A very busy weekend!

M & L did the 5km Park Run on Saturday morning three-legged (although they didn't manage to run as such) to raise money for Children in Need in just under an hour, which K accompanying them as support. Soon after they got back, they went to help out at the church Christmas Fayre with Scouts, making bacon butties and then in the afternoon it was time to clean the rats' cage.

Sunday we had a lovely treaty day planned, including meeting with friends at the Dice Cup, but unfortunately illness prevented them coming, which was a real shame, but we'll try again in the new year.  We did still have a good time and tried out a couple of new games as well as some old standard ones.

We played were Dixit and couple of times and attempted to play a Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets Quidditch quiz game, but after reading the rules and having a look at the questions decided to skip that.  A new game that we all really liked (so much so that we've bought it for friends for Christmas) was Qwordie.  It's a cross between a quiz and a word game, that works really well.  There are questions which each have several answers and you have to collect letter tiles in order to be the first to spell out a correct answer.  Most of the tiles have letters, but there are also blanks and 'steals' which allow you to take a tile from another player.  The winner is the first to cross the winning line, which is marked on the tin and having won a round, you stack your tiles from that word and when your stack reaches the winning line that's the end of the game.  There are three winning lines to give options of a quick game, or longer ones.

The tin! (I forgot to take a photo while we were playing)

We also had a bit of a play with, but not a proper game as we'd run out of time, Dimension.  It's a 3d logic game, where you have 15 coloured balls of 5 different colours that you have to stack whilst fulfilling the instructions of 6 cards, relating to number and position of the different colour balls as you can.  You get points for the number of balls and managing to do what is on the cards, whilst losing points if you don't manage.  It's not always possible to manage them all, as sometimes the cards can be contradictory.  It'll be interesting to have a proper go another time.

Having a go.

The reason we ran out of time is because we had tickets to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.  We all really enjoyed it - it's so good to have a new Harry Pottery thing to enjoy.

In other news I forgot to share the lovely birthday cards that the girls made for A for his birthday, so here they are...

M's card....

...and K's.

Just a little update.

The mornings are still less than easy for M (and me!) and she is finding the tiredness a big struggle at times.  However, M is pretty good at getting her homework done in plenty of time, doing most of it on the day it's set.  She has started going to concert band with her French horn on a Friday after school and is enjoying that, although a knock-on effect seems to be that she's missed gymnastics later that evening from being too tired a couple of times (although she might well have done anyway I think).  I'm really pleased that she did decide to give band a go and is enjoying it, as playing music with others was such an enormous part of my childhood and adolescence and is one of the few things that is harder to offer in a home ed setting, at least before a certain level of proficiency. 

One M's main reasons for deciding to try school was sport.  She wanted to be able to do more and different sports.  Since she started a few weeks after everyone else, she missed some of the PE lessons doing netball before they moved on to something else.  Despite having had just three lessons of netball and during those only one match, she was selected to play for the school in an under 12s tournament at another local school.  She was slightly concerned that she doesn't know all the rules, but decided to go for it.  At the parents' evening her PE teacher had said that she has a good tactical awareness and clearly her korfball ball skills are transferable to netball!

Meanwhile, K seems to be getting on well with maths on Khan Academy and science lessons are going very well too.  English however is incredibly slow going, as she seems to take days to write just a couple of lines of the story that is the final assignment of this unit.  We have had a talk about this and that K has been trying to hide the fact that she's not making much progress, and have a plan that she'll try doing the English first before moving on to the work she does online and see if that helps.

A busy half term.

Half term has always been a bit out of routine, as various activities stop and we also try to meet up with schooly friends, but with M at school this time it's been more significant.  And very busy!

M had an 'insect day' on the Friday and we met up at Wollaton Park with three other home ed families, who M particularly wanted to keep in touch with.  There was plenty of imaginative play, running around and also a go or two on D's 'hoverboard'. 

On the Saturday, M and A went to do Park Run with our friends across the road.  M and L did well and although it wasn't a personal best time, they managed to run the whole way with no walking for the first time.  A didn't do so well and pulled his calf soon after starting, so had to stop. M then later went shopping with L and H.  We also had a beautifully neighbourly late afternoon/evening.  Our new next-door neighbours popped round bearing chocolate brownies in the plastic tub that M had given them some flapjack in and stopped for a chat and cake.  L from over the road was round at the time and H (her mum) popped over to check she was there, as the girls had come back to ours from the park and hadn't told her where they were.  H came in to say hello to the new neighbours and invited everyone to come over for a glass of wine.  It was soon after this that K and I had to go to the supermarket to do some shopping for her Scout expedition with the other members of her group.  By the time we got home, our house was empty, so we joined the others over the road.  It turned into such a lovely evening.  I'd made a big saucepan of soup, so I fetched that and H got out bread, ricecakes, cheese and ham and we all ate together. 

This really got me thinking about how fortunate we are with our neighbours.  Our immediate neighbours in all directions are all lovely, but since H, C & L moved in about 2.5 years ago, they've made such a difference.  While various families have always been friendly with each other, they have the ideal space and the inclination to host get-togethers, and we see much more of most of our neighbours as a result.  As well as that, they have become really good friends and have been so helpful and supportive, particularly with the whole school appeal process and subsequent settling in period. 

On Sunday, K went on her Scout expedition.  This involved four Scouts who had planned the travel and food and practised putting up their tents.  They met the leaders on Sunday after lunch at a local bus stop, they then made their way on their own to the campsite, which was a bus ride and walk away.  The leaders were there waiting for them, but didn't help as they put up their tents, cooked their own food, slept and cleared everything up before making their own way home again the next day.  Everything went smoothly and K really enjoyed it.

We had A & J round for most of the day on Monday.  M, A & J played The Game of Life in the morning and we had a very late lunch when K got back from her expedition, mainly because my pizza dough had gone horribly wrong because I forgot to multiply the water by 1.5 when scaling up and had to start again! 

Tuesday K was back at science in the afternoon, so we had C, G, L & S round in the morning, so M and G could spend more than the few minutes they get together most Tuesdays and Wednesday we went to the Dice Cup with different friends. 

Thursday was supposed to be our quiet day, but it didn't quite work out like that.  Partly it turned into a horribly shouty day unfortunately, although it ended with everyone making up and hugs.  But also, M ended up spending up quite a bit of time with L across the road, because she had come down with chicken pox for the second time and really needed company and distraction.

On Friday, we headed off to Ironbridge, picking up M (the dad) en route and meeting C and M (mum & daughter) at the youth hostel at Coalport.  We had a lovely weekend with them, including a visit to the China museum (next door to the youth hostel), a night walk, a visit to Blists Hill, the Victorian museum, pumpkin carving for the girls, card games, a visit to Enginuity and the Darby Houses (plus the Museum of Iron for some of us), and a walk to the Iron Bridge itself.  We had all been more than once before, but the museums are really good and plenty to get out of them.

So all in all, a lovely half term, although not as restful as it could have been.  The clock change has helped make the transition back to early mornings not as difficult as it would otherwise have been though fortunately.

Now we're back to the school routine after a couple of days.  M's definitely not happy although does seem to be a bit more settled and she is still finding her feet with the social side.  She feels that the girl that she thought was most likely to become a friend isn't as keen as she is, and having had a conversation with L this evening, who is on the other side of a similar situation, is trying to work out how to deal with that.