Barras Home-School of Excellence

The Mermaid by Piper Barras

2012-03-01T10:50:00.001-08:00

I will remember that day forthe rest of my life. The day I met a Mermaid. I lived with my family in alittle cottage by a beach in

Wales

. That day mymother said that I could go down to the beach on my own, as I was now oldenough. I decided that I would as it was a lovely sunny day. I walked down thelong winding cliff path onto the sunny, warm beach . I then wandered along thebeach until I reached a little cove which I had never seen before. I gasped indelight. It was beautiful!!! Pretty seashells were scattered amongst the sand,The Sea was a brilliant blue and the sun was shining down stronger than before.I ran around collecting seashells, made a sand castle and paddled in the Sea. As I lay on the sand in the warm sun I fellasleep. Later on I woke up and looked at my watch. I decided that it was timeto head home for tea. I stood up and gasped in shock. The Sea!!!! While I had beensleeping the tide had crept in until eventually the cove was completelysurrounded by the Sea!!! I tried to calm down and decided that I would have toswim for it. I started to wade through the cold water. ”I wouldn’t do that if Iwere you”. Said a pretty chiming voice.I spun around and gasped in shock. There sat on a rock in the sea behind me wasa mermaid!!!! She had a bright bottle green tail, Beautiful golden waist lengthhair and cornflower blue eyes with a cheeky glint. “Who are you??” I gasped.“I’m Skye” She said smiling. “Umm….hi?” I said nervously. ”Am I dreaming?” Iadded. “That’s always the first thing people ask me” She laughed.

“And no you are not dreaming”.I said “Not to be rude or any thing but why are you here?” “To save you.”She replied,smiling. “Didn’t you know?” ”Mermaids always save people in danger.” She said. Speakingof saving people, I need to save you now don’t I?”, as she spoke she slitheredoff her rock and swam towards me. “Hold on” she said. I grabbed her around thewaist and she towed me back to the main shore of the beach. I jumped off at theshallows. “Thank you.” I said. “Your welcome” she said. “Till we meet again!” .She waved and swam off. I waved back then headed home. “What have you beendoing?” said my mother when I got home. ”Swimming with mermaids” I repliedsmiling. “Don’t be silly, mermaids don’t exist.” Said my mother. But I knewthey did.

The Forest by Bailey Barras

2012-03-01T10:47:00.000-08:00

Ijust left detention, it had been a very boring day and I just wanted to gethome. The quickest route home was through the woods which I go through with myfriend, I would be going through alone this time round. I set off to theforest. I wasn’t sure what route we go through normally so I just picked arandom path and set off. The trees were old here and they made a canopy aboveme, drowning out all light. I could barely see the path in front of me as Istumbled around past the trunks of trees, after falling over countless times, Irealised that I had lost the path. I thought I heard a loud noise behind me, Iquickly turned around and looked around. I saw nothing but never the less Ipicked up the pace. The wind picked up and the trees started to sway, soundinglike they were all going to fall over any second now. I was getting tired andby this point I was speed walking through the woods. I never remembered thewoods being this big before. Then I heard a loud howling noise behind me again,I turned around then something came bounding out behind me. I turned and ran, Istumbled and tripped onto a pile of leaves. I tried to get up but whatever wasbounding towards me, suddenly jumped on top of me. I shielded my face with myarms as it started to lick my hands, it was a large brown dog. Just a dog. Ibreathed a sigh of relief, I pushed him off and stood up. The dog was sat at myfeet waiting for something, I walked off and he followed. This didn’t help calmmy nerves as he barked every ten seconds and kept running off. I could see someof the houses now and I was in hurry to get there. I was calming down now andwas almost out, and then out of the blue someone behind me started shouting“get back here!” I looked at the dog, and he looked back at me. My heartstarted to race and we both ran for the houses. I could see roofs now butwhatever was chasing us kept of shouting, “don’t you dare run! you know youcan’t hide!” I was running out of breath and my legs were aching. I was almostout of the woods, I could see the way out when the stupid dog ran in front ofme and I went head first into a pile of dirt. Then the thing chasing us caughtup and said something I wasn’t expecting. “You alright there boy?”. I looked upand it was a man who was putting the dog on a lead. “Yes…sir…fine”. “Good then”he said. He nodded and then just walked off with his dog. I got myself up andheaded home. After that, I really hated dogs.

The Lost Unicorn by Cordelia Barras

2012-03-01T10:45:00.001-08:00

Once upon atime a beautiful unicorn gave birth to a

Silky whitebaby unicorn. She was very cute with short silver hair. Her mother called her Diamond.When Diamond was one year old her mother told her that she was now old enoughto go in forest alone. “But only for a small walk” her mother said. “Reallyalone?” asked Diamond excitedly “Yes as long as you are careful” her motherreplied. The first walk in the forest diamond took her mother came with her.The second walk she took she went alone. She began to know the forest betterevery walk she took. Her mother worried about her but did not stop her becauseshe knew her daughter enjoyed the walks in the forest alone. One day (after aterrible storm the day before) Diamond went for a walk in the forest as usual.She trotted though the trees and bushes. She stopped for a minute were her favetree is (or was) “oh no” she gasped it had been blown over by the stormyesterday! She had really liked that tree it had (or used to have) longbranches and a big tall trunk, and it had been a landmark so she wouldn’t getlost. But now she was lost! She lay down and started to cry. She lay there fora whole hour. Then she heard a small voice “are you ok?” It came from down byher hooves. Diamond looked down there by her hooves was a small mouse! “Notreally” she replied “I am lost” she told the little mouse what had happened.“Don’t cry” said the little mouse “I have lived here all my live I can lead youthough the forest back home” “really? Thanks” said Diamond. As they walkedthrough the forest the mouse told Diamond that her name was Hazel and she hadeight brothers and sisters. Diamond told Hazel that her name was Diamond andshe was an only child. Suddenly the sun fell on the two friends. “Diamond”called her mother “are you ok?”

“I am finemum I got lost but hazel found me” replied Diamond “who’s Hazel?” Asked hermother “this is Hazel” replied Diamond looking down at hazel. Diamonds motherlooked down at Hazel “thank you for bringing my daughter back home safe andsound” “ it is ok but I must go home now bye” said Hazel “bye” called Diamondand her mother.

So Diamondgot home with the help of a new friend

First signs of Spring!

2012-03-01T09:58:00.002-08:00

I was expecting a quieter day today and even had plans to go with my MIL and hubby's grandma to a vintage shop this afternoon and a trip to the cinema tonight with other grown ups but things haven't gone to plan. Cordelia started with a headache just after she woke up and then preceded to throw up not long after! Poor girl, its not often we have sickness bugs, and she is not very good at sitting still which doesn't help. She is not used to having to be hungry either :-/ Thankfully she has picked up lots during the day and has only been sick that one time. I cancelled my plans to go out to the vintage shop as even though hubby was working from home I wanted to be around just in case. My trip to the cinema was cancelled earlier in the week as one of our friends is unwell, but thankfully seems to be on the mend again (Get Well Soon K!). Ruben was going a little stir crazy so I decided him and Piper needed some fresh air so we took the dog and went on a little walk. It has been beautiful weather here today and on our walk we were lucky to see Llama's, rams, horses and sheep! We also found a HUGE amount of ladybirds-like hundreds of them!

When we got back home we had a google on ladybirds hibernating and found this very informative ladybird fact sheet, even though we thought the song on the front was a little macabre it proved interesting reading. It sounds like they could have just come out of hibernation because of the mild weather. Hope the colder weather coming our way doesn't affect them too much this weekend.

Ruben took some photo's of signs of spring he saw:

daffodils

snowdrops

He also found this huge "stick" otherwise known as a tree-trunk! I managed to talk him out of bringing it the whole way home, just....

This is our spider tree, we think its very cool. Ruben wanted to climb it today but it doesn't look that safe so he changed his mind

Nearly back home and he saw some birds of prey gliding around over this field so he bent down to have a closer look. He also waved and said 'Hello' to everyone he saw today, even trees, plants and the birds much to my amusement :-))

Back home and Cordelia is feeling much better so looks like we may just make group after all tomorrow, fingers crossed......

Wednesday Friends!

2012-02-29T11:20:00.002-08:00

Today we have had our third day in a row of friends over! Home made pizza was on the go again as it was a success last time and if its not broke, then why fix it? R and M, our Friday group friends, came over just after 11. Ruben had been sat watching out of the window, he was so excited! Ruben and R went on Animal Jam for a while together whilst Cordelia and M played Littlest Pet Shop. Then there was a game of Vampire Slayers, pillow fights and hide and seek before lunch was ready. M had very kindly made a yummy fruit salad for dessert which the children ate with marshmallows. Then they had a game of Alpha Animal in teams, that was very funny to listen too! I meanwhile was helping Bailey and Piper put the last finishing touches to their stories and sent them in to the BBC Radio 2 competition. Ruben had a little meltdown, think maybe 3 days of friends on the trot has proved a little too much for him. Thankfully it was sorted and Cordelia decided to draw with the body crayons on M and R. I would have loved to have taken photo's today but to be honest no body was still long enough! Tomorrow is looking like a very quiet day and maybe a walk :-)

Tuesday Friends!

2012-02-29T11:11:00.001-08:00

Tuesday we had some friends over for lunch, it was the first time they had come over to our house and as M had a 1 year old I was a little nervous as our house is not baby proof! Bless him, he found everything that wasn't baby proof! Thankfully he was outnumbered by two adults so perfectly safe! Ruben really enjoyed having D to play and its great that he has another boy friend to pay with. He impressed me with his maturity, as normal he doesn't play very well with younger boys but he seems to have turned a corner and is dealing with it much better, he even let D borrow one of his toys until next week! I love meeting new friends because the home educating world there are never the same two kinds of parents! Its lovely to have such a wide range of different friends and makes for some very interesting conversations. I used to spend so much time going to larger home ed groups and feeling like an outsider, especially as we haven't always home educated, and now I feel like I have a lovely circle of friends who are all different and who's company I enjoy so much. M even sent me a thank you message and told me how lovely my children were so I'm feeling very glowing and happy about that. I made the children home made pizza for lunch and Cordelia made some rather scrummy cupcakes-no photo's because I forgot! Another lovely HE day!

Monday Stories, Queen & Visitors!

2012-02-29T11:01:00.002-08:00

Monday saw singing group cancelled so we had a day at home. Wee baked some biscuits which was lucky because we ended up with a surprise visit from our friends on their way back from a weekend away! The children had a great time playing even though it was much shorter than their usual plays! There was time in the morning for Piper to write up some of her story for singing. She has volunteered herself to write a musical for a show the singing coach is putting together, brave girl! Thankfully she has got a while to write it, so there is no rush. We also watched episode two of The Diamond Queen, there was quite a bit about tea parties-to which the children decided they would rather like to attend, especially to eat some of the cakes! And also lots about the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton, which we had excitedly watched back in April last year. Ruben thought it would have been really entertaining if someone had stood on Kate's dress and pulled it all off! Hmmm, not quite sure about that but there you go a different angle for you! The children also spent some time finishing off their stories for the story writing competition I posted about here!

Sunday Walks, Fires and Smores

2012-02-29T10:44:00.005-08:00

We were all a bit pooped by Sunday, the boys had a sleepover at my MIL's on Friday night so Ruben was still a shattered on Sunday. Saturday went by in a bit of a blur of food shopping, driving lesson for dad and Animal Jam. Sunday we took advantage of the lovely morning to have a walk with the dog. It was nice to have some fresh air and be up and about early doors, I'm really not much of a morning person and really need a kick some days to walk in the mornings but I'm always pleased when I do. The children enjoyed looking for the first signs of Spring and looking for animal tracks. Its amazing how fast the landscape can change, a few weeks ago the farmers fields were muddy and covered with a layer of snow, now there are already good signs of crops growing. The bushes and trees are beginning to grow buds and we even found some snail shells next to a fence post-it looks like a Thrush had had a very big breakfast! After our walk hubby and I began operation garage tidy up! I realised how much of a hoarder I am, we have had several boxes move with us to the last 3 houses and haven't touched them, proving that we obviously don't need them! So we began sifting through each one. I had to come out of the garage at one point as I just got totally overfaced by the sheer amount of stuff we own! Because Bailey, Piper and Cordelia all went to school there was a lot of work from their school-days, especially Bailey. I have saved some things for him (My MIL gave hubby some of his school workbooks/reports as part of a present for Christmas and it was lovely to read through)like drawing books and his reports but a lot of things seemed a bit pointless. Whatever job/career Bailey ends up having I'm pretty certain that he will not need 20+ certificates saying how well he can sit on a carpet/listen well/which book band he's moved on too! Nor will he need worksheets or pieces of work that he has been told to do. The things I have kept or things that required his own thoughts, ideas, imagination not that of the teacher. Same for the girls, and just a few bits from Ruben's short-lived time at nursery. Made me so happy to be a home educator and know when they produce things now its because THEY WANT TO! After finding some forgotten/lost photo's, which is always a fantastic surprise! we got ready for a fire in the garden. We do recycle a lot but its nice sometimes to have a fire and gather around it, reminds me of camping (which I'm missing!) we ate hot dogs and then the children made some smores to put on the fire and had great fun playing with some old walking sticks in the garden. A really lovely way to end the weekend!

Cordelia and Ruben aged 3 and 1

Piper aged 2, Cordelia 8 months, Bailey 4 years.

Can't believe how quickly my babies are growing up!

Friday Group

2012-02-29T10:10:00.001-08:00

Friday was a much better day, I was feeling much more myself, hubby was home and we had our usual Friday group. We had to decide whether to keep going in the scout hut for another month or meet back at the park. As the weather is still a little unpredictable we decided to book another month. We have lots of visits/walks/playground meets planned after this though, including an Easter Egg hunt too! After group we went on to Bella's to have more tea and more playing time. They had just come back from holiday and we had all missed them! Ruben and his friend R, had a great time playing on Skylanders whilst Cordelia, Piper and their friend M played with the Moonsand. We had some rather delectable desserts whilst us parents chatted and drank tea! Guess what the girls want now?? Friday afternoons are always a bit of a write off, due to Ruben completely wearing himself out so we did some colouring in and watched TV.

Chesterfield Flea Market

2012-02-29T10:10:00.000-08:00

Chesterfield is famous for its market and boasts one of the biggest outdoor markets in Britain. It dates back as far as 1165! On Thursday we had a trip with my mother in law to the flea market, we haven't been since last summer and I had forgotten how much I like it. I really enjoy buying second hand and so do the children. I wasn't always that way but I hate wasting money these days. I love buying an item that comes with its own story, something that's been much loved and enjoyed by people before I've owned it. I am starting a collection of vintage clothes for myself, so was very excited to find a gorgeous play suit for a bargain £8! Bailey found lots of old figures to look at and helped Ruben to look for Littlest Pet Shop (sadly there was none!), Piper loved helping me look for clothes and fabrics and Cordelia bee-lined for all the stalls with sparkly old jewellery. Think she may have been a Magpie in an earlier life! She also liked the handmade bath bombs and soaps, and bought some with her own pocket money. Piper managed to find an early 80's Barbie doll so she was very happy, she bathed and washed Barbie's hair and put her a new dress on when we got back home. The children were hungry so we had an early lunch of pizza breads from Gregg's, not really my choice but the children enjoyed and then we came back home. I was still feeling quite unwell whenwe got home but the children were delighted to find it was so mild outside and played for 3 hours in the garden, digging, weeding, running around and playing on the swings. Piper said she had forgotten how much she loved playing out in the garden, roll on Spring!. It really is lovely having older children when your not well and Hubby is away. They were ever so helpful, making me cups of tea and playing together nicely, I really am lucky to have such wonderful children! Thankfully, Hubby was home later that night after 3 days on the road. We were all REALLY pleased to have him back!
Ruben just loves this pumping well in the centre of the market, he would love to be able to get the padlock off and have a go with the handle! He asked me to read him the plaque so he could find out more about it and how old it was.

This photo is the balcony of the Market Hall which was opened in 1981 by HRH Prince of Wales and Princess Diana, this is where they stood!

Visiting Great-Grandparents

2012-02-23T04:30:00.001-08:00

Yesterday we visited my husbands grandparents, the children love going there (not least because they get very well fed!). Before we left I made some carrot and coriander soup, as there was some left from lunch I took it over and the children also helped me bake a Victoria sponge. I was feeling a bit off yesterday and really wanted to take the children to the farm and playground first but the weather was horrendous so we went straight to nanan and grandads. They were very happy to see us and loved the cake. Whilst we were there nanan showed us some old family photographs. Years ago she had a family tree drawn up, the children love telling people how Florence Nightingale is in their family tree!! So it was great to be able to put faces to some of the names. The children saw a photograph of their great, great, great, great grandfather! They were very impressed. As they had finished their letters to friends in the morning we called to the post office and posted them off. The rest of the afternoon was spent with Ruben and Cordelia playing Alien Invasions, the play doh type machine where you have to create monsters out of Luna lava and meteor mud. Piper started knitting a dress for Barbie and Bailey finished all his revision book! Now we need to recap on everything and do some mock papers!

Happy Pancake Day!

2012-02-22T14:43:00.000-08:00

For pancake day we invited our friends over from 4kids2guineapigs. We had a busy morning and even managed to get some biscuits made for a snack before they arrived. No photo's of pancakes because we were too busy eating them! We had ours with jam, nutella and golden syrup-yum :)

After lunch Cordelia and her friend wanted to make gloop with cornflour. It is a weird thing, and something common within the HE world I think, mainly for scientific purpose. When you roll it it goes into a solids and when you leave it be it goes back to being a liquid (I'm pretty sure there is a far more scientific explanation for this by the way!) It was extremely messy and it got everywhere. I think we will do this again but maybe outside in something larger than a baking bowl! Still, the girls had fun.

Whilst they were here they played: Monster High, Barbie's, watched Harry Potter on Youtube, introduced their friends to Animal Jam on the PC, the boys watched Walking with Dinosaurs dvd, played dinosaurs and monsters. Bec and I meanwhile chatted and drank Mochas! A good day :)

We also had a lovely surprise in the post! We have missed our Friday friends over at Lighting Fires (if you haven't checked their blog out, make sure you do, its lovely!) whilst they have been on holiday and Piper, Cordelia and Ruben were so excited to each receive 2 postcards from R & M! They immediately began to write letters back. Love it when they want to write without me saying anything! I love watching and reading their handwriting, never fails to make me smile :)

Cordelia stuck hers on her radiator! We are super jealous as they were in our favourite place!

They are

Warhammer World

2012-02-22T13:47:00.000-08:00

I have mentioned a few times recently about the boys (and hubby's) new found hobby of Warhammer, a few friends from Friday group had mentioned to me about Warhammer World in Nottingham but we had never heard of it. My parents in law took the girls to a doll fair at Kelham Hall which they were very excited about. So we took advantage of just having the boys and took them on a trip to Warhammer World! Bailey was so excited, I haven't seen him so animated in ages, or maybe even EVER! Its so cool as you drive in as there are large space marine statues up outside.

In the entrance there are some large replicas, I thought this one was a bit scary but Bailey thought it was cool :)

Ruben liked this model more:

Measure yourself against a Space Marine! Daddy and Ruben measure up!

The Citadel miniature gallery was HUGE and a little overwhelming to be honest!

Not sure how we got Bailey out of this room at all!

The main gaming hall was very impressive, as you can see. You can see in this photo:

You can book the tables for a game in advance and its free. The scenery up close its so detailed and must take hours, Bailey now wants to both book a table there and also build one himself!

After all the chatting in the shop, (we were in the shop for an hour! The staff are brilliant, I think I spoke to 3 different members of staff, actually no it was 4! They are so welcoming and friendly, even though my actual Warhammer knowledge is pretty tiny. I'm not sure if Bailey has spoken to another adult for that length of time outside of family, he was just so excited!) even the restaurant was themed! We took the boys in for a drink and cheesy chips!

I love this photo of the boys with a huge Space Marine

I would highly recommend a visit :)

Sleepovers & Greedy Geese

2012-02-17T10:42:00.000-08:00

Last week was rather busy for us with school holidays. I personally would like to hide for the week as don't like places when they are so busy! But the children like to catch up with old school friends. Thursday Cordelia went to her friends for a sleepover, she hasn't been there for a while and was literally buzzing with excitement. She was counting down the minutes all day! Thankfully Piper's friend-C arrived a little while before so she was distracted. Piper has never had a sleepover at a friend's so it was nice for her to have a friend here. Ruben was a bit grumpy about not having a sleepover so he is having one at my mother in laws this weekend. I think he is too little yet for sleepovers with friends much to his disappointment. He really needs his sleep! I'm sure the time will come for him to have sleepovers though. Piper's friend was brilliant and let Ruben play along with all their games too which was lovely. He sometimes feels a bit left out when the girls have their friends over but the girls were fab with him. A huge game of Littlest Pet Shop was played (we are back on LPS again). On Friday we took C to the park where we met her mum. It was lovely all morning and then started raining about 10 minutes before we left, still the fresh air was nice and since hubby had completely ruined a loaf of fresh bread from the bread machine with a spoon, the greedy geese got some fresh home made bread to eat. Cordelia noticed one of the geese was not going in the water and looked a bit off so she spent most of the time there following it around. It eventually went in the water so she was relieved. She will make an excellent vet one day!

Millennium Galleries & Chick Flicks

2012-02-15T02:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we met up with friends in Sheffield. Bailey, who has had a very social few days with a friend sleeping over, was meeting up with his friends M and J to go to the cinema. It was so sweet being stood in the lobby waiting because all these teenage couples were coming in to watch films together! Sweet :) Bailey's friend M said she felt a bit awkward going to the cinema with two boys on V day but I thought it was rather cool. Anyway whilst Bailey, M and J were in the cinema we took the collective 6 children between us up to the Winter Gardens. There were lots going off in the gardens today as the University of Sheffield students were there and had organised craft and science activities. Cordelia beelined straight for the craft table with her little friend J. Ruben was a bit upset to find his new friend from the Sheffield Museum trip was unwell and couldn't make it so was in a little bit of a funk. Managed to distract him with some bones that had been dug up from Manor Lodge in Sheffield. He had to guess which animals they had come from, which he rather enjoyed, I think he will make a good palaeontologist one day. We then moved into the Galleries, we haven't visited in a while and it was great to see some of the new exhibitions that were on. Our friend had some photographs in the new Family Exhibit so we went off to try and see if we could see them, Cordelia did a family trail in the exhibition too, she always enjoys doing the museum trails. Sometimes I feel she misses looking at the things around her when she is specifically looking for whatever is on her sheet but then at the same time I suppose she is being made aware of something that she might have missed. Seems to balance itself out then. Whilst in the family gallery Ruben needed the toilet so off we went, he noticed these rather large bells hanging up near the escalators and wanted me to take a photograph. Have to admit to never noticing them before now to be honest, which is strange as there clearly an old feature!

Whilst we were looking around the family exhibit, Piper wrote on one of the cards, this is what she wrote:

After the excitement of the galleries, we went into the central library to wait for Bailey. It was lovely and warm in there! Cordelia sat with her friend T, finally exhausted from all their Monster High talk, they sat in a comfy chair and read some mystery books together. I sat with Ruben and Piper and we did the same. Before I knew it Bailey was back, having watched "This Means War" (chick flick!) he said it was quite funny actually. He is off for another cinema trip later in the week for another friend's birthday-social butterfly this week!

If its good enough for the Queen.....

2012-02-08T12:31:00.000-08:00

Today has been yet another day inside, thankfully it does seem to be working, the children are starting to look/feel much better. Although, having watched the weather this evening it seems snow is on its way again. Not sure how the children (or me!) will feel if we can't get out to group on Friday. Think we could all do with some socialising!!
Today could have easily descended into chaos with lots of energy from not going far. The mornings seem to be worse too with silly arguments so today after a conversation with Ruben about his favourite show-Roar- I printed some worksheets on food chains. I used this site brainpop. The video was quite good and the children all enjoyed doing the quiz at the end. The worksheets I printed from this page on brainpop food chains. The children enjoyed filling them in and drawing out food chains of their own. After lunch, Bailey joined us and we discussed fossil fuels and I found these resources on Natural Gas, which we read through, discussed and then completed. It brought back our visit last year to Drax Power Station too which was good.
The afternoon brought tiredness and lethargy back with it so we watched two programmes I had recorded, both are available on the BBC Iplayer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01bndpp/Cutty_Sark_National_Treasure/ -This was all about the Cutty Sark, which I took the children to see shortly after the fire. We couldn't see very much to be honest, so we are now planning a trip to see it in all its glory later in the year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01bzw4b/The_Diamond_Queen_Episode_1/- This was very interesting, I'm just starting to think about what we might do to celebrate the Jubilee in June. The girls got particularly excited when they saw the Queen's "wendy house" from when she was little, it was very cool. And we were reminded that she was also Home Educated, what better come back when people ask us about it-"It was good enough for the Queen!!".

Going down the IGCSE route...

2012-02-07T10:52:00.000-08:00

I've read quite a bit about exams, GCSE's and IGCSE's recently, so thought I would share a little about our experience so far. Bailey, who I know barely seems to exist on the blog these days, has had a break from revising and had a go at writing a short story for the competition. He has made such good progress with his IGCSE work and doesn't seem to have struggled too much thankfully. We have had a look at the marking scheme on the Cambridgeshire website as he wanted to know what percentage he would need to pass. His exam confirmation came through last week, we are very lucky to be near an exam centre and so Bailey won't have to go into a school to sit his exam. Although at £95 for this exam, its hardly a cheaper option. From what I've heard about the exam centre its more like someone's home than an exam centre, which is good as this will be Bailey's first exam. I know there are lots of home educating parents out there who struggle with the whole exams situation and its surprised me how easily this has fallen into place but I suppose time will tell how easy/hard it will be. The main thing is that Bailey has not found the process so far, too much. He has managed his workload very well and it seems this approach has been good for him. My mind is already beginning to think about further IGCSE's but for now at least we'll see how this one goes. We haven't made any special allowances for his Asperger's because so far we haven't needed too, I hope that the experience will be a positive one for him but if that is not the case then maybe its not something that we will repeat. I am a little worried how he will deal with the situation when he is there. At one time he used to be very uncomfortable with strangers, and he hasn't got the longest of attention spans. He is very positive about it and seems to have digested the majority of the coursework. Hubby has been the one in charge of marking his work and has given a lot of his spare time in the evenings and weekends up to do so. It has been a lot more time consuming than I think both of us realised. I am helping Bailey with some revision techniques, as his learning style is more Kinesthetic I'm looking at different ways we can incorporate this. I'm lucky that a close friend is going through the same process so have been able to share/panic/question with her thank goodness. Fingers crossed....

How the Dicken's are you?

2012-02-07T10:37:00.000-08:00

You may/may not know that today would have been Charles Dickens 200th birthday. So what did we do to celebrate such an occasion? Well we watched Oliver Twist and baked a rather scrumptious chocolate cake of course!! Any excuse for cake here :))

We had a huge talk about the workhouses and thought back to our visit to the Workhouse in Southwell. Which to be fair really didn't seem as grim as some of the workhouses. The children were all quite upset about how badly children were treated back then but I explained that its an important part of history, just like when we learnt about Anne Frank. We can't go back and change what happened. It lead us on to another similar novel called Coram Boy by Jamila Gavin, its a very good book and both myself and Piper really enjoyed reading it so Cordelia is going to give it a try now. We also looked at the life of Dickens on the BBC Schools website and had a look how many of his books we had on our bookshelves too. I think we will have to purchase a copy of Great Expectations, hubby and I are currently watching the BBC adaptation that was shown over Christmas and it is very good. Now I know a little more about his life its interesting how much of himself and his experiences are apparent in his novels. Its also made it relative to the children who are very into their story writing at the moment. I love it when subjects link themselves together by accident!

As the children are still under the weather, I decided against a trip to the library today. It was too cold out and I really would like the children to be well enough for group on Friday and a friend's birthday party on Saturday. So, Piper wrote her story up in Word, Cordelia started a new scrapbook as you can see here:

Cordelia also joined in with Ruben's Piñata colouring in!

Think the children will be finding out whose birthday we can celebrate next if it means they get to eat chocolate cake :)

Abstract Mondays

2012-02-06T14:18:00.000-08:00

Today has been another house day, the girls singing was cancelled due to the icy roads, which I was quite glad about as the children are all still full of cold and I've hurt my back. Plus, the idea of driving on icy roads really does not appeal at all. Instead, I have baked an industrial sized batch of biscuits, we have painted with our new watercolours, wrote more of our stories for the 500 words competition, talked revision techniques with Bailey, played Viva Pinata on the Xbox, played Play-Doh, done scrapbooking, ice experiments and colouring in. Cordelia has painted her own version of an abstract rose using the Usborne Painting book talked about in this post here.

Ruben painted a worm Piñata from his Viva Piñata game,

Piper and Cordelia both started mermaid paintings but they went wrong and so Cordelia changed hers into a peacock and Piper painted something completely different.

I think this week is looking like a quiet home week, as this cold is tiring everyone out and making everybody slightly grumpy, I don't think we'd be great company for anyone at the moment and next week is looking like a rather busy one so everyone needs to feel better soon.

Sunday Snow

2012-02-06T09:46:00.000-08:00

The children were really excited Saturday watching the snow pile up outside, think they were hoping it would be as deep as it was last year but sadly it wasn't quite as immense as last years snow! As everyone was still feeling bunged up and full of cold we decided to not go sledging, especially as Ruben has a habit of rolling in the snow until he is drenched, and just settled for a wintry walk instead. I know it sounds mean but they've been so unwell with this cold we really didn't want to make them worse. He had great fun throwing snowballs at us all and the girls got very sulky about him throwing snowballs. Glad we decided against the sledging as halfway on the walk Ruben got very grumpy and cold so we had a rushed walk back. I took some lovely photographs though, and snow does make everything look so pretty!

We had a quiet afternoon playing, hubby made some rather delicious pizza's and then we had a go at Pictionary Mania. Not the best idea with overtired, unwell children let me tell you! Still, we all had a good laugh deciding that maybe this game would be more fun when they are all a bit older. Hubby and I finished off the weekend with a dance off on the Xbox and stayed up way too late to watch the NFL Superbowl. A first for me I have to say but WOW I loved it!

Writing Competetion!

2012-02-06T08:12:00.000-08:00

We are all fans of story writing in our house and the children were really excited when they heard about this competition. The girls got especially giddy when they saw that Jacqueline Wilson was one of the judges. Its been like a story factory here this weekend, lots of ideas going back and forth and some really good short stories written. The competition is for children aged 13 and under and the deadline is March 1st 2012. They have to write a story in 500 words or less. Here is the link if anybody is interested 500 words.

Happy writing!

Vintage craft fair

2012-02-04T10:50:00.000-08:00

After a full nights sleep, which we all REALLY needed the children are all feeling much better so we decided to go ahead with our original plans. With wintry weather on its way there is always a chance that we could end up being snowed in so best make the most of it. I had planned to take both girls into town with my mother in law today to a Vintage craft fair whilst hubby took the boys into the village library and shops. I didn't realise it was National Library Day today and was a bit disappointed to have missed out on the free tea and cake!! I would have liked to show my support too as home educators the library is and always has been a major resource for us all. Still, the vintage fair was really cool and I'm glad we felt well enough to go along. There were lots of vintage clothes (which I'm really into at the moment!) sadly no 40's/50's items which is what I'm looking for. I did find lots of inspiration though. The girls thoroughly made me laugh though, Piper is slightly obsessed with hats, of any era/type and Cordelia is like a magpie for anything sparkly, particularly owls. Must remember this for her birthday and maybe buy/make something owl-y. Not sure about me making hats though but watch this space I'm getting quite handy. Piper found me a fab vintage sewing pattern for these big floor toys, there is a horse, camel and elephant and the younger three have already planned races on them so going to have to make a start on them soon. I also bought some vintage fabric to make the girls some skirts or summer dresses. I'm kicking myself for not buying some glass ice cream bowls, I went back buy they'd gone. I've got a real soft spot for coloured glass, it makes ordinary things look so much more special. The girls picked up lots of ideas for things that they could make and got straight back into making cupcakes when we arrived home, I have a pile of sewing patterns to look through kindly lent by my MIL. The boys meanwhile have had quite a Warhammer day, they've played a huge game/battle and Hubby and Rubes have been painting some of our new figures. Bailey's been socialising on his Xbox in between.

Baby its cold outside....

2012-02-03T12:24:00.000-08:00

In case there is anyone out there who doesn't know its cold here in England, it is, strange isn't it what with it being winter and all?? Well after an awful night's sleep with all four children last night, all four are now full of a very bad and seemingly highly contagious cold. A friend recently asked me how I managed with a 5, 2, 1 and newborn and after last nights broken sleep I'm really not sure! I must have been a bit zombie-like. Its not like I had nay family help either it was all down to me or hubby but as I was breastfeeding it was mostly down to me. There were no grandma's swooping in like I often read about on other blogs, although I know that will be me when my own children have children. Still we managed and we managed again today. The saddest thing really about it all today was missing our weekly Friday group. Its really become a highlight of our week and since we started it back in September last year we have barely missed one! I was asking Ruben questions before bed last week, 10 questions to be precise, because I like a snapshot of things like favourite colour, favourite story etc every now again, as its always changing. He surprised me with a few answers:

Me "Favourite book/story?"

Ruben "Pippi Longstocking"

Me "Place you most want to visit?"

Ruben "Loch Ness"

Me "Favourite place you've been recently"

Ruben "Friday group"

No idea where Loch Ness has come from, super pleased he enjoyed Pippi Longstocking because its one of the most fantastic books written for children I've read (and I've read A LOT). And really taken back that Friday group has become so important to him. Seems from my facebook page that we were missed too, which was nice to hear.

As we couldn't socialise today we did indoor activities, in between snuggles on the sofa. Ruben did some painting of Warhammer scenery.

Cordelia and I made some felt cupcakes from the "Made it Myself" book I bought at the weekend. I taught myself to knit out of this book a few years ago when we got it out of the library and have had a soft spot for it ever since.

Cordelia made this fab jam tart and then we sewed a safety pin on the back to make it into a brooch. I made Piper a little cupcake pin cushion to cheer her up but forgot to take a photo before it disappeared upstairs.

We then watched Harry Potter's Chamber of Secrets dvd and played a game of scrabble, my third in less than 24 hours! Hoping the children will all feel better in the morning and that everyone has a good nights sleep. There is snow on its way for tomorrow here!

Sewing Workshop

2012-02-02T07:16:00.000-08:00

After such a successful birthday party back in December I spoke to the owner about the possibility of doing a monthly workshop for home educated children. She was really happy to sort one out for us and we attended our first one today. It can prove really tricky to organise things for home educators, a lot of the time people change their minds, don't turn up and it can be a little stressful. Its not something I do often any more after some bad experiences but actually today went really well and it was lovely to see some new faces and have some new people to talk too. Only 2 people didn't turn up but we still had 10 children so it worked fine. My two girls enjoyed it and have been looking forwards to it for ages now. I dropped Ruben off at my friends and picked up her daughter to bring to the workshop so that worked well. I asked if he wanted to come but he wasn't interested and had much more fun playing with his friend M. The children made pin cushions and a needle case, the staff were really helpful and it was surreal being in a room with 10 children and barely any noise. The girls were very happy as they found several more Monster High fans and chatted about the dolls and the website, which they have become hooked on. It went so well that we have already booked the next session in March. The children will get an opportunity to work on their sewing skills and improve with each session, which I think is fantastic. The girls are already counting down the days again.....

China, hot chocolate and new friends

2012-02-02T07:04:00.000-08:00

Last week we met up with friends to have an afternoon in Sheffield's Weston Park Museum, we haven't been for a while and it was great to see the China exhibition. The children all loved playing with the puppet theatre and had fun dressing up as different animals. Cordelia liked the cow costume and Ruben liked being a dragon. We met some friends from last years Clifton Park Museum trip. Ruben thought it was great to meet a new friend in D and they played so lovely together, chatting away happily, despite D being 3 years younger than Ruben.. At one time Ruben wouldn't have played with anyone much younger but thankfully he seems to be much better at it now, I think its probably because he is the youngest in our house and therefore is mostly used to playing with older children. The cafe had a special offer on hot drinks in the afternoon so we all went and warmed up with hot chocolates. Its not something I can always afford to do, as it gets expensive with five of us so it was a nice treat. Even the miserable old couple who were shaking their heads at the children for not being in school didn't spoil it. Why is it people do that? There were 7 children and a baby and they were so well behaved it made me so cross that people behave like that!! I really should have said something but some days I just get sick of defending my decision to home educate. I really think that so many people still think children should be seen and not heard or in this case, at school until 3pm and not spoiling their quiet cafe visits. Its rather sad really and I pity their attitudes. Anyway despite making me cross it did not spoil our afternoon.The boys were really sweet as we were saying goodbye and did a special handshake/high five combo. On the way back to the car Ruben said he was really happy to have made a new friend, so hopefully we will meet up with them again soon. On the drive back home he told me that when he is bigger is he going to live in a cottage and also work for ROAR (CBBC program for anyone interested). He really loves watching the program and playing on the zoo game on the BBC website.

Virgin footsteps into the world of blogging...

2012-01-31T11:17:00.000-08:00

Today was a day of change, as Zoe was given a day off (something about her contract allowing her to get one day off every fourteen years or something like that) and dad/me was given the reigns for the day. Strict instructions were left, and these mainly consisted of putting together a mythological themed matchbox for the Matchbox Swop, feed kids, dont kill anything and then blog it all. We are now at 6:45 pm, kids have eaten enough pizza to feed a small army, all the pets are still with us and a matchbox awaits postage...although climbing Everest would have been an easier way to spend the day!

The matchbox theme was pondered for a while before the world of Greek mythology was choosen (mainly so I could drop in one of my favourite jokes "Whats a Greek urn?..."). Kids gathered around the table, and with the A-Team theme music playing in my head, I went in. We decided to make a game of Greek Top Trumps, featuring the main Greek gods, heros and monsters, as this seemed a good way to include a lot of information on the large world of Greek mythology. So we found little pictures of a number of gods etc on the internet, and then in a x factor style, whittled these down to 40 odd. Then from the remaining hopefulls at boot camp, created our cards, each with a 10 point scoring system of Power, Strength, Speed, Beauty and Fear:

Then Cordy started work on a poster that could have been found adorned to any ancient Greek notice board, warning the locals of the danger of Medusa, complete with a clever strapline "Beware the Stare!". We still needed something else though, and looking at the cards, it was clear that there are numerous gods, but what are their relationships with each other? Therefore, Bailey was set upon the task of contructing a Greek God Family Tree:

Then all that was left to do, was the matchbox itself, and with my best Blue Peter impression "Here's one we made earlier":

Job done and for those who care, the kids didnt get my one and only Greek joke, tough crowd....

An afternoon in Magna

2012-01-25T01:40:00.000-08:00

Our busy day yesterday continued with a trip to Magna, thanks to our season ticket it was a free afternoon. Although, I think Ruben prefers it when we can use the playground outside, its very cold inside and they haven't added any new exhibits for a while which I think is a real shame. There was only two school groups today and it was quiet which was nice so we had chance to go on all the things we wanted to.

Ruben excavating!

The girls having a play on the diggers

Cordelia looking into the whirlpool

Making waves in the water pavillion

The fire pavilion was our favourite because it was slightly warmer in there. I love this photo of the boys standing my the fire tornado.

We didn't stay too long but it was nice to get out of the house for a bit as the weather was so grim. It nicely distracted the children from their early start when they were all starting to get to that bickering stage! We had a quick trip to hobbycraft on the way home and of course Toy R Us to check on their Monster High Doll stock, sadly no boy Monster High Dolls for Ruben!

Van Gogh's Sunflowers

2012-01-24T09:32:00.000-08:00

Thanks to our super early 4.30am start to the day, we got a lot covered. (drawbacks of living out of cities is no public transport links for hubby to make his 5.30 am train into London, hopefully he will be driving himself very soon though:-)) After breakfast was sorted at 6.30 it meant we had time to do some more structured work. Bailey is working on his Computer Studies IGCSE so he was busy doing that, which left the younger three doing their maths books, some comprehension, including a Roman piece for Cordelia and then it was time for a little bit of art. Continuing on from our previous posts today we had a go at Van Gogh's sunflowers. We had an interesting talk about Van Gogh and his suicide, and the children remembered a previous Dr Who episode in which he featured. We used watercolour paper and oil pastels instead of paints, which was the children's choice. I love how they all approached this painting differently:

Above is Piper's picture. Watching Piper draw this was interesting because she is quite reserved and I think you can see it in her art, she is shy and likes to be in control of everything she does, she is also really articulate and thinks A LOT (that bit is from me!!). Her vase detail is beautiful , especially the shadowing at the sides. And I like that she chose a solitary sunflower.

Above is Cordelia's, her picture also reflects her personality too, she is very open and you can read her very well, she is very much a glass half full kind of girl and very cheery. I love the curves of her vase and the cheeriness of her bright flowers. She really approaches things with such vigour. Both her and Piper drew the vase first.

Ruben's picture above, he began with the background first, which I thought was cool, as I hadn't noticed the background so much in the original painting, so impressed he picked up on it. He is very laid back, which I suppose comes from being the youngest, and just drew it how he saw it. I pointed out Van Gogh's signature on the vase and so he decided to put his initial on the vase.

Seriously impressed with their pictures today.

Monopoly Tropical Tycoon

2012-01-24T03:27:00.000-08:00

It seems to have been ages since I posted about a new board game, probably because we play so many! We picked this game up from a car boot sale in the summer for £2 still sealed and its been in the back of a cupboard for ages, until yesterday that is when Piper decided to bring it downstairs. I started playing but realised the time and needed to get on with tea so Bailey took over my turn. Its different to normally Monopoly in that you don't have community chest cards or chance cards, you watch a DVD instead. I'm not a huge fan normally of board games that force you to watch DVD's but this one is actually rather funny. The children were in hysterics several times with the news reports. It was a little tricky at first to play but then it takes me a while to get used to a new game. The money is different for a start as you get a lot more cash, two and a half million, to begin with and you have to pick one of 5 jobs:-Surfer, Police Chief, Mayor, Developer or Artist and that determines certain aspects of the game., for example if you are the developer you get 25k every time someone buys a property, if you are the police chief you get 50k if someone visits jail etc. It started to look very tricky at the beginning but everybody seemed to get into the swing of things. I actually think I prefer it to normal Monopoly, which I find a little dull at times especially with younger attention spans. So this is just about right for my four, plus you can stop the game, switch of the dvd and then come back to it a bit later, which is always a plus around mealtimes etc. I'm not being sponsored to say all this, just thought I would share our views on the game!

You scream, we scream, we all scream for 'The Scream'

2012-01-21T07:40:00.000-08:00

Continuing on from our art project last week, I got the Usborne Art Book fro Children out of the library. We have had it out before but didn't do much with it past reading it. This time though we picked the painting 'The Scream' by Edvard Munch. We talked about what the painting was actually about and read the background from the Usborne book.

Here is the original painting, in the Usborne book

The scream is actually how Munch describes the scene around him, and the scream is not coming from the person in the painting but from the nature around. We had a really good talk about how sometimes when we walk in the woods the trees can sometimes sound like they are whispering to each other and as they are alive, maybe its possible they can talk to each other? We also spoke about how the atmosphere can change when a storm is brewing and how maybe nature could be frightened or even making a warning about the weather. All good food for thought. We used normal card but used our sparkly acrylic paints to create the different layers and swirls like in the painting, they used a mix of brush sizes. Piper and Ruben struggled to do the person in the painting, Piper managed in the end but Ruben decided against putting a person in his painting and did the scenery instead.

And here are the children's versions of it:

This is Piper's

Ruben's version

Cordelia's version

Jim Dine Pop Art

2012-01-21T07:05:00.000-08:00

In the last week or so we have found ourselves having little more structure on the days we have been home. One thing I really wanted to do more of is art. We have phases where by we do lots of painting and drawing, clay modelling, play-doh, hama beads etc and then it stops for a while. I'm really not very arty at all but I'm trying to be because my children are very creative and imagination and I really love the art they produce. I got the idea of doing the heart pictures from here, I really love this blog because it gives me so many idea's. The children started with a piece of watercolour paper and drew around a heart (a hama bead one as it was the perfect shape) they then drew around it in black pastel crayon. Then they coloured the inside of the heart with the pastels. The background was painted with watercolours, which the children really enjoyed using. Cordelia made two pictures because she enjoyed it so much. I love how they all did them differently despite all starting off with the same inspiration. I had a book that I had bought from a library sale a few years back all about Pop Artists, including Jim Dine who is American. It was interesting chatting to the children about the artists and looking over the different pictures and defining what makes something 'Pop Art'.

Piper's heart

Cordelia's heart

Ruben's heart

Cordelia's heart, no 2

Bailey's heart

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

2012-01-20T11:34:00.000-08:00

We have always been HUGE fans of Lauren Child in our house, not just the stories but also the fantastic illustrations too, a few years ago (oh my it was over 4 years ago!!) I saw her illustrated copy of Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren and gave it to Piper on her 7th birthday. She devoured it and we spent hours reading it together, listening to her read it to me and vice versa then Cordelia read it too and I enjoyed it all over again! This week I started reading it to Ruben, who pulled a slightly dubious face at the thought but let me begin anyway. We are only on chapter 5 so far but he is absolutely loving it! We have just read the 'Pippi goes to school' chapter which is hilarious and even I had to stop reading from laughing too much (despite the fact I've read it so many times!)and really to add to my enjoyment of the book I've only just realised that technically she's home educated! I love the book mainly because Pippi actually reminds me so much of Piper and her no nonsense approach to everything. I'd forgotten what a joy the actual story was to read aloud so for the third time I'm enjoying it all over again!

Warhammer Whirlwind

2012-01-19T08:16:00.000-08:00

I think I've probably mentioned recently how Warhammer has once again gripped the Barras household. It does also seem to be quite a home educating thing too!? The teeny, tiny figures seem to be over populating my house at present and now even the Hubbster has started to read the magazines and rule books. It started because he wanted to help the children with it but now its just purely for his own kicks, what can I say? I married a Geek, love him to bits though! He has also spent lots of time with the children in the last two weeks painting these figures. I find it quite astounding that Ruben has gone from being a total whirlwind in the house to sitting patiently and painting details on these little figures. Even Bailey has spent time away from his Xbox more and more to read up on rules, paint and sort out figures for his battles against Dad. I am muchas impressed with all of them although freely admit the whole idea both baffles and bores me. Well, its not possible for me to LOVE everything they do all the time. Its been great for me actually because I have managed to spend time with Piper on the sewing machine, making little projects and even Cordelia too when she isn't playing Warhammer, has been and made herself a very cool tote bag. I do love the way my children move through hobbies, variety is the spice of life after all :))

Sherwood Pines Socialising

2012-01-19T08:07:00.000-08:00

We've been rather busy the last week or so and seen quite a few of our friends old and new. On Sunday we had a very wintry walk in Sherwood Pines, the lesser known of the Robin Hood forests, which as its name suggests is full of pine trees. And for my liking, far too many cyclists. Its not that I mind cycling, I would just prefer it if they did it somewhere that my children and dog weren't walking, its pretty hazardous when you have an 8 year old and a dog on a retractable lead that weave in and out of trees and can easily cause problems. I have to admit, although I love walking in forests it was a bit too cold for all of us really, defintely thermals kind of weather. Despite taking fresh carrot soup for us and hot chocolate for the kids the sub zero temperature was still a little too much. It literally took me all afternoon to warm up again. The kids still found fun things to do with their little friend though:-playing in this woodland house, collecting rocks, climbing, making music with branches on the sides of trees. We even saw a wild deer (well I missed it but everyone else saw it) that's the second time we have seen wild deer there. The first time we got lost in the forest for a couple of hours and out stepped a stag with two deer right on the path in front us, it was quite magical really but also a little nerve wracking, stag's are very intimidating creatures, especially when you are in their territory.

Sad Mondays

2012-01-09T08:52:00.000-08:00

Today was our first session back at singing. I really wasn't feeling it this morning, I think the busy weekend caught up with me today and to be fair I'm not a fan of the Monday's. It was a bit of a crazy morning with Ruben being super hyper. Think I really need to sort some trips out. My car is having its MOT tomorrow so we will have to see how that goes first. Ruben and Cordelia sat and did some monster painting today, its a book he chose himself a while ago from The Works and was very cheap. You only need to paint water on to it and all the colours come out, its quite cool actually and it was nice to see him sitting still for 5 minutes to be honest. It was very sad at singing today, normally the parents sit in the playroom and chat whilst the singing group is on. Its actually quite therapeutic normally, even when I'm having a bad day. Today though a friend had lost her brother over the Christmas period and it brought back a lot of memories for me. I had to try really hard to keep from crying. Its so sad when children have to deal with grief and I know sooner or later its something I will have to go through with my own children, as they are extremely fortunate to have all of their great-grandparents. I'm really not good at knowing what to say in these situations, I usually put my foot right in it to be honest. Its hard to explain to the children why their friend was so sad today too. Back at home and we have all just flaked out a bit, I've cooked a healthy quiche, jacket potatoes and homemade pizza for tea and then I think the girls want to watch last night's Dancing On Ice, they have been waiting for it to come on for ages now. I think they enjoyed Strictly Come Dancing so much that its left a little void! Piper and I are planning to make a taxi tote bag from one of the books we got out of the library at the weekend, as soon as we figure out what interfacing is! Bailey has been fab today and done two hours of his IGCSE course and half an hours worth of maths, he is such a star and really working well to his IGCSE timetable.

Sunday puddings

2012-01-08T10:45:00.000-08:00

We all got up ealry this morning and were breakfasted, dressed and out of the house by 9.15 am! A record for us I'm sure but it made a nice change. We took the dog for a long walk in the nearby woods, it was very, very muddy but that only added to the children's enjoyment. Ruben looked for letters on the tree trunks-he found a 'H' and Cordelia found an 'O', they also found some purple fungi (as yet to be identified, a job for tomorrow!). Piper enjoyed herself having a go at twig surfing! And we found the 'Seldom Seen Engine House' again too, always nice to see a familiar face on a walk.

Daddy did some more D.I.Y today, yesterday he started this project with Ruben and today he had another driving lesson over to the D.I.Y store to pick up some more wood. A couple of years ago we lived near a scrapstore, it was very cheap and had lots of really great craft stuff for the children and me at very low cost. I bought quite a lot of sample books, the kind you look at when picking a new pair of curtains in a department store. Many of them were designer fabrics such as Ralph Lauren and they cost me between 30p-£1 for each book. Hence why I haven't bought much material in the last few years. I have made lots of things out of the material-tote bags, stuffed birds & hearts (my MIL has even made me table runners with the different fabrics) cushions etc. Hubby noticed this fab fish material I had a while ago and decided that he wanted to use it for something. Its been sta in a cupboard for ages so today he finished what he started yesterday and we now have 4 fabulous fish pictures hanging in our living room, they are so unique-I love them!

The rest of the afternoon was spent playing Warhammer, colouring in Top Model books and having a meat and potato pie for tea. A homemade syrup pudding and a film has finished off what has been a a lovely but busy weekend. I'm already in love with 2012 :-)

D.I.Y Saturday

2012-01-08T09:21:00.000-08:00

We have had quite a busy weekend this weekend but it has been fun too. We were meant to be going with friends for a walk in the countryside but they had a poorly baby so we rescheduled. Instead we took daddy for a drivng lesson, which went very well, he has come so far in such a short time. We went to a D.I.Y store for the first time in ages and I had really forgotten how much I love them. My brain goes into overdrive with all the different project ideas, wish I was a bit more hands on where D.I.Y is concerned but I'm a bit rubbish to be honest mainly because hubby is so good at it and therefore I don't need to be. But being in the D.I.Y store made me want to be good at it. I managed to talk hubby into buying me a heavy duty staple gun though so my craft projects are about to take a massive jump forward! First on my list was our bed:- Since we have an attic bedroom there is only one space for our bed and that is in front of a quite drafty window! We realised recently how much of that draft comes through the slats on our bed, so I decided to design a headboard of sorts. I know it would be an option to buy a new bed BUT we bought this one when I was pregnant with Piper and preparing myself for my first homebirth, little did I know I would have three babies in that bed! So I'm far to emotionally attached to our bed and therefore its staying. Secondly, I'm not sure if its my age or what but I really love the idea of using what you have and improving it. Whether that be a piece of furniture, clothing or even yourself! I'm all about improving what I have already got at the moment. So, we bought (I really haven't bought any material at all but usually use anything I have lying around to make things but sometimes you just need a specific pattern/size!) a piece of fabric from our local market and then we bought some MDF. Hubby cut it to size and we slotted it in over the slats and then stapled it to them. Then I measured and pinned the bfabric and it was stapled over the headboard. It looks fab and last night I slept so well! Just shows how little things can make such a huge difference to you. And the cost? £25! All this D.I.Y inspired Ruben to get out his junior tool kit, he helped daddy with a new project(see next blog post for that info!). After group on Friday the children were talking to their friends about Warhammer. Bailey had quite a collection a few years ago but then lost interest, all of a sudden the children (except Piper, who isn't remotely interested) are really back into it. Bailey has been reading the rules this week but yesterday he actually painted one of his models! I'm so impressed with him as he rarely has time for anything past his XBOX. We've tried to encourage him recently to have some more hobbies but children with Asperger's generally get very obsessed with one thing and it can be very difficult to coax them out of it. The problem then tends to be that it becomes an all consuming obsession and even when he is having a break from his Xbox I know he is mentally counting down to when he can get back on it and doesn't really settle much at doing anything else. When he was much younger these obsessions didn't seem so bad, I mean really how bad can Thomas the Tank Engine be?? But its different now he is older. So it makes me very happy to see his focus on something more creative for a change. He has always had such an amazing imagination and its such a shame when he isn't utilizing it! Whilst we were out in town yesterday we called into the central library, we regularly go to our village library but I'm finding the children, the girls in particular, have basically just read everything in there! So it was nice to have a larger choice of reading material. Piper and I actually only looked in the sewing section but got several great books out, more craft projects to work on-hurrah!

Dragons, t-shirt designs & more cardboard rooms

2012-01-05T11:07:00.000-08:00

I finally managed to make a start on Chinese New Year activities with the children this afternoon. They have made some paper dragon spiral decorations whilst I read them this story about The Butterfly Lovers from Activity Village.

If you haven't looked on the Activity Village website before its worth a visit. It has lots of useful resources and craft activities, I think its more suited for under 10's but I still use it regularly. We had fun working out which animals we were all born under, the children found it very funny that I was in the year of the monkey, especially since hubby really dislikes them! Cordelia is year of the Horse which explains a lot!Daddy too. Bailey is year of the Tiger, Ruben is year of the sheep (or goat) and Piper is year of the Dragon, which is a little scary to think that by the end of the year she will be 12!! Ruben continued building more cardboard buildings this morning , he built a library and interconnecting post office. I helped him put some cardboard shelves up and make a computer desk, as he said 'libraries do have computers mum'.

Bailey has started back on his IGCSE work, he had a bumpy start when he realised Dad had deleted his work by accident!! It was sorted thankfully. Piper made a start on some KS3 Design & Technology work, she filled in a worksheet about designing a mini monster and then begun making her own using this book as a guide. Cordelia has been busy typing up this weeks "Weekly Watch" magazine and sorting out last weeks competition entries for the black rhino drawing competition. She then decided to decorate a t-shirt with some textile pens I found in the cupboard. Its looks fab!

They have all sat together this afternoon to watch Nature's Weirdest Events which you can find here on the BBC IPLAYER very fascinating. They really enjoyed the crow who dropped nuts on the zebra crossing, so they would crack and he could swoop to pick them up, the bug that ate the fish's tongue (yuk) and the exploding toad's. I haven't watched it so can't really comment, just reiterating the children's views! And finally, Ruben's tooth finally came out today, thank goodness, as he has been fiddling with it constantly!!

Pyjama Wednesdays

2012-01-04T11:49:00.000-08:00

The kids very happily had a pj day today, think they needed it after the last few busy days. They started the morning off with a huge Playmobil session, due to having some new pieces and also dismantling the playmobil advent calendar. Sadly the battery is dying in the organ so there is a very strange noise coming out of it now. I made a start on the craft room/toy storage/play room/freezer but nearly lost the will to live moving so many toys around, barely cleared any space so may well be continuing that tomorrow when I have more energy. Just as I was falling asleep at 1am this morning up came Cordelia after a rather nasty dream, she was quite shaken up and so was then awake in my bed for the next two hours. She eventually fell asleep at 3.15 and so today has been a long, tiring one. Hubby is on his way back from what sounds like a stressful trip to East Sussex with much train delays, horrid weather! Ruben has been very busy this afternoon making himself a grocery store, clubhouse and a home for his Pokemon. It has taken his mind off the fact that he has a very painful wobbly tooth which has been bleeding a lot. He's quite squeamish, like his daddy so wasn't very happy about it. He took these photo's himself.

He sat for ages building them out of bits of cardboard, felt and pom poms, whilst I had a go at making him a pair of cropped pyjama bottoms/shorts. All of the ones he has at the moment have holes in the knees because he is forever on the floor playing lego etc! These were just a tester pair before I buy some cool material. Should now be able to make him some shorts for the summer too (oooh get me!) He insisted on putting them on straight away though and has had them on ever since, so they must be comfy. I didn't even have a pattern so am feeling ever-so-slightly smug right now. Pyjama tops might be out of my depth though!

The girls have had a fantastic afternoon introducing the Monster High Dolls to the ever increasing barbie accessories range-houses, cars, furniture etc and having a go on the Monster High website. They have been doing so much drawing since they got their new top model books too! Bailey has very much enjoyed his last day on his Xbox before his friends go back to school tomorrow, he loves chatting to them all and its a good way for him to keep in touch with his old school friends. He also had a trip from the tooth fairy last night, your never too old for a pound apparently! He spent a large part of his morning reading the Warhammer 40k rules as he has decided to start playing again. He is lucky to have quite a collection that we purchased a couple of years ago. Its quite expensive but requires a lot of skill and I'm really glad he is thinking of picking it up again. Hubby really wants to take the children to the workshops nearby as they all quite like it. The painting looks difficult but Bailey is very good at it. We are just watching Barbie and the Island Princess before early nights I think, not quite the lazy day I was expecting but probably for the best as I may have fallen asleep otherwise!

Three out of four...

2012-01-03T15:15:00.000-08:00

So for the last three out of four days we have had friends around. Nine extra children have visited and five extra adults, one light was smashed very dramatically whilst a very good game of kinect sports was played, copious amounts of food have been cooked, baked and eaten over the last few days, tea, coffee, juice and some alcohol drunk too! Its been a lovely few days and I think quite possibly one of the busiest Christmas/New Year periods we have had in a long while. And having the house so full of people must have saved us quite a bit in heating as its barely been switched on!! I'm looking forwards to a quiet day tomorrow to do some planning for the next few weeks. Bailey will be starting back at his igcse work this week at some point, as I have a feeling May is going to creep up on us in no time at all, hoping to continue with Ruben's free trial on Reading Eggs tomorrow, I'm not overly impressed with it so far but he seems to be sort-of enjoying it and he isn't finding it hard (actually maybe he is finding it too easy if anything!) not sure if its fully for us but we'll give it a bit longer and see. The girls are really wanting to get down to some craft projects and I really want to turn the spare room/toy storage/playroom/freezer into a craft space where we can set up the sewing machine and organise all our fabrics, buttons etc. Hoping to get all of that done tomorrow as the weather is so extreme its better to be indoors tomorrow anyway I think. I have a few trips out I want to plan in the next few weeks, Piper really wants to visit a fashion museum nearby for some inspiration and she also wants to have a go with some tie-dye techniques. She is looking into the GCSE Textiles work at the moment and its lovely to see her so passionate about it. Not sure how easy or not that will be to do as a GCSE from home but I have plenty of time to work that out yet. I found out today that its the year of the Dragon in the Chinese New Year calendar and think that we really must do something with that as Ruben just loves dragons! Have found some resources and lots of festivals/celebrations in January, some we haven't done anything on before too so that will be fun. In our first year of HE back in January 2008 we did quite a bit of work on Australia and Australia day so I'm thinking that would be lovely to do again. Sometimes its nice to do a refresh on something as when you are learning/visiting things so much its easy to forget things too. Plus the children are obviously all older now so we could look at different aspects of Australia. We have our home ed group starting back on Friday, a trip to the library is well overdue too (thank goodness for new reading material bought at Christmas!) and singing group is back on Monday too. Think its going to be a busy but fun year, and I really can't wait :)

New beginnings

2011-12-30T11:31:00.000-08:00

I know officially there is still 1 more day to go but I'm SO excited about 2012. It really can't come fast enough for us. Nothing terrible happened this year but it hasn't been so easy either and I'm feeling excited and positive about the things coming our way next year. I have SO many plans its a real wonder my head can physically contain it all to be honest, my mind is literally awake very late into the night, thinking of all the things next year will bring. Before I jump head first into 2012 though I want to take a minute to drink up 2011 and some of my favourite posts:-

Hoping to do more of this in 2012 : Geocaching!

Cordelia wants to do more of this : Fishing

Piper wants to go back Here and also back to the Doll Museum.

Bailey will be undertaking his first IGCSE, all things well, but he most enjoyed Bailey's Blue Ice Cream Experiment this post has had 195 page views!!

Hoping at some point in the next month to experience this again Snow!! This post along with Lincoln Castle has had the most views on the blog..

My favourite post of all though is this most-perfect-day-ever? Quite-possibly and this is what I want to do a LOT more of next year, be outside, on the beach, in the woods, in the countryside, outside everywhere!

Here is wishing all of you reading this blog out there a Very Happy New Year in 2012 xxx

Inspiring journalists

2011-12-30T11:30:00.000-08:00

#welovedhomeed this week-Inspired by a surprising factor-the Xbox kinect we bought as a family games console this Christmas-the children have begun their own newspaper "The Weekly Watch". Just goes to show that its always the things you least expect to inspire your children that actually do. We have all thoroughly enjoyed the fun we have had on the XBOX this Christmas, showing that not all video games destroy your mind. Our favourites have been Kinect Sports, Viva Pinata and Dance Central 2, I have even waited for the children to get in bed before having a practice on Dance Central 2 (I always wanted to be a dancer when I was little, I loved musicals from an early age and love all kind of dancing, ballet, street, ballroom so I'm indulging). What else has been popular from our Christmas this year? Piper was THRILLED with her purple sewing machine, Cordelia loved her Playmobil campervan and vet's clinic, Bailey loves his gamer chair and Gadget Show gun(he went to the Gadget Show Live at the NEC in Birmingham with his best friend and had an amazing time, he's a huge fan of the show), Ruben has loved his nerf gun (Can't say we are all feeling the love of being randomly shot in various places unexpectedly though) and his Big Trak. There maybe some of you out there that had one of these the first time round? I didn't but they are a lot of fun. My only gripe is that its a bit loud, especially when Ruben programme's it to shoot 99 times, hmmmm. A lot of skill is being used to programme it though so I'm very impressed with it. Ruben had been super hyper since his birthday last month but surprised us all by sitting patiently and building his new K'Nexosaurus too.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas too!

Thanks to the kindness of strangers.

2011-12-30T10:22:00.000-08:00

On the way over to our house Christmas morning my mum and step-dad saw an old couple sat with their hazard lights on. My mum stopped to ask if they were both ok, the lady had had a stroke in the car and her husband was clearly in shock. My mum and step-dad spent 30 minutes performing CPR to her before the ambulance arrived but sadly she passed away. They were both shook up and cold by the time they arrived and we all felt very sad. So many people drove past whilst they were trying to help her and yet my mum and step-dad were the only people to stop and help. I'm very proud of both of them and also incredibly sad that they had to witness something so sad on what should have been a happy day. Its a stark reminder, if ever one were needed, that life is very precious and also very unpredictable. Needless to say the rest of the day was spent being thankful that we were all here, in this moment, happy, healthy and loved.

Education Outside School Magazine

2011-12-22T16:31:00.000-08:00

In case there are any of you out there that are unaware of this fabulous magazine for home educators I have copied a link in for you to have a look. Its a magazine designed and written by home educators and is full of interesting articles, fun activities and lots of useful information. I have enjoyed reading it for a while now and was very lucky enough to be given an opportunity to write a review for this current issue! Please take a look and support this great home ed magazine!
Education Outside School

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-22T16:25:00.000-08:00

Things have been busy here at the Barras Home-School of Excellence and so my posts have been a little few and far between but I would just like to take this opportunity to say thank you for reading my blog posts and especially a big THANK YOU for all the supportive comments (especially after my candy cane post!). I love reading all your comments and appreciate the time taken to post a comment, blogger does not always make it so easy! Its been a super busy year and I am already so excited about 2012, my head is full of all the things that we are going to do/see/visit/experience but I am trying to not run to far ahead and enjoy the last week of this year because it has had far, far more highs than it has lows. So here is wishing you all a wonderfully MERRY CHRISTMAS and a SUPER NEW YEAR for 2012 for all of us here at Barras Towers :) xxx

Piper's Party at Sew in the City

2011-12-22T16:14:00.000-08:00

Piper is really into sewing and designing, she is very patient and also very interested in the whole textile/creation of fashion and so when I heard about this new sewing cafe opening up in Sheffield, I knew she would love it. She picked a few of her close friends to take with her to the party and it took place a few days after her actual birthday. We were a bit late due to car problems and it was all a bit frantic, but after a fabulous friend helped us out we made it on time. Thank goodness because PIper had been looking forward to it so much. The room was really large and full of such inspiring sewing, materials, buttons, fabrics etc. The girls all sat and got started on their russian doll cushion, which Piper had chosen for everyone to do.

After they had stitched all around the edges they stuffed them and then took a break to have some snacks in the party area. I had made Piper a winter scene cake on her actual birthday but had also attempted a sewing machine cake for her party. Here it is :

After we sang Happy Birthday the girls eagerly went back to put all the finishing decorations to their cushions. Piper wanted her photo taken with the Singer sewing machine as she has read so much about them. She sat there for a while before looking around at all the different sewing accessories and materials. The manager told us how they are setting up their own textile printing workshops after Christmas and Piper's eyes just lit up!

The cafe has only been open for 8 weeks but its fantastic and I would very highly recommend it to anyone, all the girls had a wonderful time. It even inspired Ruben to do some sewing when we got back home so boys would enjoy it too. The staff are so friendly and were so inspiring. I've come home with a million new projects and ideas for us to do in the new year and Piper had a wonderful time with all her friends.

If anyone is interested here is the link: Sew in the City

11 we have landed!

2011-12-22T15:59:00.000-08:00

I can't quite believe it but my beautiful daughter has turned 11! The tiniest of my babies, weighing 6 lbs and 10 1/2 ozs, (also the most painful labour, albeit shortest too), she was born, not crying, but simply blowing bubbles. She has been the most laid back girl ever since! She is funny, clever, very sarcastic and a total bookworm! Seems only right then that her birthday present of choice was a Kindle. Which has barely left her hands ever since! She is really into her fashion designing at the moment too and was lucky enough to get the new Paper Fashions by Klutz book, they are really good books as you get to know a bit about the history of fashion and then lots of inspiration to make your own designs. Piper is a huge fan. The last Friday group meet for our home ed group also fell on Piper's birthday so we had the group's Christmas party which was so much fun. We all took food to share, and some of the other mums and dads had took games to play too. The kids had a fantastic time and so did the parents actually! Will post photo's up tomorrow as they are on my other camera.

Its not always smiles and candy canes......

2011-12-13T09:11:00.000-08:00

Well because some days it just isn't. Today has been one of those days, I'm thankful really because there aren't many of these kinds of days and I do think a lot of it is to do with this time of year. I love Christmas, truly I do BUT it does not behave in the way it should. The excitement and build up is great but I think halfway through I begin to feel some kind of pressure to be the perfect Christmas mommy with perfect Christmas, film-style children and the fact is that just doesn't happen. With two birthdays near/in December too expectations are even higher than usual! And sometimes being a perfectionist can work against you. I don't moan too much on my blog because that's not really what it exists for (that's what my other blog is for!) but I hope I don't come across as a smug-mum either because neither are true. I struggle too, I have s**t days too and wonder what on earth I am doing! I felt like this earlier today after our disastrous candy canes, and wondered whether I really am capable to be everything to everyone all the time, its more than a full time job its a 24 hour, 7 days a week, 365 days a year job with very little help. So really I should give myself a break because no one else is going to but I'm a perfectionist and I have super, super, miles high expectations not of anyone else but myself. Rarely do I reach them as I've stacked them way too high, I doubt anyone could reach them actually. Today I have really struggled with my eldest daughter's moody behaviour, despite knowing its her hormones and pre-birthday excitement, doesn't help when she walks off halfway through conversations if she isn't going to get her own way, slams doors etc.. And an 8 year old who has an attention span of a good 2 seconds and doesn't want to do anything I suggest. I've reached a point today where I have decided autonomy just isn't working for us. My children need more structure, despite all these amazing autonomous home edders I read about, it just isn't for us. So I'm planning on weaning us ever so slowly into some Charlotte Mason time-wise structure e.g. short bursts of different topics, I'm hoping this will build until maybe we will come back to autonomy. I realised today (whilst making pizza dough) that you can have the same ingredients every time but it still comes out slightly different each time you make it, that's how it is with children. Its the same things every time but out come four different children who need different ways of being parented because they each come with their own needs, abilities and characters. I'm glad of it and not a day goes by without me being thankful for these amazingly smart, articulate, funny, super-smashing children that we have created but that doesn't mean that each day doesn't come with its own set of challenges, because it does. I'm not perfect and neither are they so on days like this I need to remember that and give myself a break.........Anyway what have we done today

Made candy canes which went a bit wrong to be honest but if you don't try you just don't know.

Helped Cordelia make her brother a glasses case for Christmas with the sewing machine.

Done some Christmas activities, including getting Ruben to have a go at his first word search, drawing a Robin and I even relented and signed him up for Reading Eggs. I'm a little skeptical about it but we'll see....

Took Bailey, Piper and Cordelia to pick up their new glasses. They are all very excited getting new ones and this is Cordelia's first pair so she is super excited, sadly Ruben is feeling rather left out that he has neither glasses or a case with frogs on. That's what happens when you always make sure everyone has equal stuff, always. Hot chocolates with squirty cream seemed to numb the pain for him ever so slightly.......

Girls Christmas Concert

2011-12-13T01:50:00.000-08:00

The girls had their Christmas concert last night and it was lovely. I haven't uploaded the photo's yet as my batteries have died which is such a shame. It was all very festive, we watched a play first which was by another home ed group who have a singing/games group at the other side of town. It was lovely to watch and very cute as they were younger than our group. Ruben actually sat still and everything, which is quite unusual for him at the moment as he is super hyper. I think a mixture of his birthday and Piper's coming up too this week and then Christmas too, I think he may well explode before the day arrives. I'm glad hubby is off next week for a few days and there will be two of us here as he is quite a handful at the moment. After the play we had warm punch and mince pies and then settled back down again to watch our group sing. Its all girls about from the singing teacher's son, which is a shame, Ruben enjoyed going but hated being the only boy so refuses to go except to play with the older brothers in the group. The girls watched some of their friends playing the recorders first and then got up to sing their songs. They all did really well and I've ever so proud of them. Its quite a big thing to stand up and sing in a room full of people and they have done it twice this year! One very proud mama :)

Peppermint Creams

2011-12-13T01:43:00.000-08:00

Last week we went over to my super-clever friend's house. There is seriously nothing this lady can't make now, so far in the last few months, she has taught me how to make my own:
Laundry Liquid
Body Moisturiser
Hair conditioner
Spray Cleaner
Lemon Curd
Lip Balms
Hand wash
And last week she showed me how to make hand scrub (which I will probably use as a body scrub too because I am seriously addicted to them!), toilet and bathroom cleaner, and air drying clay too. Cordelia is just in her absolute element there at the moment because she LOVES making things. My friend gave the girls some bath bombs she had made, (we are still using the handmade soaps she gave us a while back too) and they had a divine bath and game out smelling lovely and looking a bit sparkly. I think Cordelia could very easily learn to do things things herself and think she could easily end up setting herself up as competition to LUSH at this rate!
We also made some peppermint creams which I have been wanting to make for a while now. They are actually very easy to make, just royal icing, water, peppermint extract and green food colouring. Then you dip them in melted chocolate, yum :)

I have also been a little inspired by Kirstie Allsopp's Channel 4 program and decided to make this heart and bell garland. I quite like it anyway :)

Crafty Christmas!

2011-12-06T10:37:00.000-08:00

This year we even beat our normal decoration day, normally we put up the tree on the 1st of December, this year we did it on Advent Sunday which was the 27th of November. It was rather lovely actually as I found all these beautiful handmade decorations that the children and I had made last year in baby steps to Christmas. This year we have put them all on the white tree and they look lush, it is quite sparsely decorated but I quite like that.

Cordelia decorated the tree in the hallway all by herself, its not quite so sparse but I like it! Last year we had a real tree too but not sure we will bother this year.

I have also managed to make the children an advent calendar which I am hoping we will use every year, but we'll see. It took me much longer to make than I had anticipated, my advice would be not to watch your favourite film (Moulin Rouge) therefore not having to embroider the same number over and over again doh! Also helps if when realising your mistake the first time you then don't continue to repeat said mistake another 3 times!!! Still it has had some rather lovely compliments so maybe it was worthwhile after all? And as I had all the material apart from ribbon and chocolates it hardly cost me a penny, love being frugal!!

I was also very fortunate to find a Playmobil advent calendar in the charity shops for the grand sun of £1.49! Bargain, the kids have loved opening the different boxes every day and this is the scene so far:

The children have also been a little hama bead crazy the last few days and have made these lovely decorations and added them on to the tree, see what happens when you buy 3 new colours of hama beads :-) I haven't bought any yet but have it on good authority that the hama bead selection at craftmerrily is very good if anyone is interested.

The girls have also made some lovely handmade gifts but I can't put any photo's up because I don't want to spoil the surprise for anyone! Daddy sat with the girls on Sunday and made gift tags from last year's Christmas cards, its such a good idea as we are always recycling here and what better way to not waste cards than turn them into sweet gift tags? Also another way to save money by not buying gift tags, I know they aren't that expensive but at this time of year, every little bit helps. The girls also wrote out Christmas cards for their friends at singing group as yesterday was their last practice before the concert next week :-)) They are both very excited about that and I can't wait to see all their good work coming together. This is the first Christmas concert they have done out of school so its all very exciting.

Ruben's Pokemon Party

2011-12-06T10:34:00.001-08:00

Ruben decided to inform me 3 weeks before his birthday that he would like a party, its always tricky at this time of year to do parties at home but we have a big enough house to do a small party so Ruben decided on a Pokemon Black & White Party. We asked the guests to come in black and white, apologies to everyone as I only realised myself what a pain that was when I discovered Ruben didn't in fact own anything black or white, cue a last minute outfit buy on the party day. He also requested a Pokemon cake and so I did his favourite character at the moment- Oshawott, sadly none of the other guests knew who it was but I did get some lovely comments on my snowman/clown cake :-) Still, important thing was Ruben knew who it was straight away and was VERY happy. I also made some pokeball biscuits for the kids to eat, which came out ok, tasted better than they looked thankfully. Daddy was in charge of the games and did a superb job (gosh we are lucky to have such a fabulous daddy bear), he had prepared Pokemon Bingo cards earlier in the week, which went well, the kids all sat still which I thought was amazing. Bailey and Cordelia did a combined effort to produce a paper mache Pokemon ball, which was passed around like pass the parcel but you had to do an animal noise when the music stopped and everyone had to guess what you were. Was very funny. There was also a Pokemon cocooning game, where they had to work in boy/girl teams to mummyfy one of their team with toilet paper, was very entertaining.There was also pin the tail on Pikachu, which Hubby drew himself too. He had prepared some more games but by the time food had been consumed the kids just wanted to play so we let them get on with it whilst the adults chatted, drank tea and polished off the party food. Ruben got some fantastic presents, lots dino related so he should be a very busy boy for some time yet. Thank you to all who came xx

And the Bubbin turns 8...

2011-12-06T10:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my youngest child turned 8 years old. For the next two weeks my children's ages are 8, 9, 10 and 13. That makes me realise how small they all were when he was born. Pippi wasn't even 3 years old. I can't imagine how we did it BUT we did and I would very, very happily do it all over again. Ruben was 11 day late (although the midwife said he was more like 14 days as his skin was peeling so much!) I remember feeling quite fed up as the people around me were having babies early and before me, plus I felt the size of a house. Piper was born 3 days early and Cordelia 2 days early and Bailey was only 2 days late so this was quite unusual for me. Finally though my labour began just after midnight on the 30th of November and Ruben was born at 4.40 am weighing a very healthy 8lbs 9ozs. It seems so long ago now, people keep telling me that 8 is the age they stop being little but I can't ever imagine that to be true to be honest, my children are always going to feel little to me, even the big one, who is now slightly taller than me. Its a weird feeling adjusting to life with older children, gone are baby toys, safety gates, toilet steps and plug covers and here are Lego, Playmobil piles, moody tweens and teenagers, hormones, a bathroom full of nail varnishes and Lush soaps that aren't mine! Anyway.... Ruben didn't want to do much on his actual birthday yesterday, we offered to take him to the cinema but he wanted to stay home and play with his new toys instead. He is having some friends over for a Pokemon themed party on Saturday and is very much looking forwards to that. Cordelia made him a rather delicious chocolate cake too, I have the job of the Pokemon birthday cake to make for Saturday.

Here he is still aged 7 the night before his birthday, not sure when this idea came about-one last photo before your birthday-but I like it.

Ended in a bit of a pile up though :-)

Here he is officially 8.

The dog ate my blogger account.....

2011-12-06T07:21:00.000-08:00

Its a valid excuse I'm sure it is? I really don't have a good excuse for not keeping my blog up to date recently, other than a blogger-wobble, my youngest sons 8th birthday, putting up Christmas decorations, making an advent calendar (which because of my own stupidity took 3 times longer than it should), my managing to finish a book for first time in ages, helping my eldest son with his IGCSE coursework (didn't realise we would ALL be learning about it) etc,etc-actually they all seem like valid excuses. I have missed it though, seen as I want to be a writer but this is the only writing I actually do (although I am also working on something too). I have some catch up posts to do about Bub's birthday and some other things that we have been doing........

Christmas Lights...

2011-11-22T13:52:00.000-08:00

Three years ago we started a little festive routine of going into town to watch the Christmas lights being switched on. Its difficult when its not all of the children's cup of tea, Bailey and Piper aren't ones for much fuss, unfortunately the other two however are a different story. Cordelia is like Mother Christmas and Ruben is just SO excited that it will be his birthday soon he just has a boat load of new energy. Bailey and Piper actually really enjoyed it this year, Piper even sang along with the Christmas songs! She normally hates loud noise in crowds but she was in a lovely mood. We took the children into a cafe and we all had hot chocolate, which was nice as its not something we normally do. We had a lovely wander around the market and got lots of ideas and inspiration for things we can make ourselves over the next few weeks, we enjoyed looking at all the silly presents in the shops. There were some donkeys, llamas and even reindeer in town too, which Cordelia and Ruben just loved. The children had saved up some pocket money to spend too and enjoyed spending it.

Cordelia bought herself this horse balloon, which was rather big, but at least we would be able to see her if she got lost in the crowd!

Like I said, a TON of energy at the moment!

We also saw this fab window display, am hoping we can have a go at something similar very soon

We didn't really have many festive traditions in our house when I was little so its not something I have really started myself. Its always a really busy time of year with two birthdays and a wedding anniversary just before. Every year though, I try and add something like a tradition. We have made our own calendars for the last 2/3 years as I really don't like the cheap cardboard ones in the shop. One year we bought them for the children and they ended up getting another one each too, it was ridiculous having 8 in the house, so now we just make one altogether. I'm thinking of possibly sewing one this year maybe but will have to see..... There is always so much I want to do but I always run out of time.

What traditions do you have in your house? I'd really like you to share some if you don't mind?

Math and Money!

2011-11-19T08:34:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking lots this week about maths, what with the Primary Maths Challenge coming up, it always makes me feel the same! The children are always playing board, computer games, baking and weighing so I know the kind of maths they are doing to be more practical and more like real maths. They are good at adding up their pocket money, working out if they have enough to buy whatever it is they are after, how much change they will get, how many weeks pocket they need to save up for something etc. All good practise in life skills I think. Filling in workbooks and sheets is all well and good for short periods but I find it uninspiring sometimes so tend you use them for gap fillers really. A friend gave me the link for this website, its called Mathwire and is American but has lots of theme related maths which the children have really enjoyed this week. Cordelia sat a few days ago and discussed Prime Numbers and also pie (not that kind but the maths kind. No symbol on my pc available though). We discussed it for a good hour and she came away feeling much more confident about both of the things I'd introduced her too. I think maths is also a lot about confidence and that's one thing that I'm trying to give them all lots of. I wasn't very good at math at school and only re-sat my GCSE 4/5 years ago, gosh I'm so glad I did because its been so useful. I really like the Schofield & Simms workbooks, especially their problem solving books as that is very much like real life math problems. I'm not saying I want my children to be accountants when they grow up (although that would be fine, if they wanted too of course) but I just think its important to be able to work things out yourself and it can only help them to be good with money etc when they get older. I think lessons in money/finance etc begin now and if we don't help them with it now then where will it lead too? My parents were not the kind to save up and wait to buy something, they were the 'stick it on the credit card and pay it later' generation. So I too have grown up with that, its only in recent years I have learnt to be much more careful with money, although that is very tricky when you have four children, unfortunately they rarely grow out of shoes/coats/clothes a month at a time! So I want to bring the children up to save and make sure they can afford things and also to know that not everything has to be expensive, charity shops/car boots are part of our life now and I think its helped them to see how much more they can get for their money. They are also good at making things for presents rather than going and buying them, which is lovely. As they get older they see things in shops and have started to say "I can make that myself, much cheaper" so I'm hoping that's a good sign. They've also learnt that money isn't everything, it can't buy you happiness. That's a rather important lesson to learn I think.

And finally this week a little bit of art!

2011-11-11T16:27:00.000-08:00

We had a fab time at our local HE group today with the children doing a mixture of painting, board games, top trumps, playing Doctor Who/Pokemon/Animal Hospital and Playmobil, sewing, sticking, and felting. Ruben woke us up at 5am saying his throat hurt but went back to bed and was fine when he woke again. He's always so excited to go on a Friday and see his friends. On the way home though he looked terrible, very pale and full of cold so the rest of the day was spent snuggling on the sofa and watching a DVD. I think we are all pretty wiped out after a busy week to be honest. Just hoping he picks up for the weekend, bless.

Meanwhile, Bailey, continuing his new found motivation did some rather cool pieces of art. I like this piece below, he used potatoes to print the dancing people and was inspired by the Usbourne Art Project Book. I really, really love Usbourne books, especially the art ones.

Cordelia painted some flowers and did a tissue paper poppy in honour of Armistice Day. Whilst we talked about percentages and possible questions on the PMC paper, which both girls will be taking part in this month.

Bailey also painted these two beautiful flowers. I love them. The detail is so good, he is very talented. We are lucky that we have four children who are all very creative and imaginative. I've told him he will be designing all of our Christmas Cards this year as I think this would look just beautiful in reds and greens.

Bring on the weekend, I'm so ready for it! Hope you all have a lovely weekend too :-)

Some BIG decisions.......

2011-11-11T16:11:00.000-08:00

Another busy day yesterday with a trip to the library, that can really take some time with us ALL choosing books and then a visit from friends (can't remember the last time I saw so many friends in just one week!). Bailey has also come to the very big decision, all on his own, that he wants to do an IGCSE in Computer Studies. Now to some readers this might just be yeah so? But to us this is a major step. When we first began HE back in January 2008 I tried really hard to do school at home with the eldest three children, that worked for a few months before we all burned and crashed. I didn't know anyone for a year other than HE online forums so had no one to really questions like how/why so I kind of just followed what I thought was OK. Since that we have floated somewhere between autonomous (I even had to look up that word when I began as I hadn't a clue what it actually meant) semi=structured and child led. Bailey was diagnosed with Asperger's (which isn't something I've discussed for lots of reasons) in 2009. At the moment I'm not sure if I agree with it actually and feel pretty let down by the whole special needs specialists. Thankfully for us we haven't needed any extra support as, just like the rest of everything else we've done so far, we have gotten on with it ourselves. I'm not one for asking for help, I've always gotten on with things myself and I'm lucky that I have such a fab hubby to share everything with. Oh gosh, now I'm babbling.... Anyway, Bailey has been in a phase of not really wanting to do much at all without a good kick up the bum (not literally of course!) he spends a good deal of his day mentally counting down hours to go on his XBOX, (which I've found out very recently seems to apply to ALL other 13/14/15/16 year old boys too, phew....). So this sudden and rather unexpected change in him has quite took me by surprise! Yesterday he even sat with me and we looked at University courses on Game Designing, then we spent a further hour discussing and reading through the curriculum for the IGCSE. He does have a few friends, both HE and school friends that are taking/studying gcse's so maybe its that but all of a sudden he has a plan and is very willing to put in the work required. Recently I had thought that GCSE'S were possibly an option to us but definitely not something I was going to push. There are so many people with qualifications and degrees that are doing nothing these days that I'm not sure they are worth the paper they are printed on. If Bailey or any of the children wanted to wait and see what they want to do that is absolutely fine by us, life is too short to be stuck doing something you hate. So I'm glad that rather than be coerced by secondary school into doing obligatory gcse's that he will probably not use again he has been allowed the space and time to decide what HE wants to do. He also has the time to be able to study at his own pace without anyone rushing him and the luxury of help from 2 parents, not 1 teacher shared with 30+ other students. I have never regretted our decision to Home Educate our children and applying for Bailey's exam place today made me feel so glad and thankful for that day in October 2007 when I first read about HE in a national newspaper. I'm so happy that our children have the freedom to chose who and what they want to be.

Cinnamon Bath Soak, Chocolate Truffles & Cupcakes

2011-11-11T15:40:00.000-08:00

Continuing our busy week with friends we went to another good friends and had a very busy day! She had planned for us to make lots of things whilst we were there. We started with cinnamon bath soak, which is so easy to make and absolutely divine! Think Christmas in a jar. The ingredients were all things readily available from the supermarket_Bicarbonate of Soda, Cream of Tartar, Cornflour, Powered milk and of course Cinnamon.

After we had finished and bottled it up in some recycled jam jars we started of the chocolate truffles. Ruben even had a go with these, hmmm wonder why? They were quite easy actually and have given me a few ideas for variations as I'm not much of a dark chocolate fan. They were extremely rich but the children thought they were scrumpcious, think you can tell by the cheeky smile on Ruben's face!

They all enjoyed rolling the chocolate out and covering it in cocoa. The hardest bit was then waiting the ten minutes they were in the freezer before they could be eaten!

My friend also showed the girls how to make material cupcakes, we only had time for a quick go but the girls really enjoyed themselves so I think we will try some different designs this week. At least I can fill some of my cupcake stands up with them in the kitchen. Plus I've heard their zero calories!

Love the gingerbread button on top :-)

Tudor biscuits

2011-11-11T08:06:00.000-08:00

We have had a really busy week this week and have been out every single day. We haven't seen as much of our friends as we'd have liked recently with all the wedding preparation so we tried to get back to normal this week. Monday we went to singing, the girls are preparing for their Christmas concert in a few weeks time so they had an extra 20 minutes singing this week. They are both very excited. On Tuesday we went to visit some friends and the girls made some tudor biscuits (jumbles). It was a strange recipe as there was no butter? Just flour, sugar, eggs and carraway seeds. I love aniseed but have to admit these were the most peculiar tasting biscuits. The girls worked together with each of their friends-Piper with Immy

And Cordelia with Jemima

Excuse Cordelia's make up! They were playing vampires before we started the baking! As you do.....

After the kneading and rolling into knots they were then boiled for a minute before being baked in the oven

They looked a bit like bread when they came out and tasted a bit like bread too. The children were a little unsure.

So off they went back to play their giant game of Playmobil!

November's catching up!

2011-11-07T03:32:00.000-08:00

Can't believe I haven't wrote a blog post for a week! Thought I was doing too well. Well its been very busy around here and will probably continue to be for the last half of the year as we have 2 birthdays, a wedding anniversary and obviously Christmas coming up. I feel like I can go into Christmas mode now this week has finished.

A little round up of what we have been doing in the last seven days since Halloween;
We finally took part in the Samaritan's Purse Shoebox Appeal. I have wanted to do this several times before but I always run out of time. It was great this year as the kids really understood why they were doing it so maybe its better that I waited until they were older. If your not sure what I'm taking about-basically you have to fill a shoebox with small gifts/toiletries/sweets/stationery for a girl or boy in 3 age categories, the boxes are delivered to parts of Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.. The children all picked their age and sex to do a shoebox for and had lots of fun buying little things to put in the boxes. We then donated online and we should find out where our shoeboxes have gone this year.

We also had our first meet up in the community hall for our Friday Group. There were only four families there but it was lovely, the children all played really well together and one of the mums brought lots of sewing things so the girls had lots of fun! The girls all ended up playing Doctor Who with cars, dragons and playmobil so a giant mix up with the boys! It was nice to be warm and dry too as the weather was very grim on Friday, plus I managed to finish two whole cups of tea whilst they were still warm! Today has not been quite like that so far.

Ruben also lost his other top front tooth and had a trip from the tooth fairy, here he is without his two front teeth:

And thats where most of last week went!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T12:28:00.000-07:00

We've had a quiet halloween today, we have done some halloween colouring in and the children have decorated these haunted houses from Activity Village (a fab site for themes!) and they also did some halloween riddles which were fun. I made them some biscuit dough to make some spooky biscuits and then we set off to singing with the girls dressed up! By the time we got home the dough was ready to roll and shape. They chose to do gingerbread men zombies and for some reason Ruben did star shapes? I mixed them some halloween colours up and they went crazy on the icing! We got the sweets ready for the trick or treaters and then Daddy came home just in time to take them trick or treating, or at least the younger two-A Vampire Girl and Luke Skywalker have gone, Piper and Bailey are apparantly too old for such nonsense! Happy Halloween to all my lovely blog readers, hope you've had a spook-tacularday!!

A pre-Halloween warm up walk

2011-10-31T12:25:00.000-07:00

Last night we took the children for a walk just as dusk was approaching. It was so much fun and a little bit scary. We bought a couple of new torches and Daddy put red tissue paper over the front, as apparantly this helps not to scare the animals. Sadly, we didn't see anything too wild! But we did see a good few bats and heard two different owls, who sounded like they were callling out to each other, which was very cool. Its amazing how disoreinated you can actually get when its dark and you are away from street lights/houses, even though its somewhere we have walked as a family lots of times it had such a different feel to it. If nothing else, none of the children will be running off into the woods by themselves anytime :/. Daddy also helped the children carve their pumpkins this year too. We were lucky to get some from just up the road, and they were locally grown which was lovely. Cordelia and Ruben went for green ones this year which I think was because of the green pumpkins at Clumber Park last weekend. They all had a lot of fun anyway. Feeling a bit sad I haven't done a party this year, last years was a lot of fun but there has been a lot of things going off here and I haven't been well so not really had the energy for parties. Think we will have to do one again next year though as the children really enjot Halloween and trick or treating just doesn't quite cut it for me.

Yorkshire Wildlife Park

2011-10-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

We haven't managed a visit before now to the YSP, although we did go many years ago when it was a small farm and riding school. Cordelia had her very first horse riding lesson here when she was 4. It was for her birthday. She loved it. It has changed quite a lot since then though and it quite expensive for a family of 6. Daddy was working away, Bailey was over at his friends so I bought a ticket from Groupon which meant all four of us could go for £15. It was open until late as it was a firework special too, but as Cordelia had a pamper birthday party for her friend we didn't get there until 4pm. So had to rush around a lot of it before it got too dark!

Here they are checking out the map

Meerkats

A raccoon dog-which was very strange. There were two of them and they were sisters who were quite old, spinsters!

Shetland pony

You can't really tell but these trees are full of Lemurs!

They were very close to us and were allowed to wander around pretty freely.

A very cute and small owl

Forgot what these were called but they were very strange and looked a bit like a hare, with no tail.

Ruben wanted me to take this photo of him in front of the camels, can you spot them?

The tiger, was very impressive. It looked very small from this far off but as it got closer the kids were impressed with the size of her.

Buffalo!

It was really dark by the time we got to the lions so we didn't get to see much of them but managed to get quite close.

It was so busy because of the special offer, we met Bailey and his friend there too and they younger ones made the most of the free slides but we were all a bit tired and cold so decided to miss the fireworks. It was a good plan because after being in the car for 5 minutes the heavens opened and a huge thunderstorm followed us the whole way home on the motorway. So very relieved that I wimped out of the firework show, plus myself and the children are really rather rubbish with huge crowds these days. We have got far too selfish with our spaces! Will be going again soon though to see the new rare leopard that they have arriving!

Pumpkin trail at Clumber Park

2011-10-29T11:04:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we had a lovely autumn walk through the National Trust's Clumber Park. Its a really beautiful place and well worth a trip. It attracts so many people every day and is always very busy, in the summer you can BBQ there and even put your tents up for the day too! Its great for cycling but have to admit not to trying that as yet. Would be quite stressful with all of us I think. I did a 10k run there a few years ago at this time of year and really love all the autumn-ness about the place! The church is beautiful too.

It was quite early and so very quiet when we arrived. The children had lots of fun looking for the ducks and swans on the lake

The dog had lots of fun trying to chase the hundreds of squirrels there too:

We collected some different leaves to identify what tree's they were from

Said Hi to the nearly grown up cygnets. I've never seen them this size before only as tiny babies or fully grown Swan's

They were very friendly, well to us, not the dog who they loudly hissed at!

Lots of beautiful walks off the main bits too, I love this picture of Chestnut Avenue

The walled kitchen gardens had a pumpkin trail on, which was lovely! The children had to find 8 different pumkins and guess who they were supposed to be!

I like this Harry Potter pumpkin :-)

Looking at the bee's. They were very quiet though.

These feely boxes were fun too but I did not like the jelly worms covered in mud, just thought that was a waste of good jelly snakes.....

Liked the Shrek pumpkin!

All these pumpkins are used in the restaurant here too, which I thought was lovely.

It was a lovely pre-halloween visit.

A Blog Award Game

2011-10-26T08:52:00.000-07:00

Thank you Katie Pybus at Outside the Box for this, her blog is a great read and I really enjoy reading about their trips and adventures.
Here are the rules of the blog game:

Thank the person who nominated you and link back to them
Tell readers 7 things about yourself
Pass this award onto your favourite newly discovered bloggers and let them know

So here goes:

1) I wanted to be a barrister when I was a teenager but I got to be a Barras which is far , far better.

2) I have a Diploma in Literature and Creative Writing that I gained in 2010, maybe I will use it one day.

3) I want to live in North Wales

4) I always wanted four children

5) My husband is my best friend

6) I drove for 27 hours, without sleep from Sheffield to St. Tropez 4 years ago, I wouldn't do it again

7) I love singing

I am passing this on to Bec at 4kids2guineapigs,one happy family and Motherfunker at feetonthegroundandheadintheclouds. Will look forward to seeing what you both write!

When the mummy is down, who ya gonna call?

2011-10-20T11:51:00.000-07:00

*WARNING-SMUG MUMMY ALERT*
Today, actually last two days, I've felt poo. Its lucky really that my wonderful hubby has been working from home as i haven't been up to much at all. Meanwhile the children have been really fantastic, apart from a few mini arguments, hey no-one's totally perfect! (and if you think they are, trust me its all a lie). They have played, drawn pictures, made things, snuggled up with me and watched TV, made me cups of magic tea, baked me chocolate cake and made me pancakes for my tea. All those out there with smaller ones, I remember how it seemed never ending having 4 under 5 years old, nappies, breastfeeding, sleepless nights(my four hardly ever slept through until they were nearly 5 years old!), mess (well there's still mess, obviously!) but in occasions such as this one they now can rally around and help me, not because they have too but because they WANT to. Despite feeling very poo, I'm feeling mightily loved and lucky to have these very special people in my life. Well. I did warn you it was a smug one tonight!
A few pics from our/their day, just because I'm down doesn't mean production comes to an end because learning can continue without me........

Piper has set up her very own fashion corner, with her sewing box, mini mannequin, craft books and her fashion book/bible

She patiently sat and made this belt all by herself, without ANY help. All my talk/lust for Coco Chanel has finally wore off on her by the look of things.....

My ickle Boo girl made me a truly scrumptious chocolate cake, all by herself....

Daddy did some drawing class with the peeps after work was out!

Ruben's dinosaurs, including a dinosaur he created himself called "Axosaurus"

Cordelia's drawing of a contesetent on Strictly Come Dancing, love the sari look

Thank you Bailey for my lovely tea of pancakes, no pictures sadly, but they were delicious xx

Fashion designing, Human body, FRED, dinosaurs and a book sale!

2011-10-19T11:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Piper decided that she wants to do a GCSE in Textiles so we spent quite a while on the PC researching all about the course. We found some really good resources on the BBC bitesize website and learnt lots about synethetic fibres and natural fibres. We had a look at some of our own clothing labels and what they were made from, I found her some worksheets from the TES website and she happily sat filling them all in and adding them to her new fashion file. She really enjoyed the exhibition at the Newcastle musuem about fashion and it seems to have really spurred her on towards finding out more. Maybe a case of strewing but not sure? Meanwhile Cordelia decided again that she most defintely wants to be a Vet so spent the morning working on some Human Body worksheets that I also printed from the TES website, as she will need all her science GCSE's we have made a start on Biology. She did some really fab work, they both did. After they both did some drawing, Piper designed some dresses and Cordelia drew lots of animals. Meanwhile Ruben spent most of his time totally engrossed in his dinosaurs and looking on Ebay for a Spinoceraus to add to his dinosaur collection! He is very sad not to have one. In the afternoon after our friends had done home we had a trip into the village for a trip to the library book sale and the charity shops. We only spent £4 in the sale which is very unusual, we are running out of book space in our house at the moment though!! But we still got 16 books, including Jacqueline Wilson books, and of course Dinosaur books!! The girls ordered the new Jacqueline Wilson book too and are excitedly awaiting its arrival but Piper told me she has already read the first 3 chapters on the JW website!! We also, watched and rewatched a film called FRED. The kids laugh like I have never heard them laugh at anything really! I have a feeling they might become a little addicted to it, especially since I found out that he has his own channel on YouTube! Whilst in the village I also managed to pick up two board games from the charity shop-Yahtzee (original version) and Tri-ominoes (triangle dominoes) so thats another two to our collection!

Newcastle part 2....

2011-10-19T11:27:00.000-07:00

The second musuem we arrived at was the Hancock Museum and the BBC were there as part of their Planet Dinosaur Tour. We were fortunate that we arrived early as it got very busy, we booked in for 12 and had a little walk around the musuem first. It was one of the best museums I have been to for quite a while and definitely one of the best outside of London! Ruben spent thewhole time asking what the time was because he was SO very excited! Ruben made me take SO many photo's of him next to all the dinosaurs in the musuem including the skeleton of a T-Rex, which until he found out about Spinoceraus was his favourite! There was lots about the Ice Age too and this model of a deer from the Ice Age, its antlers were HUGE! A fanatsic day out but as we didn't get to go to the other musuem, which was very much for the girls we have to go again very, very, very soon because I have promised and mummies never break promises!!

This room was fantastic both educationally and visually!! There were touch screens on this side so you could tap and find out information about each animal opposite. And on the other side there were some real animals mixed in such as snakes!!

Inside the Planet Dinosaur section, we got to build a 3-d skeleton of a Spinoceraus, one that was around 5 years old, Ruben and Cordelia loved this bit but Piper was a bit shy and decided not to take part. We then got a photo opportunity with a life-size Spinoceraus head and got to watch an unseen episode of Planet Dinosaur in 3-D, which I have to admit, was pretty fantastic!

The musuem also had a brilliant Hadrian's Wall exhibition, which the kids thought was very interesting and now we are planning to go there next year and walk along some of it. I would love to walk all of it but its 80 miles, and think that might be a bit too much for the little ones!

The children enjoyed the Ancient Greece section too and all got to design a shield that was then projected onto the wall. This was Piper's:

Rubens:

And Cordelia's:

Would highly recommend this musuem and the Discovery museum too, infact Newcastle itself, its a fantastic, vibrant and VERY friendly place!

Newcastle Part 1...

2011-10-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we took the younger three up to Newcastle for the day, it was a bit of a drive to be fair but Bailey was at a friends for the day having a trip to the cinema and so we used the opportunity to go. Its been tricky not having a 6 seater for us and we haven't been doing many family outings recently, fingers crossed it won't be for much longer though as things are looking up! Bailey had a fantastic time with his friends though and went to see Jonny English, which from what I have been told was very, very funny! He is very lucky to have some really fabulous HE friends :-) The plan for Newcastle was to go to two museums, which we did actually but not the two we had planned on. We arrived at the wrong musuem first-The Discovery Museum but it was fab in there and worth making a mistake for to be honest, there was a great fashion exhibition which Piper just loved, she is really into her fashion design at the moment.

Look how big this shoe was!

There was a fabulous science section too.... We played with something similar to this at the science centre when we visited the fabulous herstmonceux-castle a while ago

Piper loved making this generator work!

I just liked the look of this to be honest, forgotten what it was called!

The kids loved the traffic lights game which tests your reaction speed. Piper won with 32 seconds and Cordelia took 5 turns to beat her at 31 seconds, competetive Cordelia? Pah!

This boat in the reception area was very cool

A glass elevator just like in Charlie and the Chocolate factory!

Afterwards we moved on to the next part of our day......

Magna, Krispy Kreme's & Test passing!

2011-10-13T12:03:00.000-07:00

Well we had a daddy back for a little bit but he shot straight off again this morning as he had his car theory test first thing this morning. The children and I got up and had breakfast and Cordelia wanted to play a game whilst Piper and Ruben had their turn on the pc's, (they are having a bit of a Horrible Histories World/Roblocks phase this week). So we opted for Scrambled Eggs, I like this game as its really good for spelling but quite a lot of fun. Another game I picked up from a boot sale last year brand new and sealed for £2! We've played it lots so its been worth the money.

Our friends let us know they had planned to go to Magna this afternoon, so after a quick/early lunch made by Capable Cordelia(gosh that girl is good!) we set off to meet them, There were nearly 200 school children in there today (I know this because a staff member, got out the visitors sheet and informed me when they would all be leaving!!). But we managed to avoid most of the bigger groups. We went into the FIRE Pavillion first, then on to Air and watched the Big Melt from higher above than normal on the advise of the same staff member.

Then finally onto the Earth and Water pavillions. They really like these two pavillions the best. It was lovely to hang out with them all afternoon and have a good catch up. I stepped back from all the activities a bit as it was all getting a bit too much and I felt that the children and I needed a bit more time at home and with the weather changing I like being free to go for walks and visits by ourselves. I like some aspects of group visits but sometimes I feel its a bit too much like school and I have got a little selfish and like to go at our own pace. So it was great to just decide last minute to meet up.

(Cordelia wanted me to take this picture of her and her friend chilling out in the 'Rest Hut'

On the way home we swung by to the Brand new Krispy Kreme shop that opened this week in Meadowhall Shopping Centre! To celebrate Daddy passing his Theory Test! Well done Hubby!!

Quick cake for an easy bake!

2011-10-12T10:51:00.000-07:00

We had a day off board games today, hurrah! I was feeling very tired and not sure I would have been in the mood for another board game today, 3 nights and 3 full days of being the only parent here as worn me out a little. I will be so glad to have my hubby back tonight, I cannot tell you! My tiredness coupled with Ruben's sudden full energy returning did not make for the best morning but I managed to resuce it a bit with this very quick cake recipe. As his sisters have done so much baking lately I think he was feeling a little left out so we made this chocolate crunch, somewhere between a cake and a biscuit and very quick. All you need is :

180g of butter, melted in the microwave for 2 1/2 mins

1 cup of cornflakes

3/4 cup of dessicated coconut

1 cup self raising flour

2 tablespoons of cocoa powder.

Sift flour and cocoa into cornflakes and coconut, mix in the butter, mix very well.

Grease a microwavable dish, press mixture firmly in and cook on medium high in microwave for 5 minutes.

You can decorate with choclate icing too but sadly, we used it all on gingerbread men yesterday!

Cordelia did a beautiful painting this morning but for some reason it will not rotate around on this blog, which is VERY annoying!! She was very pleased with it though and I love that she has made felt penguins and stuck them on the painting, it gives it such a lovely effect.

Ruben has had another story out of this book:

I have to say though I'm finding it pretty terrible to read, thinking I could write some much better stories than the ones in this book but alas my son is determined to finish it whilst he is still 7. I think I will just plough through it and get it over with. Whilst I was judging the stories in this book on their literatory merit (or lack of) Ruben got the Brio box out and built himself a track. Just for a minute in this photo he looks like Bailey who was the world's biggest Thomas the Tank Engine fan from years 2-6 and HAD to have a track built daily before daddy went out to work. Gosh that seems like an incredibly long time ago now...ok I'm off as I am filling up now. Overtired mummies and old memories don't mix! I'm off to pick one tired daddy up from the train station

Just a little something I want to share....

2011-10-12T05:15:00.000-07:00

Totally forgot I had this and whilst looking through some old emails I found the link! Its from last year when we took part in an interview which was meant to be for Newsround. It never got used but it was quite fun making it. And WOW how my children have grown since then. Feel free to have a look!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-hM5QilCs4&noredirect=1

Gingerbread Tuesdays

2011-10-11T14:32:00.000-07:00

Today has been quite a busy one! We had our friend over with her two little girls so I decide to make gingerbread men for them all to decorate, I madebthe dough myself but Cordelia helped me roll it all out and she cut all the different sizes of gingerbread out, working out how much dough she had left to use which cutters for etc. So a bit of maths and problem solving was covered very early this morning! We have been practising our maths a bit more due to the Primary Maths Challenge next month. I have had so much correspondance today about it all that I feel like I've had a part-time job doing admin today! Still its all good and the more HE children taking part the better!!

After they had cooked our friends arrived and we manage dto find some glittery icing pens in the cupbaord to use that were just perfect!

There were lots of giggles and icing swopping going off and the the finished gingerbread people are here :

Then it was time for some play doh. After lots of rolling, moulding and shaping they then moved onto the Playmobil animals and had a fab time playing a big game together.
After lunch and running a few errands, Bailey, Cordelia and I sat down to a game of Scrabble Trickster, another day, another board game! I'd said I would play yesterday but was just too tired so today I perked myself up with a double chocolate mocha and played. Bailey won!

Lots of maths and literacy involved in this one today, especially with the trickster cards, they really make you have to think even harder.

Piper and Ruben meanwhile had a fantastic game of Barbie's, didn't see but could very clearly hear them laughing and playing loudly from upstairs! After a tea of homemade pancakes Piper, Cordelia, Ruben and I took the dog for a walk as the rain had finally stopped. The children all came to life and very excitedly played a game of Scooby Doo, (its become a little bit popular with the younger three at the moment) Ruben had to be both Scooby and Shaggy as he loves food, Cordelia was Daphne and Piper was Wilma, I apparantly had to be Fred!? Lots of giggles and zoombie acting later we had time for showers, more play time, bed time stories (Ruben has decided he wants me to read him the stories for 7 year olds, as he points out he isn't going to be 7 much longer! Personally I like a Julia Donaldson story before bed but hey ho, he's the boss). I am shattered tonight I have to admit but very, very excited about a little surprise for Saturday, but shhhh! As I haven't told the children yet. Fingers crossed my fabulous plan will work.......

Monopoly of a Monday....

2011-10-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

Gosh it was lovely to have a normal Monday again! The children's dentist appointment went really well, even sat in the waiting room was quite fun, the children made me laugh lots. In fact, it almost felt like an episode of BBC's Outnumbered, which we are a huge fan of in this house, although I'm unsure why we watch it as 1) I worry it gives the children idea's and 2) I'm living it so why would I want to watch my life for half an hour every week? Truth is Cordelia is SO like Karen that it actually frightens me and Ruben has about 50% of the Ben character in him I'm sure. But I like how calmy the parents deal with all of it!! The dentist enjoyed chatting to them all, even Ruben's two-headed dragon "Gregg" (don't ask why he is called Gregg, because I have no idea either) so all was well. And we managed to only be five minutes late for the singing lesson, which was very full today. Lovely to see/hear them all having so much fun. As the weather was super rubbish here today, we came home caught up on X Factor, had soup for tea and a game of Monopoly JR. I think we play nearly enough board games a week at the moment to have our own blog about them! I'm looking for some new ones for Christmas but am struggling as we have nearly all of the bigger named games. Any suggestions would be greatfully received!!

Sunday Sum up....

2011-10-09T14:26:00.000-07:00

Thank goodness today has been a better day and everyone is feeling brighter and better! Apart from the weather being so grim we have had a lovely weekend. The children had a lovely time with Daddy yesterday and I came home to a yummy cake baked by Cordelia! She has had a baking frenzy this week but not all of it has been a success! She drew this picture after her buns came out a bit wrong

and had a bit of a sulk whilst painting some Christmas Tree's! Never too early you know!

But then here she is putting the finishing touches to here chocolate brownie.

They had played lots of games, had a walk to the library, watched Disney's Tangled and Hubby had helped Piper create this fab display rack for all her paper fashion creations! Clever Daddy! Piper has made a shop out of a box, she is in the middle of decorating it all before she moves on to the accessory shop!

Here they are having a game of Monopoly this afternoon:-)

The boys had also had a go at making a Lego version of their favourite board game of the moment "Dungeons and Dragons"

Seems that the Lego Bionicle figures are making a bit of a comeback in our household :-)
I am really looking forwards to getting back to normal this week starting with the dentist tomorrow and the girls singing lesson. We might even squeeze in a morning walk with the dog in the morning too.

Not the happiest of weeks!

2011-10-07T15:47:00.000-07:00

We've had a pretty rubbish-y week this week! When one of the gang is unwell it tends to throw everything else out too. Bubs is still full of cold but his energy is coming back thank good ness! I am hoping next week we can get back into the swing of things and maybe even have a few day trips out. Daddy is in charge for half of tomorrow so is taking the children to the cinema for a treat and to look for some new slippers as our house has got very cold this week! We also have an extra guest this weekend with Baileys friend. Very nice to have two giggly teenagers around! Have a feeling I could be back at the supermarket by Sunday as they eat a staggering amount, although I have no idea where my boy puts it because he just seems to be growing upwards! Cordelia has done a fair bit of baking this week but it's not all gone quite too plan, still even that is a lesson in itself. Although she is not very keen on failure but then who is? She has dusted herself off and had another go and I love that spirit :-)) she's also decided that a Zoologist is her new career of choice, which actually I can totally see but then this girl of mine could do anything she set her mind too, that I have no doubt at all about. Right off to bed for me! Happy weekend fellow bloggers/blog readers x

Sorting & baking

2011-10-04T08:40:00.000-07:00

Today has been rather busy, we have a poorly little man here, Ruben has a really bad cold and is not feeling up to much at all. He has been snuggled on the sofa watching one of his favourite films-Home Alone 3, in between bouts of reading about dinosaurs, colouring in Pokemon pictures, and the odd board game with either Bailey or myself. We also read "The Selfish Giant" yesterday, which is on our 100 books to read list. We are slowly getting down the list. I have spent a considerable amount of time sorting out our craft/colouring/play doh/painting/drawing drawers out. Found lots of things I had forgotten about in there, and also made a list of things that we need to buy. Piper kind-of helped for a bit before going off to play dolls with Cordelia. Bailey made a toothbrush and toothpaste out of Lego(toothpaste even has a removable lid, how clever!) as well as finishing the last book in the trilogy by Patrick Ness-The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer and Monsters of Men. He thinks the last book was the best one, for anyone thinking of reading the books! Cordelia has spent the morning having a writing contest with me, (which I actually really enjoyed, not often I get opportunity to write a story) and a DS Brain Training contest again with me! Then after lunch whilst I continued with the cleaning of the drawers she very aptly made some rather delicious chocolate cookies. Think I may have a young Nigella on my hands here, she may well bring out her own cook book soon so watch this space! We are having some home made pizza's (thank you hubby!) and a family game of Risk to finish the day nicely!

**Forgot to add that I also helped Cordelia make this fab glasses case for her great nannan**

Let's have a paddle in the pool....In October? Oh yes!

2011-10-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

I think its VERY safe to say that this is the first time we have EVER put up the paddling pool in October. We had friends over on Saturday and whilst the daddy's went off fishing for the afternoon, we had lots of fun in the garden with our friends. Although, it was so warm that actually we had to keep coming back in the house and playing Dinosaurs for a bit before we went back out for a paddle.

When the daddy's arrived back home we lit the barbecue and a very scrummy tea which was closely followed by a fire with smores and toasted marshmallows. The sky was really clear too so we got to do some star spotting (thanks to a fab phone app-which you point to the sky and it tells you which stars you can see!), wishing upon some stars and a fantastic sing-a-long around the fire (the banana song was sang a considerable amount of times and have a feeling my friend's daughter will be reciting it lots to her-sorry in advance L!). A lovely and rather wonderful start to October, let's hope it continues....

Happy October!!

2011-10-04T08:08:00.000-07:00

What a fantastic end to September we had with the most sublime weather! September is firmly staying as my favourite month EVER, especially after this week. What did we do with the fabulous weather? We blew bubbles of course!

We harvested our vegetables and had roasted veg with our chicken

We blew more bubbles

Looked up at beautiful clear, cloudless skies

Played Lego in the garden using some props (i.e washing line and windowsill!)

Bounced on the trampoline

Found a hedgehog in the garden very late one night

Found some huge beetles at the park with friends

Built a wigwam out of some sticks and sheets

Brought Panda in the wigwam for a noisy

Built a campfire

And re-discovered our love for Dinosaurs thanks to the BBC's new "Planet Dinosaur" program.

They enjoyed the story of "The Snail and the Whale" by Julia Donaldson. A personal favourite in our household. If you have read this book have you ever thought how that snail sitting on the rock doesn't want to sit still like all the other snails, wants to explore and see the world? How much that snail reminds me of our very own home education journey! Not wanting to spend 6 hours of our day being told what to do, how to sit, how to think. I LOVE that story!
We have spent a lot of time at the parks and playgrounds with friends this week, I have no photo's as we were all too busy playing, eating, chatting, eating, playing and more eating. A fabulous week!

New group, new group!

2011-09-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

We were really lucky yesterday to be able to meet up with a group of home educators that live much closer to us. After only 15 minutes we all arrived at the park and I was really happy to see that there were lots of boys for Ruben to play with, he's had a real lull of having some friends that are boys. It was also great for the girls because they both found a new friend each that was the age as them! Fantastic! And I got to meet and chat with some very nice new people, all within such a close drive. We all said how great it was NOT to have to go on a motorway to get there. It was so lovely to see them all playing so nicely, or a bit roughly in Ruben's case, what is it with boys? They seem to have this need to roll around on the ground, constantly run, pretend kick and punch, jump etc. They were all shattered when we eventually got home but are counting down the days till next week's meet up already! We finally left after about an hour of the children saying "we're hungry" (bad mummy had not taken lunch, what a rookie mistake to make!) and then disappearing to continue playing again, none of the children wanted to go home, which I thought was a great sign of a very successful first meet. Sadly, no teenagers for Bailey but he didn't mind, its funny because normally it seems there are lots of older ones or tiny ones and none in the middle, this group seems to be more in the middle. Just hope this lovely weather continues for us to be able to meet up regularly. Wish I'd taken some photo's as they all looked so happy :-)

How many games can we play??Oh and stockmotion too!

2011-09-24T09:07:00.000-07:00

I mentioned on a previous post that we have had many game days recently. I really like board games myself (me and hubby play board games several times a week when the peeps are in bed) and think they use such a mass range of skills that its about 3/4 lessons rolled into 1 and rarely anyone complains about playing them either. I've spent the last few car boots looking out for games that we don't have, which is becoming harder as we have so many. A new favourite at the moment is Pokemon Yahtzee, which I picked up from a car boot for £1. All four of my children are really into Pokemon, although Bailey not as much now, he still is like the knowledgeable hero where the other three are concerned though and even Hubby has become a bit of an expert in it. The game is great for maths skills and learning to be patient whilst waiting for your turn.

I managed to pick this brand new and sealed game up for 50p, we haven't had chance to play it yet though but it looks like fun!

I also picked up Boggle for £1, I can't recommend this agme enough for literacy, its fantastic and we all love playing this game in a morning it really gets all our brains working! And I've seen some very interesting words from it too....

Continuing our game theme this week Bailey and Ruben decided to create a chess stockmotion video. It was lovely to see them do something constructive together for a change rather than wrestling , which is what they seem to be spending 80% of there time doing this week! Take a look.....

Food shopping challenge

2011-09-24T08:44:00.000-07:00

Now whilst I'm yet quite to think about GCSE'S for my four (lots of thought, just not sure what's right for them/us yet and in no rush to make a decision) I am very much of the opinion that whilst qualifications are great, life skills are much more valuable. One of the great things about home education is that your children are involved with many different social situations, my children are all aware that their is only one wage coming in and that we are on a tight budget. Whilst I don't want my children to have to worry about money, the reality is that our children are growing up smack bang in the middle of a recession. Whilst we have been lucky that Hubby's job has not been affected too much, the reality is our budget is being squeezed tightly by other factors such as gas/electricity prices, fuel prices, rental costs, food costs rising and the cost of clothing. I have never shopped as much at carboots, charity shops and budget supermarkets as I have in the last 12-18 months. I'm glad that I have discovered these things though because it has made me look at myself and my own shopping habits. Once a girl who used to love shopping and buying new things I have come to literally HATE shopping centres so much that they put me in the worst moods. Hubby has in the last few weeks refused to go to Meadowhell, hmmm I mean Meadowhall with me ever again because I was so horrible for the rest of the day. I think I've got around in blissful ignorance for a while not realising how much the recession is affecting us, until I needed to buy shoes/clothes/wellies/winter coats etc for the children. Now I'm quite appallled at the cost of a pair of jeans for a seven year old boy that spends his life crawling on the floor/mud/grass/concrete etc! With Christmas looming in the very-near distance and two of the children's birthdays, we have to begin to plan and think about these things. So, with this in mind I have set the children a task: For the next 3 weeks Bailey, Piper and Cordelia are not only going to plan what meals we have but are going to buy all the ingredients online and have it delivered. Sometimes I shop online and sometimes I go to the supermarket but to be honest I don't enjoy it that much and resent a quarter of my weekend being spent inside there. So very eagerly Cordelia has volunteered to go first, I have set them all a budget and any left over they can have as a contingency fund incase anything runs out. They have to have enough for 7 meals and not forget pet food for the dog and 3 cats either. So here is Cordelia with her full week's shopping. I haven't dictated meals, they were her choices and all I requested was hubby and mine's treat of Cherry Coke (not alcohol as we would much rather have a glass of coke!!) and I left the rest to her. She used so mnay skills in the hour and a half that it took her to do the shopping, obviously maths but problem solving too. Like for example an offer of fresh chiken meant that if she bought 5 extra ingredients in the offer then she would get the whole meal for £1 less than the chicken cost! She thought it was bonkers but she did it. And realising that we couldn't afford a £3 cheesecake for a pudding! I've designed a worksheet specifically for this task too! Will be intersting to see how it goes.

Ebay bargains and lots of pearly paintings

2011-09-24T08:42:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I managed to buy two lots of items from a seller for 99p each. As she was local there was no postage costs either, so what did I get for my £1.98? Books, books, books and some more books! Girls books, boys books, craft books, even a Cath Kidston book that was brand new, origami books and a few other things that I wasn't expecting like these pearlised arcylic paints which I'm sure would have been nearly £10 on their own. It inspired the children to pick up their paintbrushes, which they have been a little slack with until now. Now it seems to have reignited their imaginations once again! Best £1.98 ever spent I think....

Dungeons and Dragons

2011-09-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

Hubby has got Bailey, Cordelia and Ruben completely hooked on this board which we picked up for £1 from a boot sale a few months ago. They have now been playing it for 4 consecutive nights after tea. I'm sure its got absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it happens to be one of hubby's favourite games, nope nothing at all, pure coincidence! Its really, really great to see them being so enthusiastic about it though and also seeing how patient they can be whilst waiting their turn etc. Not that we are ever short of board games mind and we do play LOTS as you can learn so many important skills, in fact I have been meaning to do a post on some of our recent board game purchases, but life has got in the way! Here is the game all set up ready for after tea tonight:

Markham Grange Steam Museum

2011-09-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday we met up with the home ed group for a trip to Markham Grange Steam Museum, we haven't visited here before and haven't been to many group meetings of late, preferring instead to do our own thing, but its nice every now and then to see friends form the group. I have to admit to being more of a 1 to 1 person than a big group person but we all needed a trip out after the rubbish weather yesterday. The museum was only very small and I think the children were slightly disappointed but I think this was because of our recent(ish) trip to MOSI which was on a much larger scale. The staff however were really helpful, friendly and informative, which you think is how it should be but when you have children, not in school at term time, its not always the case! It was very, very warm inside and it has to be said that my children are not exactly the best with heat, so we had to come out for some fresh air after 15 minutes or so. Plus, as there was a pet centre next door to the museum and a few people had informed us of there being snakes and Gecko's in there I think they all would have rather gone in their first!! Still after some fresh air we went to see how the boiler works. It was a little similar to our power station visit but the information was more digestible. There were piles of chipboard and mdf behind the museum which is used for burning, people have to pay the musuem to get rid of it because its actually dangerous to burn as it contains glue. When MFI shut down recently they donated lots of their furniture to the museum to burn.

The man showed us where all the chipboard/mdf goes to get broken down and how the machine kicks out all the loose stones etc that get stuck in the chipboard. We then went to see this machine that magnetically removes all metals, this might well have been the children's favourite part, having a go with a piece of metal and seeing how far they could have the tool before it was dragged up by the magnets. Then we all got to look inside the boiler/furnace. Which was very, very hot as you can imagine but had what looked to be a super smiley face?

So are we?

2011-09-14T02:33:00.000-07:00

After reading this article this morning UK Children stuck in "Materialistic Trap" and also watching it on the news last night before bed, I thought I would write my views. In particular I like the line "The results were startling. Children in all three countries told researchers that their happiness is dependent on having time with family and friends and having "plenty to do outdoors". Really? This is startling? That children want to see their parents/family more and play outside? Surely this can't be that surprising? Haven't children always wanted this, I certainly don't think its a new development. Whilst its lovely that in places like Spain, extended family share childcare what if that's not always a possibility? My own parents work full-time and so do my in-laws and my children have rarely been cared for by anyone other than myself or my husband. Not that I'd actually want it any other way, I actually enjoy spending time with my children, but it wouldn't have been possible anyway. After reading this I'm even more certain that our decision to home educate was absolutely the right choice. We do go outdoors lots and see lots of friends and family. I think the "materialistic trap" it speaks about is much more rife at school and always has been, I notice it more during the holidays when my children see their old friends from school and it makes me quite sad. I had a conversation recently with my 9 year old daughter about how long your actually a child for and how long your an adult. When I put it to her like that she really thought about it differently. I think/actually I KNOW if my children were at school, they wouldn't be rushing home to play Playmobil, Lego and Barbie's.

What is to blame then-spending cuts from a new government? parents feeling guilty and buying more? society? Maybe all of them are. I think its not just children that are sucked in, I think we all are a bit. I know I have spent a large portion of my life being like that because I really didn't know any better, sometimes I still don't. Sometimes I forget the bigger picture of what I/we are providing for our children by allowing them the freedom to play, learn at their own pace and be themselves, sometimes I get caught up in what we can't have because there is only one of us with a wage. Because its everywhere! Especially on the street where I live anyway, its very much 'keeping-up-with-the-Jones'. We are the only people on our street who home educate, (quite possibly in the whole village,) the only people who have an old car, the only one's who rent rather than own our home. And because of that I feel we do get treated differently/sometimes ignored. However, they don't know us, they don't know how happy our children are and what a lovely family we have, so I figure its their loss not mine

This article makes me feel sad but to be perfectly honest I don't think its anything that I didn't know before it was published. It would be great if all the years UNICEF spent on this report something positive were to come out of it but I have a feeling things will just continue to go along the same way. Just for today though I will feel as if I'm doing my bit so that my children won't be one of the children giving out "startling" information to UNICEF in their next report.