Tuesday.

A gentle day enjoying the Autumn sunshine, soaking up vitamin D.  I am still very weak from the flu and tire easily.

Literacy Planet continues to be popular, I've popped Rye back a level so he is practicing listening to letter sounds in words- his progress in this area is wonderful and exciting because this is a skill that will enable real progress towards reading fluently.

We socialised with friends, and Rye spotted the large brown fungus that is so prevalent at this time of the year, and tend to grown in clusters on grass, and hedges.  So we are going to go out with our mushroom guidebooks and see if we can identify what we find.

The Singapore math books almost arrived.  I say "almost" because the envelope was split and only the 3B books were in there.  Maths No Problem said that Parcel Force is investigating - I'm not happy, because without the 3A books, I only have half a math curriculum - and it wasn't cheap either! "Investigating" to me sounds like stonewalling.

Pre dinner - Rye spent ages making rockets and space ships to play in from various boxes; it was wonderful to watch him being so creative, and problem solving.  He was so sweet with the 3yr old, and included her in the play, let her be the pilot and consulted her on design improvements.

After dinner Rye read to me, and then I read another chapter of the Goblet of Fire to him.  I will be very glad when we've finished that book, really want to read the Frost Giants, Wild Fang and other stories to him.

An upside of the Autumn nights is my boy comes back to the flat earlier and we can enjoy lots of snuggles, reading  books to each other and chatting.

Looking forward to Sunday!

Monday:

 Housework, hanging my wall hangings by Wendy Andrew's, baking and then delivering the 2nd crochet lesson that evening.

 Rye sampling the scones I made... he approved.

Tuesday:  a friend unwell, so I offered to take her kids off her hands so she could go to bed and rest. 

 Painting

Sandpit play - this is Rye's best friend :-) 

Wednesday:

My friend still wasn't feeling terribly well, so I took the kids down to the fountain at the harbour... 

And we met up with friends, and after the fountain, we bribed the kids with icecream so we could take a walk along the harbour to the sandy beach. 

Back to mine for more trampoline and sandpit play, and then pizza for tea

Finally taking the kids back home in time for baths and bed. 

Ooops - squeezed the tomato paste tube too hard and it splurted out of the other end.... sigh. 

 Thursday

A more leisurely start to the day - Rye slept till 10am!  It was then time to get ready for the party!

I painted my nails black, Rye wanted his red - 'cept I do not own red nail polish, so he used paint pens instead.

Rye had a fantastic time, adoring having so many other little boys to have sword fights with

Sigh - no matter that I've kept "weapon" type toys virtually out of the house, seems some things

are just gonna happen when boys get together.  Respect to them though, they were all very good and really rather restrained - there was only the odd yelp.

In between this very busy week, I've also been hooking away during spare moments:

working to complete this blanket by the end of the month:

A star commission  for a little boy's birthday:

And owl's safely arrive at their new home:

Tomorrow, I'm minding, and also taking the children to Manston Airport for an education day.

Saturday Minding again, taking mindee to swimming and then both children to football.  Afternoon probably take Rye down to the harbour again, for the Fish Festival.

Sunday - veg!

Hello, Sunshine!

An unexpected delight on Friday - the sun, all day and no rain!
So what did we do?

 The coastal park.  After a busy week of educational trips, I really felt we just need to let our hair down and enjoy the fresh air.  Rye was in utter agreement.

 It was beautiful, the wind was a bit chilly, the sun, however, was lovely and warm, a hint of summer to come, I hope.

 This is where we parked.  I do so love living by the sea!

 I needed to go and pick up mindie, so Rye and his friend I'd brought with us, stayed with a friend, while I nipped through.  While I was gone Rye made the above nest.  He was very proud of it and told me how the top bit is for the big bird and the bottom bit for the babies birds :D

I think he's trying to coax the rather fat squirrel that lives here!

Today there were some showers, but in the main, another beautiful sunny day, not such exciting ventures though, a bit of home time today:

Various crafting, using sharpies on wooden peg dolls and  painting flowers on cardboard coasters

Hide and Seek.  Bless em, one could stand and count to 20,  and the other would "hide" under the camouflage..

A very full and enjoyable week, I confess though I'm looking forward to a nice quiet Sunday!

Natural unschooling.

 I've been toying with adding in more structure, in part because of Rye almost certainly being

aspergers, I am informed that such children thrive with routine and structure

I look at our days though, and I wonder...

 He is loving the connecting straws and building more and more

complicated structures.

Nervous mama has given him unrestricted access to scissors.

And as a consequence his scissor skills are improving dramatically.

Came back from hanging out laundry to find with a 

Thomas the Tank Engine first handwriting book.

(and yes he loves the "new" chair)

For Aunty Jen - a citiblock aeroplane.

A house, which he's played with all evening, creatively

and also working out scenarios.

We've been discussing quite a bit what happens should we ever loose each other in town

Rye finds it distressing to talk about, yet this evening he was telling the figures

"If you get lost go into a shop and tell the person at the till you're lost and I'll find you"

**melt**

Making cake.

We've also watched short videos on meerkats and bat earred foxes on National Geographic Kids

he's played with mindie, and shared beautifully.

He's played with playdough 

He's sung songs

He's asked questions

But the most important thing......

He's happy.

Puddling Jumping.

Mmm, a very successful afternoon puddle jumping.  Myself and another family tottered over to another friend's house and we took advantage of her rather good puddles in the lane behind her house.   And then we took advantage of the kids playing together to have a good long natter.  Perfect!

Yule Advent Day 10.

Letterland day today, so today has been spent at a friend's house. 
I toyed with the idea of a simple craft session this evening; but after working 15+ hours per day for the past couple of days, I'm frankly tired, and just not in the mood to do more kids stuff.

So Rye has been firmly told this evening is mummy time and no, he cannot race his car noisly on the laminate, throw the cars off the play cooker to clatter on the laminate, he cannot watch a dvd and no I'm not putting music on.  His choice is read books or go to bed.

He is reading books. 


I know I sound mean as hell, but if I put into context, I have been a friend's house m ost of the day, and he has played with lots of other children, he's played with playdough, watched tv, ran around like a loon, played with cars and garages and goodness knows what else.  Today my working day has been just shy of 12 hours; and enough.  I need some quiet time, so instead, we've sat on the sofa, Rye looking at his books, me reading blogs while we munch through some mince pies.

And for today, that will have to do.

Yule Advent Day 9.

Last minute change to plans. 
Initially I had thought of making a wreath with Rye and C, using some of the greenery etc we found yesterday in the woods.  The downstairs really did need a good sweep, the table in only a day was covered and needed clearing.  The kitchen too was a bit a bombsite.  Add in a friend said she might pop round this afternoon.

So the crafting turned into something I could quickly show the kids and then leave them to it... what they made isn't quite what I had in mind... the image in my mind eye was more refined.....  I think though the children's creations are much more fun!

 Glue, toilet rolls, cotton wool and felt, can only lead to.......

 Snow men!  Isn't he fabulous.  I had been pondering what whether to try and find a way to add a large compacted ball of cotton wool for a head...... I like Rye's solution - just stick cotton wool in and out until the loo roll is completely masked by cotton wool.  

And here he is sittng on the season table.  C had fun making this too, excitedly telling me how she will show her snowmman to her mummy.  After this the kids were asking what they could craft next.  I did briefly consider painting pinecones and glittering them....... but as I'm trying to clean up a bit while they are nicely occupied., that idea was quickly discarded and instead out came the air drying clay.......

I'm not a big fan of this stuff to be honest.  It is remarkably stiff and pretty difficult for little fingers to manipulate, and trying to soften it with water just makes it slimy so when this mama tried to roll out some.... the rolling pin shot across the table and mama nearly went face first into the clay.... much to the amusement of the children.  Humph!

Still we did manage to get it rolled out.  This was a craft that involved more of my input, simply because the clay was so difficult to manipulate,  I ended up rolling each piece of clay out for the kids, so they could use whichever cutters they wanted. 

And here's a few of the cut out shapes.  We went on to make a few more; including some great looking bells.  The kids are keen to paint these; although might have to give C a few to take home to do, just thinking, it is letterland day tomorrow, Thursday she is at nursery and Friday is her nativity play, so I don't think she's with me.  Hmm.
Probably paint and glitter a few with Rye Thursday afternoon, after Forest school.

Following the crafting, there was play with the magna doodle, some odd game that involved kissing each other on their legs, feet, bum etc?  Weird children. And then building large gnome houses from tree blocks and knocking 'em down.  And now the minded children are napping and Rye is watching Curious George.

Time to prepare tea then.

HE Halloween Party.

Rather nervous, first party I've organised for the Home Ed group; happily it was a success, fun was had!

 The boy in bandages, G, had the best costume I think.  Rye did start off as a pirate, but for some reason he got all weird about wearing his pirate outfit and took it off.

 Playdough,  doh!  I forgot to add the salt, which is while it was so gloopy... didn't realise until one of our younger members kept eating the green dough.    And just look at our new venue for Home Ed group - isn't it fab.  It's Hythe Youth Centre, there is an upstairs, but for now we are just hiring the downstairs bit.

 The fabulous Frankienstien's Monster - pin the bolt game, that one of the families made.
Another family made a pinnata, and another mum bravely held it up (no where to stick it up), while excited children wielding sticks bashed it.  Brave lady!  (**cough** ok I volunteered her..but brave nontheless)

LOL the photos were taken by one of our 6yr old members, as I was running around a bit llike a frazzled headless chicken... not that I needed to, depsite the copious print out crytograms, mazes, word puzzles/searches, colour sheets, cut out halloween characters to stick onto toilet rolls, the play dougoop as it was renamed, pass the pumpkin, Wrap a Mummy, Make an Edible Witches Hat, Scary Statues.... most of it wasn't done at all, the kids were having far too much fun, playing hide and seek, playing with the playdougloop, a little bit of colouring in, whacking the heck out of a pinnata, the bolt pin it game went down well... eating a rather lot of sugar and food colouring, and playing with the balloons.

They all enjoyed it that's the main thing and everyone was suitable chuffed with our new venue, so much so I am going to arrange to book it monthly for a year.

Now, onto planning the crafts for our Seasonal/Winter Craft meet in December :-)

Day off.

An unexpected day off.  Mindie is ill.  So a nice day for just Rye and me.  Began with a lie in; I was just about to get up when I received the text from mindie's mum.  So  snuggled back under the cozy covers and Rye's toasty body.  When I woke again, he was still sleeping, well, we did have a late night as we popped around to Aunty Jen's last night for an early Samhain get together.  So I decide to take advantage and enjoy the luxury of reading in bed!  Mmm bliss.

Soon enough, however, the little man was awake and it was time to get up and have our morning juice and a bit of toast.  And then out came the paints!

 Making wooden door knobs into toadstools.  We are using tempura paint here.

 Therse are four I did for the season table, and the rest Rye painted - he used more paint so these are still drying and waiting for their white dots.

 So we played with different marking brushes and very wet paper.

 Then I remembered I'd picked up some leaf shaped sponges, so naturally we had to do some stamping, and ooh they came out so well.

 Once these are dry I will cut them out and we'll staple them ot string and make garlands.

 Rye adding his white dots using a screw dipped in paint.

Wrote the word out for Rye and he painted over it - a few of the letters he didn't form correctly; but I was just so pleased that he was holding his brush with a good grip.

 I drew him an outline of a toadstool, and he painted over it.

 And then it was time to clean up - this wise mama took the bowls of water and paint covered sponges, brushes, trays etc OUTSIDE  lool.  Look at that water!

 This boy has an amazing propensity for finding balloons!  Very nearly had to go without though, it was a  darn hard balloon to blow up.

And as he was so occupied I took the opportunity to finish off the mits for my friend's little lad, to go with the hat, I made him last week.