Sunny Hedonism.

The sun has come out to warm our cockles, and boy did we make the most of it:

Friends came over for a BBQ, and stayed over, initially for a night, turning into 3 nights. 

The children were very impressed with the projector too, which I popped on each evening to settle them down, while me and my friend sat in my garden to the early hours chattering and consuming a wee mouthful of cider...

 What is sunshine without bubbles?

 Trips to the fountain were mandatory!

And later to the beach, though by the evening that wind had a heck of a chill factor. 

 Returning from the beach we discovered the fountain lights were on - and indeed had been changed

for a far more colourful display.... suddenly the kids weren't cold and wanting to go home.

 There were visits to the local park.

And meeting more friends for yet more fountain frolicks.

Epithany!

What a ninny!

Weekends!  Yes, weekends.  I have been struggling for months fitting in Rye's learning time with the usual plethora of social meetings, trips, and spontaneous get togethers that a Home Ed child typically has going on each week, along with my own need for some time to do my work, domestic stuff, my own social events etc. It  has been proving very difficult to be consistent.

Difficult, because I've been trying to fit it all in Mon-Fri.  Generally speaking weekends for Home Educators, at least the ones I know, is generally reserved for family time, and family only trips.  Weekends here are a mixture of childminding and pottering/domestic duties/downtime.   The light bulb moment was when it dawned on me that Rye's "learning time", could stretch over the weekend, and a little into Monday and Tuesday, leaving the other days free for other types of learning and play.

That reading time on a Sunday could involve our usual long morning snuggles in my bed, with me reading to him and vice versa - Saturday, easily maths and simply science covered through games - which can easily involve my four year old mindee too!  I do feel a ninny.  Weekends, it's so obvious.

And when one has weeks like last week, usual activities that Rye attends, along with birthday parties, a trip to Manston, me babysitting a friend's 3 children because she was ill, for a couple of days, fitting in the building blocks of academic learning can be difficult.  It is learning that Rye has requested so it is important we fit it in.

To my mind, days/weeks like this are, certainly at this stage, are too important to miss.  It's days out like that, that fires the imagination, sparks new learning opportunities, and practicing social skills.

I suppose, even after all these years, I'm still deschooling, still ridding myself of mainstream educational norms;  of course the more formal stuff isn't restricted to Monday to Friday.

What a ninny!

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!

I love Home Ed!

You know our life is damn good.  It's filled with days like this:

 Crafing, here we are decorating the letter "M".

Mathematics, which he did so easily, and crucially wanted to do.

That keenness for learning is a wonderful thing to behold.

Practising his letters and writing.  Again so keen to do this.  He did struggle with this 3rd worksheet, and he doesn't seem to quite get the idea of what the lines are for.  Later in the day, he got some paper and independently started writing "M" and told me words he thought began with "M"  It's so wonderful to watch him make connections, he's getting better and better at listening for the beginning sound at the beginning of words too.

Building and designing is a big thing at the moment too:

Must pick up another packet of these!

"A MASSIVE aeroplane, Jacqui"

Then before bed he wanted to do both Study Ladder and Reading Eggs.  I snapped this photo because, the day before one of the exercises we did together involved copying a design of a train.  On his developmental assessment it was noted that he was unable to copy a pattern, and instead did it his own way.  So, seeing him copying the train FROM MEMORY here, was very exciting.  It's not exact, the grey square should be at the end of the blue rectangles... but as he was doing this from memory it ain't a bad effort.  He also went on to try and replicate the flower we made too, which was more difficult - again from memory and an excellent effort.  

And then we have days like this:

Our Home Ed group yesterday.  The theme was Chinese New Year and here the kids are making chinese dragons.  There was a bit of a mix up as we should have been in the Youth Centre for this, but there was a problem with the key, so we had to come up with a back up plan quick.  So we invaded a friend's house, lol.

Turned out a lovely day, the kids loved making the dragons, in fact they were to engaged in the activity we didn't get to make the lanterns or play the chopstick game.  

New families joined in and new friends made :-)

A selection of the dagons made. 

Beautiful.  Such a lovely day and the chinese food we shared was delicious; egg fried rice, rice and vegetables, noodles, currypuffs, veg pancake rolls, saesame prawn toast, hoisin chicken, chicken and sweetcorn and veg soup, chili rice crackers, prawn crackers.  YUM.

Aye, I love home education, it's a fine thing :-)