Merry Christmas!

Rather a lot of K & M's toys with some help from K, M & A put on a nativity play yesterday.  It started with a teddy bear with wings playing the Angel Gabriel who visited first Mary and then Joseph (both played by dogs) and who used smelling salts to revive them when the fainted with shock.  Another dog played the Empress Audrey who declared that everyone had to go to their home town for the census, so Joseph took Mary, who rode on a donkey played by a cheetah, to Bethelehem.  The cat hotel manager who happened to be a donkey-lover let them stay in the stable.  Mary gave birth to Jesus, a kitten, and breastfed him before the shepherds (two dogs) turned up with a lamb (played by a lamb!).  Finally the three wise giraffes showed up, bringing with them emminently sensible gifts of a rattle, teething ring and teddy bear, and the news that Queen Heroda was coming to kill their baby, so they'd better "skedaddle pronto".  This they did, by being whizzed across the kitchen floor to safety.

Still here!

Things have busy round these parts, but now we've nearly finished everything for Christmas and I'm feeling that I'll be able to breathe a big sigh and relax after tomorrow.  It's A's last day at work tomorrow and my choir Christmas social.  We've still got a bit more to do before we're ready for Christmas, but apart from a few foodie things and wrapping presents, nothing that would be disastrous if it weren't to happen.  I really should practise playing carols though, having agreed to play the organ for the children's mass on Christmas even though!

Last week was ludicrously busy.  There was a Christmas party at the Old Dalby home ed group on Monday, to which M took her French horn and played Little Donkey, which made up a bit for having missed doing so at Fun Club when we was poorly.  Tuesday, the girls went to play with friends in the morning before gymnastics in the afternoon and korfball in the evening.  On Wednesday, after M's French horn lesson first thing, we headed over to Derby to spend the day with our friends C, S, G & F, and go to the HE climbing session at Alter Rock.  Thursday was the girls' last piano lesson of the year first thing and then their Scout Christmas party in the evening (more on that in a moment).  Friday was much less busy with just a Christmas party of friends who live across the road, which the girls chose to go to rather than the last gymnastics of the year.

To get back to Scouts, they had a secret Santa for which they had to buy a present for the person whose name they had pulled out of a hat a couple of weeks earlier.  They had both put a lot of effort into their presents, for which there was a limit of £2.  M had picked the Scout leader and she crocheted her a brooch and bought a nice notebook from a charity shop and had enough to get a couple of coloured biros to go with it.  K had heard that her recipient liked meerkats, so spend money on a small cardboard box and got quilling.  This is the result.

She has also made some stunning Christmas cards for various people; here are a few of them.  She has also quilled a present for M, but I haven't yet got a photo of it and can't say what in case she sees.

Another week gone.

Things are plodding on here.  Both K & M are making Christmas cards and presents, although of course I can't say too much about that.

K is continuing to spend quite a lot of time trying to crack one particular puzzle on Lure of the Labyrinth and both K & M are doing some French on Duolingo pretty much every day.  Mystery Science is also still going well.  K and I have finished off our first 'unit of study' The Birth of Rocks and M decided to give it a go and has now done two of the four 'mysteries' in that unit too.  K meanwhile, rather to my surprise I must admit, agreed to write a summary of the unit; what it covered and what she learned and possibly something additional that she looked into to follow up something that she found interesting.

A few weeks ago, K did actually get round to writing the letter that we had talked about, about home education and her thoughts on it.  Unfortunately she managed to lose her first draft (and it still hasn't turned up) and as a result of this, the final result was rather less comprehensive than the earlier version or notes I had caught glimpses of.  The summary, however, would be that she wants to continue with home education but thinks that she will probably want to do some qualifications at some point.  The other thing that resulted from the letter was that I learned that her method of using punctuation is rather unconventional and not entirely successful.  For the letter, she wrote the whole letter and then went back over it and added punctuation in.  Consequently, we've done a bit more work on punctuation and this week, she did another piece of writing (I gave her a choice of three topics) about her trip to Granny's last week and put punctuation in as she went along and it was much better.  One thing that I have learned is just how much of my punctuating is by instinct and feel rather than knowing 'the rules', particularly with commas.  So we've had a look at our Basher Punctuation book to help out with that side of things.

Unfortunately M hasn't been too well this week, which scuppered our plans somewhat in the first half.  On Monday we had plans to go into town with Granny, get some shopping done and meet up with A for lunch.  M really wasn't up to town though, so we cancelled lunch, Granny and K went in the morning, then we had take-away pizza for lunch back at home, before I went in on my own in the afternoon.

Tuesday was the Fun Club Christmas concert and M was very unhappy not to be well enough to go.  She had been planning to take part and play the French horn.  Nurse Granny sprang into action and stayed at home with her, while K & I went.  I have played the piano to accompany carols for a number of years now and had agreed to do the same again this year.

On Wednesday Granny headed home and since then we've had a couple of low key days and fortunately M was well enough for Scouts on Thursday evening, when she was invested.  Just like K though, she decided that she didn't want Mummy and Daddy there.  Ho hum.

Granny's here and we've been busy!

After the girls' trip down to spend the day with Granny and Big Grandad before bringing Granny back here to stay for a week.

On Thursday, M and Granny seemed to have a plan and the two of them shut themselves away doing secret things.  They didn't manage to finish it, so continued today and this evening, A and I were presented with the finished product.

It's an advent calendar.

Each of the windows is attached using a cut out Christmas greeting from old cards and I think the pictures behind them are too.  The little boxes on the right have a little something inside, one for each of the days up until the 23rd, then the 24th and 25th have a bigger something wrapped up and attached to the windows.

M has also made some more Christmas cards using the basic design that she came up with, which I think work really well.

One snowman, one Christmas tree and Billy the Blue Nosed Reindeer!

From the side.

K had come back from Granny's with an old sheet and an old pair of curtains and some plans.  She got the sewing machine out and, with no plan other then what was in her unfathomable head, she made herself something.

A skirt made out of one of the curtains.

 The waistband is the top of the curtain, with the band still on it and cinched in to give its shape.

She even sewed a zip in!

She just dived straight in, no measuring, no pattern, just her idea.  It seems to have turned out remarkably well!  I'll try to get a photo of her wearing it tomorrow.

This morning, the girls and Granny went out charity shopping and for some other bits and pieces.  In one of the charity shops, Shelter I think, M found a basket of Christmas baubles, which were priced at 10 for £1. She took three to the till and asked how much it would be for just those, because she wanted three of them. The lady asked her who they were for and when M told her that they were to share with her sister and Mummy and Daddy, she said that M could have them for free. M insisted on paying something and when my Mum pointed out there was a collection tin on the counter, the lady said to put 5p in there, but M put 20p in. My Mum told me that the lady was very moved by this and said that we must have a lovely home!

This afternoon K & I did the third 'lesson' of a geology unit, called The Birth of Rocks, of Mystery Science. Each unit involves watching a video, talking about what you've seen, doing an experiment or activity and filling in a worksheet.  There are then some extra links which you can follow up if you want to.  So far we have: plotted on a map where volcanoes are and determined that it's unlikely that one will pop up in our garden, but that it's not out of the question in some parts of the world; done an experiment to look at two different types of lava which you find in cone and shield volcanoes; and shaken sugar cubes in plastic tub to simulate erosion.  K is really enjoying it and quite happily filling in the worksheets for each lesson.  I'm hopeful that M might decide to have a go, having initially been put off when we started to have a look at the unit on dinosaurs and they started off by talking about a brontosaurus.  As a free resource, I would really recommend this website.  I know when my girls were younger it's very unlikely that they would have done the worksheets, but the videos are pretty good and the experiments easy but worth doing so far.

Finally, it's from a couple of weeks ago, but here's another one of K's quilling creations.  It was a commission; I asked her to make one for friends who have just moved house.

Her own design.

Quite a variety of things.

Well since posting about internet links, most mornings I have come downstairs to find K doing mathematical things on Lure of the Labyrinth and M has been on Duolingo pretty much every day.  M gets a bit frustrated with the accuracy needed when writing both in French and English, but is persevering none the less.  K has now signed up for Duolingo as well and appears to be just as determined as M to have a go every day.

Still on the theme of French, we went to see the second of our two Into Film films last Thursday, which was Belle et Sebastien.  It wasn't something that K & M had jumped at, but they were willing enough to go.  It was in Derby and thanks to roadworks getting out of Nottingham, we only just got there by the skin of our teeth, but we all agreed that it was very good and the fact that it had subtitles didn't bother the girls at all.

On Friday, the girls went to spend the day with Z & R, who had kindly agreed to have them so I could help out a friend in need.  They had a great time and I felt and indeed feel very fortunate to have such good friends who I can ask to help out (I had another friend on standby, in case Z hadn't been able to have them).

Saturday the girls donned their Scout uniforms to help out at the church Christmas fayre, where they were selling quizzes, something that was clearly more suited to M.  Their Scout leader had printed out 60 and of the 59 that the Scouts managed to sell, K sold 3 while M sold 24 of them!

Monday's group at Old Dalby was a Christmas craft session and M designed a card that we took with us to show people.  She'd come up with the design entirely by her self, which I will add a photo of later.  We made another, slightly neater, example between us to take too and a few of the children chose to make one.  K & M each decorated a Christmas biscuit (unsurprisingly that was the most popular of the activities!)

We have managed to rearrange the girls piano lesson (although admittedly they're not entirely chuffed that it's now 9 o'clock in the morning!) in order to make it to another gymnastics group on Tuesday afternoons.  It's with the same club that they are already members of and go to a 'teen gym' session on a Friday evening, but this is a HE session and quite a few friends go too.  M in particular wanted to go to see one new friend, who we don't see very often, in particular.

On the way home from gymnastics M nailed the problem with using rewards to try to motivate children, something that I have posted about previously here and here.  She mentioned that she'd been given a sticker for effort in part of the gymnastics session, but pointed out that it was for an activity that she doesn't find very hard, so really hadn't needed to put in very much effort, so what was the point in the sticker.  The conversation continued about how it's pretty much impossible to know just how much effort somebody else is putting into something.

On Wednesday, I had a very rare day off!  A sometimes meets a colleague in the small town where my parents live, it being about half way between them.  My Mum (aka Granny) suggested that K & M could go down with him and spend the day there, before bringing her back here for a week-long visit.  Despite the fact that A was leaving before 7am, they both wanted to and indeed managed to be up and ready in time.  So as well as getting quite a few jobs done around the house, I treated myself to a much needed massage, which was fantastic!

Just to add a few more things, M has baked some very good chocolate brownies, K in particular has been doing lots of piano practice and we are now in the final stretch of the penultimate in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy of five.

Some thoughts on the internet and some links.

I'm sure I'm not alone in finding computers and the internet in particular to be something of a double-edged sword.  I'm not always happy about quite how much time K & M spend particularly on some websites which have to my mind rather limited value, but they have undoubtedly learned an awful lot from various websites.  There are some websites that seem to stick around, others that we dip in and out of every so often, others that are more flash in the pan and still more that the girls use intensely for a while, forget about and then rediscover.  Most of the websites that we use are free ones, although there are a few that we pay for.

Lure of the Labyrinth is a really good maths site that K has recently rediscovered, that covers pre-algebra through games.

Timez Attack is a free downloadable game for learning tables.  Both K & M got very frustrated and upset when they first tried it, because to move on you need to be able to type in the correct answer quite quickly.  They have at various points returned to it for a while though and it would probably suit some children really well.

DragonBox is one that we paid for (and I think was worth it), that is a game that introduces alegbra but one that you work through and it finishes rather than you keep on playing. 

Khan Academy is a fantastic free website for maths, science and computing.  My girls have particularly got a lot out of the coding section and K had a long phase of loving the maths doodling videos.

Study Ladder is one that has free content, but you can pay to access more but I haven't so can't comment on whether it's worth it.  M likes dipping into this one, particularly the geography flags and capital cities games.

The Happy Scientist is another one that I have paid to access more content and may or may not renew once our subscription has expired.  It's one that we go through phases of using quite a bit and then periods when we don't use it at all.  It's worth checking out the free content though.

Typing.com is a free touch typing website, which the girls had a go at regularly for a while, but has gone by the wayside for the moment.  I'm hoping they'll come back to it, as it's something that I think it a really useful skill.     

Duolingo is a free language learning website, which a friend recommended.  As an ex-modern language teacher, I am really keen for K & M to learn a foreign language, but they aren't keen on learning from me unless we are in the relevant country.  M, however, has really taken to this website.  It's rather 'plume de ma tante' but seems to be going okay.  I tried to talk to M about adjectival agreement recently (she's learning French), but she cut me short with the comment that she'd already worked that out for herself thank you!  K hasn't looked at it yet, but has agreed to give it a go.  We will be carrying on with transactional language when in France.

FutureLearn does free online courses, of which K has done a couple.  She and I did one together about the staging of Much Ado About Nothing and then she did a beginning creative writing one on her own.  I am still awaiting completion of her story and I'm not entirely sure how far she's got, but I am assured she is working on it!

Mathsisfun is another one that the girls like to dip into occasionally, particularly with the puzzle games on there, although there is an awful lot more of it than that.

Thingdom is a Science Museum site, with a game that explores the idea of heredity which the girls come back to every so often.

The Natural History Museum has changed it's website, so that there is no longer the 'kids only' section, but the games and quizzes that used to be there are still available if you have a search.  K & M still quite like the dinosaur ones.

Mystery Science is another free website that we've signed up for, but haven't properly explored yet.

I am not allowed to do a blog post about websites without mentioning School of Dragons based on How to Train Your Dragon.  This is one that I have mixed feelings about, as both girls, although particularly K, seem to spend an awful lot of time on it.  It is free, but you earn points by logging on daily, which is frustrating.  There are some parts that redeem it, for example, I heard K explaining to M that you needed to identify the different types of cloud during a particular mission and you had to look for the refracted light another time, but most of it does seem to be repetitive, time consuming rubbish.

So those are the websites that I would suggest checking out (or possibly avoiding in the case of the last one!) based on what my girls have got out of them and continue to do so.

Another busy week with a group residential trip.

After Old Dalby group, which was a board games one on Monday and a fairly quiet day on Tuesday, with just piano lessons and korfball along with getting ready for Wednesday, things got busy again!

Wednesday was A's birthday and he had a few days off work to come on a trip to Beaumanor Hall with us.  It was a two night and one whole and two half days trip with eight home ed families, most of whom we already knew at least fairly well.  There were about 40 of us altogether with children ranging from 6 month old W to K & C who are both 12, with the majority between 7 and 10.

We arrived on the Wednesday afternoon and after settling in, we had some 'getting to know you' games in the sports hall.  We started off by getting into a circle in alphabetical order and then swapped around so that we were in order of our birthdays throughout the year.  After a couple more games, had a hilarious one which involved people moving around the circle one at a time and the person who ends up with a space to their right calling another person to come and sit in it before the person in the centre of the circle manages to sit in that space.  It didn't really work at all, but it was really good fun!  After it had got dark some of us went on a walk around the grounds and attempted to do one of the treasure hunts that we had sheets for, before heading back to the cabins.

On Thursday morning we had the only organised activity by the Beaumanor folks, which was the high ropes and zip wire.  K & M love this sort of thing, and A & I had signed up too, but had given up our places so that all the children who wanted to could take part.  It was an absolutely beautiful day and I think a good time was had by all.  A couple of the children changed their minds about the high ropes once up there, but I think everyone had several turns on the zip wire.

M & K on the high ropes.

B & M showing off!

K & Z hanging about on the zip wire.

M & C zipping by.

After lunch some of the older children, mostly K, M & C I believe, had organised a 'Mini Olympics'.  They had decided to do so the previous evening and a lot of thought and effort went into it.  K had a notebook with lists of events, competitors and judges and it all worked remarkably well and was extremely entertaining.

The opening event was a two-aside cricket match with an adult and child on each side.  I'm not sure who one, but it didn't really matter!

The cricket match.

Next came gymnastics with half a dozen competitors, five children and one adult.  They showed off a variety of skills in front of the judges.

C's turn in the gymnastics event.

This was followed by another two-aside team game, this time hockey.  Then it was the running, first the children, then the adults.

Very competitive and a dead-heat!

Next came a two-aside parent and child football match.

This one was rather competitive!

The final event was the foam javelin, which was won by P, who on his turn threw it right over the heads of the spectators!

The winning throw.

It was occasionally a little bit chaotic and K who seemed to be doing most of the organising on the day with notebook in hand got a little bit stressed at times, but it was all done in very good spirits and as a spectator is was brilliant.

After the Mini Olympics, M did something that she had been planning.  Friday was Children in Need and she had decided she wanted to do something to raise some money.  She had made a sign and brought a little pot for donations and stood on her head for as long as she could manage.

Near the beginning.

After about 4 minutes.

She managed an extremely impressive five and a half minutes and raised about £30 there and is asking family if they would like to donate too and has raised just over £50.

In the evening on Thursday we had a lovely singing session, accompanied by P on the guitar in one of the communal rooms (we were spread out over two dormitories and therefore had two kitchens and two communal rooms), while in the other E was giving rather lovely hand massages.  At various points  there were a variety of different games being played, from whist and Lord of the Rings to Rummikub and chess, as well as knitting and crochet too. 

On Friday morning we needed to be out of the cabins by 10 o'clock and unlike the previous two days the weather was awful, so most people didn't hang around.  There was a general consensus that the trip had been a great success and there are already plans to repeat it.

Once we got home, M decided she wanted to make A a birthday cake (I had made a fruit cake to take to share for the day but she wanted to make one to decorate for him), so she started that and finished off decorating the next morning, after a minor disaster with the icing that we managed to rescue the next day.

The figures are A, Tabby Kitten, Felix Fox & Christopher.

K's birthday present to A was a cushion that she had found at the scrapstore, which she personalised to match one she'd made for me for my birthday. 

My Mr Happy & A's Little Miss Sunshine.

We were all pretty tired after two nights away sleeping in a dormitory and have caught up with some lovely long lie-ins this weekend!

A bit too busy.

Last week continued to be very hectic, rather too much so really, although it was all fun and interesting stuff!

On Wednesday, after M's French horn lesson, we headed over to see our friends, C, G & L in Derby and went climbing to a HE group at the place they are members again, before heading back to their house for a very late lunch, more playing and a quick trip to the park.  Then it was back home in time for the girls' swimming lesson, after which M had something of a meltdown due to overtiredness!

Thursday was a very early start, as we went to Thinktank for one of their days specially for home edders.  We've been a few times now and always enjoyed it, although K & M do have a tendency to want to redo sessions that they done previously.  The sessions are never exactly the same so they do still get plenty out of it.  This was the first time that K & M weren't in all of the same sessions (you get to book three per child), since K is now 12 and the sessions are divided up to be suitable for all ages, under 8, 8 and over, and 12 and over.  K's session on her own (for the 12+ sessions the children don't need an accompanying adult), was called Launch It and was a double session (a single one lasts around 50 minutes).  I asked K if she'd learnt anything and she said 'Not really,' and informed me that there wasn't much that she hadn't learnt about when we visited East Midlands airport three years ago for a visit with a HE dad who worked in the maintenance hanger there.  I would imagine it was a pretty good reminder though!  They also made aeroplanes with plastic propellers powered by elastic bands, made out of balsa wood and paper using hot glue guns.  They had a go at flying them with varying success.  Unfortunately K's got soggy walking back to the station later that day and fell apart, but she wasn't too upset and had enjoyed the process.

K with her plane.

M and I meanwhile had spent a very enjoyable couple of hours with friends who we'd met at the station in Birmingham, having been on the same train.  In the KidsCity area, C & I were served food in the café by M & L, we bought fruit and veg from them in the market, I was told I had a problem with the tendent (tendon) in my knee and C had a check up at the dentist.  After a while we were joined by B with Z, S & L too.  M enjoyed trying to challenge herself to manage to pick up various things with the digger there too.

She managed to pick up the brick and just one colour of ball!

M went along to her Cauldron Chemistry session in the theatre with C & L (thank you!), while I had some time with just K. We'd been to Cauldron Chemistry on a previous occasion, when K & M had been most indignant because the premise was that you could cheat in your magic exams using science, and they disapproved of this most strongly.  This time it was apparently okay, because there weren't exams involved.  K wanted to spend most of our time together before the next session, in the outdoor science garden, which admittedly is pretty fantastic and fun, despite the less than lovely weather.

A big lever!

We managed to miss M coming out of the theatre, but fortunately for the next session we were with B, Z, S & L and they had taken her along with them (thank you!).  This was another session that K & M had done previously (twice!), this time called Jewellery Heist and was about forensic science.  It was a bit rushed, but they took their own finger prints, looked at a suspect's finger prints, fibre samples under a microscope, shoe imprints, CCTV video evidence and more before deducing who was the most likely suspect, based on the evidence, to have committed the crime.

K taking her finger print, using magnetic powder.

Our final session was a new (hurrah!) and interesting one, called Rocks Around Us.  First we talked about what is and isn't a rock, not as easy to define as you might think, before sorting out a number of things into 'rock or not'.  The things to sort included some very obvious things, like a shell, a feather and a marble, some sandstone and marble as well as slightly less obvious like brick, cement and a piece of a pure mineral (none of which are rocks).

Rock (at the bottom) and not (at the top).

Then we used an identification tree to find out what ten different minerals were, using appearance of the shape of crystals, whether they left a streak when scratched on a tile and even smell.

We got them all right!

Finally, we looked at the three different types of rock, sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic, how they are made and how there isn't really a cycle, but each different type can turn into another sort (or indeed the same sort) depending what happens to it.  So erosion makes sedimentary rock, melting and cooling makes igneous rock and heat and pressure make metamorphic rock.

We had to dash off after that to get the train home, and having missed the earlier train (it was rather ambitious!) got one which involved a change at Derby.  We found B, Z, S & L on the second train (which was busy but less ridiculously crowded than the first one and managed to sit with them, which was good.  Once home, it was a quick tea before Scouts for K & M!

Friday, was less busy but we still had to get up, out and into town to be at the cinema by 10 o'clock for the first of the two Into Film festival films that we've got booked.  It was the absolutely bonkers Penguins of Madagascar, which we really enjoyed!  We then stayed in town and had pizza for lunch before doing some shopping.  K bought a lego creator set house with some of her birthday money, which she is really pleased with.  Both girls spent some money in Hotel Chocolat on some halloween things that had been significantly reduced and we also bought M a couple of pair of tracksuit bottoms as she lives in them at the moment and has grown out of some of hers and some boots, which happily were on sale.  After coming home for tea, the girls were off out yet again for gymnastics in the evening.

On Saturday, M went swimming with H & L from across the road, but K decided that she wasn't feeling up to it so stayed at home.  She perked up after a shower though and joined the others for lunch at their house and the girls helped L clean out her fish tank.  After a very long week without him, A arrived home from China, getting off the bus just as I was coming out of the Co-op.  He travels a lot with work, but rarely more than a night or two at a time and I nearly always speak to him in the evening when he is away, so I don't really have the chance to miss; this time he was away five nights and we didn't speak at all and I really did!

In the evening A took K & M to the fireworks do at his cricket club, which they enjoyed.  Sunday the girls went on parade at the Remembrance Service at our local war memorial with Scouts.  Then they cleaned out the rat cage with A before we all went out and managed to find walking boots for both of them.

That's got things nearly up to date, but will do for now!  I think we've just about recovered now.

Money making!

Today, as the first Tuesday of the month, was Fun Club, and November Fun Club is traditionally when the table top sale takes place.  Families take things they no longer want or need and that other people might, along with things they have baked or made, to sell.  We have had an ever increasing pile of overflowing boxes and bags in the corner of our landing for months now in anticipation.  K & M see it as a way to make some money, I see that as a bonus with the main thing being to get rid of stuff!

We returned with a couple of half full boxes and a few things that we had bought from other people.  Once we'd unpacked and I took some of what we'd brought home to a charity shop, we're left with one fairly small box of things that are waiting to go the next Old Dalby 'bring and swap' session.

Yesterday, K & M were both very busy making things to sell along with the numerous books, games and other bits and pieces they had decided they could live without.  M was busy sewing, both with my machine and by hand, to make little owls.  She sold half of them for £1-1.50 and discovered that people prefer the little ones.

M's owls.

K, as you might expect, was busy quilling and made a dozen cards to sell.  She too sold half, all but one for £1.50.

K's stock.

We did take an awful lot of things as well as these.  Some of them belonged to one person in particular, in which case they got the money, others were communal.  I really should have got the girls do keep track and do the maths, but I confess that I did.  We did however, make over £50 between us and, even better as far as I'm concerned, the girls bought very little, in fact I don't think K bought anything, and M bought a desk-tidy, some lavender sachets a friend made, and a little ball of yarn with a crochet hook, and I only bought three books.  A big success all round!

Trickle treating and more quilling.

As I mentioned in my last post, I do love my girls' take on fancy dress, and they donned their costumes again to go 'trickle treating' last night.  They find the concept of trick or treating pretty much incomprehensible and have no desire to go knocking on the doors of people they don't know asking for sweets.  As a result of this we have developed our own tradition of 'trickle treating' which they prepared for this afternoon; M baked jammy dodgers and K ginger teddy shaped biscuits.  Some of these were for the children who knocked on our door, but some were for the trickle treating.  This involves knocking on the doors of people we do know, and giving them treats.  Unfortunately, either not many people were in, or they weren't answering or didn't hear the door, which the girls were a bit disappointed about, but it did mean we had more biscuits left for us to eat.  I think they still enjoyed themselves though.

The serious wall.

K has been continuing with her quilling, as you can see below, and is currently working on making some to sell at Tuesday's annual Fun Club table top sale.

Halloween fancy dress.

I haven't got a photo so far unfortunately, although I am hoping to get one tomorrow and will add it if I do.  This evening was a fancy dress session at gymnastics and K & M, as always, did not follow the crowd.  I absolutely love the way they completely and utterly do their own thing.  They spent quite a lot of time this afternoon preparing their costumes.  K made a foot-long yellow French knitted tail and a brown pompom trimmed to shape to add on the end, as a lion's tail.  She also made ears which she added to a headband and wore them with a yellow top.  M wore the t-shirt that K painted last year for a performance with friends of Pyramus and Thisbe from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The wall t-shirt.

However, she thought that was a bit boring, so I printed an outline of an ivy leaf from the computer for her, and she cut out lots from a variety of different coloured green paper and some white and coloured them green, then she stapled them onto a wide brown ribbon and then pinned that onto the t-shirt to be an old wall.

The very serious ivy-covered wall.

The day did not start well.

A follow up conversation to the one we had recently about our home education with M started with her telling me that she wasn't going to write a letter to me about home education, degenerated into both of us shouting at each other and her stomping upstairs, whilst yelling that she wasn't going to do anything.  Once she'd calmed down a bit, I gave her the message from the library that they'd got a book in that she'd ordered.  A bit later she decided that she would go out and pick it up and have a look round the charity shops, before she left though we had a very big hug and made up.  Things got better from that point on.  M returned home having been to Oxfam and bought some chocolate to share with K and me, and a photo frame which she presented to me with a photo of the two of us in it.

The day continued really positively and turned out to be really quite productive:

• Both girls did piano practice
• M did French horn practice
• M did two double pages of her maths workbook, one on measuring small things with millimetres, one measuring volume
• K had a go a maths problem, finding the next number in a sequence of numbers that are both the product of three consecutive numbers and the sum of three consecutive numbers.  She'd found the three numbers that gave the sum, but was struggling with the three that gave the product, so we looked at it together and with support she managed to work it out.
• M did a page of a spelling workbook
• K finished two more beautiful quilled cards that she'd made as thank yous for birthday presents
• M & I went to the park with a (unfortunately rather flat but we can still practise passing!) korfball
• I made chocolate ice-cream with a bit of help from M
• K & I continued our conversation about home ed and she started thinking about the letter she is going to write to me and A about it, making some notes of the ideas she wants to include
• M watched all three parts of a nature documentary series about tigers that we recorded a while ago
• I read another three chapters of Life, the Universe and Everything to the girls, while they watched some of the gymnastics world championships women's team final (which GB won bronze in)
• The girls went upstairs to bed and I believe K read another chapter of the book she is currently reading to M at bedtime

This evening I had a chat on the phone with A, who is currently in Brussels.  He asked how our day was and I told him about the bad start and as I did, it clarified some thoughts for me.  K & M are pretty close in age, with only 20 months between them.  It is probably as a result of this that I have a tendency to have very similar expectations of them and most of the time that is reasonable.  However, given that it has been noticeable only recently that K has matured in a number of ways that have an effect on what we can do in terms of home education, it's not fair to expect that her little sister will have done so too. 

Time to take stock.

One of the fantastic things about home ed, is that even when one or other of us is feeling under the weather we can have a pyjama day and still get things done.

Kitchen chemistry in pyjamas with red cabbage indicator.

We first made the decision to home educate, or rather, having let K know that 'some children don't go to school, but learn at home with their mummy or daddy', had her pronounce with utter conviction, 'That's what I'm going to do,' when she was about four and a half.  Most of the time we have followed the girls' lead, mainly because it clearly worked but also because on the odd occasion when I tried to push more formal learning when they weren't up for it, it failed miserably and often ended in tears (theirs and mine).  That doesn't mean that we haven't done anything towards the more structured end of the spectrum, but the times when it has worked best have been when it's been lead by them, for example, when I made worksheets to go with each concept in this maths book, because K liked it and thought it was a good idea.  We have been through numerous periods where it feels like we have done lots and just as numerous ones where I start to think that they haven't learned anything for ages, although I'm often proved wrong on that score.  Eventually, however, sometimes the fallow times last beyond my comfort zone, and that usually leads to a conversation about our home education.

We had one of those conversations recently, which involved a reminder that we had agreed that the main aims of home education for us as a family, was to ensure that K & M were numerate and literate and could find out about things that they wanted to know about.  While we are well on our way to achieving that in some ways, neither K nor M do an awful lot of writing that they are willing to share with me.  K is in the process of writing two books, but doesn't want to share them until they are finished, which, since she is only on chapter one of one of them and two of the other, could be some way off!  While I have no doubt that both she and M could communicate whatever they wanted to, I know that their writing would probably not pass muster in any slightly more formal situation.

Things feel a bit different now, particularly with K, who would have started secondary school this term, had she been in the system.  It used to be that she would only do anything that she saw the point in, but the point needed to be pretty immediate and relevant to her now.  She is still like that to an extent, but now has the maturity to rationalise things and realise that some things take time and effort and may have good reasons for doing, even if the end result isn't immediately beneficial.  She also has incredible patience and persistence, as evidenced by the amazing quilling things she has produced, so I'm hoping that she will be able to harness that in other directions too.  We're planning on having a dig in to our non-fiction books and seeing what grabs her, with the aim of going a bit deeper into a topic, probably something either historical or geographical.  We have also found another couple of maths books, one of which she has started working through each day.  She still prefers to do things on her own, but is willing to ask when she's not sure about something.  She's got a couple more birthday thank yous left to do, but once those are out of the way we will also be doing more writing.  As a starting point I have asked her to write me a letter about her home education, why she thinks we should continue rather than her going to school and what her plans are about what she'd like to do and what she thinks she needs to work on.

M in some ways is the complete opposite to K, with a very strong preference to having me there with her whenever she does anything from a workbook.  She's currently working through a maths one that is far too easy for her, but she is insisting on doing before moving on, despite finding quite a lot of it boring.  While it can be easy to think that it's a complete waste of time, there is usually something that makes it worthwhile, whether that's a reminder of something she does know but we haven't covered for a long time, or something that sparks a conversation and in any case it is getting us back into the swing of doing some of it each day.  I've asked M to write me a letter too, it will be interesting to see the similarities and differences.

So that's where we are at the moment, we've moved slightly on the autonomous-structured spectrum, but particularly for K, a little nudge with a bit of structure and she seems to have run with it pretty autonomously!  One thing is pretty certain; school isn't in the picture for the foreseeable future at least.

Lots and lots of cake and crafty stuff.

This week has consisted of an awful lot of baking.  K & M's Scout pack had their annual 'Great British Decorate Off' on Thursday, for which the Scouts have to take along the cake that that they have baked and decorate it.  The theme this year was 'toys' and K & M both decided to base their cakes on their favourite cuddly toys, a cat called Tabby Kitten in K's case and a dog called Christopher in M's.  They each wanted to have a practice run, so on Monday they each baked a cake (or three in M's case, as hers was more 3D), on Tuesday they both decorated them, which involved a lot of icing of various types.  Then Wednesday M baked her cakes ready for Scouts and K baked biscuits (they were for her cat's ears), finally on Thursday, K baked her cake and they both made more icing to take with them.  I think they were both happy with their efforts and although M told me that she thought her practice cake was better, she won the competition and came home with a basket full of baking things, both equipment and ingredients, as her prize!

The winning Christopher cake!

K's Tabby Kitten

 K has been continuing with her birthday thank you cards, which she puts a lot of time and effort into and has some some more beautiful quilling.  She is also now starting to design her own cards, as well as following and adapting patterns from books.

K's own feather quill design.

K's own owl design.

M meanwhile is really enjoying doing tapestries at the moment.  She has tried counted cross-stitch, which is much more popular and so much more available at the moment, but definitely prefers the tapestries.

One of M's tapestries.

M's latest finished project.

As for reading, we have been continuing with Douglas Adams and are now half way through Life, the Universe and Everything, the third in the trilogy of five.  We have been doing more of other things lately too, but I've decided to do a seperate post for that.