Technical Disasters!

So it has taken me a few days to actually manage to post this! Unlike my friend Katie http://thegallivanters.blogspot.com/2011/11/gallivanters.html who seems to effortlessly post every day, to the sound of a cleverly chosen u-tube tune, with clever links to resources or articles she mentions (which to be fair she has tried to show me how to do but I have still not figured it out) I am still struggling with the basics. I still struggle to upload photos, but I'm getting there. The most serious error this weekend which brought our new computer to a virtual standstill was to try to send a video of Natalie and Lucas singing happy 2nd birthday to a lovely little friend of theirs by email. Apparently Mac computers have some kind of glitch so that when you try to send an email which is too big it multiplies and multiplies. By the time poor Jonathan had spent about 3 hours trying to figure out it had multiplied about 90 times and was lurking all over the computer. Not good and not conducive to blogging!

The other not so good highlight of the weekend was Jonathan hurting his back by trying to help Eloise play football on Saturday morning with Lucas and Natalie. Bless him he had taken all of them to Lucas' football class as I had a journalist arriving to interview me about full term breastfeeding. Not good, especially as he has had problems with his back in the past.

Anyway, the interview seemed to go well. The journalist was really friendly and we chatted for more than 2 hours. He seemed interested in topics beyond the breastfeeding (including continuum concept, natural health, home education). I'm hoping that for the purposes of the article we stick to breastfeeding, though, as I really would like to raise awareness of the number of people who do feed their children long term and tandem/triple feed. Being an ex city lawyer is probably more persuasive than an increasingly "crunchy" home schooling mum!

Natalie and Lucas spent a lot of time playing a very detailed game with a lovely fairy castle book Natalie received in her christmas stocking. They even managed to include a dungeon in there!

On Sunday we did our usual walk in the woods and lunch with Granny. Natalie and Lucas love her stair lift. Eloise, however, is so mobile now that Granny's house is pretty much a nightmare. There are things in every direction waiting to receive the Eloise demolition treatment! Here is Daddy and Eloise having a little nap at home, a very rare quiet moment!
Today, we had some new friends come and play. We actually met them on a rare visit to Waitrose. I guess I always notice children who are out and about during the school day and we got chatting. Today they came to play here for the first time: mum and al 4 children. They all had a lovely time. I love the way that home ed children of all ages seem to get on. There were 2 boys (8 and 3) and 5 girls (2x6, 4, 2 and nearly 1). One of the highlights was the 5 older ones all acting out The Snowman in Natalie's room to the accompaniment of the CD. They all had a wonderful time and I enjoyed getting to know the mum a bit better too.

They all stayed for lunch and I have to admit feeling a bit of a domestic goddess, managing to get food on the table for everyone with a baby in a sling. Why is it so much easier when there is company? Oh for a real life community.

This afternoon Natalie and Lucas had their drama class. In the end of term show, Natalie is the ring master and Lucas is a circus flea. It is an activity they love doing and Lucas is holding his own in a class for 4-8 year olds. I am glad that the person who runs the class was guided by ability rather than age when he let Lucas join. Once their two best home ed friends joined the class it would have been very hard to ask Lucas to wait until he was actually 4. Their two friends weren't actually there today as they, along with their mother, have been suffering with the flu. We dropped some stickers off for them on the way home which cheered them up. We missed seeing them last week for our usual Thursday afternoon play and tea and hope that they will be completely recovered really soon.

Visitors and demolition!

My aunt spent the day with us this week. It is amazing what a difference an extra pair of hands makes. For some unknown reason Eloise is actually happy just bumbling around when there are more people around. No idea why. When there is just me with the 3 of them she seems to need my undivided attention. This is my aunt (who is very creative and luckily for me and the children makes all our drama outfits) showing Natalie how to start a small tapestry. Natalie was really excited and has done more than I thought that she could.
We got some Matador from Myriad Toys for the children for Christmas and it has surpassed all expectations. Both Natalie and Lucas have already had a lot of fun making aeroplanes, helicopters, the fire engine below and a huge number of miscellaneous and imaginative creations. I love seeing them create - although Eloise is most delighted by the small pieces that she gets to chew on!
Lucas is not really interested in reading which I am delighted about as 3 is way too young, I think! However, his reasoning is that he can read is collection of Santa stories (small board books that he has memorised after repeated readings!) That, apparently is all he needs. Below, he is engrossed in a book about castles. He is fascinated by all things related to Knights, Gladiators, Soldiers.
Eloise has been nicknamed the demolition gang. Natalie and Lucas are very patient with her constant efforts to destroy whatever they have made. Below our season table is getting the Eloise treatment. I have no idea how many times poor Natalie has had to repair the damage. At least it is a passing phase!

Creating and outdoor walking!

So this week it was finally warm enough for our little walker to experience walking outside. Up until now it has been too cold and she has remained snuggled up with me in our fleecy sling in her thermal boots and lovely warm woollen all in one. Even in the coldest weather we managed without gloves and she was toasty and warm. When I put her on the ground while Natalie was playing tennis she looked a bit surprised but the look of absolute delight once she realised she could actually go where she wanted to was wonderful. The beginning of a new era....We had solar panels put on our roof at the end of last week and as usual the children used real life experiences as the basis of their play. So here is Lucas busy putting solar panels up. If I had known he could have done it, we could have saved quite a bit of cash. If anyone else needs any though....
This week both Natalie and Lucas have done a lot of creating, which results in a lot of clearing up for me. Especially with our little explorer getting into everything. I am not great at doing anything much other than giving them lots of materials and letting them get on with it so it amazes me often what they come up with. Below is Lucas picture of a snowman (including a really long willy). He is only 3 and apparently (according to my aunt who is an infant teacher) this kind of deliberate detail is unusual. He really does love to draw, though.

This is a picture that Natalie has drawn for her sponsor child who lives in Zambia. It was inspired by a picture we got sent by Eloise's little girl in India. What impressed me was that she not only did the picture but created her own envelope. Now we just need to send it!
The one thing that I finally managed to do (well I actually got the idea from a friend and raced her to it and got a man who does to do it!) is to put a large pin board in our kitchen. I really wanted somewhere where we can easily display our master pieces and I'm delighted with it. So are the children. The dog (whose basket is just below the pin board) is less sure due to the stray pins that end up in her bed!

I'm not usually a great fan of the snow, although the children seem to love it. After one day last week where they had the opportunity to sledge (no pictures as Daddy lost the camera), the most recent snow fall seemed to fall in just the right way so that the roads were clear but the woods and hills were still covered. So we had a gorgeous, sparkly walk on Horsell Common on Friday and then a magical crisp snowy walk around Pitch Hill, our usual Sunday circuit before taking Granny out to lunch.Only 24 hours later and the snow had all disappeared and apart from the odd bit of ice which was hanging on it was just wet and muddy. Back to normal then and back to the inevitable work of collecting a large amount of sticks. We love going to Horsell and are there most days, but, along with most home educators, we kind of begrudge the influx of school children into our space during the holidays. We had planned to go to London to meet up with some on line friends but again decided not to at the last minute as we couldn't face battling the crowds.
I know from a lot of the reading that I have done that play is incredibly important which is lucky as it is what my two older ones spend most of their time doing. They literally spend hours and hours engrossed in dressing up and role play. It is sometimes really hard to persuade them to stop to go out or even to eat and drink! It is a never-ending sequence of kings, queens, babies, travel, holidays, builders, all with running commentary and lots of negotiation. Most of the time I have absolutely no idea what they are doing. The picture below is an example!!!
Eloise is busy doing learning all of her own. She tries to join in with her older siblings but when that doesn't work she explores anything and everything that they have left lying around. Already I am enjoying the dynamic between the 3 of them and every day I am grateful that they are spending their days bonding with each other and learning together. It is wonderful to watch.
One of the main reasons we started home educating was that we felt that schools in this country do far too much too soon. Natalie really wouldn't have been ready to sit still for long periods of time. Even now she seems to be constantly on the move (even when she is doing writing, drawing or reading) and imaginative play is still what she is most drawn to.

Snow and Milestones

Yesterday was the anniversary of one of my favourite home ed blogs http://thegallivanters.blogspot.com/

It has inspired me, given me ideas for resources and also made me question my own beliefs and thoughts. All good stuff. I kind of like the idea that on the first anniversary of that blog, I finally commit to try to blog at least a couple of times a week. There are so many precious moments that pass while I'm still living through the fog of not enough sleep and managing 3 small children.

Exciting news this week, started with the snow, which meant that we went sledging but also that Daddy managed to lose the camera with our pictures of us all having a go (including Eloise who wasn't all that impressed). Natalie and Lucas love the snow and have been waiting for it since before Christmas so I'm glad they finally got some. With the second dump of snow we were treated to the most magical dog walk in the woods which sparkled in the sunshine and looked as though it had been covered with the most wonderful coating of icing sugar.

Eloise is now walking properly - not just the odd step or two - setting off across long distances with her little arms outstretched. She looks so small and sweet but it is exciting and sad all at once. My last little baby is moving on into toddlerhood. I managed to get a couple of films of her early walking on my phone. Note to self to get some more crawling before it is too late.

The other excitement is that Natalie is suddenly really taking to reading. She has been obviously more and more interested but then I tried her on a 2 week trial of Reading Eggs. I have still got mixed feelings about computers. It almost feels like cheating and I have read for years about the dangers of screens. However, she is loving it, and is making so much progress so quickly and having fun at the same time. It seems like the most straightforward, clever and stress free way to learn to read. I needn't have worried about her not being interested in books. She has been bringing me Peter and Jane books in the evenings but is now finding them easy as she already knows so many of the words.

Happy anniversary to you Katie!!

I really want to start keeping a record of our lovely home schooling life. I still need to work out how to post pictures but we had a really great day today.

This morning we made sparkly white play dough snowmen which N and L decorated all by themselves. I was really pleased as I have resolved to try to do more craft and more messy play with them all this year.

They played for ages with the lovely wooden castle that they got for Christmas, adding lots of animals and figures and making all sorts of stories.

We had some home ed friends come and play and they spent a long time dressing up but surprisingly also all sat down to play the Beetle Game they had been given at Christmas. Using dice to make up the different parts of their beetle.

E had to be kept out of the way but she had her own fun, walking up and down with her trolley of blocks and sucking on shells and conkers!

N listened to a CD of House at Pooh corner while L and E had a rest. She loved it and I was amazed that she was able to retell part of the story to me at bedtime.

More home ed friends to play in the afternoon. N and Ls best friends and our regular Thursday play and tea. More dressing up, an impromptu dance performance and lots of fun with the large collection of aeroplanes.

Once they went N was really keen to work with the magnetic words on the small magnetic board that arrived today. She recognised quite a few already and had fun making sentences. We started putting them in groups of the words she knows, the ones we are learning and the ones she doesn't know yet. We started the next reading book too and I think she is really proud of how much she can now do.

We have started reading Dr Doolittle together at bedtime which she really enjoyed. I'm loving revisiting books I loved as a child.

Starting somewhere...

I set this blog up over a year ago. I wanted to record those lovely moments in our lives that are so easily forgotten.
Since I set up the blog, my two gorgeous little companions have become 3. In some ways our activities have been curtailed, somewhat, by the addition of our inquisitive and demanding little baby. In other ways in has most definately been enriched. Not only watching my older two who are so proud of their little sister but in the way that I have learned, finally, to slow down and enjoy the little things.