September 2016

During the first week of September, we visited Yorkshire and discovered the hydroelectric plant on the River Wharfe, in Grassington.

"In 1909, Grassington received its first electricity from a hydroelectric plant at Linton Falls, which continued to run until 1948. Plans to revive the plant through an English Heritage project, using two Archimedean screw turbines to produce 510,000 kilowatt hours per year came to fruition a while ago.The plant, now operational, sits on the River Wharfe just below the town." 

We also enjoyed walking along part of the Leeds to Liverpool canal, as it passed through Skipton:

Leeds - Liverpool Canal

On the way home from Yorkshire, we stopped off at Abraham Heights, to explore, amongst other things, the caves there. 

Here we developed a keen interest in minerals. 

We collected some pieces of limestone and bought some other mineral samples from the shop.

Since then, Matthew and I have cracked open several rocks in the River Barle at Landacre Bridge on Exmoor.
This is a great site for studying erosion and deposition.

On Wednesday 7th September, the children had their first Science Class of the term, where they learnt how to make circuits using conductive paint and conductive thread.

In Art, the children found out about Pop Art and created an Andy Warhole inspired piece of Art Work.

While Sarah was at Music School on the 17th, Matthew went to his friend's house to pick apples, He had also enjoyed climbing the apple trees to reach the apples in his Grandad's garden with Aunty Fiona earlier in the week. 

Matthew and his friend made crumble together.

Later we all went to Art to Art with Sarah's friend to paint some china. Everyone was very creative. Sarah painted a cup and a coaster to go with the tea pot she got for her birthday. 

Afterwards we enjoyed a meal at The Harvester.

The lovely waitress was interested to see that Sarah was reading a Horrible History book and told her that she learnt most of her history from these books. She told us she was studying Zoology in Bristol. 

The next day we took Matthew, Sarah and their cousin to Landacre Bridge, where they enjoyed gliding along the river on surf boards. This was when Matthew and I discovered all sorts of minerals and enjoyed cracking open the rocks to find them.

They also made a Library at home using Sarah's new Library set.

On Monday 19th, we went to visit our friends in Porlock, as they had made a birthday cake for Sarah.

On Wednesday 21st September, we went to Taunton for the children's Science and Art Classes, where they also have immense fun playing in the garden with their friends.

In Science, they had fun with electronics and made some little robots.

In Art, the children looked at the art work of Emma Dibben and created their own still-life of cut fruit.

We sometimes go to Wellsprings Park or Priorswood Park afterwards too with some friends, which the children really enjoy.

Sarah went to her Music School on Saturday 24th September, after which, she met up again with her friend in a coffee shop

to look at the china they had painted the previous week and which was now ready. They were both very pleased with the results.

The following day, our friends from Porlock came over to our house for Sunday roast. It was great fun. The children played together, totally absorbed in their games.

On Tuesday 27th, we drove to Wrantage, near Taunton for another horse riding lesson with a small group of home educated children. Sarah and Matthew really enjoy these sessions, which are really well run.

We then joined the home ed group at Caroline's house for their Dinosaur themed topic day.
The most exciting part for Sarah and Matthew, was playing all sorts of team games with their friends in the garden towards the end.

On Wednesday 28th, we went to visit Lanacre Barn Art Studio, where the children were given a mini Master Class by the Artist, Jo Minoprio. Sarah and Matthew both chose a favourite painting to 'copy' and she showed them the various techniques she had used to create these paintings. They took home their art work along with a postcard of their chosen works. It was an amazing experience.

Jo Minoprio Art

The next day on the 29th September, the children went to their drama class in Oake, where they are going to act in a production of Pater Pan. Matthew has the part of John, with 20 lines and Sarah is a pirate, as well as a stage hand. They got to choose their own parts and Matthew has already learnt his lines.

After drama, Matthew's friend came to stay the night at our house and we took Sarah to stay with her friend in Porlock. Matthew and his friend had a chocolate / fruit fondue. At bedtime, they also enjoyed sharing the jokes in Sarah's Aquila Magazines,

as well as reading Flat Stanley.

On Friday, they took their snacks into the woods and played on the go cart, before making American pancakes.

We met his mum in Minehead and I picked Sarah up from a Youth Group later.

In addition to these activities, the children have continued to work their way through the brilliant Conquer Maths programme. Sarah has written some amazing poems and Matthew has dictated some imaginative stories for his blog.
Sarah has also chosen to make her observations into news stories and has created a ten page newspaper with illustrations.

They have both enjoyed cooking (They made some chocolate crackle cakes independently on Sunday) and enjoyed riding their bikes up and down the farm track, as well as at the park and at Grandma's.

Sarah has devoured lots and lots of books and is currently reading The Lady Jane Grace Mysteries, based in Tudor Times.
She has invented her own code language for pleasure and to share with their cousins.
Matthew was particularly excited about this idea and rang up the cousins to tell them about this.

Sarah can't wait for us to replace our camera, so that she can get back to taking photos, which she loves to do.

London

We have just returned from London.

We travelled by car to Sydenham, an area of London, which is close to Bromley.
Deciding to take the plunge, we booked into
 
rooms for the first time. We were lucky to find a house that was new to the website and therefore relatively cheap. It was also spotlessly clean and although the rooms were small, they were well furnished and attractive.

Amazingly enough, our hostess gave us the run of her little house, with the exception of a couple of locked rooms. We only saw her once on our arrival.

After settling in to our lovely accommodation, we drove to Bromley, to meet up with the children's grandparents, We enjoyed a lovely meal together at Cafe Rouge. Granny had bought each of the children a pocket activity book -  a cross word puzzle book for Sarah and a book of mazes for Matthew. They were inspired presents. Sarah wiled away the evening, quietly working through the puzzles and occasionally involved us in helping to solve the clues.

Matthew got us all to try the taster pot of snails on the menu, and although we were glad we went along with his idea, we all agreed that they were not at all to our taste.

The next morning we drove to the hotel to meet up with the family for breakfast.
We followed their taxi to the registry office where my husband's young cousin was to be married.

It was a bright, sunny day and the couple were duly blessed in marriage.

We squashed back into the car with a couple of extra passengers for a five minute drive to the Reception. This was held in the beautiful garden of a large house, belonging to another of Paul's cousin's. It was the perfect venue and was a relaxed and happy afternoon of celebrations.

During the speeches, we discovered to our delight, that both the Bride and Groom were home schooled. The bridegrooms mother gave a toast to home schooling families.

The next day, we wandered into Central London by tube with Paul's cousin, her husband and children. We enjoyed a picnic in Green Park, while the children took selfies by the gates of Buckingham Palace.

Matthew bought a miniature Big Ben with a working clock. We nearly missed the train, as we had to run back to the shop to get a replacement. But all was well that ended well.
We returned to our accommodation to collect our luggage, after a lovely walk through the suburbs of Bromley.

Just another Manic Monday

Today has been a bit of a struggle for me.

So much has been happening at the moment in connection with moving, or not!

And I have to admit that I have felt at sixes and sevens about it all...

Matthew wanted to start the day by remaking his new lego set

and asked me to help him to find specific pieces as he went along.

I decided to sort them into colours,
as Matthew had done before.
This makes it much easier to find each tiny piece.

 

 

 

I was feeling quite panicky about our situation and so was finding it difficult to stay focussed.

So after this extended activity,
I decided to be assertive
and direct the children towards some reading tasks, etc.

Sarah had been reading and colouring in her room and was reluctant to get going.

But in the end, after a lot of decisive persuasion, she got up and had a shower.

She worked very hard and constructively for the rest of the day.

I wrote her a list of activities.

On this occasion, she responded very well to this approach, and enjoyed each task.

The first thing she did, was to draw some little illustrations beside each item on her list...

While she was having her shower,
 

Matthew did a reading activity on the computer, followed by some subtraction.

We looked at an addition test,

but once again,

it seemed better to come back to this
with the Numicon apparatus later on.

Matthew had a snack of some pear and a cracker,

before moving on to reading a book about animals in a football match.

After her shower, Sarah went and sat on her window sill to write to her cousins.

This activity was not on her list, but was inspired and beautifully executed.

Matthew went and played on the trampoline.

I had asked him to take the guinea pigs outside.

 

Sometimes they enjoy eating the grass under the trampoline.

But today, they got into a bit of a fight and Sarah had to come to the rescue.

By this time, it had started to rain.

Sarah had been busy doing some Maths and French on line.

But even after this quick interlude,
she went back to her work quite happily.

She also completed some quick grammar and spelling exercises
taken from a GCSE Literacy revision book.
She did very well.

Later, we listened to a passage of French together and translated it sentence by sentence.

Again, this was taken from a GCSE audio file.

She answered some questions about this extract
and translated some French dates into English.

She had wanted to go to the post office on her bike,
but as it was drizzling,
she didn't fancy it anymore.

She did, however, ask me for her cousin's address,

which she wrote neatly on the front of the envelope.
 

 

Matthew watched some Paddington videos and then moved onto The Jungle Book.

He seems to have been really inspired by the Jungle Book Production,

staged by some Home Educated children recently.

He asked me to find the hard back copy of The Jungle Book,

which Sarah had on her book shelf.

This story will be next on his bedtime reading list, after Paddington Abroad.

Sarah was on a roll and continued to draw a picture of a robin.

She had taken a photo of a robin on a table at Horner Tea Gardens on Saturday:

This seems to be a theme at the moment:

She also drew a rough sketch of the fence and plants outside her window.
 

Trying to encourage her to include more detail,

I found her the packet of water colour pencils in the utility room.
 

She was rather reluctant to take up this idea,
and when she came back,

it was to show me another picture of a robin
she had created with the water colour pencils.

She also completed a French pyramid puzzle

and organised multiples from the 6 X table in order.
Thanks to our good friend Karen for the tip.

Watch this space for more games with these numbers, in the hope that we can finally crack this tables malarkey!
 

Sarah also managed to fit in her piano and cornet practice as well as emptying the dishwasher.

This was all after a rather late start.

I am so proud of her.

It did take her until tea time!

But she had definitely earned a good stint on the kindle, while Matthew had his bath.

Matthew, meanwhile, had drawn some pictures to illustrate The Train Ride story,

 

 had written some animal sounds

and completed the tricky addition sums using the Numicon apparatus.
 

              87 + 24 = 111

 

              65 + 67 = 132

 

              68 + 13 = 81

 

              58 + 65 = 127 

87 + 24 =

                                                                 8 tens + 11 = 111

 

Although I was impressed with Matthew's ability to use the Numicon

to visualise the numbers and calculate the sum successfully,
he was feeling a little bit grumpy after these rather mundane activities.

And to be honest, so was I.

I wish I didn't have to get him to read and write, as it is so tricky for him.

But it is my responsibility to help him learn.
This can feel like a heavy weight at times.

He told me that he wished he could read.

It is so frustrating for him,
and, to be honest, a little bit worrying for me that progress is so slow.

However, we definitely need to  regroup -

I need to follow his lead to find some interesting topics as a catalyst for writing activities.

If I am on the ball, we will find them as he has so many ideas in his head.

It's me who needs to be reminded....

 Last night he had started to write a list of games he wanted to play at his party.

His head was, and often is, full of all sorts of inventive ideas.

He has an incredible mind and I can hardly keep up.

He had written out this list in a highly phonetic style, omitting certain sounds.
This made deciphering what he had written rather difficult.
I felt a little disheartened.

We spent some time today rewriting this list,
paying attention to the various sounds in each word.
He did this quite happily,
as it gave us time to talk about the games
and start to generate fresh ideas
and in some cases an action plan

One of his ideas was to hide parts of a map in the woods for the other children to find!

Writing and talking like this, was highly motivating for him.

We should certainly stick to this type of activity in the future.

I have also made a note to ask the mums on the
Dyslexia Home Ed Facebook Support Group

for their ideas....

I need bucket loads of inspiration.

Sadly, I cannot make it easier for him,
but we can definitely keep the activities fun....

I love the fact that he is teeming with plans,

even though, I wonder exactly how we are going to execute them all ....

While Sarah was enjoying her screen time, Matthew had a lovely bath.

 

 

 

He asked me to read him a chapter from Paddington Abroad,
while he was having his bath.

When he was in bed, we talked about a few ideas for his party.

He can be very determined, which is a good thing.

But when his ideas become inflexible, I find myself getting rather stressed.

Night-time is definitely not the time to be making any kind of tricky decisions.

Note to self:

''Find relaxing activities for Matthew to do to help him to get to sleep,

as he has found it rather difficult to drop off this evening.''