Those of you who give a monkeys will note that I have ticked every single box under edyoocatin today. TBH as I was saying to Barbara at the weekend I probably could most days really depending on how my ability for spin is doing that day but today is genuine.
We took delivery of a Brightminds order first thing (I was still in my nightie even!) some of which has been squirreled away for birthday gifts but the Dr Seuss trio of cd roms was broken out now and has gone down very well indeed. Davies played it but Tarly showed a fair amount of interest in it too. They did Cat in the Hat on my laptop while I was getting dressed and then Green Eggs and Ham while I hung washing out. Davies is back there again with GE&H now and loving it. Which obviously ticks off reading and IT – oh and resources for me 🙂 Whilst I write this Tarly is demonstrating her precocious ‘thing’ for the day and using her knife and fork while giving me a running comentary on what she is doing ‘Mummy, you put your knife there and Mummy you put your fork here and then you…’ very cute and clearly a potential Home Educating parent in the making 😉
We set off for Ali’s for once arriving pretty much dead on time and on the way we listened to the Monsters Inc soundtrack and Davies named some of the instruments playing and then some Mozart for Minors – all of which we have forgotten the names of the pieces so need to dig the cover out again and refresh myself on that. I forgot to mention yesterday that Davies requested War of the Worlds on when we drove to Drusillas. Before when we’ve listened to it they have just enjoyed the drama of the music but this time Davies started to listen to the actual story so that sparked off loads of discussion about life on other planets, beliefs and led onto religion. We did get really into music and related stuff earlier this year and it’s slipped in favour of pop jr cd and a bit of James Blunt so we must get back into that again on long car journeys.
At Ali’s the children played in various duos and occassionally a trio in all sorts of games including (but not an exhaustive list) making Christmas outside and inviting us out to see it with Davies sliding down the slide and dancing on the steps, Tarly and Freya doing simultaneous trampoline bouncing while they all sang ‘Merry Christmas’ and everything was decorated in chalk ‘snow’, lots of play with the dolls house, water (and mud) play, drawing, Tarly and Freya disappeared upstairs for (I imagine) girly dolls type play while Davies pottered outside happily for a bit, then recreated a life cycle of a turtle which had been in a book we looked at recently by getting a large soft toy turtle to come out of the sea (using blue and yellow rugs to determine the sand and the sea) to lay an egg (a large stone which he remembered lives at Ali’s and went off to find specifically) then went back to the sea. The egg hatched into a baby turtle (one of the fimbles – the blue and purple one – Florrie?) and returned to the sea herself. He then told us turtles are amphibians and with a little guidance told us that frogs are too – bless! They also all played Superheros, did lots of running around and some sharing, negotiating and turn taking all took place too. Who needs school eh?!
Meanwhile Ali and I had lots of deep chats about all manner of stuff including personal growth and development, socialising, learning styles, Home Ed planning, local groups and other extra curricular stuff, relationships, online stuff, real life and so on. I found myself articulating a few things which I hadn’t even realised I was thinking until I started talking about them so that was interesting and I intend to take action on a couple of things as a result (thanks Ali :-)).
I’ve arrived home to discover I’ve sold most of the 21 items I put on ebay so that’s good in a dual purpose fund raising and clutter clearing way but does mean I need to find the brown paper and get some parcels sorted out and on their way to the post office.
Tomorrow we’re off to Lakeside with Ady as I need a few holiday related bits and as I have just worked out 12 birthday cards for this month so might as well do a bulk buy at Clintons there for those too. Davies has been promised a trial run of the new in car dvd played we’ve bought which will hopefully distract him from his travel sickness a bit and help me from feeling murderous thoughts towards him when we travel somewhere as a family and I attempt to talk to Ady instead of answering his constant stream of questions.
Right, off to tidy up a bit and then chuck kids into the bath to wash off Christmas chalk and mud from Ali’s garden before Ady gets home.