Another day off

There's no disguising this one: a day of complete and utter, unadulterated play. We went to the beach at Alnmouth, with friends who were renting a cottage there, and it was great.

I had not wanted to go out today, being exhausted from yesterday, but my friend suggested that today might give us the best of the week's weather and tomorrow might be rainy... We had to go. Both Francesca and I had headaches so we even took paracetamol. But I am glad we made the effort.

We mustered up a picnic, packed clothes and changes of clothes for every eventuality and, finally, left.

Francesca said she felt sick in the car and we pulled over once to give her some air. She wasn't sick though, and we got to Alnmouth without troubles.

We had lunch at the holiday home and then walked to the beach for a glorious afternoon, filled with shouts of excitement and delight from the girls. They loved running into the waves and they loved wading out in the calmer water of the inlet where we made our 'camp'.

Sebastian waded in and out of the water, had a go at digging with a spade, walked studiously up and down the beach and seemed to love the experience too - quite a novelty for him,

We saw some jellyfish washed ashore, which Francesca was very interested in.

Home to the holiday house for a bath - all the children in together - and some fish fingers and chips for tea. That meant I could return home and pop them straight into bed, which worked quite nicely.

So that's it. Perhaps we'll do 'school' tomorrow?!

PS Pictures are on Flickr today.

It wasn't meant to be a day off

Today has been a write-off in terms of school. This whole week is set to be, actually.

This morning, we had a dental appointment in Morpeth, so we took a picnic and planned to be out at least all morning, if not all day. More on that later.

As for later in the week, cousins are coming, from afar, who we rarely see, so I guess a lot of our time will be socialising with them. Which is great and valuable of course, but not 'school'. So my trial is being utterly skewed by the very fact that it is the holidays.

Ordinarily, if we were doing home ed all the time, the odd day off (or indeed a planned week or two off) would be fine. It's just bad luck that at least one out of my precious four weeks is being high-jacked. I'm not sure if the little time we have is enough for a true trial.

Interestingly, Francesca commented last night that she wants to be with me and do home ed but that she wants to be with her friend who goes to school. Her solution was that we could ask her friend's mum if she would do home ed too. I suggested other ways that we could continue to spend lots of time with her friend and she was partially convinced. I'm glad, though, to have positive feedback about the home-school from the key participant!

Anyway, today.

Just as we arrived in Morpeth, Francesca was sick in her own lap. We screeched to a halt outside some smart flats and I ejected the sicky child onto the verge where she was duly stripped of her only outfit.

Luckily, luckily! a kind resident (who I was blocking in with my hasty could-we-call-it parking) asked if she could help. She let Francesca go into her flat and have a bath!! whilst she minded Elizabeth and thank-goodness-he-was-asleep Sebastian. Then she leant us some of her granddaughter's clothes so that we could get to the dentist.

Which we did. No problems there. We went via M&S to get Francesca an outfit that really fitted.

After the dentist we went to the park for our picnic lunch and did some of this:

And then found this:

And this:

The girls absolutely loved the bouncy slide. It was "SO fun!" and on a par with the teacup ride we last found in Morpeth.

Then I had had enough. I was hot and tired and headachey. We went for a coffee and then bought some flowers to take to our kind lady. I wonder if her heart did a little sink of dread when she saw us at the door again?! This time returning clothes and giving flowers.

Back home, I was exhausted and still had a headache. Nevermind, I suggested that we hadn't done any school yet.

Elizabeth, who had yesterday declared, "Mummy, I want to learn to write!" decided to get her writing things out. We started with her wipe-down literacy book and then graduated to forming letters on handwriting paper, which she loved. She kept saying, "I'm really writing!!" which was very rewarding.

Then she got one of Francesca's reading books and I helped her to read it. Actually, I read it, but she kind of thought she did, which is the main thing.

Francesca didn't want to do any English or Maths, instead opting for colouring in her Gruffalo activity book. I was too tired to protest, so she just did nice quiet colouring which was a pleasant, if not scholarly, end to the day.

Elizabeth wanted me to take a picture of her writing to show daddy, so here it is, daddy!

Tomorrow should be quite available for school, here's hoping. I want to do our science investigation and get through some actual maths and English 'work'.

Learning through play

After soft play with a friend this morning - PE? Drama and role play? - and some tv time this afternoon (at least I did some housework for once) we ended up doing something vaguely educational.

Sebastian totally loved the car we found in the back lane - an MG BGT allegedly.

Francesca decided to play with her new plasticine. Elizabeth was going to share but was relegated to playdough in the event(!)

Francesca carefully followed the pictures on the packet and made a crocodile:

And a sheep:

Comments on Week Two

The fact that it's Friday morning and I'm typing this at the local soft play place probably gives an idea of how the week ended.

We started off with lots of academic activities and a tight schedule. We've caved in to peer pressure and abandoned time table in favour of socialising this morning. I think we might get to finish our science investigation later but perhaps not.

I think the summer holidays are skewing my results. Venues are so busy they are not conducive to work. Friends keep wanting to play and I definitely do want to preserve Francesca's social life so I'm sometimes ditching school because friends are round.

I'm enjoying the freedom from the school run. I also find Francesca less tired and easier to be with. It's more harmonious at home.

I'm enjoying our schooling days and feel confident that I could manage the curriculum, even with the little ones. Elizabeth is evidently ready to join in with school too.

My bread site has been neglected and I don't know if that would change - if I might soon get organised enough to have more time for my own work in the evenings. I've been slow to work out what I'm doing, for home school, and keep changing my mind, which requires more time from my evening. Plus things like setting up logins on the computer has been time consuming this week.

If I could schedule my own work better, the benefits of the lovely times with the children would be great.

I wonder what Francesca would choose?

The world is our classroom

Grandpa wasn't free to do the bird walk this morning so my planning for the day was awry. I also played squash last night so didn't get round to 'fixing' the hole in the planning. It seemed a shame to spend a day indoors anyway, so I felt like taking our schooling out and about. We went to Gibside.

We did violin practice first which was so-so. Off to a good start but the usual stalling when it came to playing an unfamiliar tune. Anyway, what with all the tantrums and making of packed lunch and changing of nappies etc, we didn't get to Gibside until about 10.30 or ll.

Nevermind, we made our way straight to the Stawberry Castle Playpark and had a play. It was really busy (another advantage of home-ed - I could come back when it wasn't the summer hols!) and it took ages for a bench to become free. At about 12 we managed to sit down and have lunch (ok timing, just no chance of doing any 'school' before then).



After lunch, I asked Francesca if she would like to do some school work here and she decided to do another thank you card (second last one!!). Elizabeth wanted to do her wipe-down literacy book. Sebastian and I played some football.

Then we needed the loo and headed back towards the cafe and toilets. We got icecreams and wandered down the Long Walk with them. Sebastian fell asleep.

The girls are in this pic, at the bottom of the hill - honest!

Here's Sebastian enjoying the view(!)

We walked up to the stables and milked the plastic cow. Francesca loved that - she was playing that she was the farmer and Daisy loved her best.

Here we had another snack break and more football. It would have been a great spot for more school but Daisy was too interesting and I didn't suggest any 'work'.

Francesca's pistachio shells:

Anyway, there was a wildlife room and another educational room which we all enjoyed. There were crafty things to do...

...a milk churn...

...a castle playhouse with a toy kitchen and vegetables:

And a puppet theatre where Francesca put on an impromptu show.

Sebastian was very busy shopping.

Elizabeth dressed up as a duck.

And Sebastian loved the beads.

Then we headed off to the adventure trail. It was kind of hard to keep up with the girls, with Sebastian, but we managed it.

After that, we walked the scenic route, supposedly back to the cafe for tea.

But by the time we got there, it was closed.  Seymour happened to be driving nearby so we met up in a nearby village for chips and an evening play in the park.

This is Seymour's halo for rescuing us with chips.

Everyone had a great time but we were so tired! The children weren't in bed until 8!!!

But it was worth it. I must say, I couldn't help pointing out to Francesca that we could have more days like this if she wasn't at school(!) and she said it was "The best day ever!!!"

I want to do more out-of-the-house learning - taking our books to cafes and parks. And I want to do lots of educational visits. Today they've all experienced the countryside, nature, aspects of farming, aspects of history (the milk churn which ties in nicely with things we saw in Beamish last week) AND they've had lots of fresh air and exercise. Hopefully this is all contributing to their rich and varied education, despite the lack of formal study today.

Combining Home Ed and A Social Life

Having had such a full day yesterday, at Beamish, I opted for a day closer to home today.

Francesca was tired this morning and reluctant to get up. Actually, it's been 3 days since we last managed a 6 am walk because I keep sleeping in too.

Anyway, the violin practice went better today, with Francesca getting through more things and seeming a bit more clued up about the names of the notes. Then she was supposed to move on to literacy (according to the timetable, which we're still sticking to) and I decided that she could continue with her thank you letters while I had special time with Elizabeth.

Elizabeth had wanted her own login on the computer so I've set up her desktop with a maths game - counting the spots on ladybirds and moving them to the right leaf. She struggled to control the mouse, but that's difficult for anyone, with it being a small mouse pad thing rather than a physical hand shaped mouse. I worked with her and she quite enjoyed the game but all the talking was quite a disturbance for Francesca, who didn't get much done.

Sebastian was also clingy this morning. His nose is running so he might be feeling under the weather (strange expression since it's been so warm this week).

I managed to persuade Francesca to do maths, even though Elizabeth was doing magic painting. Francesca enjoyed her maths but it was quite a relief to us all when break came. Francesca got to do her magic painting.

And Sebastian was much appeased by... cake.

We had a short break because we were half an hour behind schedule anyway. And, actually, no one wanted to play outside and all are better when occupied.

Sebastian was happier after his cake and more content to play on his own. Perhaps the winging was just hunger but I thought he'd had a massive breakfast?!

Anyway, it was supposed to be literacy-proper (as opposed to Francesca doing her literacy book while I did special time with Elizabeth) so Francesca read one of her reading books to me, then wanted to finish her magic painting.

So, we cut literacy short to let Francesca paint on the understanding that we would start Science at 11.

And here are my experimenters!

Elizabeth tried to join in Science but it was not interesting enough for her. We had a tube of smarties on the table and I was helping them to come up with questions to investigate. We got some good ones.

"What else begins with 'sm'?" (Eliz)

"What's inside Smarties?" (Fran)

"How are Smarties made?" (Eliz)

And, prompted by me a bit:

"How many Smarties are in a tube?"

"Are there always the same number of smarties in a tube?"
"Which colour is there most of?"

We're planning to investigate how many smarties are in a tube. That'll give us enough scope to have fun counting smarties, to pick a suitable sample size (Francesca did initially suggest counting ALL the Smarties in the world) and make a results table.

Anyway, Sebastian kept trying to steal the Smarties and Elizabeth was overly keen to get them shared out so we quickly drew the lesson to a close and ate the sweets. Then it was lunchtime.

After lunch we did a quick French lesson. I went into their room where they were playing and took a toy dog puppet (he's called, ahem, Claude - at least during French lessons. Apparently he's called Ben at other times) and had a little chat with them for about 15 minutes. What are you called? How old are you? etc. Francesca was pretty up to speed with it all and Elizabeth catches on quickly. Sebastian climbed up to the top bunk with the girls and I and lay down on the pillow. He was ready for his nap but I was delaying because we were about to go out and I wanted him to sleep in the pushchair.

So then we did this:

Because a friend had booked us for a 'play' I suggested we all visit the Hatton Art Gallery where they have a 'help yourself' art cart in the afternoons. It was great! Sebastian slept and the girls beavered away for ages making many creations. We had the room all to ourselves.

Then, with school well and truly over, we got some snacks to take to the park where we even saw - to Francesca's great delight - a rabbit!!

We all walked home from town which took ages but it was very pleasant. Then our friend gave us some broad beans and the children podded them while I cooked some pasta for tea.

Lovely.

So I'm enjoying myself. I'm loving the 'school' day and all the organising. I'm behind with my bread blog work, though, and I wouldn't like to think that I had to totally shelve my own project to achieve quality schooling.

Keeping up with making the coloured timetable cards has been too onerous for the amount of notice they've taken of them (almost no notice at all).

Francesca has been saying that she wants to go into Year 1 with her friends. I don't comment, I'm just waiting to see how we all feel in a few weeks. I'd be kind of disappointed if she wants to go to school and I don't want her to. I don't even know how much choice to give her at this age. She's certainly better off at home in terms of energy and pleasantness. She's having loads more dry nights now she's not so tired and the relationship between myself and her and between the girls is more harmonious.

It's late yet again and I haven't properly planned tomorrow since I had expected a bird walk but Grandpa can't. I suppose we could do that ourselves but perhaps we'll go out somewhere instead and maybe take our literacy and numeracy books with us.

Beamish Open Air Museum

'Nuf said?! Zzzzzz