves at them).

Piano for Children ... 1st lesson

Musically gifted I am not. I may be able to just about hold a note and I did teach myself how to read music and can just about get by but it's not where my strengths lie. I was not blessed when I was younger to have music lessons or parents who could pass on their knowledge of music or an instrument to me. I did however have a keyboard, probably from the age of 11 and I still have one now. My boys love it when I do dust off this ancient relic and allow them to play on it.

I have spent time contemplating whether to try and offer some kind of musical training for my boys. However I have not been able to decide whether this is because I feel like I missed out when I was younger and it's my desire to play an instrument or whether it would be good for the boys. I have always tried to make decisions that would be for my children's benefit rather than making decisions based on what I would like.

Mr Faithful had piano and saxophone lessons when he was younger but again he didn't continue in his studies to a level where he might have felt confident teaching the boys.

But looking back both me and Mr Faithful had a little go and made use of the opportunities afforded us when we were growing up so I decided today to teach some basic music skills to the boys, starting with Mr Social. I had every intention of teaching the same things to Mr Cheeky, but he is a wilful child and when he sets his mind against something it is hard to stir him to do otherwise and today he did not want to be instructed. So I showed Mr Social how you have high notes and low notes on a piano and which hand you normally play them with. Then I showed him that the notes have names and following some advice that I had come across on the internet we began trying to show Mr Social a way to remember the notes. C for cat, D for dog, E for elephant, F for frog, G for giraffe, A for ant and B for bear. We had a good deal of fun then playing the different notes in different combinations and finding high Cs and low Cs and the same for the other notes. It was very relaxed and no doubt we will have to revisit this lesson numerous times but Mr Social enjoyed it and went on to make up his own tunes at which point Mr Cheeky joined in and danced and wiggled his little bottom.

Mary Mary Quite Contrary...

...how does your garden grow.

Today was a gardening day. I have always been eager to get my children involved in the garden, in helping to plant flowers, care for them and see the beauty as they grow and the same too with the vegetables and then we would also have the fun of harvesting them and eating them. The days are becoming just a little bit warmer now and we took advantage of a dry day to continue with our plans for the garden.

Boots on and coats on and out we all went to the garden armed with our trowels and stopped by our temporary green house. We filled up some trays with compost and transplanted the flowers that we had started off on our windowsills into the larger trays to give them some more growing space. We ended up with lovely rows of sweet peas, dahlias and morning glory. Again we filled 2 more trays but this time it was for the vegetables. We transplanted the growing courgettes and planted some carrots, parsnips, spinach, lettuce and spring onions. We then checked on the bottom 2 layers of the greenhouse where lie a medley of pots and trays filled with soil and a variety of seeds. You see we started growing some vegetables and flowers a few weeks back but then we were hit with super strong winds that unfortunately toppled our green house and all that was within. I couldn't bring myself to get rid of the soil and seeds that had spilled over the ground that we had lovingly planted and now lovingly picked up. I re-potted the seeds of which some had started to germinate and decided to see if I could identify any of the plants when they had grown some more. So today I examined the remains of the carnage to find that we had a variety of leaves breaking through the surface of the compost. I was able to pick out the spring onions, distinctly tall and thin, and I located a few parsnips as they had broken through with some of the seed still attached. As for the rest it remains to be seen. I wonder if we will end up with carrots in our flowerbed and dahlias in our vegetable patch! It was a good opportunity to show the boys how to examine plants from their leaves and their different textures and styles.

On from the green house we stopped round the corner, the designated corner for our potato growing efforts. We filled up bags with compost and planted our chitted potatoes and covered them with a little more compost. We also added a chitted potato to a clear plastic bottle with some compost with the hope that we can see how the potato grows under the soil. Our seed potatoes came from here. It is a project that aims to get primary school children involved in food production and thy send you out a kit with the seed potatoes, growing bags, stickers and activity sheets. It is free and all you need to do is register and registration for 2016 is open. Once registered then next year just before you need to start chitting you will receive in the post a box containing everything you need bar the compost. We did this project 2 years ago and only missed last year because we were moving house.

Our next gardening project will be to prepare the vegetable patch for planting. All being well we will get round to that at the end of the week. The fresh air and a chance to play in the dirt appeals strongly with my lively children and their are plenty of learning opportunities to go along side.

Budding Builders

This week we have been having some work done on the house. A good friend of ours is a joiner by trade and we have had on occasion the pleasure of being able to offer him some work. He is a very skilled joiner and by far my favourite thing he has done for us is a built in window seat that doubled up as a storage unit. In a slim terraced house the seat unit was so practical and it blended in beautifully to the original features thanks to the clever workmanship of this man. Alas we moved from that house and had to start again with our home improvements. Our house in its current state is quite a mix of decor inside with fairly new bathrooms and a freshly decorated nursery for Mr Smiley yet the living room is quite archaic with a large chunk of wallpaper missing and the kitchen is bizarre with new appliances and worktops yet old cupboards that are now falling off, no wallpaper, no wall tiles and a floor that has seen better days. But hey it is our home. I have conditioned myself to not look too closely at the bizarre interior and focus on keeping it a welcoming home instead. The outside of the house is completely different. Since moving in we have replaced all doors and windows, re-landscaped the garden and now all the fascias around the roof have been changed. You simply wouldn't recognise the house from the outside.

Maybe one day I will see more miraculous changes inside. Mr Faithful has promised me a newly replasted front room when we go away on holiday in the summer.

Anyway, the arrival of our joiner friend and his son this week has meant my boys have wanted to build their own creations. Unfortunately for me this has meant a new gathering of various sticks and twigs brought back from local parks to aid the boys building adventures. I could have a small bonfire with the amount they have collected. Today saw a different kind of building in that classic form we have all come to love...Lego. Boy do these boys love Lego. They diligently worked through their manuals and built all the different models they could and then had a great time playing with them. I marvel at their patience and their perseverance when Lego is involved. On some days they will often rush through writing practice, unable to sit through read alouds, and lie prostrate on the floor at the thought of maths. It is on those days the Lego will come out. Mr Cheeky loves the emergency services and his favourite piece is a police truck.

There is a lot of educational value in this classic toy. I often use them as math manipulatives. They have been used in history to build siege towers and labyrinth mazes. You can stick letters to them and use them to build words. However today I just let the kids play. I think they found it refreshing and for me too it was nice to see the boys playing together and sharing. Their imaginations were running wild as they concocted their own stories. It was encouraging too that Mr Social naturally and without being prompted picked up a book and read it to Mr Cheeky. How lovely to see him getting along with his brother so well. In the meantime I was able to give Mr Smiley some attention and enjoy his young age. Sometimes we just need to let the children play.

We also grabbed our bikes and headed out for some adventures in the park. It is filling me with great delight to see the spring coming, flowers are growing and the days are getting longer. It is beginning to feel warmer and I am beginning to plant the vegetables. I love spring, it shows new life and is a reminder to me that after dark days there is light.

Athletics for the Young

Our Olympic games was a great success. Events were partaken of with great hilarity (just try getting a 1 year old to do a wheelbarrow race). I discovered that Mr Social appears to be better at jumping than I am and Mr Faithful remains forever competitive even when competing against little boys. Mr Cheeky was announced overall winner and was crowned with a laurel wreath.

Mr Social had the joy of partaking in more sport today as it being Wednesday he went to his weekly athletics group. It is a relaxed and informal session were the children are encouraged to take part in relay races involving hurdles and throwing bean bags or foam javelins. Often there is an opportunity to try out long jump or the high jump and ends with the World Champions...a simple relay race with the first team sitting down after racing their length wins. Mr Social is quite gifted at jumping and often remains in the long jump to near the end and often the smallest boy to be jumping at the end. He was very excited to reach the final of the long jump last week. Unfortunately he was unable to repeat this feat this week only missing out on his last jump.

Mr Cheeky is still a little young and spent his time watching and being Mr Social's cup bearer.

He does look a little forlorn in this picture but he was still smiling even by the end.

Mr Cheeky was rewarded for his patience by a unique storytelling opportunity as Mummy here told him the story of little Timmy mouse and his adventure with a frog (making up stories at bedtime whilst cuddling his mama has become his latest treat).

Story of the World...Susan Bauer

I was recommended this gem of a book by an experienced home educator. As a newbie I am keen to learn from those who have gone before me and waded through the endless material and have actually seen how certain books and curriculum have worked.

Susan Bauer has put together 4 volumes of story based history starting with ancient times and bringing it all the way up to the present modern day. I myself find the books a fascinating read. My own history in school was limited to a spot of mediaeval history, a smidgen of Roman history and the majority being the World wars. So this history course is an education to me. What is great about these books is that the core itself is bases upon stories. Each chapter is simple and easy to read which means its good for even young children. The stories although simple gibe a good overview of that particular period and inspire lots of creative opportunities to do some hands on activities.

I decided to go through one volume per year so over the course of 4 years we will have a good overview of the world's history. We really do enjoy our history sessions and on top of reading the book we have got extra books out of the library to look at certain events in more detail, coloured in maps and acquainted ourselves with parts of Europe and Africa and done some hands on activities including building a shaduf, making an Egyptian mummy and creating a Minoan mosaic.

Today we have been looking at ancient Greece, the Greek alphabet, Odysseus and the Cyclops and the Olympic games. After reading the chapter Mr Social had a go at copying the Greek alphabet (I was most impressed at his attempt), some copywork as we did an overview of the chapter and finally we created our own olympic games.

Mr Social made up his own list of games to compete in including wrestling, running race, jumping race, hopping race, wheelbarrow race and long jump. We created some medals, laurel wreaths and an olympic torch. All we need now is a daddy home from work then let the games commence! I shall post the winners tomorrow.

A crimp

Mr Social discovered a new animal today...a crimp! 

We were looking at final consonant blends and this is what we got:

A crimp apparently is an underwater crab (he is insistent that this animal exists). It brightened my morning. I hope it brightens yours too

Happy Mothers Day

Yesterday the boys celebrated me being their mum but I feel more like it's a celebration of being a mum and having 3 amazing children to guide and nurture, train and admonish, and raise in the light of God's word. I feel blessed to be their mother.

They surprised me in the morning with a lovely card and a necklace and earring set and some perfume and lots of little kisses.

Mothers Day may bring a mixture of feelings for many women. Thankfulness and joy and yet sorrow and sadness. Some of us have mothers to rejoice in and some grieve for the mothers they have lost. Some of us have children to feel grateful for and some of us grieve for the children that we do not have or have lost. I myself mourn for 2 babies that only ever knew my womb for a short time and my heart still yearns to watch them grow, to love and cuddle them, to cherish them here on earth. But that is not what God planned for me. I have friends who have struggled with infertility, who are not yet married and would dearly love children and some who have walked the valleys of grief when having children die. I have friends who have distant relationships with their own mothers and some who have had mothers die. Mothers Day is not always full of rejoicing but often a time of remembrance. 

I remember there was one person in history who never had a mother...Eve, the mother of all. Eve often has a bad reputation, after all she did take and eat of the fruit of the tree that was forbidden to her. She gave in to temptation and listened to that voice that tempts all of us away from obedience to God. And she is the reason why women scream for epidurals, pethidine and gas and air (although that last one is pretty good stuff). Eve never had a mother. When banished from the Garden of Eden and bearing her own children she never had a mother to guide her and offer help. She never had someone to ask for advice when the kids had a temperature or were teething or just couldn't settle. She also had to bury her own son and not just that she had to bear the heartache of knowing that it was her first born son that had killed her precious boy. Oh what sorrow this mother must have felt.

So let us just remember those who we miss and those who grieve on Mothers Day as well as celebrating Mothers everywhere for all their genuine hard work.

"What is a Mother?"

A mother is someone to shelter and guide us,

to love us, whatever we do,

with a warm understanding and infinite patience,

and wonderful gentleness too.

How often a mother means swift reassurance

in soothing our small, childish fears,

how tenderly mothers watch over their children

and treasure them all through the years.

The hearth of a mother is full of forgiveness

for any mistake, big or small,

and generous always in helping her family

whose needs she has placed above all.

A mother can utter a word of compassion

and make all our cares fall away,

she can brighten a home with the sound of her laughter

and make life delightful and gay.

A mother possesses incredible wisdom

and wonderful insight and skill-

in each human heart is that one special corner

which only a mother can fill!

Author: Katherine Nelson Davis

Maybe you know someone who this poem describes and yet she does not have a child of her own...maybe you can let her know just how much she is loved too.

I had an extra reason this Mothers Day to feel blessed and that was in the form of a little ball of cuteness that is Mr Smiley. Mr Smiley turned 1 yesterday. One whole year ago I gave birth to a little boy who was to fill my life with even more joy. We had a lovely day celebrating with his grandparents as well. There was birthday cake, train sets, wrapping paper, backpacks, wrapping paper, wooden cars, wrapping paper, clothes, wrapping paper, bath toys and oh did i mention...wrapping paper. My little treasure won't remember his 1st birthday and really he wasn't interested in his new toys that his family so kindly bought for him, and yes he was more interested in the wrapping paper but how could we not celebrate when God has been good to us. Thank you Lord for this precious gift of our son from You. May You guide him in his life and may He grow to love You and serve You.

Let's eat cake!

Mr Smiley's impending birthday on Sunday means that we have spent a lot of time in the kitchen preparing all manner of treats.

It is great to get the children involved although I do find that part difficult as I know there will be mess involved, and yes I may have to pick egg shells out of cake mix, and it will slow me down but sometimes with such a hefty workload it is best to start a little earlier and let the boys join in (and this usually helps in keeping the rest of the house tidy as they are not roaming causing havoc).

So yesterday I set Mr Cheeky to work on making muffins, I weigh he mixes and puts the mix in the tins. He did a great job at trying to get each muffin to the same height. Mr Social was given a lesson in pastry as he made some short crust pastry for quiches and then helped beat the choux pastry (I do the stove top work). Choux pastry caused much hilarity with Mr Social as he thought once made this pastry could go on our feet, I still don't think he believed my explanation of the French language but let's face it, it is more exciting to think of us walking round with choux buns on our feet at that age. He also did a great job. Then Mr Social actually volunteered to make the bread! Yes please. Mr Cheeky was even tempted into getting his hands stuck in even though he normally hates messy hands. Mr Social was impressed to see the sticky stringy mixture come together and form a lovely smooth silky dough.

So my morning had got off to a great start, choux buns and muffins made and pastry resting in the fridge and bread rising. I sent the boys to play as I cleared the kitchen for the next jobs. CRASH. Within 5 minutes I felt my heart sink, my great start was to be lost to an afternoon of tidying as a child had upset the large box of Lego and it's entire contents over the floor. Mr Cheeky has a particular fondness for Lego and was not pleased to see his models in bits across the floor so once cleared we set about remaking a police truck, the rest of the models can wait until next week. Mr Cheeky loves following the instructions and is quite competent in doing this by himself for the most part but he really struggled finding all the pieces in the box. But we persevered and have a police truck and a happy 4 year old to show for our efforts.

Back on with the rest of the day and we finished the quiches, made watermelon push up pops, and finished the bread. I spent my evening putting together some Mothers' Day gifts of candles, tea and biscuits in some homemade gift bags and boxes and made cards.

It wasn't the day I had planned for the boys and as I rouse from sleep this morning after being up for a lot of the night with Mr Smiley I feel somewhat intrepid about the day ahead. I still need to make the birthday cake for tomorrow and cater for 12 people tonight but I have my little helpers. Maybe I will keep them away from Lego boxes though.

A four day week homeschool schedule

A great advantage to home educating is the ability to be flexible. We are not tied down to 13 week terms or 9-3 hours. I have always found it somewhat amusing when being interrogated over our choice to teach our own children that people are shocked that we are doing school during half term and that we always seem to be out when we should be in doing school. There does seem to be a misconception that home schoolers have to follow a typical school day pattern or it could just be me that keeps meeting these people.

I had a bit of fun deciding what our homeschool week should look like and in reality our week often turns out different to what I may have planned at the beginning due to the wonderful nature of life to throw you a curve ball and obstacles put in one's way. But having said that I do have a general timetable that I keep returning to. I decided that I would have a 4 day home school week where we would do school on Monday, Tuesday, break on Wednesday and continue with school on Thursday and Friday. With Mr Social being the tender age of 5 still I don't feel like we require any more than this right now. In the mornings we focus on literacy, mathematics and scripture memorisation and the afternoons would be a mixture of science, history, geography and Spanish. This makes our day sound quite full but in reality planned school work can be finished within 1-2 hours in the morning and an hour after lunch and the rest of the time is spent in the children's own pursuits or in the great outdoors exploring our city and local parks and sometimes even the exotic realm of our garden. Wednesday is our off day but we do help with our church's toddler group, go to the library and Mr Social has an athletics group he goes to. Saturday is family day as Daddy isn't working and Sunday is the Lord's day.

We take off time around Christmas, Easter and the middle of summer when we have the great weather. School also happens wherever we go. At the park, in the garden, at local libraries and places where we meet with other home educators. School doesn't mean sat at the table and writing either, it takes many forms and most of all we try and have fun.

What does your home school week look like? Leave a comment and let us know.

Jolly Phonics

I came across Jolly Phonics about 2 years ago when trying to wade my way through a myriad of resources when I was contemplating how best to teach Mr Social how to read. It stood out for me as it appeared to suit my way of teaching. I didn't know what kind of learner my son would be at the time and as the programme was relatively inexpensive and was adaptable I decided to give it a go. I purchased workbooks 1-7 and a reading book to go along with it and that was all. 

Slowly, slowly we went through the first book looking at letters s, a, t, p, i and n. 

At the end of the book we looked at words purely made up from these letters and so our journey into reading began. 2 years in and Mr social has completed all 7 of the workbooks and is quite a fluent reader to the point I caught him reading out loud "Five little peppers and How They Grew" by Margaret Sidney on my Kindle yesterday. When I started home educating I always thought that I would feel more confident at being the teacher if we could succeed with reading and yes I know there will be challenges to come and lots to learn but it has given me affirmation that we can home educate. 

Now Mr Social has been working through the Jolly grammar series and is discovering how we create sentences.

The whole Jolly phonics series is a useful tool in helping your child learn to read. I'm not being paid to advertise it, honestly. I just wanted to share with you a great resource. A quick search on good old Google will show you that there are lots of resources on the internet to go along with the books and lots of practical ideas to use to reinforce the basic lessons.

Mr Cheeky has just started working through the first phonic book and is enjoying the colouring pages and has quickly picked up the sounds for the first 6 letters and I am excited to see him develop in this area. 

Shadow Puppets

Not long ago we excitedly made a purchase...a purchase that is transforming my homeschool. It has freed up more of my time, it has given Mr Cheeky an enthusiasm for learning, and has aided us in planning and organising our weeks. What is it? I hear you ask. A printer...a wireless printer. I was very excited to pick up the printer. I had been managing without one for 18 months since my old printer had decided it was only going to photocopy photos in colour, the black ink did not work, couldn't print from the computer and couldn't even photocopy a worksheet properly. It ended up being a very selective printer and I don't think i can call it a printer. So for 18 months I have been drawing my own worksheets, relying on a kind father in law to print necessary documents and handwriting mostly everything, and in a day where modern technology is ever increasing (sometimes good sometimes bad) it was becoming rather tiresome and time consuming to create my own worksheets for the boys when I knew there was an option to click and print from some very good resources.

So the printer came and we have printed off lots of colouring sheets for Mr Cheeky who is becoming more eager to learn his letters and numbers. (On a side note there are lots of great colouring sheets that can be downloaded for free that focus on letters and numbers). Mr Sociable has enjoyed doing his grammar worksheets in colour and history maps and various math related activities. I have enjoyed being able to devote more of my time to other pursuits and now can contemplate using my free time to restart an idea formed a while ago of my own craft business.

On Saturday we used our printer to print off some gruffalo shapes, mounted them on black card, attached some sticks to them and created our own shadow puppet show.

Oh the fun we had.

The light box was created from an old cereal box with holes cut out and a plain sheet of paper stuck to the front with a table lamp behind it. I got the idea from good old pinterest and we had a great time recreating the gruffalo story. The penguins of madagascar even gatecrashed the show as the boys started to divert from the classic Julia Donaldson story and make up their own. Give it a try sometime...you won't be disappointed.