OK Days are Good

We had a real job to get going this morning.  We had arranged to go and visit friends, so no chance of a pyjama day today - not that the boys minded in the slightest, for once.  However, our usual routine seemed a bit stale today, so rather than nag them to do their 'work', when they finished their Reading Eggs(press) we had a day off lapbooking, and did some creating instead.  I asked Youngest if there was an art project on my Pinterest board that he would like to try, and he chose a lion painting, originally posted by John Post - so we all happily sat down and mixed paints, chose brushes (it's SUCH a big deal to get the right brush!?) and got started.  Youngest hadn't gone very far at all when he decided he'd rather do his own thing.  "Are you experimenting?" I asked.  His eyes lit up: "YES!", and he promptly splashed paint about, squished it between pages of paper etc, all the time checking that I could see how well his "experiment" was going... very cute.  Eldest, Middle and I dutifully finished the project originally chosen by Youngest!

 Eldest's Lion

  Middle's 'Vampire Lion' (hence the red teeth)

 Mummy's Lion

 Youngest's 'Experiments' (above and below)

Middle decided that part of belonging to his club (based in the fort, now happily situated in their bedroom) was to involve a "taste test", where everyone tries four different items of food and rates them 1-5. He wanted to make all four items at once, but as they were all dessert items (that's my boy!), I persuaded him to spread it over four days.  Today the boys wanted to make lemon and lime cheesecake from CBeebies 'I can cook', but as we had no limes, we did lemon and orange cheesecake instead.  Unsurprisingly enough, I was the only one who really liked it (it was very citrus-y), but at least they tried it!

Over lunch we watched a DVD on explorers from our Now You Know-About DVD set.  They were engrossed in the tales of Captain Cook (though Youngest wasn't impressed at his being killed by the natives) and Columbus.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: we find TV can be sooo helpful when it comes to sparking new interests.  Obviously we love books and I do strew them often - but I also love having the odd DVD up my sleeve for times when the boys feel the need to just veg out.

So today was OK!  Of course, if you just go on what I've written above (the "edited higlights" so common to blogs), you could think "wow, they do so much, I wish we could do that well" - and I'm tempted to think that myself when re-reading.  However, things have been a bit stressy here with various issues going on, and my patience level has definitely dropped.  Today hasn't been all bluebirds tweeting and harmonious laughter... there was also a fair amount of runny noses, arguing in the car, freezing temperatures and loads of mess to clear up after the 'creating'!  Anyway, just sayin': Our 'higlights' can look pretty impressive (and they do encourage me: after all, that's mainly why I blog, because it helps me to see written down what we're getting up to), but on balance, yes, today was OK.. and that's a good thing.

PS If you visit John Post's blog (follow link above), check out his "teaching philosophy" pdf - I found it quite inspiring.