Garden Fun

It was a glorious day today, so we spent most of it in the garden :)  We have decided that we want to build a bug hotel, so we got outside first of all to see what we could collect.  We made a good start with plant pots, pine cones, stones, leafy cuttings, and LOTS of sticks!  We really wanted some bamboo canes as well for ladybirds to hide in, so as we needed to go to the garden centre anyway, we thought might get a couple there - but sadly they refused to sell us individual canes - we would have had to buy a pack of ten 7ft canes for £5!  Needless to say, we came away without bamboo... we'll just keep putting the word out there, and see if anyone we know has any to spare!  Actually, we've posted a 'wanted' on our local Freegle online site.  If you've never heard of Freegle (also known as 'Freecycle'), I can't recommend them highly enough.  It's run by Yahoo so is free to sign up to, and as a member you can offer your unwanted goods to other members, or you can post a 'wanted' notice for anything that you need that you think someone else might feasibly have to spare.  It's just a great way of recycling within the community, and saves money too!  So here's hoping that someone local to us has some unwanted bamboo canes :)  The garden centre wasn't totally a waste of time though - we got a couple of other bits that we needed, and we had a bit of impromptu science while we were there.  Eldest and Middle were running around between the ornaments (Youngest had asked to go in the trolley, much to my shock and relief!) and they particularly loved stroking the large smooth stone globes.  When they stroked the black ones they found they were almost too hot to touch, but were surprised at how cool the white ones were in comparison.  Cue Mummy asking why they thought it might be, and chatting about which colours absorb more light, energy etc... we've only been home edding a couple of months, but I'm glad I'm getting better at spotting the learning opportunities :)
Anyway, when we got back from the garden centre (sadly without bamboo), we did a bit of gardening.  We had bought some lavender to go outside the front door, and we used some pansies that we already had to go in pots with the lavender, to make the front of the house look and smell pretty!  Incidentally, we found a lovely resource online for Easy plants to grow with children: I don't know about the children, I need them to be pretty easy too as I'm not really a gardener, I just believe the garden is a great place for learning :)  We also potted on some of the little seedlings that had grown from the seeds planted ages ago in our blogged-about nature non-lessons.  To be honest, not many of them grew, so after we potted the seedlings on today, we planted some more carrot seeds and two avocado stones left over from Daddy's lunch recently - no idea if they'll grow, but that's the fun of experimenting!  Eldest was most keen on today's gardening, but Middle and Youngest enjoyed it too... not least because they got to play with trowels, dirt and water!
Once that was done it was time for lunch, which we ate while we watched a DVD from a set that a lovely Home Ed friend had brought over.  The DVDs are called Mathtacular (an American product), and athough Eldest was pretty unimpressed, all three boys sat and watched for a good half an hour.  It was most appropriate viewing for Middle, really, and the presenter explains things really clearly, so I think we'll use it again - Middle is such a visual learner, and he definitely learned some new things while watching :)
After lunch, we finished our potting, and made a start on our bug hotel.  It's not complete yet, but this is what we have so far (Grampie is going to help build a bit more of a frame - and of course there will hopefully be the addition of some bamboo tubes too, amongst other bits)...

That done, we finally made it to the barbers - and I have to say it was SO MUCH nicer an experience that last time we went, during the school Easter holidays... yet another Home Ed benefit (maybe I should write a list): you can have haircuts during the quiet spells when everyone else is at work/ school - hooray for no queues!

Surprise Education

I was totally caught out by Eldest this morning... in the car on the way to Craft Club we drove past the place where we had waved at the Queen last week - and it prompted a string of questions leading from where she lives (not in Hitchin!) to a discussion about the Commonwealth, the British Empire, decolonisation, and more.  I was totally out of my depth - and loved it!  It means I have to look it up so I can explain it better.  I never did very well at History in school, despite it being a subject that has always fascinated me - I think there was too much focus on memorising dates, rather than getting to grips with the personalities and the stories.  In fact my poor history teacher didn't do well at all - I can vividly remember the class being so bored once that they had a competition to see who could predict the amount of times she would say 'Holy Roman Empire' in the course of one lesson (I lost count).  Anyway, my mission for this evening is to try and get my head around the basics of the British Empire, so Eldest and I can explore together - as long as he's still interested tomorrow (if he was older or more internet savvy I would set him off researching on his own, but that's really not his style, he just wouldn't do it).
Meanwhile, we had a lovely time at Craft club again today.  The boys were really looking forward to it as today's theme was 'insects', and they totally got stuck in!  What I love about our craft club is that Heather (who runs it) always brings great ideas, provides lots of different materials for them to rifle through until they find something that sparks their creativity, and is always ready to give a hand if needed (which I particularly appreciate as I can't help all my three at once).  Eldest as usual was pretty definite about what he wanted to achieve, and pursued that until he was done (with a pause in the middle for his painted dragonfly body to dry).  Middle just loved getting creative and exploring all the different possibilities - he enjoyed himself so much that he ended up making two bugs!  Youngest had a whale of a time too, not least because there was paint, glue, sticky tape and scissors involved.  He's not usually bothered about the completed product - he just loves the experience :)  Anyway, all three were really pleased with their finished bugs...

Eldest's dragonfly                   Youngest's butterfly

Middle's 'rainbow fly' and dragonfly 

I love seeing them explore possibilities, and spotting the moments when inspiration strikes etc.  Craft club today wasn't just about the art though - it wasn't even just about the socialising, although we all enjoyed that aspect of it too (we took a big box of lego bricks for them to play with while whoever finished first waited for the others - and that proved to be a big hit with all the other children there as well).  It was about the unexpected learning opportunities too.  The weather was lovely today, so the doors were open, which is as good as an invitation to Youngest to explore outside - and explore he did.  At one point he came running in, saying "Mummy, come and see, come and see... run!"  His excitement was over showing me a dead fledgling blackbird that Eldest and he had found outside (Eldest named it 'Dead Larry'!).  I'm not sure why dead things are so fascinating to children - especially boys, it would seem - but they are still a great learning opportunity.  The boys got to have a good up-close look at the bird (I tried not to let them touch it), and they were particularly fascinated with it's long legs and claws.  Eldest wanted to bury it - which if we had been at home I would have had no problem with (you just can't really do it in someone else's garden!) - I think a healthy curiosity about death is a good thing, and can help them to learn to deal with it, hopefully before they encounter it in people who they love.  Youngest was making us smile, at his dismissal of the theory that it had been killed by a cat - he was determined that it had been 'lasered' by Spiderman.  If that was the case, poor little Dead Larry didn't stand a chance!
Once inside again, and after the bugs had all been made, Eldest and Middle were thoroughly enjoying themselves playng lego with the others in the side room while Youngest and I helped tidy up (as you can imagine, a LOT of mess was created today).  He absolutely loves tidying things, importantly putting rubbish in the bin, wiping tables, sweeping into the dustpan, and he even 'helped' to fold down the tables (thanks to the lovely Home Ed mum who was so patient with him, making sure his fingers stayed out of the way, and helping him to safely work out how the table-collapsing mechanism worked).  He really does like to think he can do anything an adult can do.
Then it was time to go home for lunch - after which the boys wanted to watch the extra bits on their Spongebob Squarepants DVD.  I wasn't overly-impressed with the idea, but I have to admit, I was surpised and impressed by how informative it was!  They learned a load of new words (eg 'avaricious', 'denizens', 'curmudgeon' etc), they learned about the different jobs involved in making an animated film, such as writers, director, 3D model makers etc... (and they particularly enjoyed matching the actors to the characters whose voices they provide).  There were even cameos by David Hasselhoff and Jean-Michel Cousteau (though I had to tell the boys who they were), and a chance to learn about real undersea creatures, the importance of ocean conservation and the invention of Scuba equipment.  Who knew that even Spongebob would end up being educational?!  In fact it was so fascinating that we ended up watching the whole thing & running out of time to go out to the barbers as planned.  Ah well... they can always get their hair cut tomorrow!
So, craft club may have been planned (not too structured though - it's geared to allow them to pursue their own creativity), but the rest of today's education - well, it was all a surprise bonus.  If this is unschooling, I love it!  In fact, I just love Home Ed more and more all the time :)

Housework, Slimy Slugs and Grassy Bugs

After yesterday's rejoicing at our successfully organised weekend, I woke this morning to realise we had failed to 'organise' any cleaning etc into the weekend.  Result: one really untidy house!  It's not the end of the world though as Mondays are usually pretty relaxed - we rarely have any 'first-day-of-the-week' plans (another benefit of Home Ed: Mondays are not a thing to be dreaded - in fact I quite look forward to them!) - so this morning was mainly about teaching the boys how to do housework.
Incidentally, I've been trying to think of ways to differentiate between the boys on here as I really dislike referring to them as a number (ie DS1, 2 & 3).  It works for some people, but I'm not really a numbers person, I'm more of a word person.  I am a bit paranoid when it comes to internet safety, so I refuse to use their real names.  Nicknames would confuse me, and I was thinking of calling them Big, Middle, and Small - except that my youngest really isn't small, never has been (was born weighing 10lb11oz!), so I wasn't entirely comfortable with that either, hence I resigned myself to using numbers when I started the blog.  Anyway, having chatted about it to a friend recently it was in my head again, and I thought of a possible solution, so from now on I will - assuming I remember - refer to them as Eldest, Middle and Youngest.  It works for me (as long as we don't have any more babies, but that's highly unlikely, and anyway that would be a whole other blog!), so I hope I haven't confused anyone out there!Anyway, enough procrastinating: back to the housework (how many times do I think that in one day?!). Eldest has been half-heartedly playing about at tidying his bedroom for a couple of weeks now, without ever completing it, which meant that any progress he did make was very quickly lost again.  This morning I went up with him and helped him to clear all of the mess into one area (on his bed) so the rest of the room looked good which gives a psychologically boost, and gave him a more confined area of intense mess to deal with.  Possibly the bed was a bit intimidating, but actually less so than having an entire room to deal with!
The laundry basket was in full 'erupting volcano' mode, so I gave Middle the job of sorting all the clothes into three separate mountains of whites, darks and reds (we wear a lot of reds in this house).  He loves sorting, and there was some semblance of art involved as he had to work out which colours had red in (we also wear a lot of purple and orange).  While Middle was sorting the dirty washing, I got the 'lonely sock' pile out of the airing cupboard where it was threatening to take over, and gave Youngest the task of match-making.  He's not got the hang of folding them together yet, but he loved handing matched pairs to me faster than I could fold them :)
After the younger two had helped Mummy with the washing - or at least made a start on it - they were still keen to help, so they emptied the dishwasher for me (I took the knives out first), and then they were thanked with a piece of Daddy's 'Father's Day fudge' which he had promised them  (we made sure Eldest got some too).  Middle & Youngest were still keen to help with more housework (yay), so we sorted the chaos in the lounge.  While sorting they came across the Horrible Science Slimy Slugs kit that Middle had bought with his pocket money the other day, so once we had finished tidying the lounge, we called Eldest downstairs for a break, and had some science fun with slime in the kitchen.  Middle was particularly pleased as he got the green slime that looked like a giant bogey.  It was so much fun!  We stretched it, tried bouncing it, blew bubbles in it (the farting noises that it produced were hilarious, even to Mummy for once), made slugs out of it... generally had a great time with a fab little resource!  There was a recipe included for making more slime, so I'll share that after I've showed you the boys slugs...

If you want to make your own slime you need half a cup of white PVA glue, some cornflour and a few drops of food colouring (and a sealable container to keep it in - if you don't want to keep it, throw it in the bin, don't tip it down the drain, unless you don't mind calling a plumber out).  Pour the glue into a bowl, add cornflour a little at at time (you don't need a lot), stirring all the while, until the slime is a good consistency.  Add few drops of colouring, & voila!

Our other science-based experiment that the boys particularly enjoyed today were some Grow Your Own Bug kits with grassy heads that they had been given lately.  We started on the kits a week ago, and hadn't really paid them a lot of attention this weekend as we were so busy - but when we looked this morning the boys were thrilled to see that they've all done really well.  Grassy hair-cuts may be in order soon!

And that was this morning.  Lunch with CBeebies again (Middle did a particularly cute dance with the Numtums), and then this afternoon Middle and Youngest took it in turns playing on the CBeebies website while I helped Eldest finish sorting his room.  Hopefully he'll keep it nice now - at least for a few days... until the next housework bonanza day, anyway!

Swimming and Barbecuing

... And another successfully planned day - hooray for us!  (I know, the rest of you probably never have these issues, but for us lately it's been a big deal to get stuff planned in advance for when Daddy's home... so please bear with the celebrating!)  I think some of the issue has been that when we were in school, the boys really needed the weekends to 'veg out' and have some 'down-time' at home.  Now that the pace of life (at least for the boys and me) has become so much gentler, we're all up for more trips etc when Daddy's home (good job he's up for it too!)  So it's still quite new for us, having weekends to plan instead of just having to recover from the week before, but it's important, as I shared in Keeping Weekends Special.  So as long as hubby gets chance to rest as well (which he did today - it being Father's Day and all that), having him here to join in playtime really makes the weekends special.
Anyway, back to our planned day: Daddy got a lie-in, and then when the boys really couldn't wait any longer, they jumped on him with cards and presents to open (including models of him that they'd made in craft club).  

Once everyone was up and dressed, we went to the local swimming pool.  We've been promising to take the boys swimming for well over a month now... DS3 in particular has regularly been getting the armbands out of the drawer and clutching them to himself hopefully (how could we resist?).  The problem with swimming trips is that I am not at all happy taking our boys on my own as two of them are non-swimmers - I really need hubby there to tag-team with, so our visits are restricted to weekends and holidays, and recently we've had illness and other issues that stopped us going, so this weekend I was determined we would somehow fit in a trip to the local pool!  All the boys love going there... DS1 was a slow-starter with regards to swimming, but after regular lessons through school, he now swims like the proverbial fish.  DS2 is more hesitant - if we don't go at least once a month he loses a lot of confidence (although I was pleased today that after an initial panic he got the hang of it again quite quickly, and swam a width wearing armbands.  He has swum unaided once before, but that was when we had been going every 2-3weeks.  He's regressed a bit since then, so it's high on my priority list to pick up the frequency of our swimming trips and build his confidence back up.  DS3 absolutely LOVES being in the water.  The first time we ever took him to the pool, we popped armbands on him, and he was off, floating about, and just naturally swimming without being taught (although it is a more vertical than horizontal affair... needs a bit of work!)  I think he'll take to swimming without armbands really well - and now we've started going again, we might even be able to come up with a plan for who gets to teach which boy!  Anyway, I was really glad that today, after weekends where we had to keep postponing, we finally made it happen!  I'm going to schedule it in on the calendar more often now, so we don't have to wait so long until next time!
This afternoon I went to visit my own dad (we saw hubby's dad last weekend as he lives quite a distacne away), and I enjoyed having a bit of 'grown-up time' while the boys had some time with Daddy, culminating with a barbecue in the garden once I was home again.  They loved watching Daddy light the barbecue - safely watching from through the patio doors as he does it with lighter fluid (or similar - am showing my ignorance here), and it makes some impressively high flames for a few minutes, and they were very happy to eat in the garden as it wasn't too cold today (hooray, maybe summer is on the way...?), and they especially loved toasting marshmallows and sandwiching them between digestive biscuits for 'pudding'.
So - that was one satisfying weekend.  I am already coming up with ideas for next weekend... watch this space to see if we can pull it off again!

Accidental Educating

Well, this weekend we've started in a very organised way (unusually for us)!  Hubby and I had actually managed to make plans before the weekend arrived, and we'd agreed that we wanted to do an all-day trip to Hatfield Forest (National Trust) - all-day as it's quite a trek for us, being about an hour's drive away - and as the forecast for today was mostly dry, we packed a picnic and headed off.

It really was a lovely visit!  On the one hand it was just a lovely family time - which is what our main aim was, but I've also been thinking just now about how much curriculum can be covered in a simple "walk", without even trying.  Most obviously perhaps, there were some great Science opportunities: we took magnifying glasses (unfortunately we lost one - sigh), and much time was spent finding bugs and identifying them.  We also saw some ducks, geese and a grebe on the lake - and we were delighted to see that all of them had babies.

DS1 took his camera (there's Art for you) & learned the importance of patience when photographing living creatures... there were quite a few blurry shots before he caught this lovely one (first of the four), and when we got home he had a play on our photo editing programme to try out some special arty effects on it. I think they look great!

 

 

We also had a Maths opportunity, working out if we had enough money for certain souvenirs (yes) or to buy everyone a hot chocolate (no); we did some English, reading signs and talking about what they might mean (eg 'concealed hazards' in the lake), and Design & Technology, discussing why they thought chickenwire had been put on the wooden walk-ways; we played frisbee with DS2's purchase from the gift shop; we also played hide & seek in the woods, made dens, and used fallen logs to balance on and then jump off. And we walked for miles! In fact, we didn't stay all day as we ended up walking further than expected and we were all too worn out to go any further, so we got home by 3pm, at which point we all collapsed in the lounge with a hot chocolate :)

So considering we were just after a nice family walk in the fresh air that we'd been longing for yesterday, we managed to accidentally cover an enormous amount of 'curriculum' at the same time!  None of it had been planned (unless you count grabbing the cameras & magnifying glasses on the way out of the door), it just came up as we were wandering round... what a great start to the weekend though - we must try this day-trip organising lark a bit more often!

Nature Projects

We were stuck at home again today - Hubby has my car while his is at the garage being serviced. There was lots of rain this morning so DS2 & 3 were delighted to have a pyjama day!  I am getting to really enjoy these days at home (especially after busy days out such as yesterday)
DS1 had a busy morning - had some time on MathsWhizz, drawing a lovely underwater picture, and starting a new project...  in his 'Bird Life' magazine from the RSPB, he received news of a nature diary competition where the first prize is an ipad.  Now he would really, really like an ipad (wouldn't we all?!), so he decided he was going to enter.  I was really pleased as this will be a great project for him to do - but he'd only just started when he was already complaining that he was bored (having written the grand total of six words!)  I'm not happy with him giving up so easily, but there's no point forcing him either, so I just said it's up to him: if he wants to have a chance of winning the ipad, he needs to keep the diary - as simple as that.  To be fair, it's a subject that he really likes, he just finds it hard to translate his enthusiasm for the concept into something more concrete - so once he'd said yes he definitely wanted to do it, I asked him a few leading questions to give him an idea of how to get going, and he finally made a good start (that ipad prize is great motivation for him!).  I have no idea if he will keep it up though - it's only for ten days, and I need to see if I can find some other nature diaries online to give him a better feel for the project... but ultimtely, we'll just have to see if he completes it.
As for the others, well DS2 spent some time on both Reading Eggs and MathsWhizz, and made some yummy banana muffins with Mummy (to use up the over-ripe bananas we had that they all refuse to eat) - and DS3 also had a long time on Reading Eggs, as well as lots more fun playing with playdough, and joining DS2 to learn how to make sandwiches for everyone's lunch, at their request ... the rest of today was spent looking at and talking about a family project (or two) which could be coming up soon... DS1 and I have been watching Springwatch where they had some chrysalises hatching on camera. They said that butterflies have had a bad year this year, so we thought we'd do our bit to help - and have bought a Butterfly Garden which was on special offer from Amazon. It arrived yesterday & we've just ordered the live caterpillars... we're all very excited & can't wait until they arrive!  And as nature is such a part of our lives, we may also be having a go at the Wildlife Action Awards (also courtesy of the RSPB), as we've done lots of the activities before and thoroughly enjoyed them... I just rediscovered these awards this morning & thought it was a lovely idea to recognise what the boys are achieving :)
So basicaly, we may have been stuck indoors for the day, but that didn't stop us dreaming about being in the great outdoors... ;)

Royalty and Pottery

Today was a busy activity day, with not much time spent at home.  This morning we went to Hitchin for the Queen's visit.  We got there in plenty of time to get a parking space, but the crowds around the market square (the Queen's destination) were far too packed for us to get through - so we made do with joining the people by the side of the road where HRH's car was due to drive.  I was so proud of the boys - they waited in one spot for fifty minutes (no mean feat for three bundles of energy!)  Admittedly, I had provided them with sweets (handed one to DS3 every few minutes in the hope that they would last), and we bought three long stripy furry things on sticks (red, white and blue of course) which were much more appealing to the boys than flags, and they thoroughly enjoyed waving those at the vast mjority of cars that drove past while we were waiting.  Other highlights were the friendly PCSO who jokingly told DS2 not to poke that stick-thing up his nose, and the town cryer who DS3 thought was Santa Claus as he was dressed in red, was rather large and had a beard (I'm not sure why DS3 thought he was blowing a horn & ringing a bell, but he was happy to see him anyway).  Unfortunately, by the time the Queen's car passed by us, there was such a swell of people from behind that I had a job to keep the boys from being pushed into the road - and the people who did step into the road blocked our view, so we saw very little - it was quite stressful.  We decided there was no point trying to follow the royal car, so we went back to our own car to go home.  On the journey back we realised there were more people lining the main road, but more spread out, so we found a place to stop and got out again where it was far less crowded.  This time we had a much better view of the car and the Queen inside - and the boys got to wave their stick things again :)  It seemed like a lot of fuss for something so little - but I hope the boys will remember it as a good experience.
We just had time for lunch when we got home, and then it was straight out again to paint pottery with some local HE friends.  DS1 chose a snake, and painted it really carefully until he got fed up and wanted to play, DS2 chose a dolphin which he was even more careful with - he reassured me he did enough layers, but I wasn't able to help him much as I had to supervise DS3 whose choice of a turtle was secondary to the fun he was having squirting the paint onto his tile.  He did make a good effort to paint carefully, but it looked pretty splodgy by the end as he got carried away with all the paint (he's only three - I'm not expecting high art).  We won't get them back for a week or so as they need to be glazed and fired, but I'm looking forward to some interesting results.  The nice thing about pottery painting is that glazing process always makes things look so much better - so even DS's 'creative' splodgy painting on his turtle should look good.  And after the painting there was a chance for a good natter with some other HE mums while the children played, which was lovely too.
All in all, that was our day filled, with just a bit of spare time for some trampoline bouncing at the end... DS3 is desperate to do a somersault now that DS2 has done one, and DS1 is pretending he doesn't want to - I suspect he'll practice when no-one's looking, until he's got it perfected ;)  So anyway, that was a good day - a bit stressful and busy, but definitely worth it!

Updated on 27th June - photos of the finished articles...

Snake painted by Eldest

Dolphin painted by Middle

 Turtle painted by Youngest