This week at our house...

ART ~ we'll start here because it's pretty :D

This week, we did 'Big Face' watercolours, which are meant to be sort of Eric Carle-ish; here's how they turned out (youngest to eldest this week) ...

We liked how, despite following the exact same instructions, we each ended up with faces that had distinct character of their own. 

COOKERY ~ 
Regardless of what I said last week, we did in fact make pastry this week. I decided that as I was going to cook turkey pasties for lunch anyway, we may as well make pastry and pies instead. So that we did and it was a very successful lesson :D

I gave each of them a bowl and the ingredients they needed, then I verbally guided them through the whole process. 

This point was the hardest, and I did assist a little with the cutting and mixing, but purely for the sake of their arms - the pastry was perfect.

We cheated a little and used bought puff pastry for the lids, but in all honesty, the shortcrust pastry the chids made had more taste and texture to it :D

Don't they look amazing! And they tasted fabulous too :D

I've bought a book this week and Abbie has decided she is going to work through it as part of her studies. It was originally an Irish Home Ec' textbook, back in the 80's. Although it's a bit dated, it is still a lovely text to work with, covering all sorts of different aspects of health & home-keeping :D

TOT-SCHOOL ~  
We have done a fair bit actually, but I've sadly not taken many pictures. I did take some today though, while Chip was playing with the Spielgaben. We were having some fun with spinning shapes and seeing how they looked as they spun. Chip was quite fascinated with this, but not as much as I thought he might be.

We did another lesson yesterday too, where he matched these 3D shapes with others the same, and began to learn the words for 'cube', 'cylinder' and 'sphere' (or Sophia as he says it). He did well, and still remembered the names today. Spielgaben certainly works for him :D

This week I have also put him on a trial of Busythings. Stitch and DD used to enjoy this site when they were younger, and it's exactly the kind of experimental learning that Chip likes. He has been very fond of PoissonRouge (and still is), but I think Busythings might stretch him a little more now. So far he is loving it :D. He likes Starfall too, but prefers to play the songs on there over and over, which can be a little tedious for the rest of us! 

Besides that, he is doing numerous drawings and trying to write things. His writing looks like some kind of binary :  l + 0 l 0 + l 0 . Then he looks at it and sees it is lots of ones, zeros and pluses and says he was writing numbers not letters ~ smart kid ;-)

IN OTHER NEWS ~  
Saturday saw the girls and I trawling the charity shops in our local town ~ which is pretty much a town full of charity shops, coffee shops, designer shops, and a great market! I need clothes suitable for wearing in 30+ degrees for 3 weeks, and the girls just needed to re-stock their wardrobes since they have grown so fast! Abbie has gradually outgrown most of her clothes, but they don't all pass well to TP, who is a completely different shape. TP has grown loads this last year too, and was running out of choices. Charity shops here often have some very nice stuff, so we can do a big stock up for a fraction of the cost of buying new. My problem is, I have personal issues with the 'charity shop' smell ~ it brings back memories I don't like too much, but sometimes I have to swallow that and just get on with it.  We shopped for about 3 hours, spent quite a lot of money, and the girls came home with a handsome stash and a 'new' coat each. I really can't complain.

I, on the other hand was less successful in my search. Why is it that all the plus size clothes seem to be made of nasty polyester/viscose materials? I wanted cotton and it looks like I'm going to have to buy new, or make do :(

TOMORROW ~ 
Joel has his interview for college. He has applied to do BTec Level 3 in Music Performance. I'm hoping he will do well and win them on side despite not having a piece of paper to his name! Watch this space :D

First HE week of 2015

Eventually we have picked up sticks after the Christmas holidays and knuckled down to getting some work done., though there's not much to tell on the 'normals' front really.

BUT...

Just after New Year we eventually received our brand new set of Spielgaben (Version 4). It arrived around 9pm in the evening, after a LOT of chasing after Parcel Force, but that's another story, and the children immediately wanted to get playing with it ~ all of them!

The Spielgaben was kindly bought for 'school' by my Nanna (well, she just wouldn't let me pay her back, so I'm considering it her gift to us), and primarily for Chip, but I know there will be benefits to having the set for more of the children than just him. It's just that with him we can start from beginning and perhaps discover a whole new way of learning! He's not a 'sit down and be told about stuff' kind of child, so my traditional way of Home-edding is probably not going to work too well with him. I needed to find something more 'discover and learn' for him, such that he can tell ME what he is learning ~ and I think this will hopefully be just the ticket! 

The tricky bit for me is finding time in my days to squeeze in a bit extra to 'work (play)' with him, but I am determined to try ~ even if it means I don't get so much of a break in my day.

One thing I did come up against straight away with Chip, was that when I showed him the nature activities, which involve copying animals with shapes, he was unhappy that his 'sticks' didn't match those in the pictures (which were the wooden ones from the old versions), so was reluctant to make anything that involved using sticks. Anticipating that this was going to be an on-going problem for Chip (and because I rather like wood too), I contacted Spielgaben and inside of a week they have sent me the whole contents of the V3 tray which included the wooden sticks ~ and this has meant extra coloured blocks and extra dots too ~ for just the cost of shipping from the warehouse! Brilliant service :D

This week we have managed two session together with the sets. I tried to go with the principle of getting Chip started then letting him run with the ideas, but it is challenging for me!

Session 1 (sorry no pics): We used the yarn-balls and played 'hide the ball' under a paper cup. I thought he'd be quickly bored by this, but I was wrong. He loved the game. With one ball hidden it was really easy for him to tell me which one. With two balls he had to think a little harder, but could still manage it well enough. Three hidden balls really pushed him, although he did manage that too; however, he didn't want to repeat that one, and instead wanted to hide three balls from me ~ which was fine of course and, in hindsight, I should have gone with his idea to hide them around the room because that would have meant him being creative about where to hide them, but instead I suggested that they might get lost and encouraged him to just hide them in his pockets. Oh well, this is a learning curve for me too!

Session two was definitely much more creative and much for follow-his-lead. The suggested activity was designed to introduce the very basic concepts behind subtraction and addition;

• draw a 'road' on a piece of paper,
• put cubes along it & write 'rules' on the paper, 
• make 'counter' cubes, 
• mix up ten 'number' cubes in a box. 
• play a race to the finish game. 

This all seemed a little too complicated and too much 'making' of pieces for me. Thankfully though, I have got some fancy dice with actual numbers on (0-9, and 1-12) that I bought years ago, so I fished those out and let him decide which one to use. I also fished out some old pieces that I kept that fell off a dolly's crib-mobile and some magnetic monsters that lost their magnets yonks ago (yes I do horde 'useful' things). These were our counters. We then strung the cubes on the laces together and created our game-path that way. Next we used blocks as 'hats' to create our rules. Chip helped decide the rules to play by and at the beginning the rules were quite simple ~ yellow hats were go back one; red hats go forward one; the purple hat (in the middle) was go back to the start; first to the end wins. Gradually though he added more rules; green hat jump to the next green block; land next to someone else and you join their team, so that if they win so do you - until you land next to someone else and switch teams; exact number on dice to finish. The games worked very well and was actually a lesson to me about how simply a game can be created :D. Just after I took this shot though, I had to go and prepare our Art lesson, so I left these three playing nicely, at which point Chip decided it was time to REALLY change the rules and it all got VERY confusing and didn't work out too well. Maybe, just maybe, he will begin to learn that changing everything to suit the way you want things to work out does not always work!

So, so far so good and we are looking forward to loads more fun with all this.

Chip also seems to be really getting into drawing at the moment and is beginning to move from the 'what have I drawn' stage - where he asks everyone what it is he's drawn and agrees with the idea he likes best, to the 'what shall I draw stage?' - where his drawings are far more carefully considered and deliberately drawn.

This one ended up like this;

"Phoebe standing on the grass. She is wearing her glasses." 

I can't remember what all the little brown things in the grass were, but they were significant too.

In other news..

Joel (Taz) had his college assessment test yesterday, to hopefully get him in on a Level 2 Btec in Music (performance). We were supposed to meet the Head of Department, but she couldn't make it, which is a pain as I have questions I'd like to ask about what he needs to bring/do for interview. Then the person doing the tests with him was otherwise occupied with a 'social services incident'. I could have easily helped him with his test, as I was allowed to sit with him and he was left unsupervised, but I didn't, because that would be cheating!! I must say I am not particularly impressed with South Cheshire College in terms of their organisation skills, but Jake is happy enough there, learning well and it does have a nice atmosphere about the place. So, Joel did his 'free writing' piece, which I'm sure was fine (although it wasn't very long) and then he scored a Level 2 on his English test (which I think is GCSE level, or above), but didn't do so well on his maths. This is the boy who is working through some pretty advanced maths on Conquer Maths (surds and such like), but apparently has completely forgotten how to do most of the very basic operations (addition and subtraction with re-grouping, multiplication with carrying, and long/short division). EEEK!! Looks like we might be covering some old turf then before September! I'm sure it will all sweep back in, but I'm a bit stunned that he has even forgotten these things. Surely those operations, repeated time and again ad infinitum during his primary years, should be like riding a bike ~ they are not skills you usually loose, are they?? He says he can do it all in his head (but that would have taken too long of course), but can't remember how to do it quickly on paper. At the end of the day though, his results were the same as Jake's were, and they let him on the course he wanted based mostly on his interview ~ which is why it is quite important to find out what the music department will want at interview. 

The rest of our week has contained a lot of 'getting back to normal' ~ swimming, gym, clubs, dancing; that kind of thing plus an awful lot of exercise-biking! We are on target so far, but it's quite tough to keep it going already. 12 days down - only 5 weeks and 5 days left to go! AAArrrrgh!

However, it will be worth it :D My passport has arrived (oh, how scary is that picture) and Paul has the interview to get his this evening (he's NEVER had one before). Next thing is to book flights and our jabs start this week too! It's exciting and scary all in the same breath. I was 14 last time I boarded a plane and back then the world felt like a much safer place ~ at least the skies did. I have worries about leaving the children; I have worries (as do they) about the risks of flying with the present risk of terrorism; I have worries about the very fact we are going to Africa, with all the risks that carries in an of itself (safety and health the biggest two in my mind); BUT I KNOW, with every ounce of my being, that this is something we are MEANT to do this year, and the children are on-board with it all. They have their concerns too, but they are fully behind our adventure :D

For more information about our challenge, and if you'd like to sponsor us, please go HERE  ~
https://www.sponsorme.co.uk/carolinehampton/cycle-to-kosele.aspx

Frosty The Snowman...

A bit of an art catch up... 

We didn't do any official art last week, so the children just did whatever they fancied doing. DD started an intricate colour-by-numbers that's sat on our shelf for a very long time & Stitch coloured in some wildlife pictures. Minnie sewed (I think), Joel skived and I can't remember what Lilo and TP did! It was chilled and lovely for that fact :D

This week we were in a more Christmassy/wintery mood, especially as it was SO cold that we had to light a fire

A little bit of winter art by the fire was in order! 

I printed out a choice of activities from my usual haunt, and this is what we ended up with;

Joel's (unfinished) watercolour snowman

DD (9)'s pencil coloured snowman

Stitch (7)'s pencil coloured snowman, on blue card.

Lilo (11)'s painted snowman

My chalk pastel 'soldier' snowman (on blue card)

Abbie's Sticky-note snowman story

And TP did some fancy lettering on a card she has hidden away for a week or two!

In other news Chip has developed a love of cutting just recently. I've never taught him how to use scissors, but last week he just started chopping! He chopped up LOTS of scrap paper into tiny little bits, so this week I thought we might as well direct the activity a little more constructively and see how well he is doing at the same time ~ here's how he did (with very minimal direction from me).

This little man is all about dexterity skills ~ such a contrast to Stitch, but I suspect he will bring me challenges in other ways ;)

A Short Long Month

November always seems like such a long, long month. 

The long, cold nights and short dark days set in; jumpers get pulled from the cupboards, never to go away again until spring and it's hard to lift your mood when the sun sets at 4pm!

This November has admittedly been unusually mild, yet still it's seemed like one of the longest months of the year. But, thankfully, it has been sandwiched by a couple of breaks in the hum-drum...

The first slice of the sandwich was at the very end of October. We took a family walk in the countryside, not too far from home (minus the two eldest boys who opted out). It was a warm and sunny day - perfect weather in fact - and we had a lovely time together. The days preceding had been a bit wet, so in places it was more than a little muddy, to the point of almost losing shoes and boots! Thankfully the children mostly thought this all just added to the fun and adventure of it, all except Chip, who wasn't so keen :D Whilst walking Chip and Stitch had a great time looking closely at all the different kinds of fungi we came across ~ and there were many!

We also had the unexpected priviledge of watching a lady training her young Border Collie dog for sheepdog trials. This was fascinating to all of us.

We also discovered an amazing old oak tree, which was managing to sustain itself despite being almost completely hollow at the base...

 - so hollow in fact that two of us could stand up in the centre of it and look up to the light coming in above, where a branch had once been. Presumably it had been storm damaged, and/or struck by lightening, but it was quite incredible to stand inside a tree!

More pictures in this slideshow;

November 5th came and went and Paul was out, so we watched fireworks from bedroom windows. However, after considerable amounts of persuasion, Paul lit a bonfire on the 6th. This was our very first family bonfire (a good way to dispose of the felled holly tree) and tbh, it could have done with being a bit less windy! The smoke and flames were bit too unpredictable to roast our marshmallows without considerable bravery! Still, Jake and I did so, and passed them round :D

School wise we have just plodded on. A couple of the children are reaching the ends of things now ~ just in time for the end of term :D. Chip has been wanting to do more learning activities too. I don't take as many pictures as I should, but here's a couple from this month

Many mornings Chip comes into my room with a handful of cars and begins his day by lining them up on the 'mountains' of bedding! 

He also counts them and groups them ~ he has that organised sort of mind I think. He can now count reliably to about 14 in sequence, or about 12 if he's counting objects and consistently recognises almost all the numbers to 10 (only really getting 7 & 8 wrong occasionally). I've started insisting that if he wants 'screen time' (on the tablet of laptop) whilst we are doing school, then he must choose a learning app/website. He has quickly got used to this idea and is happily working away on a few now :D

Another thing that seems to have made a sudden leap, is his drawing. He loves to draw and colour, but mostly, up until now, it's been draw 'something' and get us to guess what it is. Then he'll decide when we are right if he likes that idea! One day last week though, Abbie asked him if he could draw a person and after an initial refusal, and no further persuasion, he then drew this and shocked us all;

According to him it is "A Mummy, a baby and a spider mummy." I think the decorations around the outside are the spider web, and the extra red legs are intended to be trousers (after-all I always wear trousers).

We've all been learning about Molluscs in Zoology and the children have really enjoyed looking at my seashell collection, from various beaches over many years (spot the two 'oddities' in this picture) ~ how many can you name?

One thing that has been a little exceptional this month, is that Paul had to make two trips to A&E within the space of a couple of days! Our children are hardly ever ill, and even more rarely need any emergency treatment, but one Sunday morning DD was practising some gym in the lounge, as he does all the time, kicked Lilo's foot and fell awkwardly on his neck. For the rest of the day he walked with it to one side and was still doing so by evening. His shoulders were also misaligned and he was still complaining of pain, so, being a neck injury I thought I had best play it safe and get him checked over. It was just a muscle pull thankfully, but even with a hot wheat bag wrapped around his neck for most of four days plus gentle stretches, he still couldn't hold his head straight until the Friday. 

Then on the Saturday Abbie was carrying the Henry (hoover) downstairs, got the flexible tubing caught under her foot and fell off the bottom stair. She landed awkwardly on her foot, cried out and then carried on, but within minutes she was struggling to weight-bear, it was swelling and a hard lump had appeared on the top of her foot. I was pretty certain she had broken it, but also knew it was not a good night to do so! Paul was in and out and had commitments until well after 9pm, so I made her comfy on the sofa with her foot up and waited on her for the rest of the day! When Paul eventually got her up to A&E, they took an X-ray but were not completely sure whether it was broken or not (seen by nurse specialist rather than Dr), or whether it might be a torn ligament. She was sent home with crutches for the weekend and an appointment with the Orthopaedics on Monday. Poor girl struggled around all weekend and by the end of it she was complaining her hands and upper-arms were in more pain than her foot! that said, she was still unable to weight bear at all. We were all hoping is was a break rather than a ligament tear tbh, as we weren't sure she was going to be able to manage much longer on crutches and the recovery time would also be quicker with a break. So, come Monday morning she and Paul headed off to the hospital - again - and she came home with this;

I was glad I was right this time at least (although a little irritated that they hadn't just cast her on the Saturday night). She has only 'cracked' the outside bone of her foot (more than a greenstick though), but she is in the cast until just before Christmas. She can walk in it, and isn't using her crutches much at all, but still has to spend most of her time with it elevated to stop it swelling. It's driving her crazy with itching, but she is coping well. 

Something interesting that did come out of having an X-ray done, is the knowledge that, to the medics surprise, she has no growing plates in her feet ~ she is fully fused and done growing - which is a bit annoying as she is stuck at a half size, but also means she is unlikely to get any taller, which she is quite pleased about :D

The second slice of the sandwich came towards the end of November, when Paul and I were given a lovely gift to enable us to take a weekend away together. We were a bit last minute booking and ummed and arrred where to go, but ultimately we chose The Lakes because that really is my happy place! We decided though to explore some areas we hadn't really done before and I fancied being near the sea as well as the mountains, so we chose the western Lakes and stayed in Boot - a tiny little village in the valley of Eskdale. We stayed in a     Inn which was fantastic ~ comfortable, beautiful views, real fires and incredible food ~ what more can you ask?! I shan't bore you with a gazillion pictures and I shall blog about the trip separately over here, but if you're interested the pictures are on the slideshows below;

The end of November also brings Lilo's birthday, and this year she is 11. She's still such a little girl in many way. She still plays with her dolls and an essential on her list this year was some more Lego Friends, but the other things she most wants now is a 'tablet', so apart from the one toy all she really had was money ~ and plenty of it  ~ enough that after Christmas a tablet should be within her grasp! But I wanted her to have something else to open and she had been asking me to make her a cushion for a LONG time, so with just a week to do it in, I embarked on making her this  ~ 60+ rows of 154 stitches, endlessly counting in sevens;    

 and I did it! 

I found some other fun uses for the pattern along the way too, and will be tempted to do it again without the deadline ;-)

It perfectly held a single ball of wool and would be great for stopping it rolling everywhere when you're working! Also lovely as a little 'pot' for holding bobbles and scrunchy type things. A friend of mine also suggested it as a hat, which you maybe could with a little adaptation and the right shaped head!

Anyway, back to Lilo's birthday...

The final day of November saw DD and I back in Wigan at another Gym competition. He did very well and came away with 2 bronze medals. The competition was harder this time because he was against more boys. He narrowly missed bronze overall for his group of 8, and came  12th of all 19 under 10's. Sadly, despite excellent warm-ups, when it counted he under rotated for his low-bar dismount and landed on his bottom, thereby losing a full mark. With that added he would have done considerably better! 

And that's it, we're into December and the run up to Christmas has begun!