Keepers of the Puddle

There have been a few things this week i’ve not talked about here, what with one thing and another it’s been a very incomplete blogging week. So i shall now attempt to put that right.

Thursday Josie ensured i was otherwise engaged; as it turns out, given she’s still being sick now and Max and i seem to be rather unwell too, i think the Olbas Oil thing may have co-incidentally masked a tummy upset. However, since she and i got to spend the day in Casualty (where a nurse told me i should keep things like that high up… okaaaaay….) Max had to come home and look after the others. Didn’t really fancy doing the failed mother routine with 3 other grumpy, out of school and apprently unkempt (must phone hairdresser) children in tow.

I must say he jumped marvellously into “homeschool dad” mode; they did, while defrosting the fridge, an experiment on the states and density of water. Fran learned to do Suduko puzzles, Amelie got a good day on the pc playing her latest favourite game of Pooh Bear, Maddy did lots of sums and drawing. That evening Maddy asked me “wha’t’s a billion?” (don’t know, ask your father) and so Max got out the base ten kit and with the aid of a tape measure they eventually worked out that a billion unit blocks would be about the size of our house. Amelie and i also spent some time investigating the thread on the inside of her bottle lid, we ‘baked’ something from an Usborne sweet making book and read some more of The Magician’s Nephew. nearly at the end of that now, might look back on Sarah’s blog and nick an activity or two. Maddy and i also managed to finish a picture frame we had agreed to make using the fake flowers she had spent her pocket money on 🙄

Friday Despite the fact that i was busy getting ready for group, having been thrown into disarray by the day before, we managed a “homeschool morning” too. Fran had a long bath and she and i spent a long time talking about Osmosis, including agreeing setting up an experiment to look at it further. It was quite interesting to have the opportunity to talk about it in a natural way, more and more, our version of HE is including things which happen naturally and i’m very comfortable with it going that way. It’s certainly my aim that by the time they reach 10 or so, they will be entirely self-directing their learning and so far, it seems to be working.

During the morning Maddy, who was doing Studydog, came and asked “mummy, is ‘i’m going to the shops” the same ‘to’ as if i say “i want to go too“? Good spot Maddy. So she and i spent a bit of time writing them out, talking about the definitions, acting them out, thinking up different sentences and doing drawings of the versions of “to/too/two”. Drawings helped a lot, she is very much a visual girl. later she came back and said “I’ve got another one; i can go right, be right and i can write.” So we did it all again 😆

When we got home from group last night the girls and i decided to tidy the house so that when Max got home it was all clean and tidy. We did it all (including handsweeping the carpet when the Dyson started emitting smoke, call me a Muffin…) and when he got home we all had a nice relaxing evening together, with baths, playing, stories and cuddles. Josie had a long bath, i cleaned the bathroom while she did and all was merry. We rarely get evenings with activities and parcels, so it was very pleasant.

Max and i watched “The Day After Tomorrow”, a film which should be served with manatory crackers and then started to watch Farenheit 9/11. I’d pretty much lost it by the time i’d got through half an hour of who was friends with who, but the images of the public beheading (two strokes) finished me off. There is another side to an interesting coin. Can’t say i go a bundle on public beheadings, which is not to say i think highly of private ones either. What a shame we can’t all manage to just be nice to each other. 🙁