We popped along to the playgroup at Fulwood scout hut, where they run Forest kindergarten. It was super cold, but despite that autumn had great fun making the clay mud for buildings, and evan and I made a giant dragon egg nest, weaving willow sticks. It was a great value morning at £5 for our family, with tea and food for the kids round the campfire.
We got super muddy and smoky, and the kids had a great time. There were stories and games after food.
Thanks to Helen, Emma, and Flys.
Me: working on new choreography. New week schedule for activities, and continuing meal planner. Following instincts with kids, and listening to their needs. Initiating family games. This week we have a very old game called mattix and a new silly matching game with tricks to do from Dr. Suess, and a reminder of the game owari.
Evan: started formal guinea pig project. Taught oscar how to play owari. Showed great empathy and understanding when teaching him.
Autumn : all about "I have no idea" and her new ballet dress.
Pat: is withdrawing from school politics, in light of the fact he has a new job to go to. Watching new series, Hostages with me.
We decided to do not very much today, but did go to meadowhall for bits for the weddings we are going to in march. Autumn is being flower girl at her aunts wedding, and we have been asked to get the shoes. Also evan will be taking part so he needed smart clothes too.
We rarely do shopping outings so this fairly mundane sounding day was actually a bit further a novelty to us. The photos show our fun
Yesterday we had a full on day, with swimming, library visit doing worksheets on Guinea pigs, highfields adventure playground, highfields library for craft and reading and street dance. The full on day was planned together with the children, so I went with it. We chatted at the end of the day, and they both said they were really tired. So we decided to take it easy today, and only go to dancing. However, we did end up going yo the walled garden with friends. Evan got to use his Christmas present of a fire bowl, and helped to build and keep the fire alive for the whole visit. It was great fun.
Today, I was looking after a friend's children, and decided to take a trip to the local park to buy eggs from the animal park there, and take advantage of the gorgeous warm and sunny day we had.
Whilst walking through the park Evan loved noticing the magical affect of the frost on the surroundings; from the whiteness and shining of the path providing an immediate I've skating rink, to the drips from the bench where the sun melted the frost, the crunch of the grass, the circle of ice found in a manhole cover and to the puddles which could be ice rink for the faeries. Autumn was fascinated by little things on our journey too, though a little peeved at having to walk.
These captured moments made me realise that since we now have a second car we walk far less, and live a much busier life than before. Perhaps we should cut down our car usage and have outings on car free day once a week. So we can chat and smell the roses again.
We met our friends in the park, fed the animals, with one super hungry or greedy llama, played in the playground, encountered and was chased by a giant chicken with blue, red and green feathers, who seemingly followed us home, and called to his friends to visit too!
Later me and the girls had a nice time cuddling the guinea pigs, I ended up with both of them very settled on me whilst I drank tea and read a book. Bliss!
Fun was had by all throughout the afternoon, topped off with a bit of outdoor play.
Thank you magnificent weather, thank you wonderful children, thank you brilliant park, thank you industrious chickens for our 2 dozen eggs, and thank you to home education for this marvellous opportunity.
We managed a lovely spot of art this morning. Evan and autumn both made clay objects and added the funny foam sparkly topping to it, that we got as a Christmas present. Evan intended on making an Octopod, but the structure couldn't withstand the arms, so it became a mimic octopus instead. Autumn made a horse which became a unicorn. Evan used the thumbpot technique to make the octopus body, and pipe cleaners to create the apatures beneath the clay, as did autumn for the unicorn.
They both expressed a wish to make faerie homes in the woods, so we popped out behind the house to the ancient woodland to find a good spot. A small clearing became the setting. Evan chose a small structure on a tree to make a faerie home. Autumn made a bed, and created a spikey roof to spike the bottoms of dragons to keep the faeries safe. This was inspired by our time at forest school last week.
Today we decided to do a little climbing, and we asked the staff for a game Evan might play, and Evan loved the idea of using the colours of a file to determine which jigsaw piece yo get all of his body in. This got him to think about different sorts of movement on the wall, planning and using a variety of holds. He thoroughly enjoyed it, as the pictures are testament to.
He went on to plan a few routes of his own, working out the hand and foot holds to climb with.
We've missed a few weeks as christmas and the guinea pigs have somewhat taken over our time and home. I'm not going to fill in the blanks as it is unnecessarily onerous. This week has been our first week of the year back in the swing of things.
Monday we did a load of jobs in the morning, and had the afternoon with friends.
Tuesday we tidied our bombsite of a home before going to highfields playground, then library, the garage and street dance.
Wednesday was ballet and tap then walled garden.
Thursday gymnastics, then friends over.
Friday was going to an open day at wild about play, which will be running a home education group in a few months, followed by a very exciting science club on the subject of elastic energy.
Week is a bit packed at the moment, with little to no time at home doing anything other than chores. Need to create a bit more space in the coming weeks if possible.
I have undertaken a new meal planning and cooking regime yo help me out of the meal anarchy which has been raging for longer than I would have desired. It involves little movable squares with meals on which I put on a calendar according to the time i have available to cook. Then attempting to cook breakfast lunch and dinner in one go, hopefully cutting down my cooking time. So far I feel like I've ignored the kids every morning. Hmm, might have to review this.
