Life is a Highway - it’s the journey, not the destination

I have no money. Am pondering music, and instruments and I want to buy lots. For both the kids and me. I especially would like to learn something like the clarinet, or maybe the violin. Well actually I do want to learn the violin, but am afraid of the sound really! It would be nice to get good at something, I think I could have done well had I had some more encouragement as a child. School forgot about me once I went into High school and my parents couldn’t afford private lessons (I assume). So I think for the time being I’m going to start looking over music and try and refresh my head with reading it and have a think. Shall try and get my recorder playing back (might encourage the kids - actually A is quite good with it so far) Oh and I did start trying to learn my first chord on my guitar, then James tried to retune it and the string snapped. *sigh* I do love music

In other news, I’m ill. Been feeling crap for about a week in various guises. But the last 3 days I’ve had a really sore throat, earache and just feeling rotten. So I’m going to go back to window shopping.

(don’t miss post below with pics!)

Been doing ok this week so far (although only halfway through!). LAst week we achieved a lot educationally but really it was an awful week with one thing and another. Nothing major, just a bit of a rough week.

But this week’s been a bit better although can’t be bothered to blog in too much detail. Highlights have been watercolour painting, listening to Rimsky Korsakov music (Scheherezade in particular - looked at this website/game (ugh not working shall look later)), making it to the home ed group and enjoying it and doing weather charts.

I’ve been trying to do some more Charlotte Mason type stuff so have a plan for the week from the AmblesideOnline site. I hadn’t ever bothered with the art and music studies when I’d looked at them before, but have this time and both have enjoyed what we’ve done so far. Artist is Leonardo DiVinci so as we had a story book or 2 about that we’ve talked loads about him. Quite enjoying doing the AO, it really helps me to do ’stuff’ without asking too much. I still think we have an awful lot of time for free play and time for them to be themselves so a winner all round.

Have completely backed off learning to read for a bit and neither of them have asked to do anything. Oh to have a child who wants to be taught! I’m still kind of at a loss and wondering how to proceed here, but really I can watch M pick up words and read them to himself when he’s interested so I do wonder if I left him a bit longer whether he’d either pick it all up himself or be more receptive later on. My gut feeling is the former, but I do wonder how long it will take. I’m imagining it will be a while and that does scare me, just really because of pressure from other people. I can see he has a good relationship with books and has all the support in the world for when he is ready, but argh it feels so bloody hard sometimes!! The AO stuff is keeping my mind off it for now. As for A, well I’ve no idea how she’ll turn out, but no point in pressing phonics. She just doesn’t get it. Sight words all the way I reckon!

Maths going well. We’re doing a little MathUSee to try and get them to remember maths facts, but really spending more time with ‘living’ maths. Lots of games and books and just talking really. They are both really fascinated with infinity at the moment so we’re talking about that.

I really want to do more music and art stuff though so will try to concentrate more there as they both enjoy that stuff but it isn’t done enough.

Only about 6 months later than everyone else did it, but have been meaning to do one for ages so here goes.

We were all up late-ish today. If James is noisy enough he’ll wake M up when he goes out, but today he wasn’t so I got extra ‘me’ time this morning. They eventually got up around about 9am and brought their duvets down (with no covers on as I stripped them as soon as they got up and washed them - extra good brownie points for me!) and we had breakfast. I’ve started reading some stories or doing some poems while we do this which works well. Today was a bible story - Cain and Abel.

It took them about an hour to finish breakfast and get dressed so at 10am we baked some jam tarts. These have been on the cards for baking for over a week and only finally have we done it. Always been postponed for one reason or another. We halved the measurements so they could each have their own pastry so some maths was thrown in there. I could do with better scales though, mine are cheapy and they struggle to use them.

10.50am While the tarts were cooking I set the kids up with some copywork. M is copying some proverbs, today’s one was ‘Silence is golden.’ (HA!), A is just practising the letters. I then braved the cold and hung out the sheets, on coming back in the kids were playing some game under the duvets but calmed down enough to do the rest of our stories I had planned at 11.30am. First were some Aesop fables, then we did a ‘maths’ book - Earth Day Hooray and then another couple of chapters of Charlottes Web. Should def finish before we go to the cinema to see it in a few weeks.

We also remembered about the weather kit the kids opened yesterday and took readings from the thermometer and filled out our chart.

12.00pm And then it was lunch already. not helped by a late start, just didn’t feel like we had much time in the morning. We did scoff it down quickly in order to have a nature walk. I had wanted to go and find some horse chestnurt trees but it was so cold today that we stuck close by, only venturing to the little ‘park’ but we had a good explore round the bushes nearby and picked up lots of bits of nature to draw another time for their nature journals. Was way too cold today! Managed an hour outside though, so good going I think, only coming back for A to go to the toilet (we may have managed another 5 minutes otherwise!)

1.15pm Back in the warmth of the house it was patch time which gives them time to play on the games consoles or the pc. Today they both played Crash Bandicoot together while I tried to rescue the house from it’s disaster zone status.

3.00pm Alex fell away from the computer before M and started doing a craft activity from a Barbie annual - making cheerleader pompoms. She sat with it for ages following the instructions and not asking for help till the end when she realised it wasn’t going to work, so I had to help her M had a bit of a strop about something and was going on about wanting some italian job mini set he’d seen in Meadowhell last week and how he’d never get them so I said we could look on ebay and see how much they are on there and see if possible to save up.

4.00pm James came home then and we headed straight back out to visit my mum and dad in their new shop. i’d warned my mum we were coming so she had some ‘jobs’ for the kids to do to earn money so when we arrived they set straight to work stacking the sweety shelf.

They earned a pound and spent it straight back in the shop. M was going to save it for the aforementioned Italian job mini’s but couldn’t help himself. *rolls eyes* We had tea at my mums and then headed home at 7.30pm via the other grandparent for a quick visit there. (Camera decided to conk out now so no more pics). Looked at the huge moon and wondered if it was the harvest moon, so bit of discussion about that. On coming home was pleased to see a post on EarlyYears list saying it was!

9.00pm So after a late start it was a late bedtime. I’ve been trying really hard to get into the habit of always doing stories. Shouldn’t be hard, but we’ve had periods where they’ve gone ages without for some reason but for the last 3 or 4 months we’ve done them pretty much every night. Tonight we read ‘Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel’ and 2 more chapters of ‘The Folk of the Faraway Tree’. And so finally to bed. M has gone to bed with another cd - this time a horrible science one my mum saved him from a newspaper.

Oh and this is the last time I did one of these - 2 and a half years ago!!

Math Playground Good for word problems

Timez Attack Game

Skip counting and Multiplication printables

We don’t seem to get much inventive writing from Marcus (I can’t remember him ever doing it, although still time I guess!), so it was nice to have Alex write this all on her own today:

me story is colt the pig ant the fairy (translated as My story is called the pig and the fairy).

She was playing with the jackanory bit on the cbeebies website and making up a story.

Been having a rubbish few days in that nothing seems to have been going right, so can’t be bothered to blog it!

and one in which I’ve felt completely detached from the whole world. I get days when all I want to do is sit and thrash out the things going on in my head and today was one, but I never had the chance. It also didn’t help that I had an awful nights sleep, with a really horrible dream. Set me up really badly.

But anyway, I managed to trim some bits in the garden and fill the green bin up, it is so overgrown and I dread anyone coming to check up on the house (we must get a check soon - been here nearly a year). So a little bit better, but really I wasn’t in the mood for it. Kids tidied their room after a lot of prodding and Alex did some of a maths workbook of her own accord. She did about doubling numbers and matching numbers to words.

Watched the GP qualifying and then headed round to FIL’s for the afternoon and for tea. Was a welcome break from having our 2 out in the street. It’s just getting worse, yesterday the boy who we have problems with was trhowing A’s scooter around and has managed to break it Why must one stupid obnoxious little 8 year old ruin everything? I mean I hate the house here anyway, I’m covered in bruises from knocking into things cos nothing fits right in the house and there is just no room, but it did feel nice that at least the kids had friends, could do the whole playing out thing and everything. But argh, I’m just hating it all atm. Kind of wishing winter and bad weather

Watched Stuart Little and Italian Job then home and baths before bed. Seemed ages ago that though. We’ve nearly finished the Stuart Little book and we had a little history and geogrpahy tonight in the form of Warm as Wool story (M recognised Pennsylvania from the Magic Tree House books - must check where it is on the map!) and more Maths in Tally O’Malley.

Supposed to be going out for a drive somewhere nice tomorrow but as car just been fixed and has cost a further £100 maybe we won’t. can’t face a day in the house though I don’t think

which is why I haven’t blogged. I have been keeping notes of all our educational stuff in a notebook as I feel like a fraud blogging what we’ve done if actually what we have done is only a tiny proportion in between a really fraught couple of days. But having the notebook helps me, I dunno why but writing it down physically is much better for me than typing. Only lists though, I’ve never actually written a diary - typing much better for that!

Today has been slightly better as we started with maths and some reading before I asked them to get dressed. If I wait till after they always get distracted by something and then I get stressed waiting for them. I’m not sure it’s a good habit to get into though, but it worked today. We did some place value from the Math U See (they really like this) and then I read some of M’s Bone comic to him. The idea was him to follow the words, but I was going too fast for him. But I think it will be helpful for him anyway as he’ll get the gist of the story and be able to work it out next time he looks at it.

We then got dressed and made our way to the library to get lots of audio books like I said below and I also picked up some comics for M. A Simpsons one and an Asterix. Watching him sit down and really enjoy a comic makes me feel a little better about the reading thing. I asked him the other day if he wanted to read something himself and he said his brain gets too confused if he tries to read. I need patience, but it’s hard, and I’m fighting feelings that I wish he was into ‘proper’ books. But then I see him picking up words here there and everywhere and I’m sure he’ll get there eventually and getting there with a love of books still intact would probably be preferable.

We went to Magna after the library which was the first time since before the holidays that we’d made it inside. There was a new exhibition all about sports and so we were on that for a bit riding the bikes and kicking goals. Good fun. Then off to the other parts which were pretty much empty, the way I like it! I was very good and packed a picnic so we went to the outdoor playground to eat that. Unfortunately it wasn’t long before it was full of school children, lots of them. A local school has discovered asbestos in its roof so the kids were having classes at Magna but that meant that their lunch break was time in the outdoor playground. It was soooo busy and my 2 didn’t know what to do!

It was getting warm so we got the kids changed into sunsuits and they went into the water bit which is just loads of water jets. No school kids there They had loads of fun, only the 2nd time we’ve made it in and I’ve realised there won’t be many more opportunities once it gets cold so will try and go again if the weather holds a bit longer. We won’t get membership next year as they’ve changed the rules now where once you get membership you still have to pay £1 each every time you visit, which kind of defeats the object for me I think.

Home and patch/computer time then play outside with gits on the street time.

We’re reading Stuart Little at night time which I’m not really sure about, but the kids are enjoying so I guess it must be ok. I’m trying to read some Charlotte Mason books I’ve got which I’m really enjoying again (even though they’ve been read before), they’re making me feel much more inspired which is just what I’ve needed the past few days.

Oh and I’m sure Marcus has just had a growth spurt after last weeks grumps and sore achy legs, he’s def looking much taller today!

Marcus has recently taken to listening to audio books at night time and has completely devoured loads from the library. We returned 5 this morning and he picked another 7 up. so here’s a list of what he’s been listening to (I feel like it would be agood idea to keep note!)

Giant Jim and the Hurricane
The Worst Witch
Witch In Training (though think it had a few books included with this one)
Just William
How to Be A Pirate
The Killer Underpants
Sophie’s Tom
Sophie Hit’s Six
The Indoor Pirates
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Whizziwig
And lots of StoryNory stuff

Phew! That wasn’t including what he picked up today!! I’m not sure he ever gets to the end of them mind you, but he does talk about them so must be getting something from them. Libraries are def good, esp as 4 of the above list I got in the 2nd hand bit of the library for a grand total of £1.60.

but since I’m not generally a busy person, I suppose once in a while I can handle it

Saturday was the drive down south to Monster’s party. James was very good about driving as I’d really rather not and the kids were fairly good in the car. We arrived with some time to spare so we headed to the beach and just really enjoyed sitting there. I so love the beach, the sound of the waves and just the peacefulness of it all. It really calms me. I think one day we’ll have to live near the beach, I can get a dog and wander along every day. Bliss.

The party has been blogged elsewhere, so I’ll not add to much to that. M was really good at staying out of party games. He’s quite happy not joining in now as he knows he can’t handle losing. I think it’s quite grown up of him A had fun and had a fab ladybird painted on her face - thanks Ros! Can’t believe I didn’t nab any cake for myself though. I love cake.

Really enjoyed chatting and socialising in the evening too, the fish and chips spectacle was very funny!! Alex fell on the slide at some point came in and said she’d hurt her eye, but I couldn’t see much so sent her away with a hug. When it came time to take her face paint off though I saw she’d really hurt her eye and managed a big cut and puffyness under her eye. She looked a state! Especially the next day as she was a little stained from the facepaint and so looked really ill, washed out and beaten up!!

I went off to bed earlyish as we knew we had to be up early to go to the Renault World Series Show at Donington Park. I’d got tickets ages ago and even though they were free it seemed like such a good event and so up our street that we didn’t really want to pass it up. So we got up at 5am ish, got ourselves tea and coffee and then tried to get 2 sleeping kids in the car and tidy away all our airbeds and stuff into the car. All done and off by 5.45.

It was just as well really as we still managed to get caught in lots of traffic going into the show and James’ dad and his mates who were going too spent 2 hours queuing to get parked as they arrived later. It was a really good event with a free funfair too. Alex and I went on the Big wheel straight away and she hated it. I did too, forgot how much I hate heights! Then they both had some more goes on some more little person rides. We watched the many races going on, got freebies and winced at the sound of the formula one cars. boy are they noisy!! Wandered around nearly everywhere I think and managed to time it just right for the Renault trackside girls to be making an ‘appearance’ in the crowd. Cue loads of men going goggle eyed!!

It was a long day though and we were flaggin by around 3pm. The food was extortionate (£2 for a tray of chips!) so we made a quick getaway. Well we tried till we hit more queues on the way out, but it wasn’t far to James’ sisters so we decamped there for tea and toast (my favourite!).

Today has been way more sedate. We had a much needed sleep in and then headed off to the shoe shop to try and get new shoes. Both kids feet have grown but Alex was most disappointed to find that the shoes with dolls in the soles didn’t go as low as her size (she’s a 9 now and they start at 10). But she was very good and chose some other trainers. M got some with a car in the sole so he was happy.

Then home and we had lunch and read a bit of Murderous Maths: The essential Arithmetricks. And that was about the height of educational activity. I cleaned up various grubby spots in the house and then it was playing outside time (not lacking here atm!). I went to Sainburys on my own after tea and managed some bargains - a wetsuit for me at half price (I dithered when the rest of the tribe bought them as I wasn’t sure I’d wear it, but at £13.50 I thoughT I’d chance it) and some fab artist stuff at 75% off. Got some watercolours, A3 pad, artist case and brushes all for less than a fiver I guess. I was naughty.

So all up to speed. I *will* try and make it to home ed group tomorrow. Shout at me if I don’t ok?

I should start putting myself a page of links together (or maybe just organise my bookmarks!)

Maths (including printable Set game in the Games section)

Apple puzzle someone on a yahoo group I’m on posted this and I thought it was pretty cool!