Everybody knows one…

A what? Bet Chris gets it!

Made some cakes with the children this morning in a desperate bid to not only have cheap white and slightly stale bread for sandwiches for lunch. So we made fairy cakes – Scarlett set out the paper cake cases, Davies did some stirring and they had a spoon each to lick (integral and necessary part of baking :lol:) which I topped with green butter cream and dolly mixtures for a really classy cake ;).

Mel, Liam and Lily arrived dead on time at 10am – guess it’s just us Home Ed folk who run to a different time zone then? 😳 The children scattered, Mel and I chatted and we regrouped two hours later for lunch – cheap white and slightly stale bread sandwiches followed by the cakes 😆 They started to watch Ice Age 2: The Meltdown but wandered off again. Probably for the first time ever Tarly and Lily seemed to actually enjoy each others company and played together in Tarly’s room. I’m not actually sure they were playing the same game with each other but they seemed to happily coexist in a fairly small space so that was good.

Mel and I had a couple of good chats about HE including a bit of a revelation for her about how it all works with me agreeing that there will indeed be gaps in D&S ‘s education but in just the same way there will be gaps in Liam and Lily’s NC prescribed education too – its just that they’ll be different ones. I told her a bit about the sorts of conversations we have and assured her that not being able to answer all a child’s questions without having to google most certainly doesn’t mean you can’t HE. I explained that actually we don’t finish school aged 16 complete with all the knowledge we need ready for life and never learn anything else and that actually learning about the stuff that interests us just as it comes up and without ever having to contrive or plan things nets just as much educational value as a classroom full of lesson plans. I gave a few examples including Davies’ recent question as to why a spider doesn’t get caught in it’s own web and yesterdays chatter about classical music and Italian names for pasta shapes and then Tarly wandered in with a geomag structure and proceeded to stick various metal hairslides to it giving a commentary on why the plastic ones wouldn’t stick. Love it when you get an impromptu real life example of what it’s all about.

When they left the children put a dvd on – more Charlie Brown / Peanuts and I got out some pens and paper and drew round all our hands for the handsup4homeed blog. I decorated mine, Tarly did hers, and Davies did some but managed to obliterate his name by colouring over it so I think he wants to redo it.

We’ve been debating reclaiming the room currently used as a playroom. It was our bedroom when the house was still a bungalow and although it has been made smaller to put the staircase and under stairs cupboard in it is still a double bedroom sized space – it had a spare kingsize bed and wardrobe comfortably in it when we only had Davies before we moved to Manchester. It is now more of a glorified cupboard and contains the bulk of the kids’ toys, the dressing up rail and various dumped things like the hoover. But despite being called The Playroom children never actually play in it, Davies and Scarlett have decent sized bedrooms and during the day are in the lounge with me or if they have friends round they tend to disappear off to the bedrooms. We have a dining room table and chairs in our garage from when we had a dining room in Manchester and were talking at the weekend about when we will be able to turn that room into a dining room. We still have too many toys to lose them into the children’s bedrooms without utterly cluttering them up but I do think we could maybe make a better use of that space so talking will continue as it would be good to maybe get a table into the house.

Anyway, when Mel left I went into the playroom to tidy up a bit and had a bit of a tantrum about the state of it generally. There being no other adult around to tantrum at I decided to do something about it myself and tugged out various things to put them away more tidily. Also dug out two lots of Letterland things (a game and a set of fridge magnets) to stick on ebay. At this rate I’ll be totally HE resource free within the year ;).

Lucy, R & R arrived for a flying visit, having been invited by text during Mel’s visit when I realised they would not be staying all day. Lucy joined me in the playroom while R&R joined D&S in the lounge (see, I told you they never play in the playroom 😉 ). Unfortunately D&S appeared to be all socialised out and were really annoying me by going on and on about the remaining cakes (only 3 left so not enough to offer round) including S having one for herself after I’d said no and D going and nicking the sweets off the top of one. There was also some fighting – play fighting as they both seemed to be enjoying it, but I was getting reported back to by Rebecca so I eventually lost my temper about that too. They got a dressing down after Lucy left and were contrite and apologetic for the remainder of the day.

Fired up I rang my parents to talk to them more about a few things which I’ve been brewing on. Still a bit more talk required but I think I got some results and at least a few answers so that was a positive if not totally resolved thing. 🙂

Tomorrow I’m working in the morning so I should probably go to bed to be all fresh and ready for the compliments bound to be lavished upon me whilst I’m there ;).