The Benefits of 'Sleeping On It'

If you read yesterday's entry, Going with the (slow) Flow, you may remember that Middle got stuck while working on a Volcano acrostic.  Of course the beauty of Home Ed is that there was no pressure for him to have to complete it there and then, so rather than let him get frustrated and down on himself, I suggested he leave it until another day.  Well, it wasn't a long wait: he finished it today - I asked if he'd like to get the dictionary out this morning to see if we could find words beginning with the letters concerned, that might give him ideas. It worked a treat - it was so lovely seeing him light up with self-belief again, at being able to do something he had previously found to be difficult, just because sometimes all you need is to sleep on it.
It has been well documented that the brain has an amazing ability to continue working on problems while you rest over night - and it certainly proved to be the case for Middle.  The same thing that was so discouraging for him yesterday became an opportunity to triumph and feel good about himself the very next day.  It made me think about the school days: he would quite often get discouraged because he couldn't do something in time, or if he had the chance to come back to unfinished work, it could be up to a week later when inspiration had faded again.  I know when I was planning lessons that it was often frustrating to me to know that if the children didn't reach a certain target by the end of the lesson, it could be another week before they had chance to pick it up again - and a week can be too long, in terms of momentum.  So for Middle to be able to leave a tricky problem just for a day was ideal: no pressure to finish it immediately, but coming back to it with a rested and fresh mind soon enough to remember where he left off.
I know I'm a super-proud Mummy regardless, but I do think his finished article is just lovely!

Going with the (slow) Flow

It's been a slow day today - for no reason that I can see particularly, except that we've just had a fairly busy weekend.  It doesn't really matter though - we just go with the flow - and seeing as we all felt fairly sluggish today, a slow day it was.

We started off with MathsWhizz.  This time it was Eldest's turn to have problems logging on.  For some reason it wasn't working on his little notebook laptop, so I had to log on through mine - it worked fine on mine, but that had slowed us down.  Middle was logged on to the main PC in the study but somehow managed to turn the computer off three times, in the midde of an exercise!.  So he came and logged on to mine to finish his afte Eldest had finished.  Youngest has lost the privilege of going in the study at the moment, due to the chaos created (and things broken) when he has been in there recently - so he had to wait his turn on my laptop as well.  Consequently, by the time they had all finished MathsWhizz, about 2 hours had passed, instead of the usual forty minutes that it takes them on average when doing it simultaneously.

Youngest and I had some fun with words while waiting for his brothers to finish - we got out our magnetic boards and letters (I got them from Amazon years ago for a teaching resource - but I bet they still do them)... I made the alphabet and we sang the song together; Youngest made up his own "alphabet" of random letters that he read out to me; we had a 'quiz' where I said a word and Youngest tried to spell it; finally he was inspired by something he spotted out of the window, and had a go at spelling that too (I helped with the tricky bits)...

Once they had all finished their Maths (and letter fun), we had a game of Alpha Animals.  Youngest and Middle play with us, but they use the simpler version of the game while Eldest and I play the full version - and Middle was thrilled to win.  They were even more happy that Mummy lost (due in part to some impressive bluffing on the part of Eldest who steered me towards a certain answer on the card... I thought he was helping me; it turned out he was playing me!)  Youngest also showed significant prowess in the con stakes... on being asked for an animal (or bird, fish etc) that began with the letter H, he announced "hamonite".  When given a quizzial look from Mummy and protestations from his brothers, he totally brazened it out, saying "Yes!  It fights things with its hands, and lives in the Savannah!"  It was so funny, we couldn't help but laugh - he loved it.  Every now and then afterwards someone would mutter 'hamonite', and go off into fits of the giggles again.

This afternoon the boys watched "My Genius Idea" (CBBC), a programme encouraging creativity and inventiveness, and then I asked Eldest and Middle if they'd like to do some more on their lapbooks.  Eldest finished another page, and then decided that was enough - he just wanted to flop about.  Middle had a go at a 'Volcano' acrostic, coming up with some lovely ideas (such as the line "Lava pukes on the ground") - but got stuck on the 'O's, and was getting discouraged, so he put it away for another day.  The younger boys wanted to get crafty next - more specifically, doing their own crafty thing, as opposed to Mummy's suggestions - so I got the craft box out (the big one with stuff in that they can help themselves to without my nagging them not to waste things... well, that's the plan anyway, since the lesson learned last year in Craftboxes and Cocktails), and they had fun just experimenting with the contents.  I love the fact that they are still small enough to be excited by glitter and shiny things.  Eldest seems to have grown out of that now - but he was feeling too flobberly to get up to much by this point in the day anyway.  I sat with the younger two and had a play as well - Middle very generously told me I should put mine in an "art museum" (gallery)! 

by Youngest...

by Middle...

by Mummy...

So it may have been a slow day - but it was slow and peaceful (mostly!) - and any day with glitter in can't be a bad day.  Over all, that's a nice way to flow.

"My First Lapbook"

Just a quick post today, but I had to share...

Super proud Mummy here: Youngest has completed his first ever lapbook, as started in Wednesday's post, Farty Arty.  He only took two days to do it, which was a deliberate ploy on my part as he can be impatient (he has only two settings: super-fast and focused, or asleep!) so I felt it was important for his first experience of lapbooking to not take him too long.  I was especially proud as he's not really done any "proper" writing before (I tried him on a 'learning to write' workbook a while ago, but he wasn't interested)  I'm not interested in pressuring him to write asap, but thought I'd see if he was up for it for the sake of having a lap-book that he had done most of for himself... so I did dotted lines for him to 'write' over to form his letters.  His lines are wobbly, as is to be expected really, but he sat there, little tongue stuck out in concentration, and did the whole jolly lot!  Did he form all the letters correctly?  Nope - but again, I felt it was more important that his first experience of writing was an encouraging one, rather than me insiting that he do it all "properly".  He was so chuffed with himself - he can't wait to show Daddy and the rest of the family... and for Mummy to put it in her blog to show everyone else (Daddy, don't look at the photos!)

That's it for today - I hope all of you lovely Mummies out there get properly spoiled this Sunday (I personally am thinking a lie-in would be nice - but even more than that, to not do any cooking or cleaning all day, AND not have any mess to sort out on Monday.... you're still reading, right 'Daddy'? ;)  Happy weekend, everyone!

Under the Sea...

My brain is still whirring on how to home educate three different boys with different skills, passions and styles of learning - so hopefully there will be more on that when I've found something approaching a solution! Meanwhile, knowing how much it helps me to write down what we have done in a day, here goes today's 'doings'...

First of all we watched Curious Cat on how electricity gets to our homes, and how sewage is treated.  Then Eldest got his brothers to sit down & watch a documentary on the Barrier Reef - going into more detail than CBBC's 'Barney's Barrier Reef' (which we also watched later). I loved ths way he asked them questions to get them involved... if he's learned that from copying my example, I 'll be happy.  At one point the boys argued about who got which blanket to snuggle under, and we talked about them finding peaceful solutions (not expecting me to intervene all the time)...  this is becoming a theme at the moment!

Following the programme, Eldest and Middle decided to do some Barrier Reef art of their own making.  Free reign of the craft box was permitted, with the usual rule that they tidy up after themselves!  Youngest was enthused by the craft box contents, and had a merry old time exploring and creating.  No set plan - he was just enjoying himself.

Eldest's "Manta Ray from Above"

(he put a lot of thought into how to get the right effect of the waves over the  top of the ray).

 

Eldest's "Black-tipped Reef Shark"

Middle's "Undersea World" 

(using sellotape and glitter to get his under-water effect)

... and another little pictoral note for Mummy from Middle, showing both of us and a love heart

Youngest's arty creation

 

Then they all wrote some sea-themed poems (Youngest dictated - as did Middle, who wasn't in the mood for writing today - he still shies away from written 'work', although he loves leaving me little "I love you" messages).  Poems included at the end...

Middle found some leftover party balloons and played with static electricity making his hair stick up, sticking it to the wall, and then using it to move water like this...  it was quite tricky getting the right strength flow of water, but we did see it work in the end...

We've also been watching birds in our garden & hoping they all come back on Saturday morning when we do the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch.  This morning we had ten long-tailed tits and a female greater spotted woodpecker, among many others.  I also took some photos of the prints in the snow to see if we could work out what they belonged to... it's not as easy as you'd think!  We did see some nice wing prints though...

 

 mystery prints (the big trainer prints are mine, for scale - I'm guessing the first ones may be squirrels...)

 we think these are blackbird footprints...

 can you see the wing prints on the right?

Oh, and I've discovered Pinterest.  I joined a few weeks ago, and am really getting the hang of it now.  I love having a one-stop place I can go to to stash all the ideas I find online, neatly grouped, and easy to find again... perfect for Home Ed!  My back hasn't been feeling good this week (especially today), so I've been spending a lot of time sitting still - and Pinterest is making me feel better about not being so active as usual, as I can track down ideas for future HE projects and store them somewhere where I know I can find them all again - it's great :)  In fact, the static electricity/ water experiment above was one that I had pinned earlier this week, so it's working already - hooray!

That's it for now - I'll leave you with the boys' poems while I go & top up the hot water bottle for my back ;)

Sharks - by Eldest
The goblin shark
lives in the dark
The mako shark is fast,
It moves with a blast
The great white
Likes a big fight
The whale shark
is bigger than a park
The sleeping shark is blind
Like most sharks it has a tail on its behind

Sea Poem - by Middle
I like it underwater because there's not any thunder.
It is pretty and peaceful.
There are beautiful fish all different colours and shapes, like the silvery sunfish and the spotty clown triggerfish
The jellyfish come in all sizes, some small and some big.
They are see-through and pinkish.
I like the beautiful coral that makes lots of beautiful fish come towards it. 
It makes me feel calm and joyful

Under The Sea - by Youngest
I would love to be under the sea
but not the sea with sharks in it.
I want to go in the sea
but not with piranhas in it
I want to be underwater in the sea
Just with lovely fish that don't eat us - that's all.

Mini-Structure and Pop Art

I love Facebook.  I was in a conversation on it the other day, and identifying with that familiar HE struggle between the heart's love of the unschooling philosophy, and the head's need for a degree of structure, for sanity's sake.  This term, although we're only a week in, I feel like we've struck a balance that works for us.  Every day that we're home, the boys (particularly the two older ones) do half an hour (or more if they like - they sometimes do) of Reading Eggspress and MathsWhizz, while I do some reading or maths games with Youngest.  He stalled on Reading Eggs last term, and is still consolidating the skills learned and building his confidence to be able to go back to where he left off.  Also, most days we do an activity of Mummy's suggestion (the boys have the power of veto) - from a list of ideas.  Eg yesterday we played Middle's brilliant new game (another Christmas present), Scabs and Guts.  It's a board game with lots of questions on the body, healthy living etc - it seemed that every other question involved poo, snot & other not-so-refined topics... the boys loved it, of course, and Middle was particularly delighted when one card asked him to do a demonstration of someone with food-poisoning... his acted-out vomiting was very convicing - yeuch!

So other than half an hour of online curriculum in Maths or English, and one activity from Mummy's "what shall we do today" suggestion box, the boys are free to explore, watch, play etc as their interests dictate.  If the TV goes on they watch something that we have recorded (from BBC2's Learning Zone, or CBBC and CBeebies).  Horrible Histories is a particular favourite of Eldest's, and the younger two are currently enjoying William Whiskerson (geography) and Curious Cat (design & technology), which we recorded last term. There are a few great programmes on the internet too (we really like Grid Club) but more often than not, they're just off creating or having fun - not so much evidence of screentime this term ('hooray' says Mummy!)  Sometimes they need/ want my involvement, often they are happy to just get on with whatever it is.  It certainly all seems to be working so far :)  People who are purely unschooling may well suggest that we're not doing it properly by having any structure, and those who are fully structured may be horrified at my doing "so little" with the boys - but it works for us.  At the moment, anyway.  When it stops working, we will find what works better, and adapt.

So yesterday our learning (that I was aware of) looked something like this: Eldest and Middle were on Reading Eggspress while Youngest and I read a few small books from the Oxford Reading Tree - him sounding out & blending the simple words, me reading the ones that he couldn't/ didn't want to read - and of course, having fun chatting about the illustrations, to keep it fun (given the choice of 'sharing a story' or 'practicing reading', I know which seems more appealing!).  Middle baked some smartie cookies, but somehow they all got eaten before I remembered to take a photo - oops; Eldest read his new book, "Predators" (Steve Backshall); we all played the aforementioned delightfully disgusting board game, 'Scabs and Guts', and then Eldest (and Middle) played camera challenges where I had to give them a challenge of something to take a photo of  (eg something with a triangle in it, something with spots/ stripes, something shiny etc.   All in all, a lovely day!  Like I said though, that was just the learning that I noticed - so much of a person's learning just cannot be quantified.  They were off playing and creating for hours - who knows what they were absorbing while enjoying themselves!

And today? Well, we've had MathsWhizz; Horrible Histories and William Whiskerson on TV; Youngest has been further exploring the CBeebies website; Middle counted the bones in his foot (then we looked it up to check the "real" answer); and Mummy's contribution was to make some Pop Art.  I showed the boys Andy Warhol's 'Marilyn' prints in our book, "Famous Paintings."  Eldest remembered it from the from the Art programme they watched last term (recorded from the BBC's learning zone), and they were all keen to get the paints out and have a go at our own version.  I looked online to see if there were any instrictions to follow (I'm not totally confident when it comes to teaching art), but as I couldn't find any, we worked it out as we went along.  In case you fancy a go, this is what we did...

Pop-Art Self-Portraits

We wanted to do four colour variations - and four x A4 would have been too big I felt, so I folded an A4 page in half, to give us a smaller starting area each.  We each drew a basic head (and shoulders) self-portrait.  We are blessed with a photocopy function on our printer, so I made three further A5 copies of each self portrait.  If you don't have access to a photocopier, you could just trace the simple outlines.

   

Next we mixed six colours of paint (I only keep paint in the primary colours plus black and white at home - partly because of limited storage space, partly because it provides plenty of practice at mixing colours).  We decided the best look would be to limit ourselves to using five colours each.  We laid our four identical self-portraits out in front of each of us, and started painting.  It worked better for us to do a kind of production line: rather than completing one self-portrait at a time, we each did all four faces first (making sure each was a different colour), then each mouth etc...

   

That was as much as Youngest could handle really (ie just colouring his faces in with different colours on each page).  With Eldest and Youngest we looked at Warhol's colour variation and talked about how they weren't all uniform - in some of them the eyes and lips were the same colour; in others it was the lips and hair etc.  As we went along we tried to not only vary the features that were the same colour on each self-portrait, but also make sure there was a balance of colour across all four pieces. 

When we had finished filling our faces with colour we looked at how Warhol used colour to make bolder backgrounds than just leaving them white - so (with the exception of Youngest, who declared his to be finished), we assessed our faces so far and looked at which colours would work best as backgrounds to tie the four mini prints into one work of art (that sounds more pontificatory than it actually was).  Most importantly, it was fun, and we're all really happy with our completed "artwork"

 Mummy

 Eldest

 Middle

 Youngest

And then this afternoon we had a play date with the boys' old school friends at a soft play area - so now they're all nicely exhausted and happy from another lovely day.  And what's more, it's now the weekend, so we get Daddy at home too - hooray!  I'm off to enjoy the weekend - hope you have a good one too!

Excitement in Pyjamas

Given that today was a low-key pyjama day as has become our habit, it was still a pretty exciting day, most especially for Middle.  Today he "graduated" from Reading Eggs (aimed at 3-7 year olds) to Reading Eggspress (aimed at 7-13 year olds).  He did several lessons in one hit on the last level today as he was so excited to see that he was nearly at the end, and he couldn't wait to be on the same programme as his big brother.  Great was the rejoicing in the house when the Reading Eggspress screen flashed up, and he got to choose his new avatar!  Definitely a proud Mummy moment.  See, Middle struggled academically at school.  He was easily bright enough to do the work, he just didn't fit in the system, and eventually became so depressed that he wouldn't even try.    In six months he has gone from being slightly behind according to Reading Eggs, to ahead for his age.  Now that doesn't actually mean a lot as far as I'm concerned - I always knew he was capable, and I really don't set much store on performance age etc - that's a trap perpetuated by the league tables etc found in the state school system  It's just nice to have a kind of measurable evidence of progress for those who aren't sure of HE, and of course for me if I'm having a wobble.  What means much more to me is that since starting our home education journey Middle has relaxed so fully, I feel like I have my gorgeous, happy, loving boy back.  And quite simply, he was really happy at starting Reading Eggspress - so I am happy for him!

All three boys are now total "Wild Tales" (CBBC) addicts, as evidenced by their excitement at the start of the week being equal to the start of another series - and this week's stars are families of caribou, African wild dogs and polar bears.  There was an entertaining (for me) moment when the caribou gave birth to the baby star of the show, and Eldest asked me what that big red thing was, still hanging from between the caribou's legs.  I explained about placentas etc, and confirmed when asked that yes, I had one for each of my babies - but when I offered to find a picture online to show him, I was answered with an unequivocal "Ewww NO THANKS!".  Apparently that's an education too far right now!  (boys are weird: I am expected to come running to admire the size of their latest toilet-blocking faecal product, but looking at a picture of a placenta online is gross?  Go figure...)
Anyway (moving right along), following Wild Tales we watched an episode of the fun and informative Richard Hammond's Blast Lab, and learned about the surface tension of water.  We did a quick impromptu demonstration of water filled to the brim of a glass, to see if the boys could see the slight dome shape made by the water surface as we added a little more water.  They could, and were dutifully impressed... but were more excited by the splashes made when Mummy accidentally dropped too much water in suddenly - who said education isn't allowed to be exciting?

A different kind of excitement was also provided today by our Christmas Decorations book.  Normally I would prefer something less prescriptive - something that we could design ourselves and be a bit more organic in our creating - but this weekend was pretty full of house-sorting (we culled the toys in Middle and Youngest's room ready for Christmas, and are trying to restore the study into a functional space, rather than the dumping ground it has become) - and I ran out of time to have a look for some more creative crafts or other activities, so we grabbed this book off the shelf, and got the scissors & sellotape out.  It may not have seemed that exciting to me, but anything that reminds the boys of the fast-approaching season is guaranteed to riase the levels of enthusiasm in the house!  And an hour or so later, we had quite a few pretty Christmas decorations ready to be hung/ stuck to windows...

The lovely thing was that even though I personally found the ready-to-cut patterns a bit uninspiring, the boys really got into it - and very quickly came up with further ideas of their own.  Eldest made a rather complicated 3D Christmas tree model that took him a while (cue much muttering), but he persevered with his design and the end product looked great.  Then he followed it with a stand-up santa hat, and a star decoration.  Middle made some decorations out of cellophane and card - and Youngest flitted between making decorations and drawing letters with a stencil he had found.  He was so excited by producing his own letters, bless him - I guess he's ready to learn to write then!  Sadly I can't post photos of the boys' original decorations as they seem to have been squirreled away, probably in the boys' bedrooms... well, I suppose I should be impressed that the bedroom-tidyness lasted a whole day!

And you think I'M mad...?

The Education System in this country is in crisis.  Insanity rules.  Take three stories from this week's news:

1 - Problem: school standards are slipping. Solution: introduce "rigorous" testing of those wanting to undergo teacher training, implying no confidence in the dedicated, over-worked and under-supported teachers we already have in place (well, Michael Gove did call them "whingers"), and also contradicting the bizarre recent suggestions that state schools should be free to employ unqualified teachers...?
2 - Problem: innocent children are being bombarded with highly sexualised images etc (you just have to watch an MTV track to acknowlege the soft porn that is rampant in just the popular music industry).  Solution: introduce 'porn' lessons in school (yes, even primary school) to help children learn to handle it!!!  I've had two days to process this particular piece of reporting and I'm still almost speechless at the stupidity of the suggestion.
3 - Problem: Ten thousand students were unfairly graded below a 'C' in their English GCSEs, negatively affecting their further education & career choices.  Solution: Do nothing about it, resulting in the exam boards being taken to court by an alliance of schools and councils, who continue to use the same exam boards while taking legal action against them!
I know many people think Home Educators are at best brave/ mad or at worst negligent/ abusive for keeping their children out of the state education system - but when I see news reports like this, I do feel vindicated.  The mischievous side of me sees a bizarre conspiracy theory: perhaps Mr Gove & pals are actually in favour of Home Education after all, and are doing their best to provoke parents to leave the struggling state system...

On a more personal level, I am glad to report we all survived Manic Week.  More than that - we all enjoyed it.  And most miraculously of all, my house survived too: I don't have to spend this weekend tidying and cleaning - now there's a result!  We're looking forward to a slightly less busy week next week... returning to our more typical HE life.  Of course, the boys have still been learning even while we've been socialising and having our version of 'half-term'.  We've had lots of reading, diary/ letter writing, drawing, exercising, creating, role play, counting - and lots and lots of playing.  Today at one point they were investigating how many revolting words they could spell out with the fridge magnets, prompted by Middle who usually leaves me loving little messages but today called me to the kitchen with suppressed giggles in anticipation of Mummy's reaction to the word he had spelled out - "vomit". He was thrilled when I dutifully hammed up my disgusted response, so of course had to work out more words to gross me out, with help from his co-conspirators!

Well, I'm off to pluck my eyebrows, lest tomorrow's photos show two hairy caterpillars crawling underneath my newly immaculate sleek & glossy fringe...  Happy weekend, everyone :)

PS just for you:  quote of the week -

"Education is a social process; education is growth; education is not a preparation for life but is life itself"
 - John Dewey

System is Rebooting...

Rebooting my internal system that is (not a schedule kind of system) - just a complete "switch off and restart".  When my laptop/ PC freezes or starts 'throwing a wobbly' (usually because there are too many processes being computed - hmmm...), the first thing I do is switch off and start again.  So I'm doing the same for myself after my HE wobble last week - just switching off and starting again.  Switching off = no restrictions, no expectations, no suggestions - as mentioned on Saturday's post, Deschooling Top-up.  And just enjoying my boys and celebrating who they are... that's what I call starting again: focusing on the main thing, which is my beautiful children.  So I'm deliberately avoiding looking at the so-called "educational achievements" of today, & focusing instead on the fun we had together (none of which, I hasten to add, was instigated by me - hooray)...

I had some lovely cuddly time with Youngest: enjoying tickles and giggles; reading 'Percy the Park-keeper stories (his current favourite); playing at puppies and tigers; and having quite a surreal conversation where our socked feet turned into aliens who had got here from space via a flying van.  We also spent some time together on my laptop, printing off pictures to colour in, and playing the Alphablocks game on the CBeebies website, which he loves.

Middle and I had some cute little chats (very sincere on his part while I just tried not to kiss his serious little face) about when he can go camping with Daddy again and have a campfire - and also about thinking we should do some more cooking (sadly no baking possible until the groceries arrive tomorrow)... and we had a lovely snuggly time making up stories with each other - starting off fairly innocuously with a a hedgehog who farted his way almost to the moon and back (inspired partly I think by the awesome Felix Baumgartner's stratosphere jump that we watched live yesterday - altough I suspect his fuel was a little more refined).  Our story then progressed to a whole new level of surrealism.  I'll spare you the details, but just mention that it involved shrink-rays, butt-holes and exploding eyeballs.  It was such a precious time with my boy, having him giggling so much that he was struggling to get the words out to finish the story :)

Eldest has spent most of the day on the computer, which is not as isolating as it sounds.  He has a little notepad computer that has a broken screen so he hasn't been able to use it for a while.  Clever Daddy hooked it up to a normal monitor for him yesterday, so he can still use the laptop & all the things he had saved on it.  So today we spent some time together uploading all of his photos, and I showed him how to edit them & play around with effects etc in Picasa - my favourite free downloadable photo-editing (and sharing) software.  He had a great time - has been waiting to do it for ages, so it was lovely to get some time to spend helping him make it happen.  This was one of his favourite works of art, called "my alien Daddy"...

At one point today I did ask them to come away from their respective screens, so they could rest their eyes - otherwise they'd have stayed on the various computers etc all day which would not have been healthy.  Not a set restriction, just common sense in my opinion...  Anyway, Youngest found my set of cuisenaire rods and they all played with those for a while, then Middle and Youngest went and jumped in the leaves that are accumulating rapidly on the trampoline (hooray for fresh air) while Eldest found more things to take photos of.  He also drew some comic-strips that beautifully capture the juxtaposed realities found in his beloved Calvin & Hobbes, but the first one of which sadly I can't share here as he mentions himself and his brother by name.  I will have to transcribe & hope you catch some of the fun:
box 1: picture of snow leopard, with caption: "(Eldest) the snow-leopard creeps up on his prey"
box 2: picture of snow leopard leaping, with caption: "and then pounces on his prey"
box 3: picture of snow leopard on top of deer, with caption: "he grabs his prey tightly"
box 4: picture identical to box 3, except it is two boys, named as Eldest on top of Middle
Hmmm, it definitely loses something by not being able to see it. Well, here's his second one...

Before you ask (not that you would), I'm not sharing this as an academic achievement - I'm sharing it cos it's my blog and I'll brag if I want to... because he's my boy and he makes me laugh :)
In fact, laughs have figured highly in today's rebooting session... so that's the rest of the week planned out then: laughter!

Abusive? Moi?

What a surreal evening I had yesterday!  As many of you know, I usually post a link to my blog on my Facebook page,  and a friend sent me a message yesterday teatime to say that when she clicked on the link it had sent her a warning to say that it (my blog entry) had been reported as potentially abusive!  When I asked a few others to check for me, most of them also received the same warning - although some (on Chrome and Firefox) didn't, and a resourceful few managed to ignore the warning and read the blog post anyway!  It had been shared on two other pages that I know of, and on one page the link refused to work at all, while the link on the other page worked easily with no warning!  All too strange for my non-technical brain!  The big question was: was it a Facebook glitch or someone playing a prank?  I found it quite funny, given that the post was about Housework: it is conceivable that some reader was either bored half to death or deeply offended (I jest) - but then a link to another blog post seemed to show the same warning, and it wasn't even about housework!  All very odd.  Anyway, it seems to be sorted now, but I just want to say thank you to you gorgeous people who helped with the "investigation", joined in with the indignation, and ultimately logged on to my blog so many times that the reported post and yesterday's test post turned out to be the most viewed in September!  You are all wonderful :) 

So anyway, on to today (assuming no warning is given that stops you logging on this time)... our usual lazy Pyjama Monday wasn't quite to order today as I had to take one of the boys out to see the doctor.  Happily, our awesome lodger was able to stay at home with the other two who had lots of fun making badges and decorations, playing with our Slimy Slugs kit, dressing up and generally having fun :)  After that, once the patient and I were home again, we all enjoyed what has been my favourite craft so far, in terms of simplicity and finished result.  A friend shared a link (sorry, I can't find it now) to a blog where a stained glass window had been made over time by glueing tissue paper directly on to a window.  I commented to my friend that as we rent, I'd probably find a way of doing it onto sticky-backed plastic so it wasn't so hard to remove when we move house - and so we could keep it for posterity!  Well, today was the day (step by step guide included at end of blog if you fancy having a go)...

 Window art: Eldest's fish and Middle's slug

Mummy and Youngest's Heart (he enjoyed it, but needed quite a bit of help)

Also today we had computer time: Eldest on MathsWhizz, Middle on Reading Eggs and Youngest on the CBeebies website. Eldest is still working his way through our set of Horrible Histories books that we've had for years, but he's only recently discovered. It just goes to show - it's all about waiting until they're ready. He wasn't interested for ages but is loving them at the moment, and really enjoys quizzing us from whichever book he's currently reading (today it was the Barmy British Empire). Oh, and we mustn't forget the baking: Youngest made some yummy cinamon shortbread today, cut into owl shapes...

There were a couple of things that I wanted to share from the weekend too... while we were in the car travelling somewhere, Middle, who hd been quiet for a while, suddenly announced that two-times-tables are just the same as three-times-tables really!  Well, Eldest wanted to correct him immediately (it's a first-born thing), but I asked Middle out of interest why he thought so.  It turns out he had done the two-times table in his head as far as six, and then the same with the three-times table.  Well that led to a lengthy conversation that covered not only the afore-mentioned times tables, but also odd and even numbers, addition techniques, patterns and other mathematical concepts.  My little man who had developed such a strong antipathy to Maths while at school was actually spontaneously working it out in his head for pleasure, enjoying finding patterns and such!  It was a lovely HE Mummy moment :)  Another one was noticing how Eldest's vocabulary is increasing rapidly, thanks at least in part to his love of Calvin and Hobbes (I included the link there in case anyone exists out there who has missed this genius comic-strip)... I particularly enjoyed it when Daddy came downstairs marvelling that Eldest had just accurately explained to him the meaning of the word "anthropomorphise" :)
 
So that was our day (and some of our weekend)!  And for anyone who fancies trying out our window art, here are the guidelines to our craft that I promised earlier (sorry I didn't take photos of every stage - we got a bit involved!)...

Stained-glass effect Window art
resources: sheets of sticky-backed plastic; tissue paper in assorted colours; black paper or thin card; scissors, pencil, an uncluttered table (very important)

1)  Take an A4 sheet of black paper and draw an outline of a large simple shape (heart, fish, slug - or something else...).  Draw an identical shape, about 1cm smaller inside the original shape.  Cut around the inside and outside of the shape, leaving you with a thick shape outline...

2)  Peel the backing off the sticky-backed plastic (keep the backing paper), leaving the plastic sticky-side up on the table.  Place your shape outline in the centre of the plastic.  Cut an even number of 1cm wide strips to act as spokes, radiating out from the central shape and dividing the outer area into an even number of sections.

3)  Roughly cut/ tear the backing paper and replace it onto the plastic (shiny side down), leaving only the central shape exposed.  This is really important - it seems like a faff, but if you dont do it you are highly likely to get random bits of tissue/ other stuff stuck to the bit of plastic that you're not working on (and it's really annoying!)...

4)  Choose tissue paper in 3 complimentary shades of colour to fill your shape with (for our heart we used shades of yellow/orange).  Tear into small pieces (e irregularity of torn pieces is more effective than if cut with scissors) and place onto the exposed plastic inside our outline.  Fill the shape (leaving no sticky bits exposed)

5)  Remove backing paper, a bit at the time to complete the outer area.  Choose two sets of two complimentary shades which contrast with the colour in the shape - eg for our heart we chose two shades of green and two shades of pink/purple.  Complete an outer section at a time with small ripped pieces of tissue paper, alternating colours between each section..

6)  When the entire piece of plastic is covered with tissue paper, you may like to use scissors and trim the edges off the plastc as the tissue paper can look a bt tatty.  The finished product can be stuck to the window using blu-tack :)