Art and soft play

Harry practised cello this morning before going to art class, where he finished his latest picture.

It was far too wet and cold for the park afterwards so we arranged to meet friends after lunch at soft play. The boys had a great time. We don't go often but they love it when we do.

Harry has had a very physical afternoon as he also had his enjoy a ball class.

Static electricity, art and bike riding

We used these books to read about static electricity yesterday and we did some fun experiments. I explained that static electricity is a build-up of electric charge and can happen naturally, like lightening. We contrasted this with electric circuits, where the electric current is moving. 

We refreshed the meaning of conductor and insulator and Harry remembered that a plastic toy is an insulator, from previous times we have experimented with electric circuits. Harry knew that the three basic parts of a circuit could be a battery, a conductor and a light bulb. We will be following this up by using his electricity kit next week.

Harry enjoyed 'controlling' my hair with a charged balloon. We gave it an electric charge by rubbing it with a woollen sock. It worked well with Peter's fine hair too! 

We also used the charged balloon to pick up small pieces of paper.

Harry had his art class and finished his dinosaur picture. We played in the park for an hour afterwards with our friends.

Harry also had his enjoy a ball class. I helped Peter to practise riding his pedal bike while Harry was in his class. He did really well and managed several rides on his own! 

The post-holiday days

I have had to work hard to keep the boys occupied since coming back from holiday. They are tired and end up squabbling a lot if they don't have things to do! I have discovered this on several previous occasions and decided to keep them busy. Peter has actually had a high temperature on and off and is feeling quite sorry for himself so he has been watching some TV under a blanket. 

Peter and I listened to a Listen and Play BBC podcast based on The Animal Fair rhyme yesterday which he really likes. He then drew his favourite animal from it - an elephant. He has started to hold a pencil correctly now without being reminded. 

Harry joined us for drawing and started a picture of 'rainbow stones from the moon'. We listened to some cBeebies radio whilst drawing.

We have also played numerous games of Ker-plunk and Harry has practised cello ready for his lesson today, where they worked on finger positions. 

Peter has enjoyed building train track and Harry has been reunited with his Lego and has spent a lot of time building these vehicles for his 'base'.

We have watched last week's Blue Peter and Harry thought up his own 'After Dark' poem based on the one written by Michael Rosen on the show. We also watched this week's Blue Peter, which had an introduction to BBC Ten Pieces - a new schools music initiative. We have the DVD to watch next week too.

We have also been doing a very nice activity for Beavers, which is in a separate post and have talked to my mum and sister to tell them all about our holiday.

Harry finished his latest picture at art class yesterday morning, using soft pastels and started a dinosaur.

He also went to his enjoy a ball class, where they were learning the rules of cricket and he won the weekly trophy for the best trying and listening so he had a good day! 

Baking, reading and listening

I am pleased that this week has started positively after we had a bit of a dreary last week. 

We spent yesterday morning baking some treats for the week ahead - chocolate brownies and Swiss roll. We haven't done baking for a while and will have to fit it in more often as we all enjoy it.

We went out yesterday afternoon for Peter's enjoy a ball class and Harry's beavers group, where they were looking at unusual fruits and vegetables for their healthy eating badge. 

Harry has been working on another Batman picture. He copied the shape from his art class picture and coloured it differently. 

We have really enjoyed reading this book from the library. I am a big Shakespeare fan so I was secretly very pleased when Harry chose this. We have read The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream so far.

Harry has also continued reading his Sea Quest books. There are some top trumps type cards in the back of each book and he cut these out for us to play with too. I asked him what writing he wanted to do this week and he chose to write about series 1 (4 books but with the same story weaving through them). He started this today and will continue to work on it. 

The new season of BBC School Radio podcasts started this week. I really like these and they encourage listening and participation. We listened today to Something to Think About, which asked about what we have enjoyed doing recently and what we are looking forward to. We are going on holiday soon so we talked about that.

Harry and Peter have been making trumpets and spy glasses from marble run pieces too and Harry had his swimming lesson this afternoon. 

Rocks activities and parks

We've had a busy week! I have been trying to stay out of the house as much as possible as the builders have been finishing our new bathroom. We have done lots of cello practise and some Conquer Maths multiplication lessons at home, as well as reading at bedtime. 

The bathroom does look lovely and has been completed in just over a week so the disruption hasn't been for too long. There are just a few finishing touches left. Here are the before and after photos!

We went to a friend's house on Tuesday to do some activities about rocks and volcanoes. We built a 'volcano' from play dough. We started with a small mound at the bottom then added vinegar and bicarbonate of soda to simulate an eruption of lava. We watched where the 'lava' flowed over the mound and added play dough to those areas to build up the mountain. 

We did this several times to end up with a taller mountain. We cut a slice of this to show the layers within rocks and mountains as they form over time.

The children all built their own small volcano from the play dough and left a crater in the top. We added vinegar and bicarbonate of soda to make them 'erupt'.

We also read this book explaining how rocks form and about the different types of rock.

We then made sedimentary rock cakes using different coloured crushed biscuits mixed with melted butter. The layers are pushed together with the back of a spoon to simulate the pressure needed to form sedimentary rocks. The children also added some marshmallows in their layers for fossils! 

We went on the bus to a local park with a few other families yesterday and stayed for nearly five hours! The children all played together in a big group really well. Harry and Peter were exhausted! 

We had art class this morning. Harry finished his Batman picture and started a fire engine. He was really proud of his finished picture.

Peter and I did some colouring together and played Spotty Dogs outside art class.

We also went to the park after art for a few hours with our friends before Harry's enjoy a ball class this afternoon.

Home education and art, sport and music

I like having time at home during our week for me to cover academic work with Harry and also unstructured time for them to play at home, go to the park and visit interesting places. Our Fridays and Saturdays are quite busy with structured classes, however, which I also like as it gives Harry a chance to be taught by someone else and work in a group situation. In the case of art and music, he is being taught skills I am not able to teach. 

Just one of the great things about home education is that you can access as much or as little as your child needs and plan your week in a way that suits your family. Harry's only class purely for home educated children is art and we also meet up at least once a week with other families, sometimes for structured activities and sometimes for play. The other classes are out of school time and include schooled and home educated children.

Harry started a new art class on Friday morning with other home educated children. I am hoping he can improve his drawing skills and learn to use different art materials. They each chose a picture and worked on it for the whole hour. Harry chose a Batman image and will be finishing it next week, so he didn't want me to photograph it yet! He said 'I loved art' on the way out.

Peter is not ready to focus for a whole hour yet so we sat on some seats just outside the room and read books. I took his sketch pad so he could do some drawing too and he really enjoyed this.

There is also a play area over the road so I expect we will go there with the other children after art, which will cover exercise and socialising too. 

The builders are still busy with our new bathroom and it's going well. We can use the bath now so the boys have enjoyed trying it out as it's much bigger! We have also started some sanding in the hall as we plan to decorate it this year. 

Harry also had his first enjoy-a-ball class of term on Friday. This is his fourth year of this class! I really like it as it's a general skills class and introduces aspects of all the ball sports, so it's a good foundation for whichever sport Harry might want to continue playing. He really likes the coach and has a few friends there. Peter also does this class on a Monday, with his own age group.

We started back at The Sage too yesterday for cello and music class. Harry is quite rusty after the summer holiday and has three pieces of music to practise this week so we will be doing daily practise. He was all smiles when he came out of the group session and he enjoyed it. We often take Peter to the under-5's music session at the same time, which involves singing, small instruments and parachute play, but this doesn't start back until next week. 

Wallington, swimming lessons and more

We had a trip to Wallington at the weekend as both boys were grumpy and needed lots of space to let off steam. They enjoyed den building and exploring. They decorated their den with lots of early fallen horse chestnuts, then brought them home. I love the early signs of Autumn emerging! We also saw wild blackberries.

Impressive climbing by Peter to a very high slide! 

Harry and Peter have both had swimming lessons every day this week. Harry is really enjoying it, which is great, as he wasn't enjoying his last course of group lessons. This time his lesson is 1:1 and the teacher is in the water with him. I think he made more progress in half an hour than in a whole term in the previous lessons! He is working really hard and it's an intense lesson so he has been very tired.

We have been doing lots of reading. Harry has been reading his Summer Reading Challenge books and I have been reading The Hobbit. We just finished it tonight and I am bereft! I had never read it before and it has gone straight into my top five books I have read. We all loved it! We have been talking about our favourite parts too and will continue to do so I suspect. The next read aloud book will have to work hard to top this; I think we will go for something completely different.

They have also been playing in the garden with outdoor chalk.

We spent an afternoon in a park we had never visited before with some friends and had a great time. We are looking forward to visiting in term time as it was very busy and I had to look for Peter quite a lot.

We have been very busy getting things ready for my mums wedding on Saturday too! We have been making decorations, shoe shopping, card decorating and packing. We are all very excited about it and I am going in advance to help set everything up, so I need to leave comprehensive lists for Stuart too, to make sure that everything important makes its way there on Saturday! 

Climbing and Summer Reading Challenge

Today started with a haircut for Peter and it was the first one he accepted without any complaining, hurray! 

Harry enjoyed another coached session at the climbing wall.

And we visited the library, where Harry chose the next two books for his Summer Reading Challenge. He has always liked non-fiction books and started reading the fire one at bedtime. He also likes plays on words and 'Pig and Small' is a play on 'Big and Small' in the other book he chose.

The boys have been playing with Lego and in the garden this afternoon and we have also played board games; Trilemma and Incy Wincy Spider.