England - week 2

Monday: home ed things; skating; karaoke; ballet; [DH blog]
When I got home from work, the kids were v excited about ballet, FrB enjoyed it, and felt comfortable there, as it is a very small group of 4, so lots of individual attention. They were pleased to tell me how hard they had worked. FrB felt her english book was a bit difficult for her, so we rooted around and found a selection of different style english books from years 4-6 and she is going to start simply with DH and change book as she gets more confident.
The girls were also keen to do some more of their history journal, so we looked at tool making from flints, found an excellent website - museum of the stone age and cut out some pictures of tools to stick in the journal. We then watched the first half of the first episode of sacred wonders of britain . It was a bit too wordy for FrB, but I talked over the top, and we looked at the places it would be interesting to visit.
FrB was keen to get started on piano lessons, so we played piano together and she got started on the beginning book. Once she has mastered notes, I imagine she will race through the book, as she is already skilled in playing the oboe. SB and I also did a practice together, starting a previously learnt grade 3 piece to get her fingers back, and enjoying playing our jazz duets. I have really missed playing them with her, as they make me smile :)

Tuesday: home ed things, local home ed botany group field trip. bread making, pancake tossing [DH blog]

Weds: weds4ed, latin, judo -
 FrB has now met all the children the come to it through different meetings - centerparcs holiday and skating - so building individual relationships of her own with the other kids. There are 3 families that regularly come, and another family that pops to those they can make. It was nearly full house today!
We started with kfish talking about Warhol, showing examples of his art, why he worked as he did and the impact it made. I hastily printed off a black and white photo of each child. Kfish then got them tracing over the key elements of their photos and transfering this to paper and using colour blocks. they were very effective! there was lots of talking and happiness whilst they did it too - always lovely. Art is a good starter session for mixed age groups. As always, the children had their own take of the brief.

Following this, some children played board games, and some electronic games whilst we made pasta for lunch

Following lunch we had some musicians playing together whilst some did science, and then as the musicians bowed out, they had science and the noisier ones got their minecraft fix! This time in science we had a discussion about neurons, sensory, motor and relay, their structure and jobs. We then did some experimenting to test our reaction times, and try and work out the average speed of the signalling along the neurons.






All 3 girls had judo in the evening, BB is in the younger class, so whilst she had judo, FrB and SB did some latin with me. we are using my beloved cambridge and caecilius :) .Clearly people in France and England don't pronounce Latin words identically, so we have agreed to 'roll with it' for various things, and concentrate on learning something rather than arguing over it ;) . The girls had judo, which FrB enjoyed, and said the kyoshi was very helpful and the group was friendly. SO all happy :) they watched a bit of the british sewing bee before bedtime - FrB is keen to do some sewing.
some resources:


Thurs: home ed things whilst BB local home ed young engineers, cubs/guides [ DH blog]

Friday: conservation group am - FrB hasn't quite got enough 'scruffy' clothes, so we suggested she use some of SB's old clothes to do conservation work in - apparently she just couldn't wear bootcut jeans, they need to be skinny :) :) ah, the return of teenagers to this house :) . she was shattered in the pm and had a snooze whilst SB did second ballet class, she has decided to do monday ballet, but not the friday.

The weekend: on friday we left to visit my parents. a nice straightforward drive and we made good time. yummy tea awaited us too :) Dad shew BB and subsequently the other girls the qbitz game, which they all enjoyed.

The next day we went to windsor castle. the royal standard was flying, so the queen was there. FrB was very hopeful she might see her. although expensive, thereis a lot to see, and we were wandering round for over 4 hours. We loved the dolls house, the state rooms were magnificent, and it was a warm and sunny day - all perfect :) . the girls had their photos taken with the queens guard.



afterwards we went into a tourist shop to spend money, cafe rouge for an exceptionally late lunch! and the sweetie shop for some old fashioned sweets before returning home to play more games, eat more food and generally enjoy mum and dads company.

we spent another lovely evening playing games together, and the girls watched some tv. The next day we went to Burnham Beeches for a walk on our way home as the weather was so lovely. It is a remnant of ancient woodland, and has many native english trees, but predominantly beech, and also a stream to play in.


oh, and it had somewhere that sold icecream!