just another morning here

Jules must have blogged the minute she got home this evening, and it’s taken me a while to catch up. Added to that, none of the photos on my camera of group today came out well, a bit disappointing really so if anyone else took any good ones it would be great to get copies – I’m trying to collect some decent photos from our group for a display we are doing at the city library in a month’s time – the trouble is that you can never quite capture HE group in a photo!

As Jules said, anyway, today’s meeting was fantastic. This was mainly due to a visit from two members of a local Tudor Dance group, and also due to the fantastic creative contributions of one of our group members who is particularly arty and seems to manage to bring brilliant art/craft things whatever the theme of our days together. Today was Henry VIII day, and she had brought Tudor Roses to make – incredibly simple but effective, also stained glass window stuff, and Tudor crowns to make.

The girls stood transfixed, in various bizarre clothing combinations, and listened to the ladies telling them about costume and daily life in Tudor times. One of the girls (there are advantages to being the tallest!) had the chance to dress in a proper Tudor costume, too. They did a couple of Tudor dances with us all which was quite fun! The boys, meanwhile, were outside engaging in Tudor swordplay

We took a game lifted straight from the back of the Horrible Histories book, which I think Abbie played with a couple of people outside. TBH I’m surprised my girls paid as much attention as they did, as we have kind of done the Tudors to death over the past few months, but they seemed as interested as ever. Lovely to catch up and chat with my friends, and I really am enjoying the themed group days – that picture of us dancing together does sum up the sense of fun and togetherness that we’ve somehow managed to find in this group and I’m proud to be part of it.

After group we went to the garage to chat to Steve only to find that he’d gone home, the slacker! Picked him up and dragged him to MFI to order Joe’s new bedroom furniture – the only way to get his room decorated is to give myself/ourselves a deadline for doing it by having a bed delivered! I know it’s only a tiny room, but I really hate decorating, and Steve isn’t much better than me. Josiah is very excited about the prospect of choosing paint etc., and he said today that he’d like to have an Incredibles birthday. Think that means an Incredibles cake, which we should be able to rustle up. Steve was going to make a Dougal one but he will have to get a bit more creative than swiss roll for Dash, I think!

Popped in to Sainsbury’s for taco shells on the way home which the kids thought was a great treat – in fact just a way of using up some mince and salad that needed eating, Steve and I also managed to find a bottle of wine that needed drinking

Spent this evening sorting laundry, ironing, and watching BB Eviction Night. Slightly worried that two complete strangers have added me to their flickr contacts (should I be concerned about this?) and yet another has some of my photos as favourites – they’re not even good ones, just random ones. Also slightly concerned at seeing Charlotte Church on the Jonathan Ross show tonight – she should have stuck to the choral stuff, should she not? Bob Geldof was good though.

Must be bedtime, anyway. I’m working tomorrow morning and Steve is doing the swimming lesson run, then my sister and her fiance are staying for the weekend so we’re looking forward to seeing them

Forgot that I didn’t have to dredge up Nanci lyrics any more, so now it’s back to thinking up boring titles, but at least they might make sense, well, for a while at least.

We had half a nice day here; Steve took the day off and we went to Buckland Abbey for the day, which fitted in with the Tudor project as it was Francis Drake’s family home. It was fantastic actually, loads to see, do and learn, and we all enjoyed it.

Things went downhill on the journey home, between them all the children have been annoying since about 3pm. Abbie has ended up being grounded from computer games for a week, and the other two have come close to similar sanctions. So they’ve been banished to bedrooms this evening and I’m not blogging about it, but they behaved appallingly at the dinner table and that was the last straw, obviously I have a huge pile of ironing to do so I’m procrastinating. Also found out this evening that I need to produce some bits and bobs for a display about the Miscarriage Support group for Sunday’s service at the hospital, so I have that to work on as well.

School has been on the cards for discussion between Steve and I today, but Anna has kind of retracted her bid for freedom from parental control – she surfaced at 8.50am and I pounced on her and told her to get ready immediately as if she wanted to go to school she’d have to be there by that time; followed that with ‘oh, and by the way, if you were there today you’d be missing out on the day out with Daddy’, and she conceded that for now at least she’s actually happy and knows she’s got a blindingly good deal at home. I guess the discussion will be ongoing, we do need to identify which issues are valid concerns, which are the ones we can do something about, and which to put under the ‘this too will pass’ category

Goals for tomorrow, I’m writing here rather than on a scrappy bit of paper somewhere:
• Swimming
• Plant some Strange and Unusual plants
• Finish any bits for the miscarriage group display
• Cook roast dinner in time to eat before Dr Who!
• Try to have a good day with the children

We’ll see how much of it I manage to achieve …

Changing the subject, I’ve been chatting to my sister today and have been very excited by a couple of her tentative wedding plans, especially this one! Does anyone out there make dresses, by the way? Somehow I don’t think bridesmaids’ dresses is a good place to start, but I reckon one can always get something more individual by having it made – Mim agrees but we don’t know anyone …

Proud of my boy, today The girls sat and did a bit of finishing off on their lapbook this morning, so he settled down to do his, and concentrated on it for hours after they’d gone off to play next door. Here he is actually playing with the life cycle and story sequencing cards that I made for him (printed off from here and here)

By lunchtime we had it finished, he’d stuck all the bits in, and he is so proud of himself. Obviously I helped him a fair amount with it, but he definitely has ownership of it as a project, and I’ve had to listen to him reading the book at least twice already today! When the girls came in a minute ago he made them sit and look at it with him, so I grabbed the camera and snapped over his shoulder.

self explanatory front cover

first level – numbers on the left, story sequencing and favourite words on the right

writing – Joe chose his favourite words from some of the pages and we wrote them out together, his is all his own work, no help from me at all

and inside is the life cycle stuff. forgot to photograph the back cover which has a beautifully coloured butterfly picture on it, complete with extra legs that Joe made me draw on, because the picture didn’t have the right number!

Then while I was at it I thought I might as well take photos of the girls’ project, even though it still has a couple of bits to finish off.

Front cover and first level opening (gotta love Abbie’s choice of picture this morning, Alice Arden being burned at the stake. Horrible Histories are to thank for the attraction of all things gory and gruesome!)

accordian fold mini books on each side at the top, hamburger fold books at the bottom, plus the extra flaps have a family tree and wordsearch stuck on.

Of course this is all very well and good but it isn’t getting my packing done, we’re off to Minehead tomorrow, and I’m procrastinating as usual. Steve is staying behind, hon, please remember to water the greenhouse pots as well as checking on the hamster – cleaning the house would be a welcome extra

Filled up my basket today at the Boden Sale and then closed the window on the credit card details page. How often do I do that – I mean, I could kit the kids out for next season but then they’re likely to get given bags of hand-me-downs between now and then, plus Tescos and Sainsbury’s clothes are still cheaper than the boden sale. Perhaps they wouldn’t last as long, but I’m inclined to think that they actually do, especially the way my kids wear clothes. And then there’s Jules’ shop as well

One at a time the girls have both completed a mini book for the lapbook this morning, and I think they have enjoyed it. I really don’t want to get into producing these things just for the sake of it, but they are a nice way to record all sorts of different activities, and because the miniature books are, well, miniature, you can never be expected to do *that* much writing in them, hence they’re not as offputting as an empty project book page. I’m planning to make a few blank mini-books of different sorts so that the girls can see how to make them, and maybe produce a ‘just for fun’ lapbook as an example for them to work from if they want to take it further. I think I will do one butterfly/caterpillar one with Josiah, as he’s expressed an interest, then leave it at that – but maybe when we encounter things I might suggest that the girls use mini-books for their records, then when they have enough for a lapbook we can put it together – that way it’s not a strenuous ‘work’ activity but the natural culmination of an area of interest.

On that natural interest topic, I must link to Gill’s fascinating Journey to Autonomy post. I’ve been thinking about the whole thing again recently, trying to work out where I stand on it all, but I can’t, so I’ll send you to Gill

Erm, where was I? Oh yes, this morning – made a caterpillar/butterfly life-cycle spinner thing with Josiah which he enjoyed colouring and sticking together, Anna did a mini book on Henry VIII’s wives, remembering all sorts of details that I had already forgotten, and Abbie did one compiling pictures of our artwork, and then Tudor buildings that we’ve spotted in Exeter. Only the ‘places we’ve visited’ mini-book to complete now – guess we’d better get visiting some of them – we’re planning Buckland Abbey (Francis Drake’s house), the Mary Rose, and the Kentwell Hall tudor re-enactments. If I’m honest, part of the reason for doing the lapbook is that *I* am tired of the tudor project now and wanted to knock it on the head, pull it all together, and move on. I am so not a natural historian.

Joe and Abbie played with their shadow puppets for a while, Anna went over to Mollie’s to play, we hung out some washing, watered the seeds in the greenhouse, then we popped to the shop for some bread, and en route found a book sale in the church hall. Picked up the entire ‘Little House’ series in a box set for £1.50 which I was most pleased about, and a few other things – the kids found a couple of books each and walked home with their noses in them, Josiah included. Much to my amusement, I had to keep pushing him back on to the pavement while he read some poem or other about being three – so lovely when they can just pick up any book and recognise enough in it to be able to make sense of it and then read more. I only had to fill in a couple of words (wriggle and giggle) but the rest he pretty well read for himself. Sorry, I’m going on about it rather a lot but it has just amazed me, I wasn’t expecting him to read so well so early, neither of the girls did – maybe that’s what home education and having two big sisters around (not to mention a mother who’s paying attention – every other time I’ve had a 3yo I’ve had a 1yo as well) does for a 3yo?! Or maybe it’s just him, who knows?!

Anyway. Went hunting for the Very Hungry Caterpillar on our bookshelves this morning, to no avail. Then I had a deep distant memory that perhaps the girls wore the original copy out and I got rid of it during one house move because it was falling apart … so I’m off to the library to see if I can find a copy there instead.