One of the plus points of being sent items for review is that very often I can work them into our educational plans. So it was great that we were offered a Wild Science Lip Balm Laboratory for Big to take a look at, as there are all sorts of educational experiences in a kit like that.

First of all there’s the following instructions. Then there is some understanding of the science behind it all, plus the actual activities of the measuring, melting and blending. And at the end of it you actually have a product that you can use! Which is rather better than doing most science experiments that I remember from school

Only criticism we had of the kit is that it suggests you heat water in a microwave to melt the wax beads, but gives no indication of length of time at power level. And in the end, we found using hot water from the kettle was far more effective, and even then the melting took a lot longer than described. It is true that it was a cold cold day, so the beads may well have been fairly well chilled, but apart from that, the kit worked well.

I liked the tray that contained everything and kept it organised. And unusually, it fits back in the box like this, rather than having to dismantle it again.

And here you have the scientist in action.

So that was one educational activity. Independent working – although I was there. The second activity, a Ravensburger jigsaw for the Ravensburger Puzzle Club, turned out to promote cooperation and team work, and if you’ve got older children, you’ll know how important that can be!

It continued the laboratory theme

The puzzle was great – not so complex as to put them off, but definitely challenging enough to interest them and keep them occupied for a while. So that’s a 200 piece XXL – ideally targeted at slightly inexperienced 8 and 12 year olds.

I’m a big jigsaw fan, but it’s not something I get much chance to do these days. I couldn’t resist directing operations from the sofa though, just to get them started, with sorting out edge pieces and so on. Once Small was fully engrossed though, I pretty much left them to it. And the sense of achievement they both had when they got it finished was palpable. And since they refused to take it to pieces again immediately, it’s just as well we’ve got the Ravensburger Puzzlestore

Ah well, lots of other stuff was achieved instead. As part of my continuing (ongoing, proactive ) campaign to improve Big’s self-esteem as she compares herself to school children and finds her education wanting (sigh) I’d tracked down some Science SATs papers (yes, I know Science SATs have been withdrawn but it still gives her an idea of what she’d have been up against) and they did the first one in the morning. Then I marked them and checked out the levels – they are on track for a level 4 for Small and a level 5 for Big if they can keep up their scores across the second half of the test.

Both of them were quite chuffed with that. They’ve done no test specific preparation (I didn’t do any more than scan the paper myself to check if it was at all doable) and very little in the way of lesson type science. But they both love things like Questionaut, and we do lots of discussion of, well, everything, in day to day life, as well as every now and then doing explicit science type stuff. (I should note at this point that they probably do rather more than you’ll find in that category link, but quite a lot of it I don’t write about, or I don’t tick the right category box. Mea culpa.)

Which all makes me wonder – what was all the fuss about with the SATs stuff anyway? If children can just acquire the information required to do so well on them in day to day life, why did schools/ teachers make a fuss about it all? Why did anyone *need* to teach to the test, or children need to get stressed out about it all?

What am I missing? Because I must be missing something.

I’d like to claim that my children are geniuses (genii?) and that I’m the most fantastic home ed mother in the world. But truth be told, while I’m sure they are pretty bright, and we do have a lot of resources about, I’m just not that organised, and we muddle along doing what the blog says, making it up. So what is the secret? I think it’s that children are set up to learn, and that many schools actually get in the way of that process. Not all schools, and definitely not all teachers, but sadly more than should be. I think if kids are given time, space, confidence and support, they will learn, and it will be way more efficient than you could ever believe possible. I just wish that we could set up our educational institutions to recognise those facts.

I doubt that’s true. There are definitely things she hasn’t covered that she might have done, but there’s an awful lot she’s done that she’d not have done in school. However, this is about how she feels about herself, so we will rectify the matter.

We’re going to start by me going through the national curriculum and picking on things that it wouldn’t hurt to know a bit more about. And given that Merry, or in this case, Max , so recently covered nutrition, it seems like a good place to start. (Plus right at the moment she appears to be trying to cut meat out of her diet, and I’d like her to understand the ramifications of that choice.)

National Curriculum, Science, KS2. Nutrition.

Pupils should be taught

a) about the functions and care of teeth
b) about the need for food for activity and growth, and about the importance of an adequate and varied diet for health

So then I’m going to set up a couple of questions relating to this target, and give her some resources to start with, and set her off to do the research on her own. I’ll guide her a little, particularly with the first few projects, and at the end of a week, I’ll set a quiz and we’ll see how much she’s managed to acquire.

For this target, she did teeth at montessori, a long time ago. Not sure whether she remembers it all, but given she’s started her orthodontist appts and there’s going to be plenty of stuff about teeth going on here in the next few weeks, I’m moving swiftly on to part b.

So the questions are:

What do we need food for?
How much do we need?
What do we need, and what does it do for us?

And the resources I’m starting her off with are on the BBC Bitesize KS3 website, some stuff from the Asda schools website, in the fun and games section. And for lots more links, I do like to look at the Woodlands School website.

I’m hoping that she’ll be happy to share the results of her project when she’s done, but even if she doesn’t want to, perhaps this stuff will be helpful to someone else

Took Big down to the library to pick up her next Lady Grace Mystery, Deception. She is absolutely adoring these, and getting lots out of them historically as well

Of course, a little later we had a row, when I told them that we were going out, and they didn’t want to, but Tim and I wanted to go to Orford Ness, this being the last week that it’s open during the week, and it was a glorious day for it as well. Departure was hindered by the fact I’d put the temporary membership sheet into a safe place, and couldn’t find it again but we got away eventually, to arrive after the last ferry crossing :’(

Making the most of the day out anyway, we retired to Orford Castle. Tim had taken the kids before, but I hadn’t been. He disappeared with Small to do a high speed tour, while Big and I took our time with the audio tour, which was excellent. I managed all the steps apart from the basement, but was aching somewhat by the end so we gave up on a plan to pop into the town for an explore and headed home via a moderately scenic route showing the kids where Tim grew up and his walk home from school.

It was a lovely afternoon out and although I was in some pain, it wore off a little on the ride home. Wimped out on tea though as didn’t want to risk really setting my hip off, although I still went out for a walk to pick up a baby bath from freegle, while Tim marshalled the kids into the shower.

Afterwards they wanted to sit in the living room with us, while really I just wanted some child free time. Big was quietly perusing catalogues, but Small isn’t very good at quiet, and tried to assist Tim with his scrabble (which was very funny ) before finding Space (DK Eye Wonder) and reading selected excerpts of it out loud. Eventually they did retire to their bedroom for a short time playing, allowing me to heave a sigh of relief and start hunting out the resources for my last TMA for MS221.

Have had enough of this maths now. Am trying not to get stressed about the exam, but can’t help feeling it’s going to be a disaster as I really haven’t understood or acquired skills during this course. I have to score 40% to pass, and I need at least 40% on this TMA too, which should be feasible as it’s at least partially on imaginary numbers which I did at A level (surprised to find that they are now being introduced at level 2 of OU courses. But don’t worry, there hasn’t been any dumbing down of qualifications in the last 20 years since I did A levels….) but it’s so very difficult to focus on something I’m enjoying so little. Taking a year off OU next year, don’t think it would go too well with new baby anyway, and then will ponder after that.

And then we watched TV and I went to bed.

So I dragged children out of bed early (for them anyway) and chivvied them along so that we’d have time to pop into Tesco for suitable food for cooking on an open fire. Even though they very much enjoy Forest school, neither of them are into the idea of changing state, which makes leaving the house problematic. Achieved it and bought marshmallows, veg hot dogs and hot dog rolls, and headed down to the country park, arriving with time to spare for toilet trips

As usual, I was fire monitor, and this time the ranger had even brought me safety goggles to keep the smoke out of my eyes. A very thoughtful touch We baked charcoal made from willow sticks in a tin on the fire, and then Big made a pencil by hollowing out an elder twig and feeding the charcoal through.

Small made a variety of tree decorations out of clay and saw a newt, which tied in nicely as the previous day’s Great lesson had finished at amphibians. Fire cooked hot dogs were good (although I cremated the second batch, oops), even Small enjoyed one. I enjoyed two And the ranger had brought tea, which I’d forgotten yet again, so I got a cuppa too.

We didn’t hang around at the end of the session, except to recruit an apprentice fire marshal, who will work with me assuming I manage to struggle into the woods for the next session, and then take over after that. We had to get back as I had my final TMA for MST121 to finish off, and swimming after that.

So did maths, put it into an envelope and then went to queue in the PO on the way to swimming, to be told that there’s a postal strike and it wouldn’t get there in time. Sigh. Wish I’d known that *before* we waited over five minutes while the post office lady arranged her next hair appt with the customer before us. (On the one hand I love that there is that level of community in the town, on the other hand, I’m in a hurry here!)

Took the TMA with us and went to swimming. Small’s group has shrunk again – there are now 6 red hats rather than the threatened 11. That seems to work better for him, and he is definitely making progress, although apparently he uses breaststroke legs when he’s on his back instead of kicking them. Needs to work on that

Didn’t see any of Big’s lesson – by the time we got out to the viewing area it was packed and we couldn’t get near the edge, and then Small needed the toilet anyway. Apparently she is struggling with breaststroke and needs more practice. Fortunately we arranged a swimming session with Small’s friend P, who has now moved up into the yellow hats group that runs before his red hats, so we only see them on the changeover.

Came home with tired children and fed them pasta (but with broccoli) and then slotted them into bed. Rang my tutor to ask if it was OK to bring the TMA over later, and found out that she was away anyway, so first thing in the morning would be acceptable.

And that was Tuesday. Bit more hectic than I would have liked, but a good day overall.

I’ve run out of patience

Maybe I don’t respond in the right way or quickly enough to expressed interests? Perhaps my purposive conversation is either not present enough or too purposive? Perhaps eight months isn’t a long enough deschooling time frame for three years of flexi school at Montessori?

Or perhaps my children just need a bit of structure and to be stretched every now and then. I’m so sold on autonomy and the theories of John Holt that I’ve felt terribly guilty this week – but not guilty enough to not impose a work requirement on the offspring.

So now, each morning, we do a bit of maths, a bit of english and something else. The something else varies from day to day, and I’ve tried to follow up on their interests. The TV is banned between the hours of 9 and 3 (would be 9 and 5, but realistically, that would mean that 3 days a week one or the other of them would see no TV and I can’t be that hard hearted). They each still have their two half hour computer slots, and if they are doing something educational/ work related, computer time extends.

And how has it worked this week?

Well, the first day Small did his work quickly and cheerfully. By the third day, he was resistant, thinking of anywhere he’d rather be and anything he’d rather be doing. Which is irritating, because when he does come in and get set to, it takes him minutes to do the amount of maths I’m asking of him, another few minutes to read a chapter of the book I bought for him as he couldn’t think what he’d like to read (The Thing from Knucker Hole (Young Hippo Adventure)), and then he tends to enjoy whatever the third part is. So he loved science, liked looking at maps, and had no problems listening to and discussing The Story of the World: Ancient Times v. 1.

Big is another story. Her maths will improve with steady practise, but we’ve discovered that her English needs work in a number of areas. And I think that is what is holding her back doing some of the other things she wants to do. So instead of doing a unit a week from Focus on Literacy: Pupil Textbook Bk.5 we’re going to do a unit every other week and concentrate on basics in between times. Handwriting, spelling, punctuation, grammar, that sort of thing. Most of the time she reads of her own accord, although she had been on strike waiting for the next book in the series she’s reading, Conspiracy (Lady Grace Mysteries). That’s arrived now, so she’s reading again on an evening.

I’d kind of assumed that a child who reads as voraciously as she does would pick up the other stuff, but she isn’t doing, so I need to target it more directly. Still really wish I could find Small’s english book so that we could do bits out of that as well. But wherever he’s put it, it’s staying hidden

She loved the experiment she did this week, out of Outer Space (Funstations) I’d found. Lit candles under varying sizes of jars so that we could see what happened when the oxygen ran out. And we’d been having conversations about first ppl during the week anyway, so nomads in story of the world worked well for her.

In and amongst there was Brownies, Beavers, swimming, a not back to school picnic afternoon on the beach (fabulous weather, kids were in the sea on and off all afternoon), Tim popped to old hosue and brought back all the baby stuff so the children washed it all in the garden yesterday, oh and some blokes came round and cut down one of the hedges. Small cried. Turned out he’d really liked that hedge, even though Tim and I loathed it, and though we’d discussed removing it several times, Small hadn’t picked up on the discussions.

I’ve processed yet more bags of stuff from old house and now have large piles of clothing to process into storing. Oh, and Small had another visit to the doctors, who said that he has chronic otitis and prescribed a months worth of penicillin just in case it’s bacterial. Which apparently it probably isn’t. So am still umming and ahing over what to do about that.

This afternoon Tim and Small are at a Beavers mini Olympics – looks like Small at least is having fun.

My idea was that they’d pull out a card/ picture and that would prompt them for an area to find an activity – or they’d ask me and I’d suggest something appropriate from our resource stash. And I was hoping that they’d work through the cards in the space of a week or so, so that we’d get a balance of activities undertaken.

The children, Small especially, thought he’d pull out cards until he found one he liked the look of. Obviously.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First of all we had to find the box, which was in a crate in the garage. Then they did their cards and put them in the box. Then they wrapped it in a red cape and held a box opening ceremony. Really. Big spoke some words about how important the box was and what it was for, and then declared the box open.

Odd children.

Cutting down on the computer time has been good. I think the main problem we’ve encountered really has been boredom and lack of action. So Small had his hour on the ‘puter and played Command & Conquer Red Alert. Think Big only had a half hour session, although she did help Small a bit as well.

At some point, Small pulled out a play card at the same time that Big pulled out a maths card, and he invited her to join in the playing. So maths got put off. I suggested that it might work best if they took it in turns to draw cards and then did the same activity assuming they both have that, or improvise if they don’t. So that was a slight change to how they’d been working it. And it improved the day immeasurably. They did space together and made planets out of playdough then Big taught Small the montessori planet song. Don’t know whether it’s a standard, or just something we used at school I’m afraid.

And the final activity of the day was craft. They made collages, which is way more arty/crafty than they usually get, so that was a good card as well. And they wound down with Worzel Gummidge which I think was the first tv they watched all day, so that was good too.

I made stir fry veg for tea, to go with rice and chicken pieces. Turns out Small doesn’t like stir fried veg He was quite disappointed as it contained broccoli and carrots which are both vegetables he likes so he wasn’t happy for them to taste strange. Bad mummy.

Tim read to them while I had some quiet time, and they didn’t quite make it through the day without trauma, with a spat at lights out time. Close though, and definitely something to build on.

But I seem to have glossed over the bribery and punishment don’t I? It was an interesting part of the day. Big did her standard yelling at me for no apparent reason, and I said that I was considering docking her 10p pocket money every time she did that. An interesting discussion followed with friends on a social network site as to whether this was a good idea – were we learning about cause, effect and consequence, or was I just employing bribery and punishment? Opinions in the usual place

Later on Big told me that she really wanted to yell at me but she didn’t want to lose any of her pocket money, so we managed to talk about why she was so angry. It turned out that she thought I’d said that they needed to write things down – I hadn’t, when Space got pulled out of the box, I’d suggested they use George’s Secret Key to the Universe to learn about it.

It seems that Big thinks that learning things means writing them down. And that there was far too much writing at school. (There was barely any writing at school that I noticed. Certainly not nearly as much as there would have been at a mainstream primary. Although it wasn’t really done at the children’s behest so that may be part of the problem.) She didn’t know what to write out of George’s Secret Key – they had found some images about the moon and she was trying to write that down but it didn’t make much sense without the images so she got herself very very stressed.

I told her that I hadn’t said anything about writing stuff down, and that while writing things down can be good for learning, it isn’t if all you are doing is copying things from one place to another. And also that it might be a good idea to ask me for further details rather than assuming I’d said something or meant something and getting really angry with me because of it. And that I was pleased that we were talking about the angry.

That might have been our best learning moment of the day actually. And all sparked off by a bit of bribery/ punishment

Once I was down and breakfasted, the whole family collaborated over yet another Science School project, this time he wanted to make a hovercraft. This required a butchered plastic bottle, which Tim did with a hacksaw. We then discovered that scissors would have been better, as a hacksaw left a slightly jagged edge, and a smooth edge was required.

Penknife successfully put the required hole in the lid, then getting the balloon onto the lid was a two person operation. Took a while, but we did eventually succeed in making the bit of bottle skate across the table, but I don’t think it did quite what Small expected, as he lost interest at that point and wandered off. Oh well.

From there they moved on to putering, more cooperative game playing, with the occasional spat over pushing each other off the stool. I did eventually get bored with the low pitched squabbling and pitched them both outside so that I could have a go at my TMA. Stared at it for a while, then gave up in disgust and did some tidying while they watched TV. Have also processed yet more clothing out of bags from various garages, and even did a bit of weeding, removing mint from the veg bed that I dug over but didn’t plant up. Thinking about letting the strawberries populate it, though not sure that they would keep the mint down too well.

In the run up to tea, required some bedroom tidying on the children’s part, which was completed with surprisingly little anguish. About 6 o’clock, Big asked where Tim was – he’d set off for old house about 10 o’clock in the morning! She’s very observant, can you tell?

He made it back just after they’d finished eating and were getting their swim bags ready, and then went out again to fetch up fish and chips. After I’d eaten, I read to them, and now I’m pondering an early night. Going to be a long day tomorrow.

Small is taking off with his Science School book. (Link to what appears to be updated edition, Science School) I can’t recommend this book highly enough. I don’t know what it is about it, we have several books of science experiments that he’s never looked at, but this one he carries about with him, and then announces which experiment he’s going to do and sets off to do it.

Saturday morning I heard him asking Tim for a comb before I’d even got up so that he could do an experiment with static electricity and water, and later on he had to be persuaded that repeating the card over upside cup with apple juice rather than water was an experimental step too far

Wish I could persuade him to document them in a notebook, like the book suggests, but he doesn’t seem to have taken that bit on board.

Other than getting all scientific, there was a huge amount of computering again, they are becoming slightly more cooperative with each other and finding games that they can play together or in short bursts against each other. I suppose this is an improvement on elbowing each other out of the way so that they can take their turns? Although having the half hour turns has meant that they are both doing quite a bit of mental arithmetic working out when their turn finishes and so on. (I will sneak maths abilities into their lives, I will!)

In the evening, was flicking through the tv channels and found BBC Proms MGM musicals which caught both their attention and barring a Small tantrum part way through, they watched til bedtime and I recorded the last half hour for them. It was very cultural, discussing instruments and wobbly voices and films Nice way to end an evening, although it did mean they didn’t get any book read to them then.

Oh, nearly forgot. Big wrote a letter to school, which was the cause of much strife and anguish. She didn’t know how much room to leave when starting to write the address on the right hand side of the page, and obviously nothing I could say would be the right thing to ease her through this. But she did eventually write the letter, and I was very good and said nothing about the spelling.

Oh, and I think that was the day we saw the whole sparrow family come for a bath and drink. And one of them crashed into the window, but I think he just gave himself a headache. We’ve been a bit worried about them – there’s a nest somewhere in the side or back of the garden, and Pepe managed to get one of the adults, so we were afraid the children wouldn’t make it. But now we have a little group of five coming round for food and water, so I’m guessing they did make it fine after all.

Anyway, we started out the morning by going to the doctors for Small’s follow up appt on his ears. We walked via the charity shop where a lego pirate ship had been spotted by Tim and D the night before, just in case, but it turned out to be megablocks and not lego and to have no bricks at all with it, just lots of dragons. Not good value for £20. Small was rather disappointed, and there was bottom lip quivering but a big hug gave him the strength to pull himself together and we headed on on our route.

His ears, apparently, are still inflamed but not as badly as they were last time. Sigh. And then the doctor blew up and gave him a bright orange balloon. Last time he handed it over uninflated and that would have been a much better plan, as it was a seriously windy day. We didn’t even make it up the first road to the library before the obvious happened, and despite chasing, we couldn’t catch the balloon.

I hate my kids being disappointed. (actually I hate anybody being disappointed. One of my clearest memories from teen years is my mum and I going out for a coffee together (even though at the time I hated coffee) and the little coffee shop we were going to was closed and she gave this really fake laugh and smile to cover up her disappointment and we had to go to Lodges coop instead. Where I drank coffee to show solidarity even though I hated it.) And a hug wasn’t going to stop the lip quivering and indeed full on crying this time. I promised a balloon when we got home, but that wasn’t much of a condolence at the time, he was very upset. Stupid doctor man.

We stopped at the library so that I could pick up my ordered in book, and then at the garden centre so that we could get cress seeds for his science kit. By now he’d just about pulled it together about the balloon, although he was a little concerned about whether it would have popped already or not.

And then home, where we set up the science experiment. It needs a couple of days growing time, so hopefully we should have something to see tomorrow (given that although this is a blog about Wednesday I’m writing it on Thursday. Confused yet? I am!) And on to more computing time.

He seems to have gone off fusion falls. Not quite sure why. Instead he explored Trix worlds longest rollercoaster and blogged about it on his blog, then found some games that he couldn’t actually do and required me to do for him instead, then finally set himself up a buddy on some buildabear ville a like site. And then I gave him tea and then I read to him before it was lights out time.

I am enjoying this time with him. I’ve never really spent one to one time with him as a person, I had hours with him here and there when he was a baby and Big was at nursery, but it’s not the same as a few days in a stretch. He’s very easy to be with.

Once they’d gone, my two settled in for an afternoon of game playing. Cranium Cadoo came out of the garage some time over the weekend, and had been played with at least A at some point too, but this afternoon it came into its own and they played for about two hours. Small likes it as he wins quite often, I’m not sure why, but he does. They also tried Make ‘n’ Break but that didn’t last long.

After the gaming, which was remarkably harmonious, Small moved on to looking at his Science School book, which kept him occupied for easily another hour or two, drawing magnet mazes and planning for a variety of other experiments he has in mind.

Big instead watched the tennis with me, while Tim had a siesta. Tim woke in time for the fifth set which we all watched together, apart from the very last game, where Tim had gone to start the children’s tea.

So a quiet day all round, much needed after the excitement of guests for the weekend. And tomorrow back to normal. Or as normal as it gets round here.

The children spent a long time running in and out of the sea. Small, whose trunks are MIA again, was wearing shorts which I thought would be fine, but he quickly soaked them through and ended up stripping them off, which was my mistake of the day – I didn’t think to recream his legs at that stage, mainly as he was in the water most of the time. Not all of the time it would appear, as he now has nice pink thighs Definite bad mummy moment – he’s never really been burnt before, so he had no idea about it and it wasn’t til he was ready for bed that he complained that his legs hurt. Bleargh.

Kirsty and I fitted in a trip or two to the remnant shop – I forgot that I wanted to look for stitch counters and just sat and watched her spend money instead Tim and James took the kids back home and cleaned them while we did this, meaning we had time to browse the charity shops on our way back as well. Good haul for me – a short skirt for Big to put over her swimming costume instead of her walking back through town with dripping legs, and some books: Science School and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them for Small and Travellers by Night and Truckers for Big (although I did point out that Small might like to read the latter too).

Oh, and I forgot the live music. While we were on the beach a group of strolling musicians came along and took up residence in the shelter behind us, playing acoustic Bob Marley type music. It was very pleasant, and went well with the weather

Back at home, and Tim and James cleared off to the club again (are you spotting a theme?) while Kirsty and I crocheted and discussed food. Turned out that the local indian takeaway is collection only at the weekend, so I collected. We found it rather disappointing though – I think that we’ve been spoiled by our previous proximity to Bradford

Not quite as late a night for anyone as we were all rather tired – it’s exhausting sitting in the sun you know!

So instead we had a quiet day at home, apart from the screaming There were some arguments over DVDs as Small had started watching one while Big was at Brownies and she didn’t want to watch that one from halfway through, while I thought it was reasonable for him to finish it, and she didn’t want to be out of the room to let him watch it in peace. I did remind her that she’d said she wanted to spend some time working on her diary, but that led to much more loudness, and stress.

Eventually sorted with much dvd watching, mainly Spider-Man 1 and 2. While they were doing this I got increasingly wound up trying to work out how to get to where we needed to go on public transport, and eventually gave up and decided we would just leave really early, so got us organised, and we left just after 4.

Found the right bus stop and sat at it for over half an hour, as a bus just didn’t come There were lots of other ppl waiting too, but most of them got on the bus about 15 minutes before we could – that one was going to the wrong side of the other town. That left us sitting with a lovely older lady, who started conversation with me by complaining that the other woman who had been sitting next to her was a less than cheery soul who could do nothing but talk about the way. “I lived through the war too,” she said “but I don’t need to go on about it all the time!”

Good opening gambit. We chatted some more and it turned out that the scout camp we were aiming for is very near her house, and she said if we got off with her she’d show us where to go.

Children already looking bedraggled by now after 30 minutes of waiting in the hot sun (whose idea was it to design bus stops that are first cousins to greenhouses anyway?) she took further pity on us and decided she would walk us most of the way along, as she’s a rambler, she likes walking, and she didn’t have anything else to do that evening anyway.

Turned out it’s probably about a mile and a half from the bus stop to the scout camp, mainly as the scout camp is over a mile off the road Small walked uncomplainingly along as all these cars carrying beavers passed us by – Big was pretty uncomplaining too, but she’s got much longer legs than he has! We finally said goodbye to our good samaritan as she struck off across the fields to her house, and I delivered a hot and bothered Small to his troop only a few minutes late. I suspect that I will now forever be the mad woman who walked from the bus while pregnant on a very hot evening!

Big and I struck back out towards the road, investigated the neighbouring campsite in hope of finding a bar (didn’t open for another 50 minutes) and finally wound up in the country park to wait for Tim to come and pick us all up.

This meant we could employ our new Usborne Spotter’s Guide – Trees and investigate the trees around us – slightly ashamed to discover she couldn’t recognise an oak tree. Still we worked out how to use the book and identified a number of trees and she took pictures of ones we weren’t sure of so that we could do further research. And then we walked back to the scout camp and watched the comanche explorers guiding cars to park safely until Tim arrived.

Small had had a wonderful evening – “there were two bouncy castles!” and he was quite pleased to see Daddy home too. And then we came home and put hot tired children to bed.

Can’t remember for sure, but don’t think I was all that long behind them!

Had a bit of a brainwave over getting the children organised, and wrote them a list of what they each needed to put in their bags, to get past the problem we had with the swimming bag the night before where the verbal instruction meant that Small forgot to put his trunks in his bag. It worked so well that I think I will start a book of lists, suitable to a variety of occasions, so that all I have to do is turn to the correct page. Well, it worked really well once I explained that “Put in” was part of the instructions, rather than a list item. He didn’t notice the nested layout

I have resisted listing things in this way, as personally I hate lists, and I was reluctant to go for this kind of prompting, wanting both of them to develop the skills of working out for themselves what is needed. But I guess I need to be more flexible in meeting their needs, and as we progress I can instead get them to write their own lists

So complete bags at the ready, Tim dropped us off down the road, and we had a great day in WF’s garden. Unfortunately it appears that maize flour is not the same as cornflour, but it was still great fun to play in a paddling pool full, or so I assume given the length of time the children stayed in it! Then we had a lovely lunch, and much drinking tea/ chatting/ playing time. Big had a couple of strops about ppl not playing appropriately with the playfood, but as she stropped off to the other end of the garden, and it was hot, I decided I really couldn’t be bothered to follow her and it wasn’t too painful an experience after all.

Small had a fab time, apart from a slight catastrophe with the trampoline steps, necessitating application of a cold pack to his rear end. Worked well though, as this evening he has a mild bruise, whereas when he first came running over it was looking pretty bad.

WF gave us a lift home and we had time for a bit of a relax before taking Big off to Brownies. Discovered there that their pack won the first prize for the collage competition – there is a shield to come, so I’ll get a picture of collage and shield together next week.

Small watched part of Spider-Man 2 while Big was at Brownies, lots of good conversations about the issues in there. I do enjoy our quiet times together, he is very different when he is on his own.

And finally both of them fed with more fruit (following cereal for tea following much food over the course of the afternoon!) and into bed. Goodnights said to Tim over the phone (he’s up in Yorkshire tonight) and I have just one more post to write before I head for bed too.

By lunchtime though I was trying to wrangle them into getting organised for our hospital appt, part of the reason L was here this week was because of my 20 week scan, and the kids were wanting to come along too. The local hospital has a policy where you can take in one adult and any accompanying children, so Tim had volunteered to stay home so that L could be the adult. Appt was at 2.15 and for once we were there with minutes to spare. Dunno why we rush tbh, never get seen anywhere near appt time!

The kids had taken books on my advice, which amused them for a little while, then Small took to crawling under the chairs. Sigh. I think we were eventually called in 20 minutes late, but the afternoon improved from there. Our first encounter was with someone training to be a sonographer – she said she was going to start the scan and do some measurements before someone else came in to finish up. She spent about 20 minutes exploring and we saw everything, right down to toe and finger bones, it was incredible. The children were amazed and it was such a good idea to take them

Then we waited for a while and then a second sonographer came in. She was even more thorough and went through quite literally from top to bottom. We saw brain, four chambers of heart, kidneys, stomach, bladder, before she focussed on bones. Both legs down to the feet and toes, could only see one arm as the other was curled up to one side, but fingers. Got a full shot of the face at one point and Small amused her by saying it was cute – not a standard response it would seem. She was also really good with him, explaining what various bits of anatomy are and what they are for. And then she got to the important bit, checking what we are having. (Important given that she’d already said everything looked absolutely fine and normal ) She had another cose look, and then said looks like a little girl.

Small was not impressed. He is desperate for a brother as he already has sisters. I think he’s got some idea that a baby is going to be an instant playmate for him, and despite the fact he plays with Big constantly, he doesn’t want another girl, he wants a boy. So he wasn’t happy. The sonographer tried to tell him that meant he was extra special as the only boy, but I don’t think it took. Nice try though.

Then we waited for the paperwork to be filled out (actually I waddled rapidly to the loo, bliss!) and I gave Small a cuddle. I think he’ll come round (he doesn’t have a lot of choice!) but this was why I wanted to find out now, so that he has time to get used to the idea. A baby is going to be a big enough shock without the disappointment at that stage of it not being what he wanted.

And then we came home.

Kids were full of the scan to tell Tim, then they started making things out of paper. They spend a lot of time doing that sort of thing. L and I slipped away to a pharmacy to get her some Happinose – she’s arrived with a stinking cold and keeping her up late chatting hasn’t really helped. So of course Tim cooked really lovely food for us and we watched Running On Empty and sat up way too late again.

Means our planned swimming trip this morning has been put off while L has a lie in, but as I found the whole box of DVDs last night, the kids have been consoled with Fantastic Four – Rise Of The Silver Surfer. I’m waiting, less than patiently, for a call back from the swimming teacher I’ve been trying to track down all week (at least today they took my number, but as she was supposed to call me back just after 11, I’m not sure they did anything with it!) and this afternoon we’ll try for a camping shop trip.

Tomorrow we’re going to Kentwell

It was never going to go well. In the end, despite trying to think of a number of ways for them to amuse themselves far away from me (we’re playing with the idea of the 100 species challenge as first seen on Jan’s blog, which led to much photography (Big) and drawing (Small) but resulted in them back in the living room trying to identify plants in a number of books) it all went horribly wrong and they were banished to the bedroom, where they settled down relatively quickly and played nicely for quite a while.

All I’d been trying to get them to do was go outside! It was such a lovely day and they seem to have given up playing in the garden, which I think is a shame.

Ah well. I did maths slightly frantically until just after 4, then we gathered ourselves together and dashed off to swimming. Not that we needed to dash on our account as Big’s lesson is now 5.30, but we had C’s red swimming hat from the other day, so we had to get it there for her lesson.

That meant we were there with half an hour to spare, so we spent it in the sun on the beach. Of course with the whole beach to choose from, they had to sit six inches from each other and fight over a bit of sand :rolls: but I sat far enough away from them that I could pretend they were someone else’s problem.

Small was prebribed with the idea of a drink in the cafe so he was very well behaved throughout Big’s lesson. Her new group only has 4 children in it, including one brownie from her pack (small world) and she seemed to get on well with the new teacher. She tried hard as well – they started breast stroke tonight, and I could see that the teacher was pleased with how she started with it.

So from being very impressed with how they both behaved at the leisure centre, within minutes of being outside again they were at each other’s throats. Sigh. At least by the time we got home they’d pulled it together, and watched tv companionably until tea was ready.

Ah well, tomorrow is another day. Which ends in a fun evening courtesy of brownies, although it wouldn’t have if the brownies mother I saw tonight hadn’t mentioned it, as Big had forgotten to give me the letter from last week. Still, at least the whole family is invited, so Small gets to come out and play too. It will have to be a reasonably quiet day if we’re to get through to 8pm in the evening, so maybe we’ll have another go at some more plant and animal identification in the garden. Which reminds me, we did see something interesting on our way to the leisure centre. A seagull, with what looked like a blackbird in its beak. I’d thought that they mainly went for scraps and carrion, although I suppose the smaller bird could have been roadkill.

Right must go off to bed. At least we’ve had a pleasant evening with the tennis, I recorded Murray while we were out. Missed about 20 minutes of the second set, but nothing terribly exciting I don’t think.

Accordingly, her library haul included two books on toys, Toys (What Was It Like in the Past?)
and Look Inside a Victorian Toyshop.
I found Seashore (Usborne Nature Trail) which I thought might help with learning more of the area around where we live, and I must get around to ordering the ACE Spelling Dictionary which is what she used and loved last year at school.

It also occurs to me that doing some history of language to get her thinking about where words come from might help, and it was one of Small’s car questions, I think on the way back from offthepath, to ask how ppl decided which words had which meaning, so a Montessori great lesson might be in order.

We had long chats about which other language she would like to learn, and she’s very undecided. She wanted to know if I knew as much French as Daddy knows German, the answer to that being a definitive no. Tim did German up to and including during his degree and then lived and worked in Germany for a while, I have a French O level, and only a B at that!

So I’ve been perusing The book ppl site looking at their language resources, and kicking myself for not buying the new Muzzy while it was 50% off the five language version, but I think I’ll talk to Tim about what we launch into. We’d better get a move on, or Small will get ahead of us though!

For maths, she already has a Mega Maths (I Can Learn) and I want her to join in with some of the basic golden bead work I’m going to do with Small as I still don’t think she’s 100% comfortable in those areas.

Science, we have a couple of books of experiments plus the power house is finally in play, and craft we’re well away. I got poetry books and that will help with her handwriting too, although think will pursue calligraphy as she’d enjoy it for cardmaking possibly.

Oh, nearly forgot. Inspired by the Montessori learning journal idea I told her about, she bought herself a nice notebook while we were out to start keeping a diary. She will be keeping the learning journal as well though

Then there’s all the practical stuff that I’m going to do with both of them, getting them to be more involved and helpful around the house and in the kitchen, take more responsibility for their own belongings and so on. Gardening goes down well with Big, will try to get Small involved with her as well.

And there you go. Over an hour blogging this evening, hope you all think it’s worth it! Whether you do or not, I needed to record it all somewhere, here is as good as any

This morning they were watching Victorian Farm, lambing season, when he turned around and asked what flesh is for. Is it just to make the skin smooth? um, not quite. So I explained muscles, and fat and before I could get on to blood and organs he’d turned back to the tv, I’d obviously given the required information.

The other conversation was last night on the way to pick up Big from Brownies. What’s 58 add 20 he asked. I said that he could do that himself, if he just remembered that he needed to think in tens, so he added up 5 tens and 2 tens, turned it back into 70 and then remembered the 8 he’d had as well. If only it went units, tens, hundreds and thousands he said. So I pointed out that it does and he was very quiet for a little while, pondering.

I’ve no idea whether that will have taken root this time, or whether we’ll have the conversation again – having seen him at the learning thing before I suspect that may well have been enough to start him ticking over working a number of things out for himself, but I won’t know until the next set of questions comes out.

As well as conversations and games, they’ve watched a variety of things on tv and online, mainly historical in basis. I know they spent some time on the cbbc horrible history website as I watched Henry VIII with them, and like I say, there’s been Victorian Farm. Big in particular is still very attached to the Victorians, and Small can usually be talked in to an episode or two.

There’s also been much exploration of online quizzes, under fairly close supervision I might add!, particularly of anything with a Harry Potter leaning. And Big had her second Brownies last night – Brown owl herself was there from the start, and she seems a really lovely woman. When I mentioned home educating, she said she’d had several home educating families in the past, and recommended one in particular to get in touch with who have 7 children and are musical or some such. It rang a bell, wondering if they are anything to do with the music group in Ipswich, so will try to follow that up. She also angled to get Big set up with a playdate with a girl who goes to school in Ipswich so doesn’t know many ppl here, and I’ve promised that Big can take our phone number next week to facilitate further

So all in all a good couple of days, topped off nicely this afternoon when I got to spend some time on a webchat interview which earned me £10 in Amazon vouchers. And I’ve another one set up for next week

So that’s two new pairs of shoes, and I got some cream for his as they’re a kind of metallic finish and I can see them scuffing like nobody’s business. Big wasn’t happy with any of the trainers on offer, but we managed to find her a pair of doodle plimsolls, so they were fine for the running about activities at Brownies.

As well as shoes we got suntan lotion (can’t believe how hot it’s been this week!) and finally picked up wire and long nosed pliers so that we can have a go at making golden blue bead material for Small. On the way back we popped in to see Auntie S (must find out what she thinks of being blogged!) to show off the new shoes, and had a lovely hour chatting until suddenly Small got bored and lost it rather At least we are dragging distance from home at that point, although he did recover it on the walk back (after I hauled him back out of the road, *still* no road sense whatsoever!) and they mainly played OK for the rest of the afternoon although the excitement was mounting steadily for Big as Brownie time approached.

Took her round to the church hall, which is handy walking distance away, and dropped her off with a very lovely lady, who is Brown Owl’s mother. Apparently Brown Owl can’t get there from work for start time, so her mother starts it off and then she comes and takes over. Something must have gone amiss today (and I really hope it’s nothing serious) as she didn’t make it at all. Big didn’t seem to have suffered from this, and chattered away non stop as we walked back, which I took as a very good sign. She never really talked about anything at the other group. And while I was dropping her off and explaining about the move, a parent standing nearby started chatting to us, explaining that her daughter doesn’t go to the same school as many of the other children, so she doesn’t know everyone there that well, and was generally friendly and helpful. That *certainly* didn’t happen at the last group. When I picked her up and walked in through the door, two parents said hello – I know this might sound really odd, but no one ever spoke at the other group at all, and I always found it a bit of a strain.

Walking back, I noticed that the dropped purse I’d seen as I walked down was still there, and also that there was a PCSO over the road. I’d thought I ought to do something about it if it was still there as I came back, so was very happy to wave to the PCSO and have him come over and take it on. Bonus, my good deed of the day

And now I need to go and turn off the audio book and tell the children it’s sleep time. Tomorrow will involve more knitting (plus a first attempt at purl ) and also some blue beading.

Small found a kit he’s had for quite a while and decided he absolutely had to knit immediately. We did a row together, and he pretty much got it – today he did another row by himself. Obviously it’s a totally individual knitting style he’s developed, but it appears to work for him – I am beginning to wonder if he’s actually more left handed than right though as he appears to do far more with his left that I would expect. I know he does all his writing and drawing right handed, but it’s with a very awkward grip, so I’m considering how to explore this further.

Big has got started on her baby knitting, she’s working on the lower left hat from this pattern. It’s far and away the thinnest yarn she’s worked with, but she’s coping with it really well – I had to do a row this afternoon to get her back to the right number of stitches, but it wasn’t disastrously astray, just several extra loops that hadn’t quite made it off the needle where they should.

Our main activity today though was the Ecotech trip. Coming from a part of the country with dual carriageways and so on, I’d looked at the distance, 67 miles, and thought, oh, about an hour, that’ll be fine, and got an unpleasant awakening when we plugged it into the satnav and that said 1hr 20. Turned out even that was optimistic and we were nearly 10 minutes late, which meant we arrived just as everyone was being gathered into a group – ie pretty much perfect

Morning session for us was building model turbines, which Big loved, particularly as she sat with SB, and Chris kept an eye on her when I had to extricate Small for increasing frustration levels. He struggled with the day – he didn’t actually want to go when I proposed it, but I think overall he enjoyed it, he just really doesn’t do group activities, not least as he always seems to come up with an idea diametrically opposed to what everyone else in the group wants to do, so he doesn’t get to do it. Hm. Must think about this some more. I think overall that maturity with infrequent group exposure in the meantime will get us there, but I must keep an eye on it and make sure that he doesn’t just get set in a way of non participation just because that’s what he does. Or doesn’t, iyswim

Afternoon activity was a trip up the turbine, apparently it’s the only one in the world open to the public, and rather put the entrance fee in perspective. Though given that there were activities, I didn’t think it was terribly steep – £9 for the two children and I got in free. The cafe was excellent as well – they didn’t have anything as a sandwich filling that Small eats, but were very happy to just do him some (nice) bread and butter, and didn’t even charge for it, bonus!

Trip home was just as tiresome, though as I wasn’t feeling under time pressure at least it wasn’t as stressful. Then I sauntered out to post my TMA (Tim hadn’t been up to the post office stroll, I think he has the bug of doom ) and pick up milk and so on at the Coop. And that brings us nicely up to the knitting, which was where I’d started the post

Oh, although I have missed out the bit where I called up the local Brownie area organiser and arranged for Big to try out at Brownies from tomorrow evening. Sounds really lovely – they need more girls in the pack so as to be able to organise more things, and there are three other girls starting tomorrow, moving up from Rainbows, so she won’t be the only new girl. Fingers crossed this is the start of her making friends in the local area.