It’s been a mad week, and I haven’t blogged anything that happened after the Museum visit on Tuesday. I can’t remember everything we’ve done, but there are a few bits and pieces I want to record here. On Wednesday, we had a home education group meeting at our house. The children had a lot of fun playing in our overgrown garden, and luckily we managed not to lose any of them among the long grass and rather impressive array of weeds wild flowers we are currently cultivating. Monkey and Owl set up a very good obstacle course and all the children had a go, the older ones helping the younger ones so that they all succeeded in completing it. We had a teepee at the half way point, and I suggested that each child could go in there and either sing a song or count to ten before continuing. I particularly enjoyed listening to Jingle Bells sung very quietly and sweetly by a lovely four-year old boy! After the group left, we went to the Beavers’ Jubilee party and the children had fun playing games and eating lots of cake. When we came home, Monkey decided he had to write a very important note for the milkman before he could go to bed. I believe this is known as “writing for a purpose”!
On Thursday, Granny (my mum) came to visit so we had a peaceful and productive morning. In the afternoon I decided that, instead of fighting against it, I should use the overgrown garden as an educational resource, so we spent a long time drawing wild flowers and trying to identify them. Owl, Monkey and Rabbit all did some really good drawings, and I thoroughly enjoyed doing it with them.
On Friday, the other Granny (I need some granny code names…) came to take Owl for his violin lesson, and afterwards she looked after Owl and Monkey while Rabbit was at pre-school and I took Tiddler to his Musicbox class, which he loves. Grannies may not be essential requirements for home educating, but they certainly make it easier! Later in the day, the boys continued writing their Lego stories and worked on their Prehistory project a little. Owl and Rabbit did reading eggs, and they all played in the garden a lot.
Today I took Rabbit and Tiddler to Dramabuds, and Suburban dad took Owl and Monkey to football. Then they all had their haircut, before the big boys went to another Beavers and Cubs Jubilee party. Rabbit painted a box for some treasure that she had collected on the way home from Dramabuds (sticks, leaves and a stone!), before going to her ballet lesson. She then spent the rest of the day playing in our new train paddling pool, joined by Tiddler after his sleep. I pottered around for a bit trying to do some domestic tasks, before admitting defeat and joining in with them. I pulled up a chair and sat with my feet in the pool, and for a while the two of them did the same with their little chairs, which was very sweet. It took a long time for Tiddler to decide to get in but he did in the end. Rabbit was in and out constantly, jumping and splashing so we all got quite wet anyway! They also spent a long time playing with the plastic balls that came with the pool (we have loads already, but there’s nothing quite so exciting as new stuff!) When the big boys finally returned home, we had a rather late but very nice supper in the garden – although the boys had taken a packed tea with them, we guessed they would be hungry enough for a cooked meal, and they certainly were! Banana smoothies for pudding went down well too.