J's Birthday and Bank Holiday Weekend

J woke at at 5am on the morning of his 6th Birthday.  As we knew it would be far too early and very cruel to wake his older brother and sister up, we took him downstairs where his main present awaited him

As you can see he was very pleased with it.

Once the older two were up, (he woke them at 6am!) more present opening, then playing and we eventaully all managed to get out of the house to meet my parents for a coffee and milkshake in the Town Square

Then we went to a local Inn, where they have an indoor play area, park, skittles and nice food

Then back home to watch his favourite films and have a Birthday Tea and Batman Cake

On Sunday we went into the City Centre for a bit of light shopping, and stopped off for a latte and chocolate milk in the Cathedral Yard



J had a great time taking photos all by himself

In the afternoon I took J to the park for a paddle in the pool, while M and D met my parents at the local club to watch England V Barbarians



Then we collected our bikes from my parents garage as they have been stored there since we moved a few months ago, they need a bit of repair work, but seem OK. 

I dont have a bike, as B grew way taller than me she needed a bigger bike, so she now has mine, but I tested it out on the hill (stupidly) at my parents place to find that the brakes were not working properly!  I did manage to scrape my feet along the floor to stop myself and thankfully my hard wearing pumps from Primark did me proud.

My Mum had a go on the bike too

Bank Holiday Monday

Lovely weather in the morning.  The boys did up the bikes while we sat in the sun and my parents popped over.  Quick visit to the supermarket and arriving home just before the stormy weather arrived.  It started to rain heavily at 3.30pm and didnt stop. Turned really cold too, even had to put the fire on for ten minutes.

Ended the day watching back to back episodes of Miranda, which J really loves.  Such fun!

Banners, bats and bunting with some English thrown in

Yesterday was quite cold and miserable weather wise, so we all opted to stay inside, apart from M who had to not only go into work for a 12 hour shift, but also take a Maths and English exam!.  He is starting a Level 3 in City and Guilds Health and Social Care.  He thinks he did quite well, and is grateful for his involvement in the older childrens Maths and English revision.

Also we all felt a bit down yesterday because of the news about the Soldier who died in an attack by two terrorists in London on Wednesday.  Of course there are lots of awful things going on all over the world, but this particular incident was like something out of a horror movie, and very hard to take in.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Soldiers family and friends.

So we plodded on through the day, with B and D contining with their English revision, along with copy writing and reading.  B will read every night before she goes to bed, and sometimes as soon as she wakes up, but D takes a bit more persuading.  However, he is getting on extremely well with The Hobbit, and is half way through already since starting reading it on Monday, so am quite pleased with his progress.

Today I gave them both the day off (Biology normally).  B wanted to make J's birthday cake, along with his favourite kind of cupcake - chocolate with chocolate butter cream icing.

J decided that he didnt want us to put up the balloons and banners while he was in bed on the evening before his birthday, and that he would like to help. So we spent most of the morning decorating the Living Room, Kitchen and Hallway

Looking in through our front window, passers by may think we have gone mad and decorated the house early for Halloween, but as J's main present in an Imaginext Bat Cave, and at the moment Batman is his favourite Super Hero, we have a Batman theme going on, hence the black and yellow balloons.
We also have bats hanging from the ceiling.

Also one of his favourites is Spiderman

Basically he loves any Marvel or DC Super Hero.  So last night M and I cut out triangle shapes for bunting from one of his old Wolverine comics

And of course we didnt forget that he loves Doctor Who

(That thing on the end is really bloody scary)

Batman Cake

Along with some very choclatey cup cakes

Now my little five year old boy is fast alseep, he has been so excited all day.  Tomorrow we are planning to go out for something nice to eat with my parents, and take him to his favourite play centre. Then we are having a party tea in the afternoon and hiring a DVD of his choice in the eveining.


Now for a glass of the red stuff, and make a start on that ironing!

Books, books and more books, experiments, flapjacks and Indiana Jones!

This week started pretty slowly, probably due to the fact that M worked at the weekend and only had one day off this week. This meant that we had to cram all of our last minute prepartions for J's birthday in on Monday.

We headed into Exeter in the morning with a flying visit to M's parents before going into the town centre to try and sneakily get presents for J.  On the way back it was a food shopping stop at Tesco, then home to get the older two settled with their maths work for the day.

I have set them work for the next 8 weeks.  We decided that as they have had quite a bit of study time off this past month, that they would just work through the half term, breaking up then two weeks before the official school term ends.

They each have English Assignments and I am working on Biology for them at the moment.  Maths has been broken down as follows:-

Handling data

Tallying, collecting and grouping data
Mean, mode and median
Scatter diagrams I
Line graphs and pictograms
Probability
Questionnaires
Measures of central tendency and measures of spread
Probability
Pie charts and frequency diagrams
Scatter diagrams II and Cumulative frequency diagrams

Number:

Rounding and estimating
Negative numbers
Prime numbers, factors and multiples
Significant figures
Ratio and proportion
Long multiplication and division
Fractions
Decimals
Percentages
Standard Form
Surds
Sequences
Powers and standard index form

Space

Angles & Area
Measures
Polygons
Volume
Co-ordinates and bearings
Three Dimension
Symmetry & Transformations
Pythagoras Theoreum
Basic Triganometry
Graphs of sinx, cosx and tanx
Sine and cosine rules and area of a triangle
Circle Theorum
Congruency
Loci

Algebra:

Indices eg 22
Graphs
Proportion
Flow Charts
Sequences
Inequalities
Basic algebra
Solving equations
Quadratic equations
Simultaneous equations

B will be following GCSE level, D Key Stage 3. They will both be trying to cover each section over a two week period.

I also purchased this week, around £100 (Amazon prices) worth of books for £32.  I printed off the GCSE English Language and Literature List and went to my local second hand book shop (which also donates a percentage to charity) and gave them the list.

Managed to get quite a few, and also from the charity shop a few extra classics that are not on this list.

B has made a start on The Color Purple by Alice Walker

D selected The Hobbit

As well as their English assignments they have been copywriting, which is very boring, but it is important in an exam that they present their answers neatly, and also to be able to write fairly quickly and clearly.

I keep telling D this when he claims his arm is hurting after one page (I ask them to do four sheets of A4 a week).

Now back to child led not structured revising for GCSE type of Home Education.

J has been learning the odd letter or two, which he seems to really enjoy, and today I intend for us to paint a letter tree so he can stick all the letters he has learned so far onto the tree.

We have also started to do weekly science experiments, which he has decided he now wants to do every day.

Started with this one which I saw over on An Ordinary Life? Blog

Layers of Liquids - Density

J had great fun with this, although it may have gone a bit pear shaped at the end when we put talcum power in it and gave it a stir

Also we made fruity flap jacks, which he thouroughly enjoyed, and they tasted great.  The kitchen, however, looked like a cluster bomb made of out of oats had gone off!

He also was very pleased at his attempt to write the letter "b".  When looking for all the books off of the GCSE list, J came accross this etch a sketch type of book with instructions on how to write lower case letters.

Also from the Charity shop we found a marble run, which J spent a whole afternoon playing with, with his big brothers help.

This apparently, is the tallest marble run EVER!

Yesterday we went to the HE Group, sun was shining so lots of play outside. He also made a new friend, who is a girl, which is a shock because at the moment he doesnt really like girls, they get on his nerves apparently. This girl, however, was quite cool as when he was playing "Indiana Jones" when he pretended to shoot her, she fell down and "died" like she is supposed too!

He absouloutely loves Indie, and we recently bought him a summer hat from Primark, which he thinks looks a lot like Indies hat

He also mentioned that  he would like to be an actor when he grows up, and maybe be the new Indiana. 

Last week though he wanted to be a miner, because he would like to work underground, as then he would be able to wear one of those cool hats with lights on!

Hail, Thunder, Scorching Hot and lots of snot

Last weekend saw the last of our rugby events for this season with a Memorial Match being played for Charity.  As my brother used to play for this team, and knew the man that it was in memory of, he came down for the weekend to play, and also had a game of touch rugby alongside D.

There was also the usual ice cream vans, cuddly toy tombola,, face painting  and bouncy castles to keep the younger kids entertained - for at least five minutes

This week we carried on with our Home School routine and the end of the week has seen J and myself with a horrible cold, and also some horrendous weather - thunder and lightening, hail and also cold enough to have to put the fire on for ten minutes to warm the place up!

This morning I gave the house a good clean, then popped over to the Farmers Market with J and my parents, had a lovely Cherry Milkshake at the cafe, then home for a Bacon Sarnie.

In the afternoon I sat outside for a while and it was boiling - the weather just cannot make its mind up - this flipping jet stream palaver is starting to get on my nerves a bit now, but still hoping it will be flip flop weather again tomorrow :-)

HE W/C 12th May 2013

We started this week back in full swing - as we have had a few disrupted weeks as far as home ed has been concerned.

The older two are now buckling down to some hard work for the next two months before breaking up for the summer (although there will still be one study day a week during the holidays).

Maths - have been setting this for three times a week  for one to two hours (one in the morning, one in the afternoon).

This week studies have included:-

Angles - both
Long Multiplication - B
Year 8 Test - D
Year 9 Test - B
Foundation GCSE past paper - B

English Assignments for both.

B - questions on:-
‘
Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen (1920)

D questions on:-
Extract 1 from
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Also have just purchased several books from a recommended English reading list:-

Of Mice and Men

An Inspector Calls

Great Expectations 

A Christmas Carol 

Othello

Romeo and Juliet

Pride and Prejudice

Notes from a Small Island Bill Bryson

The Kindness of Strangers Kate Adie

Charlotte Grey Sebastian Faulks

The Color Purple  Alice Walker

I Know why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou

The Hobbit

The Lord of the Rings Series

Rudyard Kipling

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Enigma Robert Harris

B is starting with The Color Purple and D The Hobbit.

English also included copy writing, reading and spelling.

Biology - from GCSE revision book.

J

I found a Little Red Riding Hood Activity Pack at 123 Homeschool 4 me. and we have been concentrating on the letter R this week.

We also made a trip into our local Home Ed Group for the first time in ages, happened to be a nice afternoon weatherwise, and we will try and make a bit more of an effort in the future to make these meetings.

Sunshine at last, rugby, football, bike rides, BBQ's and Beach Rugby

Continuing from my last post,which was almost a month ago!


We were originally scheduled to go to a rugby festival, but because of flooding in the car parking fields it was cancelled.  Most of the families of the team were all packed up, so we opted for a day of beach rugby.

Now we did get some rather funny looks from passers by who were walking their dogs along the sea front in the wind and rain, as we setting up a beach tent, laying out blankets and trying to light a stove for hot cup of tea.  Eventually though, the sun did come out, and a good, but a little cold, day was had by all.

The next week passed by with a flurry of tour preparation, but still managing to get the children to stick to their education routines,I am pleased to say.

The tour to Gloucestershire went extremely well, named "Pretty in Pink" as the team decided to wear very loud tour shirts with bright pink socks, playing a game on the Saturday morning.  The parents got into the spirit of things by all wearing something pink.

Back to the Scout activity Centre afterwards to unpack while the boys went abseiling and rifle shooting.

D opted for the rifle range

Later the boys and dads,plus a couple of mums played football and tag rugby.

After our meal, we all went outside where there was a fire going and had some of our local  cider.

Thankfully I had Marshmallows with me

Next day we played a team from Bristol. less said about the score the better, and the back home, totally exhausted.

Monday was a write off, as we were very tired, but we did get back into a normal route, probably by Wednesday, and then the sun came out, first time in ages, so the children decided to sit outside and study.

J has started football sessions, which he thoroughly enjoys.  He also, in one match, made two brilliant rugby tackles, hoping that he soon stops confusing the two games!

James t\king his first corner

The weather then deteriorated, just in time for a rugby festival, right on the edge of the moor.  Our team did go on to win the Shield having gone into extra time in the final!

Into the next week which M had to have as leave, which ended up being a very good thing as summer hit the UK, well, the South West anyway.

Every morning the sun was streaming into our bedroom, making the DIY that M had planned more difficult to do, so we opted for sorting out our little garden area out. Making trips to the local garden centre, and of course having to stop in their cafe for a latte and a piece of cake.

The good weather  continued well into the weekend, and we even got a tan. It was lovely to be able to sit outside and have my morning coffee in the warm sunshine.

It bade well for our "fun day" at the rugby club, hosting touring sides, including cooking breakfast for over 100 people.

Had a great day, and even had a go at the women's tug of war, along with B,which we won, but oh do my knees know it!

Bank Holiday Monday - lovely sunny day, made a trip to the park and then had a BBQ inviting my parents along too.

This week M was back at work, B and D  continued to study for their iGCSE's, and I have made a start, small though it may be, but its a start, on giving our house a bit of TLC, as it has been neglected this last few weeks as we have been quite busy.

 I also have been helping  J learn to ride his bike without stabilisers, so lots of trips to the park. Unfortunately he fell of his bike and hurt is knee, which he wanted me to take a photo of

We then sat and watched a bowling competition,and one of the bowlers talked to James about the game, and let him feel how heavy the bowling ball weighs

James convinced me that the only way his knee would feel better was if he had a milkshake at the local cafe - he picked cherry flavour



Friday it was Presentation Evening at the Rugby Club, and I managed to get a photo of D with Chiefs Players Sam Hill and Jack Yeandle

So the end of the rugby season is nigh, although I love it, I am looking forward to the break.  But it doesn't end just yet - there is a charity match tomorrow which my brother has come down to play in, and D is also playing in a touch rugby match alongside my brother - both have shoulder injuries, so hoping that both will get through it without adding to their injuries.