just another morning here

Joe and I spent a while this morning on the subject of castles; we’d finished off a worksheet that they had at Windsor last week so that I could stick it into our holiday diary/scrapbook thing, and then he got into the idea of castles and went to find his Usborne Great Castle Search book, as well as some other knight/castle books he has.

Then violin practice as usual, but with the addition of a pair of chopsticks! These are stuck into the holes of the violin at right angles, and serve to stop Joe’s bow veering off at strange angles down the fingerboard.

Don’t know if other teachers do this sort of thing as well or if it’s just a Suzuki idea but I imagine it will help a lot if he practices with them over a longer period of time. For a while he had an old 35mm film pot tied around the fingerboard to make sure his left hand didn’t collapse inward, and that helped a lot (although he still has to be reminded about the left hand shape sometimes!).

Steve came home mid-morning and we worked all together on the garage – it is now completely cleared out, and a garage full of crap (really should have taken before and after photos as it is an incredible difference!) has been transformed into a mainly empty space with tools/decorating/gardening stuff stored tidily on shelves at one end, and bikes at the other.

The girls got home after school and everyone had ice pops on the patio and played with the guinea pigs for a while. Then Anna went off to do music practice and Joe & Abbie got ready for swimming. Joe’s doing really well with his swimming at the moment, and his teacher rang over half term to say she wanted to give him a trial in the next class up. This means that he’s in the same group as Abbie! At first he was pleased about the move, then said he didn’t want to change groups [my heart sank, dreading yet another swimming lesson related trauma!]. I later managed to ascertain that the only reason he didn’t want to change was that he thought it might mean no time in the bar upstairs (where there is a tv, snack machine etc.), so we went up and watched the Simpsons as usual. He was still a bit nervous, but made a good effort. The trial’s extending to next week, mainly to help me out as if I get used on jury duty I can’t get them both there until 5.30pm anyway! Joe’s a bit titchy compared to the rest of them, so hasn’t got the physical strength/stamina of most of the class, but he kept up well enough, I thought. And perhaps him catching up will spur Abbie on, too

Dressed up for a Viking Day at school. Did the vikings wear plaits in their hair, does anyone know?!

Also – just look at the length of those school jumper sleeves. Honestly, children round here just don’t stop growing, aargh!

Apparently flickr is a blocked site from school, but my blog isn’t – I’m obviously deemed safe! Apologies to anyone else reading, but she wants these for a history project at school and this is the easiest way for her to pick them up without me lending her (and risking her losing) my usb key!

Anyway, here you go, Anna, copy and paste away, darling

Monday to Friday of our half term was spent at Helmsley Youth Hostel with a bunch of home ed friends. Steve came as well, after realising that he wouldn’t see the children at all if he didn’t! We were due to be camping in the van outside the hostel but in the end we had a room as one family couldn’t make it.

It was generally a lovely week, highlight for us probably being the day spent at Eden Camp (cunningly fitting in with Anna’s history project at school this term), despite the fact that Josiah was ill so he and Steve spent the afternoon in the van not in the museum, but anyway. Joe just had a high temperature and was back to normal the next day, thankfully.

The children really enjoyed spending time with their friends, as did we. In fact they were annoyed with us for dragging them to York one day rather than leaving them behind to play, but we had a nice walk around the city walls and wandered around (the outside of) the Minster as well as some birthday present shopping in the city centre.

The last full day of camp included a Halloween party, which mainly involved lots of food and some apple bobbing. Kids spent all day dressed up and generally had a ball I think Steve and I even managed to escape on our own that day and walked around the castle which was nice despite the drizzle.

Other things well worth a mention were definitely the food (Nic’s cooking really was fab) and the company generally. Note to self though, do not rely on husband for photos! Lots of fun had by all, anyway, even Steve