If you don’t know and I don’t know

A much needed lazier start to the morning and as the children were happily engrossed in their DSs and I had plenty of things to be getting on with we decided to stay home this morning.

I managed to process some laundry, send some emails that were overdue and plough through a towering pile of paperwork most of which is now in the recycling.

We had lunch and enjoyed a retro 90 minutes or so watching Cbeebies taking in Bits n Bobs, Balamory, The Birthday Song and cards (which I still smart over never having managed to get a card on or a child wished Happy Birthday despite some truly outstanding efforts when they were 2, 3 and 4).

I found myself rather hankering for the days when I set my watch by Miss Hooley and which song was being sung on Tikkabilla. It’s all sleepovers and expensive extra stuff nowadays. I never did believe people who said their childhood would pass in a flash but those early days did and life really was simpler when people expected and commended you for being a SAHM rather than a weird Home Educator.

We left slightly later than I’d planned thanks to David the Thank you Neighbour lurking around when we headed off and me forgetting my car needed petrol. I also realised on the way that I wasn’t entirely sure where Hove library actually was which was where we were heading. After some random driving about we spotted the library on the opposite side of the road to where I’d assumed it was, managed to get a parking space in the Tesco opposite and ran across the road to arrive just on time. We needn’t have worried as although the event was supposed to start at 330pm in actuality this was very ambitious given how many of the attendees were school children.

I suspect we really skewed the numbers actually as not only did I provide 2 HE children we also met Liza and Andrew (who had told us about the event) and Dani and Leo there, bringing the ratio of home ed to schooled kids up to about 1:3.

The event was a stop animation workshop for 90 minutes in the childrens library.

It was pretty good actually although there were slightly too many children for the space available and the computers allocated but it was very well run and all the kids got to do all the bits I think and four very good films were created by the children working in groups of 3s.

Davies worked with Andrew and Leo and they seemed to collaborate well with a mix of ideas that all three of them seemed happy with. Scarlett was less cooperative I suspect but made a very good plasticine cat and egg and had good storyline ideas. I don’t think either of my children are great at wokring with others to create something as they are both far keener to make their own vision. I really understand that as I hate working with someone else on a project like that. I’m sure if it’s a skill they need to develop to work in whatever they choose to do they will see the merit of it and learn to cope, or they’ll decide like I have that it’s not imperative to learn and will find stuff to do that they can continue to work alone on.

We nipped into Tesco for a few bits which also justified using their free carpark and then headed for home. Both children had been alllowed to bring home the lumps of plasticine they’d been using so they played in the back of the car with their creations.

Ady pulled up moments after us so we caught up with each others day while the kids had tea of eggs on toast. I read several chapters of the Giants and the Joneses which is being enjoyed and then it was bedtime.

Davies reappeared downstairs and chatted to me in the bath and then set the table for Ady and I complete with beautifully written placenames and flowers.