Harbottle Crags

Seymour was off rowing all day so we went hiking in the countryside. Harbottle Crags, for an amazing 4 mile walk, scrambling over boulders, squadging by a lake, pottering through woodland and, finally, a route march along the road back to the carpark.

The girls walked amazingly well and I gave myself a crazy workout, carrying Sebastian in the backpack with lunch and water on board as well. I really felt those hills!

The children totally loved climbing on the crags and we picnicked by the Drake Stone.

(That's a lake, not snow)

Beamish

The drift mine, an open-top tram, the carousel and the coconut Seymour won.

We are still here(!)

You may be forgiven for thinking that we'd packed up and left home, or that we have gone back to real school, or that blogging is dead.

None of that is true.

I'm not sure why I haven't posted anything in ages. A few excuses spring to mind and they include:

• I've been working hard on my bread website and that really is all I have time for in the evenings
• We've had a lot of holidays - family over from the States, trips away to Yorkshire and Holy Island, a Christening, a wedding... It's all shaken up our routine and cut the amount of academic stuff (in the nicest possible way!)
• The sun has been shining. We've been out a lot. Day trips to National Trust places, walks in the countryside, playing out in the street. It's been months!!! Months of winter during which we felt like hibernating and hardly socialised. Now, we're OUT! I've been saying to myself, "Maths in the winter and playing out in the summer." Might be a good idea.
• I got bored of blogging the same old stuff: picture of the children at the table, reports of Maths, English and violin. These things continue but I didn't feel like telling you about them, again, every day.

So now, I feel like sharing some pictures again but I'm not going to require myself to report every last detail of our days. Please assume that the English, Maths and violin continue apace, along with assorted other activities (lately we've done a lot of History, for example). I'm still going to devote the bulk of my time to my bread website but I'll pop back here and post whatever pictures I have, with brief explanations if I have time.

Thus, skimming breezily past several months of fantastic education, (undocumented, alas, so you'll have to take my word for it) I give you today:

A smiley boy trying to get in shot with his jigsaws that he was proudly doing.

Unfortunately, despite all that leaning and that expression, the jigsaws had to be pictured seperately but aren't they great?!

A girl writing a story about a brainy bear, all illustrated and complete with the dodgiest spellings I've seen in a while.

Another girl threading beads to make a shiny happy necklace.

There.

I'm off, but I'll try not to be gone so long this time :)

Art At The Hatton

Today's Hatton art session was about making a poster for your favourite film.

We had been asked to bring along images from our favourite films but my children have never really watched any films, just a lot of CBeebies. So, instead of film images, we bought a couple of CBeebies magazines to take along.

Sebastian did some cutting and sticking, nothing to do with the brief but hey!

Elizabeth did some lettering with a stencil for "Everything's Rosie" and I helped her to colour in the letters as per the programme logo.

Francesca did an Octonauts poster.

Afterwards we went to Caffe Nero for a quick top-up since lunch had been a hasty sandwich on the Metro between the airport (to meet their long-awaited cousins off the plane) and town (for the art class).

Habitats Fieldwork At Gibside

Had a really great day out at Gibside on Tuesday, with some other Home Ed families, doing a workshop on Habitats. The children found minibeasts in the woodland and did some pond dipping. We even had time for a play in the playarea. It was a lovely sunny day and not too cold, though windy. We stayed far too long because we really didn't want to stop having fun and go home!

Here are all the participants heading off to the pond:

Sebastian having a lunchtime siesta with a friend:

Elizabeth trying on some enormous wellies:

Sebastian hanging out with a big boy(!)

Sebastian playing house:

History Timeline Treasure Hunt

Yey! Back into it.

We've had a couple of slack weeks for Easter - of course we've still done plenty, including planting seeds, trips out and lots of art but still, it's nice to feel we've done a more 'on task' day today and it's been a full one.

The main attraction has been History. Following on from the timeline we made using photos from Francesca's lifetime, showing key events, my mum and dad have created a similar one for my first five years. It was presented to the children first thing this morning in the form of a treasure hunt, in which they had to find 15 pictures and captions, hidden in envelopes round the house.

Each child was looking for a particular type of envelope and each had a list of places to look.

At length, we had all the photos and captions, we just had to work out which ones went together. Then, there were fuller stories to read, to go with each event.

The children were very entertained by it all (well, the girls were, but Sebastian not so much).

Photos:

We started off with some instructions about whose envelopes were whose and what to do with the envelopes as you find them:

Then they were off! Francesca could read all the clues by herself and made enthusiastically swift progress. Elizabeth asked for help reading the locations and then raced to find her envelopes.

Here's Francesca searching under the settee cushion:

Meanwhile  Sebastian had decided that he had to have his hoody top on and would fasten the zip himself.

Clues were read:

"What the...?!"

Sebastian discovered that you could pick the stamps off the envelopes

The girls busily emptied envelopes and organised the photos

Sebastian wanted to throw the pieces of paper around, so we distracted him with "Maffs" on the iPhone.

At last, all the pictures had captions and accompanying stories.

Francesca set to work colouring in the lettering on her front cover for this project.

Elizabeth busied herself with a glue stick, fixing the pictures onto the stories so we could peg them onto our timeline (where they fitted perfectly, thanks mum!)

I had to finish the gluing because Elizabeth thought Sebastian's Maths game sounded fun

Here's the hive of activity:

Francesca coloured most of the lettering in purple because it's my favourite colour and this bit of History is about me.

After that, I needed a break from History - I wanted to gather my thoughts before we launched into the next tasks so I called a halt to it for now. The children went off to watch tv for a few minutes while I sorted some things I had to do. Then I called them back through to do playdough.

Francesca chose, instead, to do marzipan modelling, making some little marzipan shapes for us to eat later.

Sebastian enjoyed blending more playdough colours

Elizabeth made blueberry muffins.

Here are the marzipan creations being, er, created.

After that, I was getting peckish so I started to prepare for lunch. The playdough went away and Sebastian watched some more tv. Francesca did two pages of her Maths book, with Lego to help. She's learning how adding and subtracting are related and she seems to be getting the hang of it pretty quickly. The Lego helps.

Elizabeth rustled us up a batch of scones for lunch.

This afternoon, we went to the High Street to get some packed lunch things for tomorrow (more on that tomorrow, perhaps!) and then did some playing out, since it was so mild.

Francesca did her violin practise too, and made a birthday card for a friend. I feel as though we've been really busy, which is excellent.