Rainy days can soemtimes work out for the best!

We have been incredibly busy !So a rainy day has been welcome as we are able to catch up on some home cooking craft projects anything outstanding!

Daisy is now allowed to come out fr short walks!
She is still a little unreliable on the toilet training front but improves daily!
Dotty is just amazing we are ever aware of how far she has come in terms of grace composure and skils ,but we really wish she didn't pull so much whenever on the lead!
This is something we need to tackle sooner rather than later!

We baked bread for lunch today to have with frsh tomato and basil soup.
We also made banana muffins for breakfast and flapjacks for desert at lunch time!
We have baked
Rosemary Foccacia bread to accompony minced steak and vegatable casserole which is in the slow cooker simmering away we will serve it with macaroni and green veggies this evening!

Both children are busy studying at their own ability levels and paces.
They are enjoying some boks reccomendd on the living maths site which are beautiful stories with maths as the core of the story one was about rumpelstiltskins muliplication revenge!
Sudeenly the children see how maths can work better than magic as multiplication and division save the day!

YDD has been very creative and is writing lots of stories and making lots of things, she is having a cookery phase too!
DS has been really into lego,drawing wildlife and is enjoying setting up his aqaurium to prepare for new fish arriving soon!
DH took DS out alone to shop for all of the componants!

We are loving the Halcyon River diaries on BBC1 on Sundays.
This has inspired the children and we have spent alot of time at riversides or naturalm pond areas simply sitting and observing wildlife as well as pond dipping too!
Ds has read another of the how to train your dragon books this time in two hours flat!

Science wise Ds has made soap and DD has been exploring matter and has also set up several experiments to explore things about air.
We have been for lots of walks ,played basket ball,plyed other game sin the park and had lots of play dates too as well as keeping our allotment going as much as possible!

Yeseterday DD attended a local fun day in the park opposite our homeshe enjoyed trying out the stalls,rides and enjoying the entertainment too!

Busy days,sleepless nights and lots of Dotty and Daisy!

We have been very busy !This is partly becuase Daisy arrived here on April 29th!
To try to summarise would give an endless list of social and educational visits ,but here is a taster.
We went to a nature walk at Yately Common with a park Ranger who explained her role and allowed the children to compare differnt habitats and explore the different creatures who live there.
We have been studying renaissance artists in our history of art group where the children try to create similar master pieces!
We also had a dragon hunt on April 26th when we searched around the park for pictures and symbols from the legend of George and the Dragon then claimed the prize of a dragon's egg made form paper mache stuffed with colouring pens!
Both children contnue to read books from the How to train your dragon series.
We are following the election with close interest.
The children wish they could vote!
We are totally taken with little Daisy our Puppy,so is Dotty who plays with her snuggles up to her and enerally protects her little sister!
Despite this I am sleep deprived and a little weary of cleaning up numerous accidents!
We have cooked ,painted,talked drawn maps ,plansexplored space,planned a science experiment with awater repelled rocket done more bubbleology as our children like to call it!
Here are some piccys!.........

Flower power!

Well today was the day we had to kiss our oldest at child goodbye as she returned to her school term to recieve some GCSE results .
She loves school,and we are supporting her desire to be a part of this more formal style of education, but we just feel sad cos we love her being part of what we all do together .Having a child who does attend school makes the division between the holidays and so called term time seem more distinct for those of us at home.




So today as therapy and clebration of our lifestyle,we had a not back to school outing to RHS gardens in Wisley Surrey.We met another home educating family there so the children had peers to share their experience with.
DS and DD delighted in the many blossoms and flowers we could see while we were there.
We visited the Hot house, succulents and an educational root exhibition with interactive elements.
We also had a good look at their vegetable patch and there were next to no plants visibly growing there!
Thee were lots of perfectly raked and tilled plots though and a few containers with fleece covering the tender plants groing up.
DD and DS were amazing in their observations about seasnal change in these gardens!
We observed mallard ducks,Canadian geese a swan and a bird we have never encountered before but intend to identify.
We also observed adult managers trying to crisis manage when a power cut affected the area and the cafeteria was forced to close its doors to the public.
We discussed the cultural uniqueness of the style of queing and crowd formation amongst those present!
We talked about the problem solving we saw occurring and the need to bring in a shiny stand with a red cordon to control the queue formation!
We discovered the library and in particular the childrens corner and our children spent a long time there DS reading horrible science books and DD drawing and writing about her visit in the childrens visitor book and then reading childrens books about nature and gardening followed bu adult books which listed nearly every type of flower imaginable!!The children have taken about 121 photos of the gardens today.
I will ask them to chose some for me to add to this blog!
DS is now playing an interactive game on line with his Father and a friend.
YD is out with her friend who attends a nearby school for a playdate and tea.
ED is upstairs doing home work chatting on socail networks and trying to allow her body chance to recover from the day she has had at school!

The circle of life

Bethan our pet goldfish has sadl died,there was a terrible incident which ended up with finding the poor goldfish being found trapped in the filter of the tank.
This was a very sad day for YD who had this fish as part of her birthday present.
Ds was also very sad as he loves fish and has been terribly concerned about the whole incident change and transition for Ds is hard as he is considered to have Aspergers syndrome or difference.
ED is very familar with this situation and offered lots of things to try to eas the discomfort.
There was a brief but touching funeral and the children all went out to the garden for a goodby to the fish bounce on the trampoline together.
It may seem dramatic but even such a small animal dying has led to the children discussing our mortality as they have in the last two years witnessed the death of their very much loved grandfather so are aware that life has a finite period to it in this bodily form.
Later they all went into the garden and did a coke and mentos experiment in honour of beloved Bethan the Goldfish.
I feel touched that the children are able to clearly express such a variety of feelings and needs.
I am touched that even a small pet dying matters to them.
I am confident that even a sad day like this for them will prove helpful in the lessons they will need for life ahead.
I feel I can learn much from children who can move from sad feelings of loss to silly giggles and happy memories.

Milestones an adventure in history for our children!

Old fashioned sweet shop,where the children had to use old coinage to make thier purchases!

the only occaision our youngest daughter will have attended school this year!

finally helping witha few domestic chores!

Bubbleology

Just an updated album of lovely bubbly fun from our home education group called Popcorn when we met in our local park on Monday!
Happy days!

Learning everywhere we go!

We have been very busy indeed so
here is a summary of the story so far...

Monday :
Dotty had a sunny walk pouncing on every shadow she saw !
We had a brill morning with pancakes for breakfast,fed chickens,played music,read ,and prepared for Popcorn our home education group where we held a bubble bonanza in our local park!It was all goodclean fun honest!
We filled a paddling pool with home made bubble solution gave, the children a step and a hulahoop and they created bubbles large enough to stand inside!the children had bubble wands of every size and shape including home made ones!We also had a solution of paint and bubbles in a smaller container so that the children could blow bubbles and print the images onto paper!

There was a lot of joy and giggles amongst our group that day!
Then to top it all one lovely family bought every child present a yummy ice cream!

Tuesday:
Dotty nearly caught a squirrel on her morning walk!!!Squirrels aren't prepared for how high she can spring!
We read ,youngest daughter continued working on ideas for home school musical,we played musical instruments together,played games and started to make fruit syryp fro fruit tea and sugar for snow cones! Yummy!
Youngest daughter decided she wanted to learn how to prepare cottage pie so I helped her as she learnt....the results were amazing!
DS was very busy building lego and using his computer on an interactive game to do with pirates!

Wednesday:
Dotty had glorious walk,with some of her canine comapnions and enjoyed eating half of my banana with her breakfast!

we packed up a picnic and headed to Basingstoke to the Milestones Museum which is an interactive history Museum startingf rom victorian ages to the present day.
Both daughters dressed up in victorian clothes and really entered into the whole thing,DS spent
We learnt about work conditions,care for employees etc.
We met with three other home educating families and ate lunch in the education picnic room!
The children had the experience of using authentic antique money to but sweets weighed out in a reconstructed sweet shop, interacted with people dressed up and playing victorian roles and generally enjoyed the numerous displays including and amusing display of hair treatment equipment !!!
We paid for a culture passport which will give us fee entry and parking at numerous attractions in hapshire and unlimited entries to Milestones from now on.his time exploring the mor eengineering based exhibits and trying to build a viaduct using the foam bricks provided for this purpose!
Both daughters attended school for an hour victorian style!
Ds refused saying he was only happy to renact history as a home educated child!!!
We also watched a presentation about Taskers a Company form Hampshire who durig the victorian period produced a huge variety of parts and products made of iron!
This could be a great place to visit.
After our trip YD went to a home educated friends house for a play date and DS and ED came home for a well earnt rest!
Thought you might like to see the progress of our propogated seeds!

Learning by living

This is more of anouncment than a blog.....our family has had its own little rethink and we have decided to step into a whole new life style so we are now unschooling in the greatest sense.
The stuff we tried to do to tick the boxes would please any school minded person but if school was right for our children then they would be there.
They seem to know what they need to learn right now and we are willing to support their interests and help them access resources as they need.
This is not a method of education it is a tranfsormation in life style .
The children will learn thigs that interest them and will be learning alongside them.
We will need to resource ourselves not with school schedules but with,enough human and spiritual resources to respectfully hear their ideas about life and join the journey they are on.
This is not a passive thing it takes investment of time emotion and real presence in our parenting.
Dotty will love this journey becuase she gets to come along to and add to and enhance our lives together.
What sparked this was our children getting flu!
?Our daughter age 9 had a very high temperature but in her pyjamas she wroked on more craft art and started preparing an outline for her latest theatre project which will be called Home school Musical!!!
She has written a script andlyrics and has persauaded a local home educating mum who is a drama teacher to help her and they plan to do a two week workshop with performance in the summer.
She also discussed the science of how her body was fighting the infection.
She asked about reproduction in mammals and humans ...she totally led the questions and once she felt she had accessed enough info walked away as though it was all every day...she has age books and appropriate web sites where she can find out more but seems content for now!
Then she asked if we could go and see the film..How to train your dragon.
So as soon as she got better we took the family to see the film which we all loved.
Fred ordered the book at the childrens request when we came back and today it arrived at 9am and DS had rea dit by 12 noon! In the middle of the woodland trail where we had gone for a walk and picnic with two other home educating families.
DD loves the book but has read it a little more slowly, in the tranquility of her home . She has enjoyed sharing he rbook by reading it aloud to me and even asking me to read a page or two to her she loves showing me the illustrations and commenting on them.
DD's favourite thing to do at night is to snuggle up on the bed with me and read or chat until she is alomost or actually asleep then we helpher move to her room .
This is an imporatnt part of her day as she loves to share her ideas and feelings during this time.
I go to bed quite ealry as I get up really ealry to walk the dog with the pack of dogs she loves to socialise with!
Tommorow we travel to Bournemouth to visit our four week old puppy called Daisy we can't wait to see how much she has grown since we met her last!
Dotty will come with us and get to take a walk in the new Forest!

Confessions of a confirmed animalaholic!

We have been very very busy recently!
We have been doing lots of maths
,English science etc, but we have also
been visiting a sick family member in
hopsital,doing lots of lovely home
ed stuff with our group Popcorn!
Like our little singing and music group!
We also attend another group where
the children are doing art in the
fashion of artists through history!





Our son and daughter have been making yummy Flap jacks as well as learning lits about hand washing,and hygiene also safety in the kitchen even how to safely use the cooker and kettle with supervision of course!
Our youngest also entered the Potato councils growing competition !She is busy keeping a weather chart measuring rainfall,going to the allotment as much as possible.
We are growing broccoli,garlic,raspberries ,potatoes,parsnips,carrots,peas and beetroot so far!

We have also taken a trip to the new forest and Bournemouth.....but our best news is that we will soon have a new member of our family.....here she is...

She is a two week old springer spaniel puppy called daisy and in May we will be bringing her to live in our family!
Dotty was quite amused by such tiny ,little, wriggly , creatures!
Its a whole new chapter for all of us!!!

New Life!

Today we recieved news that Dotty our Puppy's Mummy had safely delivered 8 brand new Puppies!
We received pictures of the tiny little ones who looked a little like Guinea pigs!
You can probably predict that we have been given forst refusal on one of these!
We are totally delighted to see thier sweet little faces but turned this experience into a little project!The children need to research the costing for care for a week a month and annually for Dotty then allow for any new equipment!
Then research psychogical needs etc.
They will then present the case including pros and cons to the family,including possible fund raising ideas!
Today Dotty enjoyed bouncing ,circling and pouncing in the sunlight and especially delighted in stalking every shadow she saw.
She also took reat pleasure in eating and rolling on every possible piece of frosty grass!
Once she spotted some of the wonderful pack we walk with from 630-8ish, she made a beeline for the ball they were playing with !In a flash she stole it ,and lavished in the attention she recieved, as the entire pack tried to keep up with her exhuberant celebratory springs,leaps and dashes accross the cricket and fottball pitches!
We ended our antics in the park with a short training session just helping our precious puppy to remeber a few manners,and patterns of behaviour for her and public safety,
Clearly all her enthusiasm had paid off beuase unusually she was completely composed on our return journe and actually walked to heel !
Next while we were doing some maths together,a parcel arrived at our door and to our delight our mini green house ,seed trays and propogators arrived!
The children spent time reading the instructions then constructing the framework and shelves for the greenhouse problem solving to a point then thay enlisted the help of their Dad who was working from home today!
Next they sowed some seeds and enjoyed choosing a space for their new greenhouse!
Tommorow as part of our learning we will also visit our allotment with another family who home educate and also have an allotment to do some weeding,bed preperation and sow parsnips and carrots inside toilet rolls!
We were informed that this is a way to ensure a longer less split shape of root veggies!
after all this excitement we had a science lesson discussing life cycles,reproduction in plants and Dogs too!
I wonder what could have inspired us?
Later we went to the park for our homee education social gathering!
Ds played with a lovely lad who has autism,he has incredibly structured schooling he ven wears unidorm even though he is being educated at home !
He has a team of therapists and trained voluntary helpers to assist his education.
His Mum is an inspiration she is doing every possible thing to help him get the best out of life and his education,she spends every moment she can helping him .
Ds and YD are very confident with paralell play and did this so well with him today this made amazing connections and his mum saw some touching moments as we quietly observed his amazing progress!
We also met a new friend for YD who is a similar age and has a great sense of fun and excellent social skills!
We finnished the day with a long walk arund the various trees that line our beautiful park to select a Tree for our group to photgraph each time we meet we hope to obeserve the changes and progress through the year with each two weeks that pass by!
By th time we returned home it was time to prepare tea and get some rest after a very full day..........New life can be so inspiring!

Happy Days!

We have had a holiday to remeber in Longleat forest!
So much fresh air and exercise with a lot of swimming too!
The children really enjoyed having accomodation next to a pond ,surrounded by trees ,which meant we saw rabbits birds of many types and best of all a 1 year old Buck .This deer had such velvet covered antlers and we loved watching as he sunned himself and stood still so tha we could admire him.

The children said the view from our patio doors was like natures tv !We spent hours observing squirrels,birds ,ducks,moor hens,rabbits and deer.
In the whole time we had no whining or moaning ,there was such peace and contentment with the exception of Jonathon who simply wanted to return home after Tuesday as he finds any change of routine incredibly tiring and challenging ,this is why things like holidays and field trips are such a vital part of his home education journey.
Jonathon needed alot of time and calm explanations as well as activities to calm his senses but he overcame his overwhleming need to return to home before we were due to and told me how proud he felt that he had been able to last it out ,when we got home!
Sarah-Jane rated the holiday 10 out of 10.Susanna gave it a 9 Jonathon a 9 not bad really!
We were able to hire bikes and loved transporting ourselves around the forest in this manner!
SJ improved her swimming so much she was able to swim and even tread water out of her depth !
JDN remains an underwater lover,
SAN has invented a new swimsuit appraisal game involving appraising peoples swim wear for practicality ,coverage, choice of colour design etc and how well it fits/suits each person.
We ate simply,enjoyed each others comapny and played UNO (card game) into the small hours,we had to return aday early as SAN had a GCSE science module on the Friday, it was very eerie crossing the Salisbury plain late on Thursday noght it was pitch black and very icy indeed!
The stars were very clear on the other hand so we coud really appreciate what an amazing palce Salisbury Plain and Stonehenge must have been ever sicnce they existed!
There was so much peace and so much life in everythingw e did on Holiday and we were sad to leave the Forest behind!
The highlight of the week was when the children completed an awesome high ropes type activity in the trees!this ended in a descent using a vertical zip wire.
All three children completed this course and I felt so proud of the way they moved with such composure and encourage one another as they progressed along the course!
We were ery thankful to DH who stayed at home to care for Dotty and the hens!
He really hates holidays with us and prefers to be at home in his own comfort zone!

Back to basics

We are back after such a wonderful time together in Longleat Forest in Whiltshire!
The children really enjoyed the experience of doing high tree activities!
We have had a wonderful time together and were even able to invite another home educating family to join us as guests in the pool for a day it was fabulous ! It all ended up with making smores on the fire in our accomodation!
We had a very late journey home with very sleppy children in the car the whole holiday was the best we have ever had!

We are off to the woods!

Dotty has really enjoyed the walks in the rain and has especially enjoyed our local park being flooded!
I gave her a bath the other day to help get her ready to meet my Mother for the first time.
Dotty barked for a few moments then decided my Mother wasn't too much of a threat and decided to sidle up between us on the sofa and eventually rested her head on My mum's lap!
The spaniel eyes won her over straight away!
The hens are still laying well but we have had to restrcit their acces to some areas of the garden as there is absolutely no lawn left!!!
We are supplementing thier pellets and corn with some fresh greens like cabbage.
Today we secured our allotment for another year so we have been very busy making big plans!

For the last few weeks we have been very busy with home education projects .
Maths and english continue in both structured and child led activities.
DD has really enjoyed exploring multiplication tables using a floor game I made for her!
DS has been mastering HCF and LCF and factor tree on conquest maths!
DD has also been using mathletics education city and singapore maths along with a little Kumon maths too!
We are very busy with our egyptians project as we continue our journey through world history courtesy of story of the world, the children are doing a computer thing together producing a slide show to accompany a song they like right now.
The children have also done alot of cooking!
DD has made some excellent banana bread loaf, and DS made flapjacks!
They are also learning alot about nutrition after we purchased excellent nutrition charts from
a nurtion company on line one is a very colourful chart explaining essential vitamins and minerals and which food supply them best. It was so wonderful to see our children choosing meals becuase of two health charts!
We also had lots of home education group events the first was a pancake race and pancake banquet with our small,friendly home education group which especially includes all familie who hav children who might be classified in schools as having special educational needs.
Tis group asctually has many so called typical families but the attraction is the small informal and very friendly group atmosphere.
We have also started a music movement and singing group last Monday.
This involved simple music theory precussion work,music appreciation,interpretation, and some simple singing we used a song back available free from sing up a national charity trying to promote singing to promote singing to enhance eductaion and community too!
This was such fun on a rainy morning we danced around the room sining ALice the camle as a warm up !
Later we made Marracas (from www.enchantedlearning.com) using papaer plates tissue paper ribbons seqiun glitter glue and paint!
We also made a trebble clef using glitter and glue!
We read lots and started to make plans for our holidays as we are due to go to centre parcs in Longleat tommorow!
The children love the forest,meeting the owls etc and they adore swimming too!
We are really lloking forward to a very short break made shorter by the fact that our oldest child has a gcse exam on Friday so we need to return one day early and leave on Monday afternoon.
I will try to get as many photos as possible and psot when we return.
Dotty is staying at home with DH as he hates holidays and hates swimming and loves being at home,and centre parcs are so restrictive about where dogs can go and what they can do that we felt she would enjoy home more!

Getting our bearings!

Today I got up extra early to give Dotty an extra long walk!
She was so surprised to meet up with her friend ,who is a large, English Boxer called Tilly. They ran through the park together .The two puppy pals rolled through puddles,tried to dig holes all over the park, then, finally, they found small stick, and shared it.There they were, inseperable! It was such a comical scene as they were merrily trotting along together with this old twig in their mouths!
I am so proud of Dotty who is now just turning nine months!She is doing so well with recall even when she is interested in chasing birds or playing with dogs she keenly returns if I call and signal to her! Her ears fly out behind her as she sppeds back to me!
Her little tail looks like a propeller when she is running along!!!!
This evenig our walk was made more thrilling by the presence of a family walking their dog int he park with a torch on permanently .Dotty is obsessed with shiny lights and adores chasing the shadows that shiny lights produce we needed to seriously distract her so that she didn't harass the innocent people trying to have a quiet eveing stroll with their dog!

Well back to our daily learning adventures!
DS was very perplexed by a maths lesson involving bearings.
He actually had to use a protractor ,ruler, and set square on paper with absolute acuracy
This is very difficult for a child who struggles with cordination and sensory integration, but with lots of patience and encouragement he completed his assignment with 96% as a mark.It only took him about an hour and a half with lots of moral support and calming shoulder rubs to help him overcome his abject fear of having to coordinate so many things at once.

DD also didn't understand the point of leanring how to multiply at all so I simply spent time showing her how labourious it is to add up 12 twos or 11 4s and how long it takes to write out the sums! Eureka she has decided that its really helpful to use multiplication!

We spent time reading together about ancient Egyptians today and both children spent time creating stencil designs of some Egyptian symbols!

We read together and we shared a delicious lunch full of fresh veggies and cheesy wholemeal toast. This feast was in honour of our play date with another home educating family when DD spent time making clay pots,drawing and painting.
Later she spent time building a fairy tale castle out of lego!
Then after tea she continued some work on her Egyptian Symbols and asked to do some more work on multiplaication!
This afternoon after taking part in all of his learning adventures at home,
DS went to play with another friend who is home educated, and has Aspergers syndrome.
He was so excited all day waiting to go.

This week has been hectic so far with Home ed group at our house on Monday,Tuesday with a visit from our malysian friends who also home educate,Wednesday joining forces with another home edding family to do history projects,
Today playdates afte a busy day of leanring activities I am ready to rebbot the wasshing machine wipe down every surface above the florr sweep hoover and clean all of the washable floors and hoover every carpet before bed!

Right housework frenzy, pack swimming things into a bag then collapse into a lovely bath followed by bed , beeed , beeed , it feels like years since I last spent ime in my lovely cozy bed!

What a week!

Dotty has been very busy this week she has been for some wonderful walks and seen some of her favourite friends there was Oscar a wonderful working cocker spaniel who has a lovely golden coat!
Black Jack who is an ace at catching a ball we think he could be a flyball champ Herby is a wonderful Basset Hound!

This week the children had a lifeskills week which incorpaorates health and social education.
We did some experiment to find the most efficient ways to wash our hands,investigated some of the germs we need to remove from our hands,researched various amazing sites in the web and later in the week the children have prepared posters for every sink in our home to remind people of the correct technique.
The children explored the who,why,where ,when, of washing there hands.
The children also learnt about how to make simple healthy lunches this week, including open sandwiches, nan bread veggies and humous, beand son toast, and freshly home made chicken noodle soup.

We have decided to continue this as the children are really enjoying leanrimng about how to makethe food they are eating and are adding their own secret ingredients to enhance the health content of their food.
They are learning how to include appropriate quantitiess of vegetables complex carbohydrates and protein.
Both children are now takinga n active role in choosing a minimum of five a day including small portions of raw veg and fresh fruit with each meal or snack.
The children had a play date with our home educating friends who have been in Malaysia for several months so now dd is the proud owner of a chineese dress !
We spent time developing our drawing skills practicing drawing pictures of rabbits !

We learnt a sad lesson on Thursday when ds ran in to say that he had found queenie our rescued ex battery hen dead in the coup this mourning.
There were many tears but there was such thankfulness for every happy moment we shared with Queenie who loved cuddles and had such a placid nature!
We had amazing conversations about whether animals have souls it was such a life lesson day.

DD has speant lots of time practicing French and is really enjoying exploring a new language she is using a great book ,flash cards web sites etc and is now exploring the verbs as well as conversation work and vocabulary ! So much motivation!

DS is enjoying exploring alot of ww2 and is also busy working on several electronics kits .
DD has been designing her own Arabian princess dressing up out fit she is desigining it herself and sewing it with a little support from me!

This week has been eventful but worth while.
DD loved her modern dance class tonight tommorow will be a very special day as DH is taking over caring over our children while I go to a day for me and some friends!Go Daddy day!
I am so thankful for the way our family is supporting one another!

Papyrus,hierolyphics,and sumer dicatorship!

Today Dotty our nine month old puppy played with a rootweiler and a staffy in the park ,chased shadows,frolicked through the woods and really tried to remember not to let the delicous new scents she encountered for long enough to try to stay to heal when we put her lead on and took her for a walk on the local pavements after her run in the park!
We had visitors and Dotty really struggle with recieveing anyone she doesn't know very well.At best she barks at worst she gets so stressed she wets herself.
I put her sweet little pink lead on today and let her know that barking at our friends was not the best plan and praised her when she was calmer and quiet.
She did much better after a while and no tiddles either!
We are so proud of her and hope she will grow in confidence with visitors!

Oldest daughter had great reviews from her teachers today .Words like amazing ,superb ,wonderful ,trustworthy just flowed and we are so thankful for her wonderful attitude towrds school,family,church and her community in general she is so special in so many ways!
Home educations loss is schools gain is all I can say!
Youngest daughter completed a Singapore maths lesson by herself today,then used her on line courses to polish up on her mental maths skills.
We played spelling and grammar games too!
We read Story of the World and learnt about the people of Sumer and compared cuneiform to hierogyphics!
We placed a picture of a
Sumer King into our book of time (a kind of time line in a book which we use as a simple scrap book of time)!
We will finish our pretend papyrus hieroglyphics next week.
This afternoon Youngest daughter played dressing up and various games with some home educated friends and was then invited out for a play date until tea time.
DS came on an amazing Dog walk, did some excellent work on his on line maths, made a picture of an ancient king of Sumer,spent time play on wii with our friends,
researched examples of modern military dicatators and helped me cook a pineapple upside down cake !
Today was such a productive and balanced day!
Tommorow is when we attend a home school group where YD will have a frecnch class,DS and DD will have basket ball practice and after eating luch with the home educated friends the group will join in a bible club this is a time where the children play group games,share jokes and talents,do craft, and spend time reflecting on their faith and how to cope with real every day situation its all about bringing thier vision to reality ...it just so happens to be a great deal of multi media socaible fun as a bonus!
This is such a wonderful group of families and we love spending time with them I just hate the journey through a very busy rush hour to get there on time!

These boots are made for walking!

Today I recieved some lovely,grey ,waterproof, walking boots through the post!
Finally while we are out on our many adventures walking through fields and woods I will have dry comfortable feet !

We took Dotty our 9 month old puppy out to our local park in the sleet and she made a new friend called Toby he is also 9 months old and is a cross between a lurcher and a Jack Russel ,the sizes were a good match and the temperaments worked well too!
We enjoyed observing the squirrels activities as we felt ad that there are only three patches of snow left!

On the home education front: For maths we explored the 24 hour clock today using Conquer Maths for DS and education city and mathletics for DD!
DD used some Singapore books to practice some basic operation skills for maths too!
We did some work on pragraphs a literature study on a book about a white stallion, and then shared a fun poem about the frustrations of leanring to whistle!!!!

Next we continued with our attempt to make our names in hierolglyphics as part of our exploration of egyptian history!This project was inspired as we have been reading through Story of the workd by Susan Wise Bauer.

We did some art work using very high quality colouring pencils and even found time to spring clean away some of Dotty's paw prints from downstairs!
Our next project this afternoon is to make a Laura Ashley fruit Cake . DD is working on the 3d marzipan decorations now!
We are studying some fun books for science including a brilliant one that teaches you symbols to help you remeber the elemnts!On a practical front for physical science we are also using some amazing electronics sets the chidren recieved for Christmas to construct boats,a tank,a robot and various clever circuit things I will post pictures as they are finished off!

Our darling hens layed three eggs today!They are so beautiful and so individual , and for anyone who hasn't had the privilage of eating and egg from such well loved free range oragnic hens ,the texture and flavour is a whole new world!

I will blog again as soon as I can fit it in!