GAMES WEEK...

Every few weeks I like to take a 'games week' : we down all books and do whatever style of learning we please ALL WEEK ~ be it games, outdoor play, screen learning, or anything else really. They have to keep busy and they have to stay off the PS2 or screen time that is just idling, but other than that anything goes really.

So the three littlest boys, and sometimes Lilo, spent a good deal of the time outside building dens, which was excellent in all sorts of ways ~ team work, problem solving (especially when it all slid down the bank), perseverance, safety (using garden tools) and of course good physical labour!

Then there's been some of this... 

a good deal of this...

and a fair few games of this, amongst the girls especially...

And now it's half term, so time for me to do some marking, DD to head off to his cousin's for the week and us all to chill ~ and maybe bake a bit :D

Give a Boy (II) ...

... A Stick!

and it can be so many things...

Maybe a thrashing instrument..?

but on this occasion mostly a javelin!

The Olympics lives on :D

Birthday Come ~ and Go!

Can you believe May sees two birthdays in our house and I haven't blogged either one? ~ slap wrists!

Bugs turned 14...


Those of you with sharp eyes will notice I can't count!!!  ~ check the bottom of the blog...

 'Strawberry & Chocolate Oreo Cheesecake'!! (home-made I might add, and super scrummy!!)

A couple of weeks later (last weekend) he had his party ~ a houseful of teenagers over for a BBQ/Wii evening. It was great fun :-) I've decided I really like teenagers, or at least I really like all the ones I know! 

 (that's Bug's GF on the Guitar Hero btw)

Then we did a few more weeks school ~ a day of which I blogged here;
There's been some sewing (Minnie's been doing this x-stitch forever!), earing and necklace making (Minnie is wearing hers in the picture) & some shrinky-dink making ~ everyone really enjoyed that. We watched them curl, flip & shrink on the sandwich pan and talked a little about polymers (although I must confess not a lot, as I'm not very knowledgeable myself about such things - anyone want to offer me a science lesson on this?!)

The younger three also had a 'Wild Things' week :~ read the book a couple of times and made masks, told the story back - which DD is getting really good at, wrote about our own imaginary 'wild thing', drew monsters, made monster puppets with empty toilet rolls and topped off the week by watching the film ~ which is good, but a little serious I thought, compared to the book.

The boys had a trip to Manchester Velodrome with scouts and very much enjoyed that ~ came back asking to go again!

And then Stitch turned 4 on Friday ~ where did those four years go??

10 points to the person who spots the theme in most of the birthday pictures ;-)

This time last year we spent the week with him like this ~ with Pneumonia!

Aside from birthdays and fun stuff there's been all the 'normals' around here too. DD & Lilo are both doing really well on Explode the Code Online. Lilo has zipping through the lower levels already, as I had hoped she would. DD is also progressing steadily and is surprised to discover 'I can read' :-) He really can too! There are a couple of letters he consistently forgets the sound of still - 'd' & 'w' being the main ones, but essentially he is sounding out and beginning to read short sentences. It's all seemed very effortless with him and I believe it will be with Stitch too, when he decides to give it a shot. Atm, he's pretty much refusing to do anything schooly unless it's on a computer, or he can work with me ~ fair enough I guess, but I'm feeling really stretched & tired right now and can't always give him what he needs/wants from me :-(. I'm hoping September will be a little easier with Baby able to sit and play more. Just now I am feeling a bit burnt out and creativity is almost non-existent in regards to school. I am just so grateful for all the online resources that serve me up ideas so readily and take so little adapting to make them work for all three of the youngest. In that respect, it makes it simpler that Lilo has been such a slow-to-learn reader because her 'literacy' work is not that far behind the boys! That said, she is gaining speed at quite a pace now and the other morning, presented me  with a book which she has been apparently reading in her spare time & has now finished..!  

This week the oldest four are off on 'Energi' camp again ~ it comes around quickly. Paul is taking the week off and we are planning to spend some time doing 'fun-stuff' with the littlest four. A trip on a 'real train' is planned to either Liverpool or the beach, depending on the weather. I got a free 2 month family railcard (online from the Daily Mail ), so that makes it affordable and a treat for the littlies, who don't remember the days when we went everywhere by train as a family!

So that's me caught up for now. I'm missing not being Off The Path this weekend though, it just wasn't possible in the end :-(

Observation answers; ~ 1. Bugs had an extra candle on his cake, 2. All pictures involve chocolate cake!

Back-to-School (or not)...

Obviously for home-educated children there is no such things as 'back to school' in the traditional sense, but as we DO take traditional holidays there is a definite change when term starts up. Suddenly the idleness and non-routine of summer is gone and thinking caps go back on! If it were sunny, which it isn't, I'm sure learning would be happening in the garden and lanes, but as it is wet (no change there then) we are pretty much confined to the house and more formal learning, but that's OK ~ it gets us back in the swing of things, and away from excess square screen time..!


It's been an up and down kind of week.  Being now almost 28 weeks pregnant I am finding it a struggle to keep going all day, but I am also acutely aware of having had 8 weeks off and the children really needing to get back to some kind of routine ~ if only to make sure they get up and dressed in the mornings!! ;)


So, at the end of last week I sat down and went through resources with them and talked through my expectations for them for the year. Nothing as heavy as it seems, except that I did make it clear to both older boys that they needed to be working a bit harder than they had been. They agreed - in theory!! Then this week we 'started up' again.  Monday was a nightmare, but I think that was just settling in/down to the idea of using a pencil again. There was far too many 'Muuuummmmeeeeeeeeeee'-s in that day to be bearable!! Tuesday and Wednesday were loads better, but Thursday had some pretty awful patches again. Even though I decided at the beginning of the week that all the 'group' activities could start up next week to give me chance to get back in the swing too, it still seemed to a big stretch. Wednesday night Stitch joined us in our bed from the small hours onwards and I know my sleep was erratically broken, not because he was a pain, but just because he was there. I woke up still tired and far too early, which really did not help my mood for the day. So when the Bugs had a wobbly over something little and continued yelling at me after several warnings to stop - well I kind of lost the plot! That was right at the start of the day ~ good start! When we'd both calmed down (and talked) things were better for a while and he was certainly good as gold for the rest of the day! The girls were angels, but I didn't have enough patience with Lilo and her reading (or lack of it) today. We did have fun writing an opposite poem though: we read 'Bed in Summer' and reversed everything in it ~ which ended up, of course, like a poem written by someone who works a night shift and talked about how that might feel, so not a completely lost day!
She's also continued with Orange Miquon this week and has done some Headsprout. I decided it was time to challenge her though and get her to prove to herself that she is actually better at reading than she believes, so I set her THIS book to read over the weekend. There is nothing in it she can't sound out, so with a little concentration and determination I know she can read it! I've asked Paul to read it with her though ~ he has more patience than me atm!! I meant to do some Science with her too, but that didn't happen :( ~ next week..!


The little ones enjoyed games of Dotty Dinosaurs (big favourite with Stitch atm, and he knows all the shapes too) and played with shape pictures for quite a while. 

DD also did some colouring by numbers & some other number work (basically quickly revising concepts I know he already understands, ready to step up the game a little ~ he is good with numbers now). We also set up a little science experiment and talked about what 'science' actually is. He is BIG on asking questions at the moment, so this really appealed! Other stuff I have done with him this week;  read Three Billy Goats Gruff and did 'language arts' stuff related to that ~ talking about concepts & words in the story, re-enacting the story with finger puppets & playing with playdough mats (I even made the playdough!). A friend put me onto THIS website and actually it's looking like it might be a really great resource for Lilo and DD this year. I've also put Minnie and TP on Science & Language Arts streams too, but they can work through them more at their leisure than my instruction (although I will get involved where I need to of course) ~ it's just another resource for them to access to make life interesting :D ~ This is the Science page that Minnie made a start on, in case you are interested. 
At the end of Thursday Taz was doing a crossword based on collective nouns. It WAS challenging and tbh I couldn't have answered all of it without doing a bit of 'looking up'. His problem is that he approaches all of school (and life) like a test ~ he assumes, as I guess all 11 year old do, that he KNOWS everything he needs to know already and therefore he can answer anything worthwhile with the knowledge he already has. Problem is, of course, that he doesn't know that much really, so when he comes up against things he cannot answer easily he has a tantrum!! Despite having well stocked shelves of books and the internet readily at hand he thinks sucking answers out of me, or getting me to do the research is a much better thing to do than look anything up himself. He is approaching 12 ~ this is no longer an acceptable solution in my eyes and so I told him he had to find the answers for himself (especially as I would have had to have done the same) ~ cue major wobble, huffing, puffing, crying, slamming of the computer mouse when the first website he visited didn't have the answers he wanted... cue me getting rather annoyed with him... cue more tears and anger... (does this sound familiar to ANYONE, please tell me it does!!). Eventually he found all but two of the answers he needed, but was FURIOUS that it had taken so long! Welcome to life son ~ things do not always arrive on your plate so easily as the snap of your fingers!! 
There have been a few other issues with Taz this week too, but I am hoping that things will settle down as he gets used to this years work load..!


Bugs on the other hand ~ who used to give me SO much grief, has worked like a dream. Long may it continue! :D But we are beginning to think about the future for him too. He is worried (although I am not) about not taking any GCSE's (which quite simply we cannot afford to put him through, and in all honestly I am not sure would benefit him really for HIS future). He is NOT an academic ~ not stupid at all, really quite bright, but not 'sparked' by academic subjects. I cannot see him flying into a career where he is required to use Science, Maths, or English much beyond the normal everyday level that most of us use. I want him to be well grounded and 'up to standard' in those subjects of course, but I do not think an exam in them is necessary for where he is likely heading. He is creative and I want him to be able to enjoy his learning in a creative way. I think that school would stifle him and in reality, IF he went in next year with a view to doing GCSE's, he would hate it more than he realises. SO, what instead..? We like the look of this;  http://www.s-cheshire.ac.uk/newcamp/14-19/course14.htm 
He would look at doing the 'creative and media' higher diploma (equivalent to 7 A-C GCSE's), with a view to then going on to do the Photography AS/A2 course, but of course that would be optional, he could do pretty much anything else if he chose to at that point and of course he could do additional studies too. SO, here's hoping that this course is open to him (need to make some enquiries), because it looks absolutely up his street and I think college will be a healthier environment for him than school, especially as it is quite likely that some of his church friends are to be going there next year too.


Monday week I have my annual visit from out LEA lady ~ it doesn't worry me as  she is very nice and has been consistently visiting us for a number of years now, but still, it's in the back of my mind with recent events and all...


I think that's about all I can think to write just now; pretty 'schooly' I know, but life itself just ticks along, with me getting fatter and the kids getting bigger ~ that's just us!! I still struggle to envisage our family with another little addition in around about 12 weeks time... I am SO not ready for that!

Life Happens!

It's been another one of those weeks...On the Saturday after my last post we all trooped over to visit SOTP for the day. The girls (including moi) attended M's party while Paul took the boys off swimming and for a coffee-&-cake (in Sainsbury's!). In the evening we enjoyed finishing off the party food and catching up a little. I wish we saw more of each other - the children like each other so much :D Sunday was Sunday, but it also yielded the delivery of a new computer tower, as our old one is definitely on it's way out, or loaded with errors and in need of some TLC. The delivery inevitably meant me spending many hours (all night in fact) moving files over and installing the necessities to use it Monday morning for school. I then set to trying to make the old tower a little bit happier (and HD emptier) to nurse it through to it's death - we can at least enjoy an extra PC while it is still breathing! It's STILL backing up now (onto MoZY) and when it eventually finishes I will take it back to a fresh installation of Windows & Office and leave it at that. We'll see how long it lives for! The new tower has a massive 1TB Hard Drive, but just-in-case I fill it up with photos, we have also bought an additional 500GB External HD (which currently is hosting the back-up files of the new PC until I switch the online back-up over). It's complicated and boring, but it'll be worth it! The new tower is virtually silent and VERY quick - AND it doesn't crash every half and hour!! :D

As a result of my total absorption in the setting up of new and old PC's this week the kids had to self-educate & self-fill their boxes if they wished, but basically the orders were to keep out of my very grumpy way as much as possible! I did manage to teach a history lesson and read a couple of stories - the rest was VERY free range and involved WAY too much screen time for my liking. This week will be back to normal - I hope!

There were some interesting bits though; We were visited by this little fella;

This was a real treat. He normally flys off the minute we step foot outside, but he decided to fly in today. He wasn't panicked (or didn't seem it), so I took the opportunity to snap him. I only got one shot though. He flew into the lounge and we opened a big window which he immediately flew out of, much to Taz's disappointment, who was desperate to hold him, or get it to feed from his hand.


The boys have been invested at scouts (don't know if I mentioned they started going a few weeks back)- leading to 3 hours of sewing on of 11 badges for me this week. I don't DO sewing, but needs must! At least they will only be one at a time after this!!

They already have taken apart and reassembled an engine (leading to a mechanics badge) and last week did the first part of a first aid course. This week they are going over to a flight simulator in Manchester (too cool!) as part of work on their Aviation badge. It helps that one of the leaders is a pilot!!



Hopefully this week will be a little more interesting to blog about!! ;D

Pictures as Promised..!

Mud, Glorious Mud

What is it about boys that you take them for a little walk to feed the horses and they find the muddiest puddle they can..! Actually, I love that about them! Five minutes after they get dressed they are knee deep in mud and encouraging all those around to join in :D We did feed the horses and they were lovely, but running fly-wheels and splashing sticks through the mud was much more entertaining - all under the watchful eye of Bolt!!