Mini Me!

Hmmmn, makes me think!
Nature V nurture.
Learning through observation.

Hopefully she will copy all the other things I do too!
Mind you she seems to be missing a nice cup of tea to go with that magazine. Do you think she is saying "just 10 minutes quiet Mimi time, pleeeeease!"

A "me" moment....

As inspired by www.soulemama.com, a moment from the week past.
A finished hat, MY finished hat. After, count them, 20 hats crocheted as gifts for people running up to christmas I now have my very own. (just as the weather warms up, sigh!!!)

iflow......

Every Thursday we attend a home-ed group. The children love going and the idea of this particular group is to provide stimulating activities, share skills and provide a community for the parents and children that is more than just a drop in or meet up in the park. You get to know each other well and we really value the friendships we have made.  It requires the commitment and dedication from all the parents involved, but we feel its definitely worth the occasional blip or blank mind when it comes to resolving problems or planning an activity.  Today the kids started a french course part funded by the group. It has been met with both open arms and some trepidation! How will the french teacher feel about home-edders? Will the kids be completely bonkers and rebel or hate it? Mine thought it was good. And there has been much singing and chatting in french this afternoon, which I can only take as a good sign.

Photo Boy

In the afternoon, as a post Christmas clear out and as an open event to invite home-educating families who don't currently attend iflow,  we had a table top sale with refreshments. The bargain of the day was a box with an old SLR and lots of lenses and a brilliant flash that David bought for a pound!! He is very much enjoying his photography at the moment and loves using film. This might be because at the moment his only access to digital is with his phone. But I think he just loves it all. His next project is to start looking into us setting up our own dark room and learning how to develop and print.  His favourite website and longed for gadgets can be found at www.lomography.com. Take a look, you may see some of his snaps!

Judge Bites Star Player.......

What? Just one of the headlines made up during the game  "Man Bites Dog", a card game where the object is to make funny headlines to score points. Father Christmas thought this would also be fun. And it is really great watching the kids play together, justifying their choices and headlines as the other players can veto their headline if it doesn't make sense or is just rubbish! And then some good mental maths adding up all the points ( a fun and sneaky way to squeeze it into the day!). Home ed mummy's ideal game then, thanks Father C!

Christmas Experiments

Perhaps Father Christmas knew we might find it a little hard to find inspiration and impetus after our break, because he gave some fab little science experiments in the boys stockings!

The Books weren't used (today!)

Checking Instructions

Lava Lamp

Cartesian Diver Experiment

Magnets

 So today we have been easing back into some science playing with gravity, polymers, lava and even ketchup. While the experiments were fun they have also sparked further interest and so we will be finding out what sort of polymers are used in the super bouncy balls and how on earth do they stick and stay together after two minutes in cold water? And how and why does the ketchup rise and fall? 

Sunday Afternoon, A walk and a headache.

We had a lovely late afternoon walk with the dogs up towards the wind turbines near to home, looking at our shadows and dodging all the other dog walkers. The lane was busy today and although Chester would love to play it seems that most other dogs feel he is just too giant a Lab to play with!!! It was crisp, cold and beautiful.

The headache comes from an earlier family conversation about tidying and planning. We want all feel we need a bit of structure to our days and we definitely need to be a bit more organised. But now its come to planning how we do that and my head is pounding! I can get my head around a weekly menu planner, its been fab having everyone more involved in choosing, ordering and cooking. And having an easy place to write down ideas, shopping list items and plan of what we are eating and who is cooking it will work for us. But the specific time for activities and chores and learning is a bit harder to fit into my head. I would like something to help us keep on track but that also goes with our flexible approach to learning. We can factor in rough guides. For instance we have set times for music lessons or rainbows. But setting the same for music practice or reading just isn't making sense to me.

And now I have a big old planning headache!

How do we keep our time and home on track? While still maintaining what we love about home education? Can we have a chore rota? A meal plan? And a day to day activities calendar? I'm really not sure. Between us I'm sure we can work out a path the will suit us the best. But at the moment all I can see is our life contained in little boxes. And all everyone else can see of me is a half a head poking out from the laptop and it has a frown on its face!

Super squeak ( also space squeak and queen squeak! )

My moment of the week, as inspired by Soulemama's "this moment".

Today Mia has been all of this above (check out the tail!) how cute can a six year old get and then I found her rummaging for fabric scraps to make baby clothes, it makes this sewing mummy's heart sing!!!!