just another morning here

Well, yesterday was pretty full of nothing, and Anna had made some comment about it being school holidays so therefore not having to do any *work* so I morphed into evil mother (not too difficult) and wrote lists of stuff for everyone to do. Myself included Well, it stopped them getting bored, and it actually felt like we achieved things today.

Ever since visiting Liz a couple of weeks ago I’ve been wanting to get into lapbooks – I’ve known about them for ages but not ever quite got motivated enough, managed to miss Karen B’s workshop at Melrose, but finally got round to starting something today. We made the backbone of a simple lapbook to gather together all the Tudor stuff we’ve done. I was actually quite amazed by how much you can incorporate into one simple folder, let alone some of the more elaborate things I’ve seen on the ‘net. Have been surfing and started a page of lapbook links in the sidebar somewhere.

The girls did mini-books on the kings and queens, little flaps about important people and events during Tudor times, I made a timeline and wrote a bit about the Tudor rose, and we have sections on Henry VIII and his wives, Tudor buildings, and art still in the pipeline. Now I’m itching to get our printer actually printing so that we can use it to help make titles and print off other bits and bobs – we have two printers in the family room and neither of them will talk to the pc at the moment (well, we think it’s the other way round, actually), so there’s a challenge.

Other than that we’ve done music practise, reading (I’m still in awe of Josiah’s!), and a bit of maths together – so it’s been a productive day. And there’s still been plenty of time for Neopets and gamecube

There’s a low rumble of work-related stuff going on in the background which is a bit unsettling, and my washing mountain is piling up, must get some of it sorted and ironed this evening. Is it 7pm already? Where does the time go?

Tiegan did most of the decorating of Queen Elizabeth 1′s jewelled dress

We had a lovely day today. One friend came for coffee while the girls drew and painted the backgrounds for the collage, Josiah was playing on StudyDog again (big hit there).

Then a bit later on Jules, Chelsea, Joseph and Tiegan turned up for lunch, chatting, playing, and collage. Don’t tell Steve, but all the art and craft today happened in the conservatory – well, it was a bit cold to be out in the garage, wasn’t it? The boys definitely enjoyed some gamecube related bonding, and the girls were doing a variety of things from collage to computers, together and separately. Yet again we agreed that we really should get together more often, and bemoaned our own lack of organisation in that department. Ho hum.

After that we had yet another dance class for Anna to go to, so I finally got Josiah dressed at 3pm! Well, it was comic relief today [also hence Henry VIII's funny nose in the portrait, at one point he had a bright red pompom for a nose, lol!] so I said they could stay in PJs, had forgotten that we had to go out! Joe and Abbie took turns playing StudyDog again while we waited for Anna, and Abbie did some Exeter maths too, and I read a book – so all nice and relaxing. Must go and cook tea though, otherwise it’s going to be a really late night here.

Knocking my section one on the head, we’re done with the monarchy We’ve watched the whole of the Henry VIII DVD, looked at a chapter on court life, and discussed royal palaces and what life in them might have been like. And today we enjoyed making these collages of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I collaboratively.

From having talked with the children, they each have a good understanding of who the kings and queens of the period were, how they were related to one another, and the events in the progression between monarchs in this period. And they can all sing the song from the Terrible Tudors CD which goes something like this:

[raucous voices singing very loudly]

Henry the Eighth was a big fat man
He loved to stuff his face in the frying pan
If he’d stayed away from the beer and wine
He wouldn’t have ended up like Frankenstein

[and so on for six verses (one for each wife), with different variations on the chorus and comparisons to other baddies such as Attila the Hun, Jack the Ripper, etc. So very educational, you have to hear it to believe it ]

Well, after Steve persuaded me to have coffee, toast & marmalade for breakfast the hangover disappeared The children have seemed equally hung over this morning; turns out they stayed up playing until really late last night, so we haven’t got a lot done today.

Josiah went off to Start Right quite happily with Steve, and the girls stayed in their pyjamas all morning. Anna came and did some Exeter maths with me which was lots of multiplication/times tables practise. Abbie played more Reader Rabbit Maths on the pc. Managed to get them dressed just in time to pick up Steve, who’d agreed to pick up Josiah but then ended up without a car. You’d think that with a forecourt full he’d have one he could use, but no

Anyway, we all ended up at home for lunch, our pastor came over for lunch as well which was nice – I use the word pastor to give a sense of how we think of him – could have said ‘our church leader came over for a chat’ but that doesn’t quite have the same emphasis. Could be talking gobbledegook here, but *I* know what I mean. It was a valuable hour and a half that we spent together, and I came away feeling encouraged about the things Steve and I are doing, and also challenged about my personal walk with God.

After that Steve went back to work, and the kids & I drove out to a nearby town where the home ed group rent a sports hall for an hour – the children played unihoc, a bit of football, ran around a lot, and at the end we had an organised game of rounders together – so it was good fun.

Back home we sat for half an hour or so and read the next chapter of our Tudor study guide thing together, all about Court life in Tudor times. Might get them being artistic on a Tudor theme tomorrow – we have friends round all day but if we’ve got the outline done before they arrive they can all be artistic together (what do you think, Jules?!).

We’re planning another Shakespeare story before bed, too – Anna’s read them all herself and enjoyed them but I want to read them to Abbie too. We have Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet coming from Lovefilm tomorrow, so I think we’ll do Romeo & Juliet tonight then they can watch the film tomorrow. Incidentally, we’ve not been very impressed with Lovefilm since they took over Moviechoices, so we’re thinking of changing to another postal DVD service – thought someone might be able to benefit from ‘inviting’ us, so if anyone wants to send us a tempting invite we’re on the lookout for the best introductory offer!

Right, I’m off to sizzle and stir something for dinner