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!