Proof our days dont always go to plan!

Whew, what a day!

We had a planned trip to Hatfield House to a Tudor Living History day. I have to admit I was nervous about booking it but thought Caden would sit there with the other kids he knows while I took Miles out. I didn't really think Miles would be totally quiet. What happened is that we were slightly late. Then for about two minutes Miles was really noisy and whingey! But the room was really quiet, like an echoey church with a man dressed in tudor regale conveying interesting facts to rapt children. Argh! So we were asked to leave after interrupting his performance for the third time :/ Fair enough really, we were disturbing the peace so to speak. I was frustrated that Caden refused flatly to stay there without me, I felt that it was a waste of a very interesting workshop (or three). But there we are, I don't want to force him to stay (not that I could force Caden to do anything anyway). So feeling pretty fed up, we went off for a walk. It was beautiful Autumnal weather, nice blue sky, warm sun, slight chill to the air and we had a look at some of the shops in a courtyard. Here is Caden antagonising Miles... he has delighted in this a lot today.

We found a quaint little music shop, the boys really liked looking at the Ukuleles, there was one shaped like a watermelon but it was £70, so we didn't buy it. :) We talked about the different kind of guitars there. 

We talked a little bit about the different kinds of building structure we could find, the beams, how they provide a structural support for the roof and how they connect to the wall supports etc. Caden was very interested and a little fearful of the giant cobwebs we could see in the rafters. 

Then fortunately, to make a 3 hour round trip worthwhile (as it was all going down the pan), we found The Bloody Hollow Adventure Playground. It was Awesome! There was a mini version of Hatfield House, (Much more accessible for little ones :) Both of them scaled the ladders, walked around the turrets, Caden even tried to climb the outside, to no avail. 

The King of the Castle !! 

We found a beautiful and perfectly formed mushroom. Not identified it yet but the boys liked looking it over. We also cracked open an acorn to see what the Oak Nut looks like, the bit that the squirrels eat. We were surprised to find it looks like the nuts we eat (though we talked about how these ones make us sick). This got us onto talking again about different kinds of trees and seeds. Caden really enjoys identifying plants, trees and animals/insects. Ill have to make sure I keep up with him ;)

They really loved the seesaw, they are both nearly the same weight now so it works very well for them! 

Being pushed around on their 'skylander ship' called Warnado's Tornado! 

Looking a bit glum on the swings though they were enjoying it really, honest! 

Cadey and me! 

They did some excellent artwork this morning. Caden drew this which represents the Seasonal changes to a tree. I have written in blue the labels he told me to add. The first is a Tree in winter, no leaves, just brown branches, Then Spring, Then Summer, Then Autumn with brown leaves. Really fab little drawing and totally under his own steam. He also wrote his own name very well I thought, again, I had zero input into this, he just did it. Very cool! 

Then, encouraged, he drew these two...

This is a rainforest with a (from left to right) flying lion (for the assonance I guess), a gazelle (good likeness isnt it), a monkey (in the tree) and a gorilla (right most, in the tree). There is a forest fire and he has made good use of colour to show the different tones in the fire. 

Sadly this one came out sideways, you'll have to tilt your head. It is an ocean with a happy whale, a shark chasing a fish and a seagull and a dolphin jumping out of the sea, and some seaweed. Loving the happy faces. 

Even though the Hatfield House planned day, didnt go to plan. I have now very firmly got it set in mind that these sort of organised events wont work for us in the forseeable future so I will save my pennies and considerable efforts. Better to stay local, have more energy and do things they will enjoy and thus learn more from. 

Walk in the park!

We did some really excellent maths work this morning. It started off pretty badly, Caden didn't want to be torn from his Mario Kart game. We persevered and managed to get a really fun game out of it. The 'lesson' was working out the area of a rectangle. We found that filling the rectangles was tedious when it was larger than about 4 squares (we had to move the squares into the boxes to count the number that filled the space). Once we realised that the length and width multiplied calculated the area, and Caden realised that all the answers were on his multiplication table, we stuck the table to the wall and each time we calculated the length and width Caden raced to the table and used his fingers to work out the total. He was so excited that he didnt need to use 'maths in his head' to work out the answers. A bit like using a calculator. It was very exciting to see that the answers were right each time. So today we did capacity and area in maths. 

Reading consisted of a page from his skylanders book (perfectly adequate as there were many words he didn't know and could practise) and a few signs on our walk this afternoon. 

Our walk this afternoon...  It was lovely weather. We had lovely company with Bx and family and the park was spacious and fun. 

Here are some things we did. 

Drinking apple juice under the canal bridge. 

Racing each other doing the funky chicken and flapping wings like a bird. 

We talked about what a weir is and what we build them for. To measure water depth and flow. Hence Gauging station. 

We found what we thought was a few Fly Agaric mushrooms. We talked about deadly mushrooms and then found loads of different kinds of fungi on the walk. 

Then the stick fights began. The kids fashioned huge lances out of dried cow parsley stalks, shook off the seeds and then had battles. Everyone got hurt I think. I guess they learn but it was fairly fraught! 

Then a huge blackberry picking session, Miles ate so many (again) he would live off them if he could I think. Matthew very sweetly picked dozens of them along the way and then presented them to Miles who was very happy to eat them when we got home. 

Woods in the Autumn

We have really made the most of the last dregs of Summer recently, or is it Autumn sun? It was very warm though this week, we got about 25 degrees and were out all day.

Caden climbing trees as usual. 

Miles mid-shot with the bow and arrow. We lost the arrow on this walk. Plenty more at home though.

More fishing and this time seeing what happens when you immerse your shoes in the lake, with your feet still in them. Yes Miles, your feet get wet. No, we cannot dry them immediately!

At Beetroot club today we had a really fantastic Yoga class. Caden really came down to earth today, listened, did as he was told, stayed in the class, enjoyed it and came out with a moon sticker and a fantastic little drawing he made. 

Then we did our activity, this week provided by J'Nel, which included Leaf printing....

And digging for worms....

(we didn't find any)

Then, we had to ask the children to find a piece of nature and become it. 

Here is Caden becoming a brown Autumn leaf.

Megan, Caden and Miles organising themselves. 

We found a huge green bug. Nobody knew what it was but it looked crickety! Any idea please post in comments, thanks :)

Then Caden came to me with a small fragment of glass and told me that it was from the mirror in the Snow Queen. For those that dont know the story... Briefly, the devil made a mirror which showed anyone who looked into it that the world was an ugly place. The mirror was broken into a million pieces and anyone who had a piece of glass get into their body, through an eye, their mouth etc, would find that it worked its way into their heart and made it hard, so they only saw the world in an ugly way. A little girl called Gerda saves her brother from the Snow Queen who takes her brother Kay away to the North. Caden saw this as being a shard of the mirror. We said we were very glad it didn't go into our hearts. The story is by Hans Christian Anderson. 

Their usual scoot and bike ride (taken just before my phone ran out of power so not such a great shot) but they have a fantastic space to spend a good 30 minutes scooting about. 

Reading Eggspress

I have to write a quick post about this.

This morning Caden and I were up at 6 ish so as Miles slept in, we did a little maths (measurement - easy peasy) and some reading. He chose to get a non-fiction book. He completed reading eggs this year and is onto reading eggspress now which is with a reading age of about 7. Realistically we thought that there was a pretty big leap from one to the other and Caden still enjoys playing the reading games on reading eggs. I think that the program is excellent but doesn't cater for little kids who still enjoy the reading eggs format, full of cartoons and funny songs, collecting eggs and stuff, but who read at a more advanced level than age 6. The eggspress version is a lot more geared at older kids, even the reading age 7 books (which are no problem for him to read) are presented in an older kid format that is much less appealing to him than reading eggs. As long as I do the work alongside him to help him around the site though, he is ok. I always prefer to work alongside him anyway, if you wanted your kid to sit and learn this independently then I would consider this to be a limitation.

Anyway, we found a non-fiction book. He asked yesterday about what the smallest thing was. I asked, living or inanimate? I guess you could call electrons living, if you were being very technical about it. Electricity being one of the building blocks of life. Or Quarks, as they make up sub atomic particles. Rather than go into this, I explained that we can either look at microbes which are the smallest biological organism, or atoms which make the molecules that these organisms are made of. He is a bit non-plussed (surprise) although I always made a point of using the correct language for things to expose them to bigger concepts as a part of every day life. So he chooses a book on forces. (I am in heaven, I love physics, though I don't think I am very good at it, I love to learn about the physical world too so a bonus for me  which hopefully fuels his own enthusiasm for the subject).

What was so great was that he really enjoyed learning about it. The book (we only got through 2 pages because there was a lot of information for a 5 year old, and he decided to play angry birds II instead), got us looking at cloths and stones, squeezing them to ascertain mass and density, throwing them and catching them to observe how forces act on them and how mass affects the level of force used. He asked lots of good questions before he'd reached his limit on this subject and he was fascinated by the idea of the Butterfly Effect. We had recently talked about how acorns grow into big Oak trees so the idea of small things eventually having a huge effect is a theme he is getting to grips with.

I am pretty excited at the realisation that we have access to all this scientific literature (rather than scour the library or look up the topics to learn on the internet). With the photos and the layout and the age appropriateness, it will make learning science and loads of other topics much more accessible for us over the years I hope. I love how there are classics too, unabridged. We read some of The Just So Stories together (he listens to them on audiobooks anyway so it was easier for him to read this to me as he knew the stories). I am now officially a big fan of Reading Eggs/Eggpress. We tried mathseeds but it was up to a level which Caden is now past. It will be excellent for Miles though in year or two.

Miles insisted on popcorn and porridge for breakfast. Then threw the popcorn all over the dining room. (sigh) He is really becoming a little dude with personality now, which is lovely to see. He really knows his own mind and is such a happy and contented little soul!

Animal Handling

We went to the first of a series of Biology workshops that I have organised through the NHM (Tring). Today's was about animal handling. 

It was incredibly well attended and I am very grateful to the parents who attended for being on time and for being so gracious and thanking the woman who put on the workshop for us. I think that as a group of home educators we came across as grateful and enthusiastic which means we will be welcome back ;) 

The items the kids got to handle were pretty impressive. As Miles only wanted to breastfeed for the entire workshop I couldn't get a decent photo of them both  'handling' the items. But you get the gist of the day. 

Caden strokes the resident badger.

Miles charges off down the antelope exhibit walkway. 

Caden looks at a mole. They are sooo tiny! 

This is a  blurry Jennet, An African nocturnal mammal which lives in trees. 

This is the boys in typical fashion today! Im trying to ramp up some enthusiasm for the very heavy elephant tooth in my hand. Miles is unimpressed and wants his mimi back. 

This is a most excellent photo of my dear friend Bx (in the middle) and many of the children holding the length of the reticulated python skin. It was lovely to feel. The kids enjoyed this so much. 

Finally this was the tiger shark's jaw. Complete with some teeth. The kids weren't allowed to feel this but it was very interesting to see and learn about. 

It was a great workshop, thanks to the NHM Tring for putting it on. We are already looking forward to the next one. 

We spent the entire afternoon in the woods with my best friend and her daughter Megan, the boys and Megan had an amazing time just mucking about in the woods, fishing, hunting squirrels, running, climbing and collecting sticks. We had a good walk round of about a mile. It was good to let the kids have loads of freedom to just play about. 

Mohawk!

What an amazing day we have had today! 

We discovered Camp Mohawk! It's a group of Home Educators who meet monthly at Camp Mohawk near Reading. I had expected it to be fun, in the woods, lots of nature based activities, lots of play. It was all that and more. 

I hadn't expected the kid's cafe - It was amazing. There was every kind of home baked cake, flapjack, bun, cheese straws... Even dehydrated fruit in bags and juiced green veggies. I was hugely impressed. The boys were so happy about the cafe!

Needless to say there was no point in limiting their enjoyment of the kids cafe. They loved getting their money and paying for their choice, getting change etc. What a fantastic idea! It really empowers the kids to be in charge of their own little business. The kids running it were so into it and it's great modelling for the little ones to see business in action. 

Next there was the outdoor playground, well two of them that we found. They kept going back all day, again and again. 

Then came the workshops. I had prepped the boys to expect the clay workshop and they were pretty excited about it. The workshop totally met their expectations. We made faces on the trees in the woods. They chose terracotta clay to begin with, they found a tree, I smoothed on the clay in a face shape (Caden didn't want to touch the clay because he doesn't like clay and paint on his hands, Miles had a little go but not too bothered) and the boys gleefully ran off finding all kinds of natural items to decorate our face with. They found leaves, acorns, moss, sticks and all sorts of things. We stuck on the bits we found and they enjoyed putting in the acorn eyes and leafy bits. 

Then we went back for some white clay, a little piece each and they got busy making clay children for the clay Mummy. 

The finished products.

They found an interactive table with pictures of all the animals in the woods and important plants too. 

Caden found this tree stump and said it was an animal. Here he is riding it. It does look spidery. 

He found a slug on a log that he wanted to show to Betsey, I said it might be better to take Betsey to the slug rather than take the slug from his home. So he left him behind but got distracted before he told her. Maybe next time.

Caden, Betsey and Miles playing in the ball pool. This was the other surprise, an indoor soft play area. The kids went ker-azy for it. Loved it! The fact that it is only open for two separate hours makes it all the more appealing. 

There was a most excellent afternoon craft workshop with leaf print painting and leaf monster making. The boy rarely sit down to a craft activity for any length of time but they did today! I have to admit that this does make me happy. I like to see them getting into whatever they are doing (and enjoying it of course). They did some beautiful art work. Miles especially loved making his leaf monster. 

The finished articles, Caden's tree on the left and Miles' leaves and monster on the right. 

This is the inside of an owl pellet we dissected. We found out that Owls, when they eat animals, cannot digest the bones or hair so they digest the rest and then hawk up the bones and rest in a large pellet. You can find these pellets at the bottom of telegraph poles etc in the country. If you dissect them, a little water helps to break it down, then the bones will allow you to identify what animal was eaten by the owl. The boys weren't too interested in this activity. Caden came over for a quick look at the tiny skull I found and identified it as a rodent from my bone chart. Here is a photo of part of the chart and you can see the tiny skull. It is the curved light bone, with long front teeth visible. 

Then I saw Caden sat on a large throne looking chair. A load of boys who had been playing went over to him and an argument was brewing. He had sat on the chair as no-one else was there but they had left the chair as part of their game so they objected to him sitting there. (Caden has no problem sticking up for himself at all, I am trying to show Caden more diplomatic ways of relating haha). I went over and we talked it over with the boys and established that a war was going on. One side of the boys were the King (Moss) and the King's men (and dog, Freddie). The other side were the rebellion who were trying to overthrow the throne. Caden's decision was whether to join the King or join the rebellion. We asked lots of questions, the boys did a good job of explaining the game and Caden made a decision to defend the King. I went to get his bow and arrow from the car and Caden was lost to the game for at least an hour. He loved it! 

It was so good to see him getting involved in a more complicated game like this. Of course there was plenty of wrestling among the boys and battles but they were fairly well behaved and had loads of fun! 

Caden takes the empty (But not unclaimed) throne!

Working out who will battle first for the throne!

Caden made a new friend Alex. They played a lot together. 

Snapped having a little rest in the sunshine together! 

Miles found the sensory room too. (They have two sensory rooms. It is so amazing. A dark one and a light one). Miles loved the light with bubbles that he could change to different colours by pressing the buttons. 

So we had a fantastic day. Thank you Jo for introducing us to Camp Mohawk. It is monthly so we are all really looking forward to the next time as we have taken the last monthly subscription available - hurrah! Before he went to bed Caden asked whether he could go again tomorrow. He is so excited to go again!