Aboriginal Art

Having just written a huge blog post I thought I'd better stop where I was and do a new one on what we actually did today.  Now we have  rediscovered our groove, I wanted to share our day as it's been lovely.

It started with me reminding the boys that it was time to do Maths Whizz.  Youngest found a maths workbook that he wanted to do instead, so of course I said that was fine.  Eldest promptly went to find a workbook as well and chose to do two pages.  Again, fine.  Middle had to have a look for one, but came rushing back enthusiastically clutching a cursive handwriting book.  Well, I wasn't going to say no, just because it was supposed to be maths day (especially because he is usually a most reluctant writer), so he had handwriting practice instead.  All happy, all good!

Then I said we needed to go into town, but Eldest reminded me that we hadn't read their Bibles together today, so first we read from Youngest's Jesus Storybook Bible (which is totally lovely), followed by Middle's God and Me daily reading book (a bit young for him I think, but he loves it), with Eldest reading the passage that Middle's book referred to, from his Explorers Bible.  Today wasn't strictly the allocated reading for today's date, but Middle wanted to read one of the missed ones from previous days as it was about hugs.  We all appreciated that subject - plenty of opportunity for practical experience!

Then it was time to go into town.  We had a parcel to post as we have been taking part in a Culture Swap.  We'd not done one before, so started with a mini one, where we had to include three or four things that represented our summer here in the UK, and send it to our swap partner (this time in Germany).  Obviously there were a lot of outdoors things involved from us: seashells from the beach; a bug viewer and British bug ID sheet, sticks of ice-cream flavoured rock, and a recipe for Eton Mess (best if made with fruit from the local PYO farm).  We posted our parcel off this morning, and the boys were thrilled when they turned the TV on later to find that the Lingo Show (CBeebies) was in German today.

While in town we also popped into the bank to pay in a cheque, and I was thrilled when the cashier commented on how well the boys were behaving.  I confessed that the promise of a doughnut as reward for good behaviour was doubtless part of the reason - but still, it is always lovely to have people comment on how lovely the boys are (I mean, I know they are, but it's nice to have others notice too!)

When we got back we had an art 'session', planned the previous evening.  I didn't want to get paints out as the only available table was the one in the study (we try not to get paints near the computer), so I found some examples of aboriginal art and got our pastels ready.  When I showed the boys the art examples, the conversation went via a quick history lesson (convicts and the British colonies), followed by geography lesson (look at the globe, talk about the difference between northern and southern hemispheres, native wildlife), and then we got creative.

First we drew an outline of our chosen Australian creature (Youngest - snake; Middle - lizard; Eldest - great white shark; Mummy - lizard), and cut them out.  We chose a second piece of paper (contrasting colour) and decorated our creatures with pastels.  Then we glued our creatures to the backing paper and got busy with pastel dotted outlines.  All three boys needed a break in between 'dotting' but were happy to come back and finish their pictures without my needing to prompt them, and they were all happy with their finished pictures, so that was a real success - great work!

 Youngest's 'Snake'

 

 Middle's 'Lizard'

 Eldest's 'Great White Shark'

 Mummy's 'Lizard'
(if I had known Middle was going to do one too I would have done something else so as not to
put him off, but as it was he was quite happy to do the same as me)

This afternoon it was too hot for the boys to go outside, so they stayed inside in the cool and took turns playing Minecraft while I wrote my blog.  Oh, and Eldest and I watched a programme recommended by Daddy on finding the Giant Squid: a fascinating and strangely beautiful creature.  All in all, that was a lovely day!

PS While in town this morning I bought myself an 'academic year' diary (because it was the only sort available), so I can note down a quick summary of each day's educational exploits.  It really helps me to have a record of what we've been doing!

Mellow Monday

We had a busy weekend away this weekend, visiting family, meeting up with old friends from the church we were part of when we got married a LONG time ago, and then celebrating my brilliant nephew's 18th birthday with more family.  It was a lovely weekend, although I was glad to get home having had to drive through heavy snow in the dark on the way back.  I'm always so happy every time I stop and register that weekends away are no problem, because tired boys (and Mummy) can have a lay-in and lazy day the next day if necessary.

So this morning we got up very slowly and gently.  The boys drifted downstairs and were allowed one programme before breakfast (they chose a programme they had recorded called Splatalot), then breakfast, then Reading Eggspress.  I don't want them to feel crowded or harrassed, so more often than not I tend to leave the boys to it and let them know they can call me if they need help - but today I stayed with Middle to have a look at it together, and I'm glad I did - he had got stuck and was playing the games rather than ask for help.  He had still been learning while playing, so it wasn't a disaster, but I was glad for the opportunity to go through it together.  He obviously still has a problem with feeling bad if he can't do something first time (even something he has never learned, bless him).  Anyway, we went through it togethe and chatted about the bits he was getting stuck on, then he whizzed through the other bits, happy to be progressing.  He had got stuck on not knowing the definitions of nouns, pronouns, verbs etc, so I'm going to print off a sheet for him with the definitions so he can stick it to the desk and have it to refer to all the time.  So that was lovely, seeing his confidence grow - and making a mental note for Mummy to keep a closer eye on him to check that he isn't struggling but not asking for help (it's hereditary it seems: I never asked for help at school/ college either).  Well after that he carried on with some of the Reading Eggspress games while Youngest and I went on Reading Eggs on my laptop.  Youngest totally whizzed through it again - he picked it back up again last week after a good few months off - and I'm still astounded at how, during his time off, he has mastered the thing that he was stuck on!  I know it's true that we all need time off to process things and that children given that space really do progress naturally without needing to be drilled - but it's still amazing to see it happen before your eyes!

Other than their online curricula we watched "321 Go" (a Maths programme recorded from BBC's Learning Zone) on fractals and symmetry, which was lovely, because it tied in really well with the art I had planned for today.  Following on from our 'painting with scissors' art on Friday in Moodswings, Muffins and Matisse, we did some more cutting out, but this time using lines of symmetry to create 'positive' and 'negative' images:  We used an A4 piece of paper as a background sheet with a line down the middle (the line of symmetry), and then an A5 piece of paper to draw one half of a symmetrical shape/ image, and then cut it out and flipped it over the line of symmetry - and then glued the pieces down.  I think the pictures show more clearly what I mean...

 Mummy's 'Face' - the example I made to show the boys what I meant

Middle's 'Ball'

Eldest's 'Lightsaber Duel'

Youngest's 'Shapes'

Middle's 'Octopus'

Eldest's 'Squid'

 Mummy's 'Snowflake' (that took AGES!)

Following that, the boys wanted to watch "Fierce Earth:Tsunami", recorded from CBBC.  I wasn't at all sure because for some weird reason tsunamis - more than any other natural disaster - give me nightmares, & I was concerned for the boys.  They were all sure they wanted to see it though, and it was a children's programme after all so on it went.  Actually it turned out to be quite positive for me too as it focused on survivor stories... so next time I dream about a tsunami I can just climb a palm tree in my dream & all will be well! (I know, there aren't many palm trees in Hertfordshire - but then we're not exactly on the coast either... nobody said fears had to be rational!)

And that was it!  The rest of the day mostly involved pottering, relaxing and playing, cosying up inside and looking at the snow outsaide (we weren't even tempted to go outside in it, we were that tired!) - basically, the perfect Monday after a busy weekend away!

We love Mondays

I LOVE Mondays!  No more dreading the start of the week: nowadays we really look forward to our Pyjama Mondays (though I do get dressed, as you know).  Mondays are usually such lovely days, filled wth gentle, flexible activities... making sure the boys are keeping up with their jobs (Eldest unloads the dishwasher; Youngest and Middle take it in turns to empty the washing machine into the tumble dryer/ empty the dryer), doing a bit of online Maths/ English, creating art/ baking, playing - and this week Monday also marked the start of new lapbooks for Eldest and Middle - maybe that will continue for however long this lapbook season lasts.  Eldest, bless him, worked really hard and completed his lapbook on Friday evening, because he wanted to show it to family who we were visiting on Saturday - you can see the finished result at the end of this post.  He and I are really proud!

So this morning I asked if the boys would like to make some bread.  They were really enthusiastic (they love both being violent in their kneading (bashing) and being creative in the shapes of their rolls), so that was a lovely start to the day.

We had MathsWhizz while the dough was proving, then they made a start on their new lapbooks while it baked.  Eldest has chosen Desert Animals as his topic.  I had suggested the World Wars as it's one of his favourite subjects, but no - he wanted to do another "animal-y one", so that's what he's doing.  He wanted to repeat the format of his Ocean lapbook, so I've made another mini book out of a few square-cut folders.  Middle is happy with the smaller, more interactive version, which is good as I bought fifty envelope files for the purpose!  His chosen subject is the Human Body - a topic that he appears to find endlessly fascinating.  Today he asked me if he could watch the Rock n Learn DVD that we have on the subject, and I had to keep pausing every time we got to a different system (msucular, skeletal, nervous etc) so he could copy it down!  I wouldn't even have tackled something that involved myself, but he was full of vision, so away he went - it just goes to show, even the most reluctant worker will put effort into something they really enjoy!

 (he hasn't labelled it yet, but hopefully some of the systems are obvious!)

We had our yummy bread rolls for lunch, then decided to do a little art, based on Antony Gormley's "Field for the British Isles".  Eldest really liked it as it reminded him of Calvin (from Calvin & Hobbes)'s army of mini snowmen.  Anyway, we got the playdough out and after making a few little people, soon realised that we didn't have enough.  I didn't have any cream of tartar in the house either, so couldn't make any more.  We took a photo of what we had made so far, then packed it away into tubs until we have replenished our playdough stocks!

More tidying up after that (Youngest was having a "pull everything off the shelves" kind of day) - and an improvised spot of circuit training (the only drawback to pyjama days being those days when they need to let off some steam... so I find ways for them to exercise indoors) and that was our Monday!  Loved it!   And finally, before I log off, here it is (pause for another proud Mummy drumroll): Eldest's first ever lapbook...

Party Weekend

Wow, busy few days!  It was Middle's birthday this weekend, so since Friday its all been about getting ready for the celebrations.  He had a party on Saturday afternoon - I don't know whether that was more for him or me, as last year's party for him was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me, regarding school.  It was when he invited his entire (small) class to his party - he's not the sort of child to leave anyone out - but to cut a long story short they basically (with one beautiful exception) boycotted his party.  That was my penny-dropping-with-a-loud-clang moment: I knew of Home Ed and definitely liked the idea, but I had bought into the socialisation ideal of school life - and at that point (when I heard that one of his "friends" was persuading their peers not to go to the party) I realised what a fallacy the socialising argument was - I had sent the boys to school so they could make friends and have fun social experiences, but for Middle at least it was quite the opposite.  It was tortuous to watch and obviously I still haven't quite got over it.  Judging from his behaviour (showing increased social anxiety) in the few days leading up to his party I would guess that he hadn't forgotten either.  So it was such a joy to have a really lovely party this year.  Considering the dreadful weather and road conditions, the fact that only one of the invitees couldn't make it speaks volumes.  He had so many people he wanted to invite, I even had to restrict numbers, as there's only so much our house will take!  And they were all happy to come, happy to join in and make it a lovely day for Middle. Perfect!

Other than the party planning there have obviously been lots of wintry excursions: snowball fights, sledging etc.  And speaking of making the most of the weather, a few weeks ago we made some giant ice marbles to put in the garden when the temperatures dropped below freezing - and we used them this weekend to decorate outside for Middles party.  Making them was a bit trial-and-error - we eventually got them to work by putting a squirt of food colouring directly into the deflated balloon, then putting the neck of the balloon over the end of the tap and filling it with water that way (holding it so the weight didn't pull it off).  We tied knots in the balloon necks and put them in our freezer.  Friends who have also made them have tried freezing theirs in the garden once the temperatures dropped below zero, but I have heard that freezing them this way takes several days, and you can still risk having them explode due to not being fully frozen - so we recommend the freezer route (although of course, they may take several days in the freezer too)!

When not outside we've been enjoying lots of snuggly time indoors, including TV time, which led on Thursday to a lovely little project.  As you may well know, we record plenty of programmes from the BBC2 learning zone, as well as CBBC and others, for learning purposes.  Then it is up to the boys to choose whatever takes their interest.  Last week it included an episode of "Finding Stuff Out" on volcanoes.  Well that set off the day's activities nicely for Eldest and Middle.  They drew some volcano pictures, they read the books we had at home, Volcanoes and Horrible Geography's Violent Volcanoes - and I found a lovely workbook resource on Volcanoes, from the TES website.  (You have to be a member to download their resources, but it's totally worth joining for hundreds of great ideas, plus it's informative those of us who like to keep up to date with education in this country...).  I said to the boys that they could do as much or as little as they liked of the workbooks, I just thought it would be interesting for them.  Eldest whizzed through his, and loved it.  Middle took his time and stopped when he'd had enough - he can pick it up again later if he likes.  We could have made our own volcanoes (we have a bottle of red fizzy drink and mentos in the cupboard), but with all the snow on the ground expected to stay for at least a week, I didn't want the garden to look like a bloodbath for that long with red splashes all over the once-pristine whiteness! It sounds silly, but I know it would bother me... so we will be revisiting volcanoes at least once again soon, after the snow has all gone!

 Eldest's 'Volcano' (sadly we cant find Middle's)

 

Following on from the theme, there's a programme on CBBC at the moment called "Fierce Earth" - the episode we watched today was about hurricanes,and we had a good chat about why the eye of the storm is safer than being on the edge, ranging from spinning tops to centrifugal force etc.  Also today we watched some clips of my favourite owl, the great grey owl, like this one - and then we got the sketching pencils out.  We've got a set ranging from 5H - 5B, and we definitely need to practice with them, to get the full benefit of the range.  Youngest wasn't really in drawing mood today (he was off playing with some of Middle's birthday presents), but the others loved experimenting with the soft smudgy look, and produced some lovely pictures of the owl hunting in the taiga.

 Middle's 'Great Grey Owl Hunting'

 Eldest's 'Great Grey Owl and Lemming'

 Mummy's 'Great Grey Owl'

 



Seasonal slow-down

Lately I've been trying to put my finger on the slightly unsettled feeling I've been having - and I've come to the conclusion that partly I think it's because somewhere in the muddle of this term, I lost hold of the lovely routine we had been developing in September.  In between asthma attacks, baby hedgehogs and dying laptops, we got distracted, and it's taken me this long to be able to refocus.  Also I think it's largely something to do with the season: the cold weather has definitely kept us indoors more than in the summer (especially as Youngest hasn't been fully well) - and I always feel a bit stifled if I don't get my frequent walks in the woods.  And I think we're just feeling a bit lethargic - we all seem to have lost energy a bit. 

Knowing that it's a seasonal thing definitely helps in dealing with it though.  Just as in nature, during winter the trees are bare and the ground is hard, so with us: we have slowed down and aren't seeing many obvious signs of growth - and just as I know the spring will bring new growth and freshness, I am confident that just around the corner are seasons for us of fresh enthusiasm and rapid growth.  Actually, I think it's a positive thing: all land needs time to lie fallow, in order to replenish strength and gather new reserves - and that's what we're doing.  With that in mind, I'm not so bothered by the different pace of this term - really we're ticking along nicely, mooching along between online curricula & TV learning programmes, interspersed with books to read and pictures to draw, walks (albeit shorter ones) outside and meeting with friends.  And even the socialising seems to have a different feel: whereas in the summer there were lots of outdoor meet-ups and field-trips (sometimes literally: trips to fields where they could run about, have fun and experience nature in all its rich glory), in winter we seem to be more home-based, less likely to go out in big groups and more likely to have friends round in smaller cosier groups of one or two families.

That said, today was our big group trip to the local soft play area, and quite a few families turned up today - it was a really lovely time.  We all had a good natter (mums) and play (children) - in fact Eldest was ready to come home before I was! (I think that had something to do with wanting to see what happened in Wild Tales).  That was pretty much the whole day covered, and I felt it made up a bit for having been at home for most of the week!

Yesterday was a bit more typical: the morning saw Eldest and Middle on MathsWhizz.  I need to try to persuade them to do their curriculum work at separate times, otherwise they seem to get distracted very easily with each other's work.  Afterwards Eldest got fully absorbed into the "What If" section of GridClub, which was on "what if you did Maths all day?" (he loved it!).  Middle and Youngest enjoyed playing with Playdoh, and they all had fun playing on the Wii.  I've steered them away from the Lego Star Wars game for now as they got too wound up by it; Wiiparty and the Christmas Wii game we have are much more about teamwork and generally less intense play. We also found the boys' 'Wild Times' comics that they get from the RSPB, so they enjoyed looking through those - Youngest in particular.  And of course, there was lots of TV learning, snuggled up on the sofa, learning about biology (Wild Tales - of course), geography (William Whiskerson), history (Horrible Histories) etc.  Speaking of TV, it's not all couch-based learning: Today after we came home and watched the unmissable Wild Tales, we then watched a programme called Croc Man that Eldest had found in the 'recommended section of our planner.  They loved it.  As part of the programme the 'croc man' was given planning permission for a specialist crocodile zoo in Witney where he lives - so we're all going to have to visit now!  Hooray for inspiration to get out and have a new experience :)

Snow Day!

Just a quick one as we've been too busy having fun today (and creating mess - which I now need to clean up)...

Hooray for snow days!  And hooray for Home Ed, which means we get to enjoy snow days instead of being stuck inside cold classrooms, trying to get our frozen hands and brains to work, but not able to just go outside and play in the pretty white stuff...

One benefit of snow is the speed at which the boys got dressed this morning!  They were up, breakfasted and outside playing before 9am - building snowmen, snowforts & snowballs, and sledging.  You could say it's a multi-curricular activity: Art (3D sculpture); PE (throwing, running and racing); Maths (shape, size, trajectories, speed); D&T (designing and working with transient materials); Science (freezing/ melting, and the human body in extreme temperatures - oh, and weather, obviously!) etc etc... or you could say we played in the snow, and not feel the need to justify it academically!  Learning is everywhere: living is learning, and the more experiences we are exposed to, the more we just learn.  Simple as that.

Eventually, after all the snow play (& learning), we all came indoors for an obligatory hot chocolate, and watched "The Snowman" and "Father Christmas" on DVD, before heading out to an HE playdate with friends, taking some Christmas 'stained glass window biscuits' that we had made for the occasion, from this book.

After lunch at home we watched today's episode of "Wild Tales", which contained a very sad scene - exposing the boys to the less pretty side of wildlife, as well as giving us the chance to chat about how programmers use music to make you feel more sad/ happy etc (all through the rest of the programme the boys were all more alert to the background music that was being played, and how it made them feel, as well as giving them clues to what was coming next).  One of this week's stars is a polar bear cub, and after the programme ended we had a go at making our own polar bear pictures on glitter paper (though the glitter is very subtle & doesn't show up well in the photos).  Eldest chose to do a variation on the North Pole theme - and then couldn't resist doing an underwater Arctic scene too...

Mummy's Polar Bears

Middle's Polar Bears

 



Youngest's Polar Bear and Walrus

Eldest's "Seal Hill"

(he couldn't have seals and polar bears in the same scene because the bears would eat the seals!)

Eldest's "Arctic Ocean"

Oh, and in other news, the hedgehogs Midge and Squidge, are both now over 700g each (Midge is almost 800g, the porker!), and will soon be moving to the garage to acclimatise to cooler temperatures before being moved to the shed, hopefully to hibernate for the winter, so I have educated myself on further essential things I need to know about hibernating (such as how to tell the difference between a sleeping hedgehog, a hibernating hedgehog, and a dead one!)

So all in all, that was a lovely day.  Now though, I'm off to clear up puddles left by wellies, sledges etc.  If anyone has any genius ideas for non-messy fun, let me know!

Cakes and Cabbage Experiments

It feels like we're being a bit anti-social at the moment... we haven't seen anyone socially all week so far, and weirdly I'm actually enjoying it a bit.  Not because I don't want to see people - because actually we are missing our friends - but Eldest's virus keeping us home has turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  After the worst bit at the weekend he's not been poorly enough for me to worry - in fact his appetite seems to be returning today, hooray - and staying home to help him recover has had the added bonus that we've been able to get settled into some kind of routine.  We've been able to tackle some of the learning goals that were out there (that either the boys or I had expressed a desire in), and I feel like we're finding our feet again.  Start of 'term' for us has been sort of 'bitty', because although we've been having good days and felt like we were getting back into the learning groove, we weren't experiencing much of a rhythm.  Every day was fun but different, and I'm realising that it really helps me to have some kind of gentle pattern - not that every day has to be the same, as that would be really tedious -  just that I feel more established after a week or so of rediscovering our feet.  So I have made a mental note for the beginning of next term (especially after all the Christmas partying) to aim at having a week to ourselves before we start doing all the fabulous social excursions etc!
Anyway, today's fun included quite a bit of time modelling with playdough; Middle making a sort of treasure hunt for Youngest, and Eldest spending a long time reading.  I then reminded Middle that he hadn't done any MathsWhizz this week - he wasn't impressed at all, but I was pretty sure that was because he'd got discouraged by the previous session, so I sat with him and we had a look at the new 'lesson', which he loved!  In fact he rattled through the next three lessons without hesitating, and I left him to it, as he and Youngest (who loves watching) were obviously enjoying it, shrieking with laughter at something on the program - hooray!  While it was Youngest's turn on Reading Eggs, Middle found our City Country World game and decide he wanted to play it with me - and Eldest joined in too.  We particularly enjoyed finding the countries where our friends live/ have lived (Netherlands, Jamaica, Israel, Russia etc).  It's basically a game of pairs where you have to match the country with the capital city by matching the national flag - a nice gentle introduction to geography! Eldest then wanted to do an experiment that he had seen on the TV which used red cabbage juice to test for pH levels - so I hunted online (HE is so easy when you have the internet!) and found this Red Cabbage Lab experiment.  That was today's fun with science!  The boys were really enthused, and came up with lots of substances that they wanted to test, regardless of whether they were on the print-out.  It was all a bit over Youngest's head, but one of the many things I love about HE is that no matter whose idea the activity is, or whose ability it would traditionally be geared towards, everyone gets the chance to join in as much as they are able/ want to... and Youngest may not have understood it all, but he loved joining in with the mixing and seeing the colours change, thus nuturing a love of science in him :)

liquids that the boys wanted to test, l to r: soap, apple juice, dettol, lemon juice, fairy liquid, salt solution, bicarb solution, vinegar, milk 

pretty colours after the cabbage water was added

arranged in order from most acidic to most alkaline (after some dispute)

order as recorded by Eldest (who then decided that 2 & 3 were the wrong way round)

 

Another highlight of the day was this morning when Middle made absolutely the most delicious traybake cakes I've ever tasted... they were supposed to be cut into 24 but I hadn't checked the recipe, and only managed to get 12 out of them - which were HUGE! (oops), but just as well as the only cutters I had for the decorative marzipan shapes were also pretty big.  Of course, the boys love it when Mummy appreciates their baking... it's never hard, but today was particularly easy :)  I may well end up the size of a house but it will be worth it!

 

Middle's Sticky Toffee Cakes

 

Oh and last of all (it was a full day today!) Eldest decided he wanted to write a diary (hooray for spontaneous writing) - inspired by the Topz Secret Diaries that he loves and has recently been re-reading - it's obviously not a secret diary in his case though as he came to read it to me and then gave me permission to share an excerpt here... n.b. the attitude is something he finds funny in the other books and so used it as a 'voice' to good effect in his own diary.  It wasn't genuine stroppiness, otherwise I don't think he'd have been so happy to read it out to me, giggling at his own jokes...

September 19

4:00pm
Just finished doing Red Cabbage Experiment about Acids and Alkalides.  Mum's on her laptop. I AM BORED.

4:06pm
Mum told me to "tidy my room".

I mean what is the point?  A tiny bit messy is good for your immune system.

4:22pm
I'm still tidying.  I've been tidying since 4:06pm. I'm going to carry on now.

4:28pm
Mum asked me to come down.  Hooray!  "Coming" I said...

...................................

Guess what, it was only to turn the oven on.  Woop-de-do.  Please cover up the 'hooray' above.  Now to go back to tidying up.

4:35pm

Forgot to feed my fish.  Feed them now.

4:57pm

Yes!  I'm done.  Now I can watch TV.

 

So that was another busy and enjoyable day (I'm still chuckling at Eldest's 'woop-de-do').  The learning still hasn't finished either as all three boys are currently engrossed in a Deadly 60 programme on TV, fascninated by the length of an anteater's tongue!  And on that attractive thought, I think I've leave it!  Til the next time... :)

 

Cleaning Classes (and Cake)

I rain out of time to post yesterday, but we had a lovely day & there was something that I wanted to write down...

This week's been a bit tricky so far because I've been feeling pretty unwell with some kind of summer virus thing, and I knew we had a friend coming to stay (she arrived yesterday) so I wanted to get the house ready for her.  Unfortunately the illness left me feeling to drained to do anything so I spent two days just trying to supervise the boys from the sofa as much as possible (LOTS of Wii-playing and TV-watching - oh well, at least they enjoyed it, and it was only a couple of days).  Yesterday I finally started to feel halfway back to normal but quickly realised I still wasn't up to cleaning the whole house in a single morning, so had to make do with doing the bits the boys couldn't safely do, and then sitting on chairs/ beds and directing the boys.

You know what?  It was actually a bit of a revelation.  A friend and I had already been chatting about how we both felt the need this "term" to be training our boys (she has two boys too) in practical things like cleaning, tidying, general housework.  As I blogged the other day, I just can't carry it all by myself - but it's not just using the boys as free labour; I really want to train them in positive life-skills.  While I was sat on the bed talking Eldest through making his bed I realised that I have been doing everyone a huge disservice by assuming the role of she-who-does-everything.   It is actually ironically lazy of me to wear myself out doing all the work - just because it's EASIER than training the boys.  It's much harder to train others to do what I can do without really thinking about it - it takes an investment of time and patience to impart practical hands-on skills - but it is so worth it!  Somewhere down the line it will save time and stress when the boys are in the habit of tidying up after themselves.  Right now I have to accept it will take an input of more work to teach them - but that's OK, there's purpose to it :)

Anyway, so yesterday morning we between us got the house not perfect as I would have liked, but clean enough to welcome a guest.  In the rest of our time we chatted about the Netherlands (my friend is Dutch) and made an awesome (if I do say so myself) welcome cake in the shape of an owl - recipe here...

So that was my thoughts from yesterday - and hey, I managed to keep it brief! *pats self on back*  We're off out for a walk now, so until the next time...

Olympic Planes

Another beautiful day!  It got very hot very quickly today, so Mummy nipped out for some more oranges, lemons etc for the ongoing 'cocktail inventing' (any chance to encourage the boys to consume fruit!), while our fabulous lodger played with the boys, reading Spongebob stories and playing 'guess the Ocean Creature'... followed by LOTS of water play in the garden.
Not content with the hundred paper planes made from the Usborne book over the last few days, Eldest decided to make some more of his own design, decorate them according to the flag colours of different nations, and then host his own version of the Olympic games, called "Olympic Planes".  There were four events: Fastest Fliers; Furthest Fliers, Highest Fliers and Most Acrobatic Fliers.  The countries represented were China, Japan, South Africa, Italy, Germany and England (who unsurprisingly got the biggest cheers from the spectators (Middle and Youngest).  Eldest took on the role of educator to his brothers, explaining which plane was from which country :)

Italy won the fastest round, England won highest - and then there was a break for the essentials of trampolining and water-gun fights... after which Germany won the furthest round, and Italy won the most acrobatic.  Eldest drew up a nice chart (more writing - and maths) so he could work out that the over all gold medal winner was... ITALY!

By the way, we did discuss the fact that if you have two competitors in joint second place, you wouldn't usually award third place, but we thought seeing as it was England we'd make an exception! ;)

Then except for fruit-juice cocktail making, more water-play and other garden-fun (including finding a millipede, and slurping ice-pops while lounging around), that was pretty much it for today :)
Oh except for the day's caterpillar news: the Painted Ladies are now measuring in at 3.3cm and the Cinnabar enclosure has five new baby caterpillars (the chrysalis remains unchanged).
So that's all to report from us for the day - now, if you'll please excuse me, I'm going to go and make some more vitamin D :)