What Hibernating?

Well I wasn't expecting that!  What a day crammed with fun and learning we have had!  (warning, this kind of day happens less frequently than the proverbial blue moon - please don't read if you're feeling insecure!)  Unusually the house was in a fairly ordered state this morning, so I wasn't distracted by a load of jobs that needed doing - and I was up before the boys, and therefore able to usher them straight into the kitchen for breakfast, so they weren't distracted by the temptation of TV or computer (their default at the moment).  Well, we hadn't all finished breakfast before the table was being cleared ready for an experiment, prompted by the episode of Blast Lab that we watched the other day, on buoyancy.  We had a tub filled with water on the table, and the boys went hunting for various objects that they could test to see whether they thought they would float or sink.  Eldest and Middle were quite good at predicting the buoyancy of most of the items - Youngest was a bit more 'hit and miss', which wasn't surprising given his age, but I could see his mind trying to work it out, so that was still a valuable experience for him.  And there were a few surpirses for everyone, like the lemon that they all thought would sink, but actually floated low in the water, and the egg that they expected would float, but actually sank. (I'm glad the egg sank - as I told them later, if it had floated it would have been a bad 'un!)... 

 

(this last photo was the experiment to see how many minifigures we could get onto Eldest's lego raft before it started sinking.  Actually, although it was letting on water & became partially submerged, it continued to float regardless of number of passengers)

That same egg then led us on to our next activity.  While it was "carefully" being put way, it got damaged, so we then had to have a bit of impromptu baking, to use it up.  I remembered a recipe for Christmas buns in our Yummy Little Cookbook.  I should have listened to instinct though, as I thought twenty minutes was a bit long to bake them for.  The boys were already moving on to the next activity though, so I didn't really think about it, just put them in the oven for the prescribed amount of time - and yes, they came out very well done!  Not burnt, mind - but pretty dry.  Still, they looked lovely after the boys had had fun decorating them...

The next activity was found in our Big Book of Christmas Things to Make and Do - a hand-printed angel that Youngest and Middle wanted to do.  Eldest wasn't keen, but he really wanted to paint a sheep - then Middle decided we needed a painting of the baby Jesus to go with the other Nativity characters.

 Middle's 'Angel'

 

 Youngest's 'Angel' (Mummy helped with the face after Youngest got distracted)

 

Eldest's 'Sheep' 

Middle's 'Baby Jesus'

By this point the boys were getting really carried away with what they could do next.  Eldest wanted to do an experiment with baby oil that he'd seen somewhere.  I had no idea what he was talking about, but was happy for him to educate me.  It was a really cool experiment - we put a small glass tumbler inside a glass jug, and filled the space between them with baby oil.  When it was half-full we looked through the side of jug, and were excited to see that the tumbler was disappearing!  We had to fill the tumbler with water as it was more buoyant than expected, and then finished filling the gap with baby oil until it completely disappeared!  very cool - and a proud Mummy when Eldest explained to us that it was all an "optical illusion" made by the oil bending the light.  If you fancy having a go and want a more 'in-depth' explanation, follow this link.

Now you see it... 

... now you don't.

Middle then wanted to try an experment that he had seen - he coloured a black fel-tip shape onto a paper coffee filter, and put the end of the paper in water.  As trhe water was absorbed up the filter paper, the ink bled and showed that as Middle said, the colour black is actually made up of different colurs (in this case, blue and green)...

By this point Youngest had gone off by himself, and I found him flooding the downstairs wc, playing with the water - so Mummy called time-out on the experimenting while we mopped up - and then put the TV on for a bit of non-messy learning (disapprove if you will, but I know my limits: there's only so much my sanity can take - and a mad Mummy is not something that is conducive to a positive leanring experience!)

So the learning carried on courtesy of the recorded programmes on our sky box.  We had lessons on the natural world, thanks to 'Naomi's Nightmares of Nature' (CBBC) and 'Frozen Planet' (Eden); we learned more about art, via 'Your Paintings' (BBC2 learning zone); we learned about the Human Body, courtesy of 'Operation Ouch' (CBBC) - and all this by lunchtime!  This afternoon the learning has been continuing on a history theme, with 'History Hunt' (BBC2 learning zone again) and 'Horrible Histories' (CBBC) - and then we're going to do some gift-wrapping & finish decorating the house - getting a bit more hands-on again. 

Finally, I was hoping to get out for a frosty walk today, but the weather has turned & it's been raining all day.  Sad though I am not to get out, I've obviously enjoyed our busy morning in - and there's another benefit too: Midge and Squidge (our rescued hedgehogs) have been in the garage for a week, acclimatising to lower temperatures, waiting for a mild spell so I can put them into the garden shed, hopefully to hibernate.  It looks like tonight's the night, as we have at least a few nights of mild temperatures forecast.  So I thought I'd post some photos of them here for those of you who have been interested in our hedgehog adventures - if all goes to plan, there will be nothing to report on the prickly front for a good few months now.

 

Midge when he arrived, weighing 430g     Midge as he is now, weighing 882g

  

 Squidge when she arrived, at 432g      Squidge as she is now, at 807g

Feeling Prickly

Working on the principle that I am never given more than I can bear, obviously I can bear more right now than I thought!  Maybe I was a little spoilt by the lovely season of routine and gentle activities that we were enjoying before everything got busy!  Anyway, I'm not feeling quite so overwhelmed this week - all projects are complete and fabulous, and more importantly Youngest has not had any more asthma episdodes, so I am relaxing a bit more.  We are working to get him into our GP's asthma clinic.  It seems a bit ridiculous to me that a newly-diagnosed four-year-old sufferer has to wait over a month before getting help with ongoing care, but hopefully once the surgery releases their December dates we will get somewhere...

Having said a sad goodbye to Tiny last week as he went to a hedgehog hospital, my boys obviously prayed for another prickly lodger, as the very next evening (just after I wrote the last post) we rescued another juvenile hedgehog from our garden - this time called "Midge".  I wasn't surprised really as I had seen another small one in the garden previously, and I had been advised to look out for siblings from the same litter who would be about the same weight.  I'm happy to report that Midge is doing really well - he has put on almost 100g in the last four days!  We are in touch with some really helpful experts and are now familiar with the process of sending hedgehog poo through the post to be tested for worms etc!  So we've gone from being complete rookies and not sure of the best to do for Tiny, to having our confidence boosted by Midge - just in time for another sibling to appear last night.  This one has been named "Squidge" by a hedgehog-loving young friend.  So now our downstairs loo is out-of-bounds again, while Midge and Squidge pork up for the winter!  The boys are happy again (and I'm quite chuffed too, to be honest) - so although it is extra responsibility and pressure, it's really OK... Hooray for cute hedgehogs!

The other "big" news that happened straight after my last blog entry was that we had our letter from Herts County Council.  We are now 'on the radar'.  Actually I don't mind this at all - it puts paid to the ongoing wondering of "when will they find out about us?" or "is this person going to report us?".  What I do object to is that the initial letter they sent out was really quite misleading - if I wasn't already familiar with the law and confident about my rights and their responsibilities, I could have been easily intimidated by it - presumably some are.  The letter stated that it is county policy for an Attendance Improvement Officer to make an initial visit to see parents, after which visit an education adviser from the LA will meet me/ us to discuss the arrangements we are making for the boys' education.  This 'policy' is ultra vires (beyond their legal authority), and I resent the way they expressed it as a done deal, with no suggestion that these visits are optional.  Further, the date they gave me for this preliminary meeting was for ten days after I received the letter.  In my opinion that is not enough time for a person to receive a letter, educate themselves on where they actually stand, and reply in time - I assume they are hoping that the recipients will not understand the law and so just go along with what has been presumed upon them.  Anyway, despite the fact that my local HE friends who have met them have nothing but praise for the education advisors here, I object to the system, and will be declining both visits.  I will be as polite as I can, as I have no wish to be antagonistic... although actually I had to leave the initial draft of my letter for 24 hours so I could review it when I was less annoyed by their letter.  I felt as prickly as our hedgehog guests after reading it!
You see, the Local Authority are legally permitted to make initial enquiries to see whether or not my children are receiving a suitable education at home.  Other than that, they are only entitled to demand specific evidence of suitable education if they have reason to believe that a suitable education is not being provided.  So we will be replying asap, refusing the visit from the Attendance Improvement Officer (I do not wish the boys to attend school, therefore their attendance does not require improvement!), and refusing the visit from the education advisor - not because they are "the enemy" or some kind of bogeyman to be feared, but because I object to being assessed and monitored by people who have no responsibility for my children.  I think my boys would probably enjoy seeing a new person who is interested in everything they have been doing (I doubt she'd get a word in edgewise) - and I would really enjoy chatting to someone who understands HE (as apparently the Herts advisors do) - BUT I cannot reconcile myself to a system that at best undermines, at worst usurps my parental position and responsibility, so for the time being I have no plans to agree to the demanded visits. 
Other than declining the visits we will also not be filling in their forms of many questions about our educational plans - but we will be including an "Educational Philosophy" (a brief outline of our thoughts and plans conerning educating our boys at home). It could be argued that technically this is above and beyond what we are legally obliged to do, however I know of some Local Authorities who have used the 'grey area' of having a suspicion that a suitable education is not being provided as an excuse to hound Home Educators, some going as far as serving a School Attendance Order that legally demands for the children to return to school.  In the case of people who are using HE as a cover for not caring for their children, this is not unreasonable - but there seems to be an assumption among some LAs that this applies to most Home Ed'ors.  It doesn't.  I don't think our LA is like that, but if I stubbornly refused to cooperate in any way, just saying 'no' to the visits but giving no other information (potentially giving them reason to suspect the validity or suitability of the boys' education), I could be making enemies where there is no need for hostility.  By including an Ed. Phil. I hope to reassure them that we are taking our children's education seriously, and give them no cause for concern.  There is being right, and there is being wise - and we really want to get the right balance.  Those who have gone before and have plenty of HE and LA experience seem to agree that an Ed. Phil. fulfils all demands that can be legally placed on us by the LEA.  Ideally then, once they have received our letter, they will have no valid reason to contact us again - we will see.

Routine, please...

I saw a cartoon last week that goes as follows:
"I love routine.
Until I'm bored, then I love excitement.
Until I'm overwhelmed, then I love routine."
I can't think of any other way to sum up my experience of Home Education so succinctly - and right now I am well-and-truly in the 'overwhelmed & craving routine' phase.  For weeks I have been saying "next week we'll get back to normal"  Now I know there's not really any such thing as normal - but some good ole reliable routine is what I've been after - and no, I still haven't got it.  A series of downright inconvenient interruptions have conspired to keep me away from the routine I'm hoping for...

Firstly, my laptop broke down.  This is the main reason for my not being on here for so long.  I can use eldest's computer in the study, but this removes me from the front room where the boys do most of their hanging out, learning, playing etc - so that's not so good until after they are in bed, at which point I have had LOADS to catch up on & not enough time. 

Then the project I had on last week took even longer once my laptop died - finally being completed early this week, so I will hopefully have spare time again (well - spare time as in time to blog, clean, plan etc)...

Also, last week we had the most gorgeous interruption to routine that came in the shape of a hedgehog.  Knowing that hedgehogs are generally in trouble in this country, and being the lovers of wildlife that we are, we have been keeping an eye out for our regular nocturnal visitors, and weighing them (they have to be 600g or more for them to survive hibernation - if interested in helpng hedgehogs, you can get good advice here).  The first hedgie we weighed was over 900g, so no worries there - but the second one was 407g & therefore not big enough to survive without help, so we took him in & started phoning round for a place to take him.  What we hadn't realised was that there have been a great deal of late litters this year, and all the local shelters were full - so we realised we'd have to give it a go looking after him ourselves.  I wasn't keen on the responsibility of rehabilitating a wild animal with no previous experience, but we all fell in love with "Tiny" as we named him, and promptly researched as much as we could, drilled holes into the lid of a plastic storage box, lined it with newspaper plus hay and leaves, added some water and cat food + hedgie food - and committed to weighing him & cleaning him every night until he reached the desired weight.  Unfortunately he just didn't put weight on, and after a week without real success I regretfully decided he would be better off in a proper 'hedgehog hospital', so we rang around some more and finally found someone to take him in yesterday.  I'm relieved that he will be getting expert help, but we really miss him - and Eldest has been leaving forlorn little commemorations around the place. Talk about tugging at the maternal heart-strings!

As if that wasn't enough upheaval, we had a fun weekend away visiting some lovely friends, which was planned - so all well there, and much fun was had with tractors, fireworks and exploring the beautiful Pensthorpe Nature Reserve - but on Sunday Youngest started having problems with his breathing. I resolved to take him to our local out-of-hours surgery on the way home, but when we phoned them they wanted to send an ambulance.  As we were by then only ten minutes away we drove to A&E ourself, where I spent the next six hours while they stabilised his breathing again.  He had never been diagnosed with asthma, and it seemed to appear out of the blue... it was pretty horrid, really, even though it wasn't what one would call a bad attack.  Hubby has lived with asthma all his life, and we know it's manageable, but it still upset me.  Hopefully I will learn to resist the temptation to become an obsessive, over-protective Mama - but right now I'm still slightly traumatised from seeing my baby in a hospital bed, unable to breathe clearly.  Still, children that young don't know how to do 'being ill', so despite his wheezing etc he had a lovely time using the disposable sick bowl as a hat, charming the nurses, putting stickers over his new inhaler spacer, and eventually trying to work out what all the knobs and levers did on the bed - at which point I knew he was about well enough to go home!
Incidentally, while we were there one of the nurses made some comment about whether Youngest was in school yet, and when we mentioned home education there was a slight awkward pause - I could almost hear him mentally writing it on our notes for follow-up.  If we get a call from the LEA shortly, we'll know why!
Anyway, Youngest is doing much better now (my emotions are taking a bit longer to recover - I coped fine while we were there; as usual it was only afterwards that I just wanted to cry - delayed shock I guess), and he was thrilled when we went to the chemist today to get a new inhaler, and we found & bought a cheap toy doctors kit.  Bring on the role play!

So, all of the above has left me craving some "boredom"!  I haven't been paying attention to the boys' learning, so feel like I'm failing them somehow (not too seriously though - I'll get over that feeling soon enough, I'm sure).  Eldest has been devouring books and documentaries on TV; Middle has been reading too, and drawing endless pictures, and Youngest has just been exploring everything he can get his hands on.  I'm not sure I dare suggest that "next week we'll be back to normal" - but it would be nice!

"Iceberg Land" by Middle

- prompted by "Operation Iceberg" that we watched on catch-up TV today. 

You need to have seen the programme to appreciate the detail that went into this - eg that's not scribble on the left; it's an artist's impression of the enormous dirty, crumbling glacier about to give birth to an iceberg.  The fish, whale, narwhal & submarine are all artistic license, but proud Mummy moment for his putting them in the correct habitat ;)

 

"Owl for Mummy" by Middle

Mini-blogger

I wasn't going to blog today, mainly because we've been busy & I'm still recovering from yesterday.  But my ten-year-old had other ideas, and presented me with his diary on his way to bed, asking me to put it in my blog.  So here I am, on behalf of my mini-blogger - just popping in to share his joy...

9th October

8:10am
played Star Wars Lego with (Youngest)
Got dressed
Stink-bombed (Middle).  Fun FUN and more fun...  well getting dressed isn't fun.

6:47pm
Created recipe for (Eldest)-cake.  It is very chocolatey, yum yum.Now I need to tidy up.  COME ON NOW.  This Diary should be called the TIDY UP DIARY! "sigh"

I think that is such a fab little blog entry I'm going to leave it at that!  But for those who have been kind enough to ask: yes, I am feeling better than yesterday.  Not fully there, but much, much better!  Thank you for caring :)