Earth to table in two hours

Forest school this morning – today was week 8 of 10, so only two more after this. I wasn’t planning on staying although I didn’t have anything else to do so was intending to just sit in my car in the carpark and read my book. But I got chatting to a couple of the other parents about the review and stuff and felt like being with other Home Educators for a while so walked up the hill and stayed instead.

Actually we didn’t do much chatting, or talking further than that because it was a very hands on session and I ended up helping Scarlett with her activity, which was even nicer so I’m glad I stayed :).

There was a different ranger there today, in place of the older guy with the dog. I have to say not only did I not miss the dog I thought the other ranger was very good. He was very knowledgable about trees, excellent at engaging with the kids and for full comedy value looking like he’d been cloned from the other young ranger 😆

They started with firelighting, as always. All the children are really proficient with the fire steels now and I know I’ve seen at least two different methods of laying a campfire that I will try next time we’re camping. They paused for a snack break but for once seemed to be chatting as a group rather than splintering off, then they brought out the activity of the day which was making a musical instrument from wood. Millie the ranger had a selection including a kazoo and a whistle and Peter the ranger had various sized pieces of wood he laid in a xylophone formation. There were saws, string, palm drills, knives and all the wood you could gather.

Davies decided straight away he wanted to make a whistle, as did several other children despite them being told it was tricky. This was fine but did mean they spent lots of time waiting for the one to one required and also a lot of it they didn’t get to do themselves. But after a false start of it not working the Cloned Ranger (see what I did there?!) stepped up and took them off to look for some hazel and got them working :).

Scarlett looked a bit lost so I suggested to her we make a windchime type instrument like one she loves hanging in the woods at the green burial site over one of the graves there. She liked this idea so went off to gather wood. She came back with a big stick to use as the rod to hang them from, a selection of long and short sticks of different widths and together we drilled holes in all of them and threaded them along the rod through a row of holes we drilled in that. Scarlett did a bit of the drilling and a lot of the threading and all of the deciding what would go where. She couldn’t have done it by herself but it was certainly her creation 🙂 She also found a stick to be the banger/ chimer.

The session went on almost til the end so absorbed were all the children in what they were making. There was just time for hot chocolate and a quick go round the circle for everyone to play their instrument (the other popular choice was a clacker which were also really good).

It was definitely the best session I’ve sat in on and both children actually felt like they’d learnt something and got an experience we wouldn’t have just had walking through the woods on our own.

We left and headed for home for lunch. I discovered a book I’d ordered, Moving a Puddle, and Other Essays had arrived so read some of that. Very timely actually as although I’ve only read the first couple of essays I was sitting there feeling myself relax over someone writing so well and getting what we’re about.

Scarlett curled up next to me and we shared a coconut while Davies, with the aid of a gamefaq walkthrough got through a bit on the xbox he’d been battling with.

Then it was time for swimming. We left early as I needed to call in to the local council waste and recycling office to collect some litterpickers they are lending us for our litter collecting next week but I’d left more time than was needed so we had 15 minutes in the pool together before their lesson. Neither of them are amazing swimmers yet but their confidence is lovely. They both dive under and do somersalts under water and all sorts. I might be able to swim but I still don’t like getting my face wet so it’s lovely to see how much they’ve already eclipsed me :).

They went off to their lesson and I did my lengths.I have been doing breast stroke, front crawl, breast stroke, backstroke repetitons and last week got up to 24 lengths but wanted to make it harder so swapped to breast stroke, backstroke, front crawl, backstroke repetitions as backstroke is my best, the one I can put most efforts into and also my fastest stroke. I managed 24 again which I was really pleased with given how much harder I’d found it with the different strokes. Maybe next week it’ll be 26 🙂

I was all puffed out and wobbly legged when I got out but the kids wanted a go on the slide so I stood watching while they had 3 goes each on the slide, before persuading them out to get showered and dressed. We called into the chip shop for fish and chips for them for tea and headed up to the allotment to meet Ady.

The kids sat on the bench in the sunshine looking out at the seaview and then played on their plots while we did some weeding and some harvesting. I watered and we were there for a good 90 minutes before coming home again. Ady nipped off to get beers while I showered the kids, hung some washing out, brought some washing in and stuck the towels and swimsuits in the wash and dealt with a very stupid broody hen who keeps trying to lay eggs and sit on them in the middle of our logpile.

We finished and whilst we already have the next 2 waiting I think we might move onto something else for a while.I do like them and they are easy and enjoyable enough to read but it doesn’t feel enough like you’re getting stuck into a good story for me. Davies and Scarlett love them and they have inspired all sorts of adventure games so I’m sure we’ll plough through the rest at some point.

Ady cooked a lovely dinner which included eggs from our chickens and potaoes we’d just pulled out of the ground, hence the title. I don’t know, vegetable consumption and a table – what next I hear you cry! 😆

Davies wrote a note to Scarlett’s Duffy cat character which read ‘to Duffy Cat, I fink that the Mr Gum fing is cwl’ which I probably don’t even need to translate, particularly given it looks a bit like texttalk which is surely all our kids will need to know anyway ;).

We watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – well Ady dipped in and out and I got a bit lost in the middle but I thought it was very good. Quite ‘Time Travellers Wife’ in many ways. Not at all sure it needed to be 2.5 hours long though.