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

Saturday started fairly early as we wanted to get along to Old Moor RSPB reserve in time for the start of the Big Garden Birdwatch event. We arrived just in time for them opening the doors to it and so got stuck straight in. We decided to not do the actual birdwatch at the reserve as we figured a whole hour doing that straight might be too much but we headed out to the hide with one of the staff members to look at the birds anyway. There’s a lot of hides out on the water sides but this one looked out onto an area they had lots of bird feeders on. We saw absolutely loads which was fab as we don’t get much in our garden back home. Goldfinches (or strawberry faces as A calls them!), chaffinches (M’s fave), robins, tree sparrows, a willow tit and lots of great tits. M really enjoyed watching them all, as did A but all of a sudden she wanted to go off and do something else.

There was some crafts going on inside so we did some painting. Mostly using some bird stencil shapes. Both M and A wanted to make the the right colours and they all looked really good. When we’d done way more than our fair share of painting we had a v. quick walk round the reserve. We didn’t go too far really. The kids were annoyed that the hides were full of people with no room for them to look. Downsides of weekends I guess. So we went back to the original hide to do some bird bingo. We had to get 4 birds in a row to claim a prize. It was much harder this time and we were wishing we’d done it earlier. Eventually we got the lot and M chose himself a set of wildlife top trumps cards and A chose a bird book. Nice prizes

We headed for an afternoon at work. My dad was ok with the kids being there so I spent the afternoon in a supervisory role helping the kids do some ‘work’. Stacking shelves and quality control, the latter being their favourite!! They did about 30 mins and then sat with magazines and then later on spent their wages back in the shop

Sunday should have been better than what it was. I woke up expecting it to be raining but actually it stayed dry all day. We wanted to do a geocache but James was feeling a little tired and so we stayed in most of the day. We did do our birdwatch though. I split it up into 15 min intervals for the kids and they took it in turns to watch. We didn’t see too much some house sparrows, blackbirds, a magpie and a pigeon. I think it was a little windy tbh. I wanted some peace later in the afternoon and did my own little one where I added some great tits and a robin to the count.

We introduced James to Memoir 44. He really liked it, but M was getting in such a strop when he thought he would lose. I think a bit of perfectionism is getting in his way! They ended up winning anyway *rolls eyes*

Today we had no plans. We played some yahtzee, M was much better at losing this time! I won the first game between A and I and A won the 2nd game with all of us. The kids spent some time playing some weird game jumping round the living room and having to avoid obstacles. Perhaps too much Raven watching? M finished his first magic tree house book, think he read 4 or 5 chapters today rather than the normal 1 *rolls eyes* A sat and looked through the whole of Mouse Guard. She was so quiet and enthralled in it I decided it would count as reading. She’s doing so well atm I really don’t want it to be a chore for her.

They played on some games later, both of them have nearly completed the games that they bought after Xmas. A is playing Littlest Pet Shop on the Wii and M is playing Need For Speed: Undercover. At least their money was well spent! We then went shopping, bleurgh, came home and watched some rubbish about the World Rally Championship.

Oh and hopefully will find out more about the Young Archeaologist club soon as have finally managed to get through to the lady who runs it. Apparantly they have spaces

Just in reply to Helen’s comment that she didn’t know how the composer or artist study works.

Bearing in mind I’m no expert here goes. Each term (3 per year) there is a set composer or artist to study. By studying them it might be as simple as just listening to the works or viewing the art.

This term we might find a little harder to do more since there doesn’t seem to be much about online to delve deeper with. The composer is Franz Liszt. There’s some nice clips on you tube where the music is on Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny and also a Muppet clip. But it’s only the Hungarian Rhapsody that’s covered. I’m hoping to borrow one of the parts of Magical Music Box from Barbara which might give us something to work from as it’s about the Piano Concerto 1. I’m looking on ebay for some of the series for myself now!

We did well with the Rimsky-Korsakov study a while ago, there was a fair bit online and we looked into the Arabian Nights stories and found some more sites with things to do. A nice site I found is Classics for Kids which has podcasts and activity sheets on some composers (none for Franz Liszt though! But a small Bio). Depends really who it is as to how much you can find.

You don’t have to do who they say though, it’s just that way so people can share resources and stuff. I’m thinking it would be a good idea to use the Classics for Kids site and go with what they have as their composer of the month.

Does that help at all?

What with all the war stuff going on here, I was thinking we could get a model of a plane for Marcus to have a go at. Have had a look online to see what there is, although been a bit dissapointed when looking at sites that it doesn’t show you the skill level or even what paints are required (some sites, not all of course) Anyway, it reminded me that we actually do have a model car that M got for his birthday last year that had been awaiting a father/son type day to get started on. Of course, this hasn’t happened as neatly as we’d have liked so it’s laid in wait in the back of a cupboard. I dug it out yesterday and we duly got started.

As expected really, M was a bit heavy handed at first with the painting, but as it progressed he got better and better and has really enjoyed doing it. It’s not perfect by any means, but for a first model he’s done really well. It’s not quite finished, I’ll do a pic when it’s done, should be done by the end of the weekend.

We’ve been doing quite a lot of looking through books about the wars. We drift from one world war to the other quite easily! This book arrived yesterday and M was over the moon at it. He is absolutely obsessed with guns, not just with playing with them, but knowing the names and everything about them. I, of course, am not the best at supplying him with the information (but my FIL is) so I thought this book would come in handy. We also cleared the library of almost every war book around, oops! I managed to pick up one of those Michael Morpurgo books, Jan mentioned in the comments. It was the Private Peaceful one which I’ve started to read to see how it would be. I’m not sure just yet that it will be good, always got to check for anything that might cause anxiety and nightmares. The first chapter has the boys dad dying and him blaming himself! Might be a book better read in the day time! I’m enjoying it so far though. Haven’t read anything in ages. I did pick up this book from the library too which is lovely. Yet to read it to the kids, but will do soon.

Alex and I have been playing some games. We got Landlock and Castle Keep from PlayMerrily. A absolutely adores Landlock, even though we’ve only played a couple of games of it. She just likes to make up a little world for the gnomes! Also of note is that M played his first ever full game of chess with me. I’m not great at chess, and have hardly played it but he did really well with the game and I only just beat him. I should probably have let him win, but I was being a bit of a meany!

Also had a couple of nice visits from Jax and kids. Finally managed to actually get to chat to her on the second which was nice, even if my children were just being awful. I think they’ve had too many e numbers or something lately, but they’ve just been going mad. Acually, maybe it’s the paint fumes!! Apart from that though, we’ve been a bit stuck in the house as FIL has had to borrow our car. Meant I missed our violin lesson too

Speaking of violin, A did her practise in that today (I need to try and make her do more as we’re just never managing to do it) and she’s also started her new recorder book I got her. It’s called Recorder Wizard which I quite liked the look of and so far she’s been able to do it on her own as it has a cd with it. She def seems to like the recorder and is getting much better at it, mostly from her own steam too which is good. She can play Mary Had a Little Lamb well now. It’s actually taken her this long to be able to cover the holes properly (and she still sometimes struggles) as her fingers are so small. Of course I did find my old recorder book as soon as I ordered the new one, but hey ho. She has a few things to go through now.

(keep starting blogs, but never seem to get my brain and fingers working together to write it all how I think it should sound, or it just sounds boring so I leave it)

We had a nice day out into Sheffield city centre on Friday. I decided we just needed to go out so asked the kids if they wanted to go to the museum or the gallery and they decided gallery. We always go to the museum when we do hospital visits as it’s next door, but it’s been a while since we went to the gallery. Anyway, we took the tram in which is always a nice treat and got off at the railway station to look at the trains.

Outside the train station has been done up fairly recently and includes lots of fountains so they then raced around there.

Then I realised my camera batteries had died so we headed off to find some new ones (which then still didn’t work - james thinks has to be special ones?) before then going to the Graves Art Gallery. We’d never been to this one before and tbh scooted round most of it, but we did see some nice Impressionist paintings so looked at how they were made up of blobs and were better viewed from far away (ala Katie and the Impressionists!)

We then headed back through the winter gardens and on through to the Peace Gardens which again has loads of fountains. When it’s a nice day it’s lovely here. Kids just ran around like loons…

Eventually we headed to another gallery (Millenium I think) and looked there. Kids took a pew and drew the stuff they found. They also looked at Hallmarking of silver and stamped their own marks on silver card.

Then before long, we decided we’d head back. Cue another race around the fountains at the train station and another at the university. Have to say, Sheffield is looking quite nice lately (better than when I arrived 10 years ago anyway!)

We had such a nice time. I think mainly due to being no pressures. We didn’t go for any reason, we just did whatever we fancied at the time and mostly it worked. Wish everyday was so good!

well I suppose it’s not even over yet, but there we go! I’d been feeling ill all the 2nd half of last week with some kind of virus (thankfully no-one else has had it yet) and this week I’ve just felt wiped out. So tired. I normally get up really early with James nowadays but haven’t done all week, I’ve just needed to sleep. Feeling much better today though

So all week, we’ve been a bit lax with anything too heavy workwise. I’ve been keeping up with our reading from AmblesideOnline, we’re on week 4 now, which went well and made me feel like I’ve not wasted the time. M wanted to read the War Boy book I blogged about before so that’s been our history this week. Which reminds me, was supposed to put it in the timeline book - shall do that later this afternoon. Have hardly done any maths, although did a lesson from MUS this morning that went down well. I also got a book about infinity for them called The Cat In Numberland which although we haven’t read yet, looks really good. They’re both kind of obsessed with infinity atm! Also read Katie and the Mona Lisa to keep some art appreciation going But all fairly relaxed tbh.

Wednesday we went out to the nature reserve home ed meeting which was really nice. Managed to speak to some other people. I feel like I’ve been around for a bit and know a few people by their faces, but I don’t know them well enough to chat so sometimes I feel a little awkward at groups. But getting better. Went off to my mums afterwards for a change of scene listening to Bindi Babes (Alex’s choice) on the way. Yes we have more audio books on the go Not so many this time, 3 each. A is getting more into them too.

I’ve been quite enjoying watching M read a few more things lately. It’s been over a month since I decided to stop the reading of ORT books every day and take a step back to see how things would go. I never said anything to M about why, but when he turned round to me one day and said that he gets all confused in his head when he tried to read I took it as meaning I was probably doing the right thing. He doesn’t ever ask to practise reading, but he picks up comics often and will attempt reading lots there. I don’t think it feels as hard for him. The other day we were getting petrol and he read ‘Have you checked your oil?’ only pausing to check he had ‘checked’ right. Ok hardly earth shattering, but what I liked about it was he wasn’t doing it for anyone but himself and that’s how he generally is, doing it for himself. Oh I saw this Artemis Fowl Graphic Novel and think it looks fab. Might have to get it.

And now I’ve lost my train of thought as the kids were fighting over the playstation so have been sent upstairs. Humph.

a bit bleurgh lately hence the lack of posts. Seems to have been going round, James had it at the weekend and James’ dad had it too.

Monday seemed for some in blogland the day to get back to ‘work’ but I figured I’d wait till Wednesday as that was when the local primary schools round here went back. So Monday we spent in Conisbrough up at my mum and dads new paper shop. Kids did loads of jobs and earned money which was promptly spent in the shop again! Loads of sweeties in there. We were in Conisbrough to meet up with Michelle from the Manor Born as they were in the area doing something with bikes or somesuch So we decided to go to the castle which was really nice. It’s been a while since we’d been there and the kids had been asking to go back for ages. M never made it to the top of the castle, he has a real fear of heights. A had no such problems and made it up at least twice (maybe even three times?). Marcus made friends with ‘Big’ Marcus and was having arguments as to what certain parts of the castle were for. M thought everything must have a fighting aspect! Anyway, was lovely to have a day out especially after keeping away from such places in the summer hols.

Tuesday was fairly non eventful as the local kids were still about so most of the day was spent playing with them. I’m writing down what they do cos I like having notes and M did some drawing while A played with our electronics set. Both of them watched some MathUSee which I’ve managed to get second hand from BringandBuy. It only arrived so I was watching to see what we thought (I’d already seen the trial video) and they really liked it. I’m going to get some blocks next week from the UK rep as she lives nearish to me and we’ll make a tentative start with it. Not planning to do much with it, but to have it supplement the ‘livingmath’ we’ve been doing.

So today was the start of ‘not being back to school!’ Yay! Not that it’s that much different to what we’ve been doing lately, but anyhow. We read some African picture / math books and learned how to count to 10 in swahili. Kids loved this one, I didn’t think they’d be that interested!! Then we looked on the map to make sure they knew where africa was - they didn’t! So I showed them, talked a bit about continents and M started looking at some places in USA. He found New York and I told him that lots of places in America have English names and that there is Sheffield and London over in the US among others. Read some of Zero to Ten as well which is going back to what we’d been looking at last week (or whenever) about the history of numbers).

Showed them how to play Mancala which went well for about 10 minutes till M just went mad and assumed he’d lose so he had the most enormous tantrum I’ve ever seen him do. He spent at leat 15 minutes screaming around and throwing himself about saying he hated us all. I just didn’t know what to do or say to him This past week he’s been so angry and has been constantly bickering with A, it’s been a bit of a nightmare. It could be due to the cold thing that wiped me out on Monday and James at the weekend, or I suppose it could be hormones. Is this the time for hormones with boys? I dunno. Anyway, it’s all a bit bluerghy there.

We had to walk down to the bank before lunch so I braced myself for M behaving awfully, but he was fine and I think the fresh air helped him. Sent them round Sainsbury’s with their own little list to read and get stuff.

Home for lunch and patch time which tends to coincide with computer time. A helped me make some cookies, M wasn’t interested in helping today. Once it got near school finishing time that was it, they were out on the street waiting for their friends to get home. So they’ve even socialised a bit too

It’s been a long day

but a long way to go The kids have been taking it in turns to be horrid, M particularly so yesterday. I had to split them up so many times as they were clearly intent on rubbing each other up the wrong way all day long.

Like I say, today has been a bit better, but my throat is really hurting from all the shouting I’ve been doing lately so it’s not perfect by any means We had welcome respite in the form of Jax and kids who came by for lunch. Was good to have a nice chat for the first hour or so till the kids just started being noisy and in the same room as us. After lunch we headed out to the little park to let them let off some steam. It worked well and Jax and I gave dirty looks to the teenagers wrecking the swings.

We haven’t been doing that much else of note I don’t think. Nearly finished The Magic Faraway tree book which they’ve both loved (was supposed to finish tonight but on havign to shout too many times and havign been warned they lost that right due to me having no voice). M is desperate to start the next Magic Tree House book (I need to read something that doesn’t have magic and tree in the title!) but I’m insisting reading this first, nice that he’s enthusiastic though.

Introduced Alex to negative numbers yesterday as she owes me some money Think she gets it.

Also showed both of them about square numbers today. I’m trying to steer away from bloody sums as I’m getting myself bogged down by them, let alone the kids getting bogged down! Made some pentominoes (click right hand side for printable pentominoes) and both helped cut them out then sat trying to figure out far ages how to fit it all in (still figuring…).

Lots of craft going on which makes my heart race due to the carpets, but I got a cheapy art box from the Works and so they’ve been making pictures with it all. It’s been really lacking lately so I’m letting them get on with it.

And that’s about it. I have a day off tomorrow as James taking kids to his sisters with his dad (car gone to get fixed) so I’m on garage sorting duty. Yay. Or something like that.

I think we’ve covered a fair proportion of my categories boxes today I started with a plan of what I wanted to do so no pretending it was autonomous - anything but! First off they both did some copywork, I only wanted them to do one thing each (a proverb for M and some letter practise for A) but they wanted to do at least 3 times what I planned. Then they did a couple of pages of Explode the Code each. We then looked at a new book we got last week called The History of Counting and discussed about numbers being invented and how people did it when they had no language for numbers. Quite interesting. Also showed them about Lebombo and Ishango bones. We made our own out of salt dough later on too.

But before that I took them to the schools library again and they chose some books each. A got some dolphin books and M some car, ship and bridges books. I was looking to see if they had anything for teaching latin but they didn’t. I did however pick up 2 French videos so we watched one when we got home.

I tried to air the tent out a bit, but it’s tricky with a tiny garden. It was sopping wet though so I was thinking I ought to do something, anything! Almost dry, shall try again tomorrow to get any other damp bits.

Then we did shopping when James got home, I got myself into a foul mood so this evening he made himself scarce. I printed out some (v. easy) sudoku puzzles for the kids and stuck them into some work books for them (otherwise I lose them). Alex made a start right away and did about 7. M eventually did 2 although I never asked him to he just did eventually. Got some cheap sudoku and kakuro books at Sainsbury’s (£1 each) so am training them up

Anyway, time to get kids out of the bath and do stories.

Another good day here today, helped in part by the sunshine although we weren’t out much in it. Wasn’t it just bloomin gorgeous?? Like summer.

Anyway we started the day with a little recorder practice. Alex seems to really like it but her fingers are just not big enough yet, Marcus was a bit self concious but once he realised I was only after practising one note was a bit better. He struggles as he rushes so much and doesn’t always stop to think what he should be doing iykwim. But a good first lesson I think, not going to go by the book we have yet, but just experiment with rhythms and notes for a bit.

After that we did some maths. I feel this is coming along well now that I’m paying more attention to it. They did a dot to dot from the red miquon book and you had to do it by counting in 2’s. Both of them got the hang of it well, Alex is much quicker at working out the next number though! Sometimes I forget there is 15 months between them as the are quite often at a similar level. Also did a ‘guess my number’ game where they guessed hwat number I was thinking and I had to say higher or lower. More work definitely needed there as it was clear they didn’t have much of a clue about that!!

Also did some Explode the code again, M read another ORT book (still level 1 but gaining confidence rapidly). Actually all of a sudden I’ve noticed M trying to read almost everything, it’s like all of a sudden he’s realised he could do it if he tries. I never realised how long a process reading is and it’s quite an eye opener really (although why I didn’t think it would be a long process I don’t know!!). It seems so long ago that Marcus looked at a word and realised it’s sounds added up to a word, so to still be at that struggling reader stage is quite weird and I suppose a little frustrating. I hope our fairly relaxed last year where we did hardly anything hasn’t kept him back too much, suppose I’ll never know though! Getting some of those DK readers from Amazon soon and think M will be fairly impressed by Spiderman and Star wars books - here’s hoping.

Then we got out some old cereal boxes and did some junk modelling. Well actually what I had in mind was making some magazine holders but the kids had other ideas. Well who can blame them since we hardly do any crafts round here lately? Paint just scares me in this house, so will have to be just sticking I reckon

And then we had lunch And James finished work early so managed to join us so that was nice. I also was looking at some maths games sites so since I was looking at them the kids just had to play them didn’t they? So they did some tessalations, adding, and measuring plus a little more work on higher and lower numbers. Sneaky but good Alex managed to get herself onto some other games that had spanish language in it which kept her amused for a while.

Afternoon was Sainsbury’s shopping (been putting it off as can’t stand to go at the weekend) and then we popped to see W and her daughter and grandkids were visiting. The baby had chicken pox so you never know, we may actually come down with it. Tried to entice M to go closer by saying he could have a day playing the playstation if he was ill, but it didn’t work

Home for tea and telly and M has just read James his book from earlier on so all happy

where did I get to? Oh yes, Thursday was a funny day, mostly because we were out of routine and went straight to the bank in the morning after breakfast instead of doing some work. It was cold and horrible on the walk down and a little whinging was heard but it wasn’t all bad. I struggled to keep them doing anything worthwhile when we got home so I inspected the garage for seeds and the kids just pootled about and read some magazines I bought them.

Friday we did some explode the code, Marcus is getting noticeably better with reading, but I still feel he’s not there for books, he’s more at the few sentences stage, but I can stop worrying about him being able to read - he can Just need to concentrate on developing it. Alex is struggling with end sounds so I’m going to work on that with her.

I also introduced the kids to Fimo - they love it. Way behind on the trend but who cares! Made some lovely bits and bobs.

It was a lovely day on Friday and I was keen to be outside doing something and the kids fancied going to the park at Rother Valley. So amazed was I that they wanted to anything we jumped at the chance and took a walk all round the lake stopping at the parks for a play and a general muddying up.

Friday evening was time for Beavers - Marcus was so not keen to go but I made him go to see what it was about. Apparantly he liked it a tiny bit but wasn’t too overly impressed. James took him and noticed they really talked down to the kids and thought Marcus wouldn’t cope well with that. We’re going to try another night for him next week and see how that goes, he’s not looking forward to it.

Saturday was another nice day so James washed the car and I started chopping things up in the garden (my arms ache now!), with us being outside the kids followed and they helped in various ways. James’s dad came round and sniped a bit about Marcus going to Beavers as “well he has to learn to meet strangers” so I bit his head off. I was grumpy. Was sure we did something else but can’t remember now. Oh it was the eclipse wasn’t it? Yeah we spoke lots about it and the kdis seemed to grasp the idea and were really excited to be watching it all night. They were grumpy by the end though so we were glad when it was bed time!

Sunday was miserable weather but Alex and I walked over to the local allotments to put our name down for a plot. We’re 27th on the list so I’m not overly hopeful for anything soon, but I suppose I have to be on it to be in with a chance. After that we headed out for a drive, took a look round my village of choice for buying a house (yeah right) - Tickhill in Doncaster. Lovely village, still a good size, lovely small local type shops and very picturesque and in the country. I liek where we are now, but I don’t like the fact it has no shops, we don’t have a corner shop as it’s closer to go to Sainsbury’s. Makes it feel like there’s no soul to it though really iykwim. Very boring and of course in the city. After driving about we headed over to see James’s aunty who didn’t make it to the wedding and we showed her the pics. She treated the kids to a McDonalds for our lunch so we headed off to do that and then it was home for lazing about. I picked up my knitting needles again after sorting the stash under the bed and Alex is keen to learn so we’re going to try that soon.

Today was a lazy lie in as I’ve been very tired lately but then we were up and did some more explode the code and worked out the number bonds to 10. M & A both wanted more sums after I had felt we’d done enough so they made up some for themselves, Marcus did some writing and then they dissappeared in a whirlwind upstairs doing goodness knows what! And now it’s lunch, so I better get something made, house is empty though so need to be creative!