things we've done over the last week

We found two snails in the tadpole tank, they must have been on the plants we put in they have been seperated and have their very own tanks now (a mayonaise jar)

We took out every encyclopedia yesterday to read about crocdiles and Euan mentioned that their webby bits are just like our webby bits. He is since obsessed with webby bits and checks every animal for them

we turned some of their artwork into little mosters.

rescued a blackbird out of the jaws of Rodney

found slowworms and read up on them








played dinosaurs as loud as we could

bought Euans birthday present and managed to sneak it inside without him noticing (you can see it here)

did a test to see what foods in the kitchen would pop like popcorn (only popcorn)

found out Thomas can open the big heavy drawer in the kitchen

and he likes cocoapowder

hung up a photoframe that I got as a gift last xmas


brought the spinningwheel back down in the hopes the twins will treat it gently (they have so far!!)


played lots with cars and dinosaurs


knitted tiny rabbits and teddybears


recieved a swapparcel


and opened it



watched the WB carnival parade in the rain





put money in the buckets


saw a rainbow on the way home



made a tree

played scary insect

bought a dino book

chewed gum (and swallowed some!)



played in the park



craweled backwards down a hill





I haven't finished sorting trough all the photos so I've still got to add some....

a day in our life..

Today I picked up a bargain in one of the charityshops on the Highstreet (more on that in another post) whilst loading up the pushchair with all 10 books (like that thing isn't heavy enough!) a lady paying for her things comented on how nice it was a kid was buying books and would spend less time in front of the telly. the conversation went something like this
lady: So nice to see him buying books and spending less time watching telly
Me: o we don't have one
Lady: confused you what??
me: we don't have a telly
lady: o
silence
lady: but they still get loads of it in school and such
me: o we don't do that
lady: (now really confused) what you don't do school?
me: no'p
lady: (looking at the charityshop lady for help) but but...
charityshop lady chimed in: I did that with my kids until they went to a steinerschool
lady: but what do you do then?
me: we homeeducate
lady: is that legal?
me biting my tongue whilst nodding

Now really if it wasn't legal would I just tell a stranger that we HE? would I be out and about with my nearly 5 year old in a town where every kid goes to school practically before they are born? I have to say I was not expecting charityshop lady to have he'ed her kids and certainly didn't think she was the steinerschool type! just shows that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover (I do though I refuse to read some of James's horrbile covered books ust because of the cover...)

After a few minutes (its difficult packing 10 bulky books into a pushchair) the lady asked me "but what do you do? how do you know what he is learning"
Quite a lot of people ask this, which I find odd. I mean I am with my kids pretty much 24/7, and we obviously interact a lot in that time and trough this interaction I know what they know sometimes they know more than i thought but on the whole I know what they know and what they don't know.
Now if Euan went to school he would be in a class of 30-35 kids and one teacher and maybe one assistant how on earth can 2 people know what 30 students know or don't know? Sure they can do tests but do they know if a student truly understands what has been thought?

after this bit of fun we went on to sainsbury's to pick up some babywipes which I forgot on wednesday. Euan got the list (6 packs of babywipes and a bag of compost) he had to count the packs and put them in the basket and he got to pay at the checkout (he paid the charityshop lady too!). We got home and he spend the next 2 hours (naptime) looking trough his new books.
We spend and hour in the park during which I thought him to make daisychains and he told me what plants and trees are in the park. we got home and they tried out all the toys on the slide to see what toy would go fastest and furthest.
We also planted more seeds this morning and transplanted some seedlings.
All in all we do a lot during a day and you know what they enjoy every minute of it. they are free to be who they are and are not forced to do silly tests, sit still for hours on end and spend most of their time away from their family.

Its hard work but I wouldn't change it for the world!

Now on the not owning a telly front, we finally canceled our tv license a couple of months ago and the threats have started the demands and the horrible letters misleading you into thinking they have power where they do not! It is quite horrible how they treat people and the lies they tell you. Want to know more about BBC and their interesting bullying tactics? go to letters from TV licensing also check out this guys link section.

Ugh

The boys all have croup. so it has been sleepless nights for the last 3 nights. Thankfully it is coming to an end now.

We had another fox visit this morning and somehow he managed to get our Oskar. I found poor Valen huddled up in the house this morning, obviously he is inside now. Both of them are old and oskar was going blind. Valen seems to be ok he's eating and comes for a snuggle so hopefully he'll be fine.

We got our book order yesterday, Euan got a couple of Elsa beskows books (pelle & forestchildren) We got a craftbook to share. We got a story, song & poembook for everyone.
I am really pleased wih all the books. I *love* the elsa beskow books. the drawings are fantastic very very sweet. The story is cute but not in a sickenig way. animals die, animals eat animals all in a way that its just part of the story, not scary or something that needs atention just a fact of life.
The craft book is great its all 3 previous books in one (easter, christmas, harvest). It has an enormous amount of crafts in it for all abilities. from different types of lanterns to acorn snakes bread dragons harvest wreaths, well I could go on and on. I'm sure you'll see a bunch of the crafts pop up on the blog.
We got a book on storytelling to. Yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of opa's death and the first page I opend the book on was a little witch you mae with your hand, just like opa used to do it was weird to see that picture I hadn't thought about it for a long time.

I've also been enjoying a bunch of blogs. Now I have figured out i can follow these blogs with blogger I don't forget about them. I will see if I can put my bloglist in the side somehow so you can see what I read. If you're reading and you have a home ed blog let me know :)

star lantern tutorial

I put up a tutorial on flickr for making the star lanterns. I've copied it here.

charity shops & nature studies

We came home with a stunt kite a bunch of books some map puzzles an alphabet puzzle a vocab puzzle and a math game all for less than 10 pounds.

I came across this site yesterday. Since squish and I go for a walk at least once everyday (except for times where it rains so much the street floods in less than 10 minutes) I thought we'd join.
I realize we are weeks behind but its fun nonetheless.
We picked up a couple of nice notebooks and coloured pencils, we have a little rucksack with binoculars and a bugjar that squish got from granny last christmas.
I hope to have something to post tomorrow:)