Parc Belle Vue - Limoges

To celebrate our wonderful court win this week we took the children to Parc bellevue in Limoges. We had heard great things about it. 

Miles in the funny mirrors. 

The hilarious motorised 'donut' boats. This was the kid's all day favourite. 

Picnic lunch.... 

Inflatables... a huge sack which the children clamber up and then the mischievous adult sneaks around the other side of and throws themselves at, thus launching said children into space... great fun for all! 

Ball pool happiness! 

We waited for 1.5 hours for this caterpillar roller coaster to open (lunch time finishes at 1.30pm) 

Swing ride... Miles was 'just' allowed on this. 

It was beautiful weather and a really fabulous day out! 

Earth science with LEGO

We used LEGO to create soil layers and label them with Hugo, Caden's friend, who came over for the  session. 

First they sorted the lego, then they build their models according to diagrams on google images of cross sections of soil strata (a job in itself).

Then they did diagrams to label the layers of soil.... 

..and put their models next to the labels.

I love Miles' spelling - Bedrok! Awesome! He writes so well and he is only 5! I am so proud of these big efforts!

Having fun and learning!

Caden's diagram

Hugo's diagram and model!

All the boy's work! 

Story writing and alphabets

We have had old home educating friends come to visit us from Asturias, Spain (Shout out to Pepe and Ben) and we have been enjoying a heatwave, it has been seriously hot! So lots of pool time and lots of friends have been round to visit!

We found a giant grasshopper and discovered that there is very little difference between a grasshopper and a locust, it is more about their behaviour that gives them the name. The kids all loved watching this fellow! 

We went into Chabanais one Sunday for a local fete, we found out that they were celebrating the anniversary of the double carriageway being built. They really must have been very happy about that then! The whole through road in Chabanais was blocked off and there were giant long tables for a huge meal! We took a walk around and played at the park. 

Old cars and tractors! Fun to look at! 

Miles has been practising his writing and alphabet! He copied an alphabet from google images. 

Caden also did an alphabet in his beautiful cursive writing with his new fountain pen! 

This is one interesting thing that French school has taught them, how to write beautifully but in general so illegible that only those who are used to this style can read it! 

 They have been watching French cartoons. This is also helping my own French to improve as we keep the subtitles on and I help them with the translations as we watch.

Caden wanted to write a story one day. So I suggested that he make notes of a plan of how the story might go. He put them in boxes which led to us talking about flow diagrams and story planning. He also tried to draw a cat from his 'Dessin' book. 

Day one of home educating... again

Miles slept in. He was very tired from flying back from England yesterday and needed the sleep so a good start to getting back to our home educating life, having the freedom to get the sleep he needs. 

I am feeling so positive about going back to our old way of life. I am excited to have the boys 'back' and there are lots of things I want to do with them

Miles made breakfast for Caden. A boiled egg for himself and scrambled eggs for Caden. He still has the knack for cracking eggs. 

The water started bubbling and boiling the egg and we talked about the boiling point of water and watched the steam evaporating. 

We had friends over for lunch today so we found a recipe online for beef stew and looked at the ingredients and directions. We went to get our beef from the freezer and our potatoes from the cold store. Then we dug up carrots from the garden and picked some tomatoes and chillies that were ready. 

Caden washed the potatoes and the carrots and Miles chopped the potatoes into chunks ready for boiling and steaming. We made steamed veg, boiled pots and braised beef. They were very proud to tell our guests that they picked and made the carrots by themselves. 

While Caden was washing the veg he said 'Look Miles a whirlpool' and he showed Miles the water swirling around down the plug hole. I told him that it was because we were in the Northern Hemisphere and that it went in the opposite direction in the Southern Hemisphere and we would look it up online to find out about it. So we did...

We actually found out that this is an urban myth... the water CAN be affected by the Earth in its rotation down a spiral but it has to be a very large body of water and not the water in a sink. There are experiments already done on bbc.co.uk which show the water going in both directions randomly (though there is apparently a physical law which can be applied, we didn't go into this much detail). So we all learned something new! 

Miles was given a new tool kit. He said he wanted to be a builder and if he made me something would I give him money for it! Haha! He used his mini-clamp and hammer head and had a great time mucking about with the tools. I think we will be doing a little woodworking in the future together soon since he is showing an interest in this. 

Apart from that the kids have played out in the pool, been on their iPads and looked through the world atlas together. Miles decided he wants to visit Romania most of all (because a pretty butterfly lives there). We are going to read Beatrix potter and do their maths programs this afternoon. 

Such a positive day back. They have been relaxed and had fun!