Friday 27 March 2015

Pre-holiday catch up

A quick catch up before I take the kids away for a few days tomorrow. 

We had a morning at home on Wednesday, and went to a local home educating family's house in the afternoon.  They have a really lovely garden, and a house perfect for playing hide and seek!




Fred spent quite a while practising somersaults.


On Thursday Amanda, Caden and Miles came over.  Amanda brought cakes, which Meg enjoyed!  We played Shopping List (an Orchard Toys game), and with the Playmobil.




Later Betsy and Meg did some colouring (this involved playing a Dora game online, and winning a colouring sheet to print off), and got out the Happyland toys to go along with the Playmobil.




Fred played with his online PlayStation friends - they cycle between Minecraft, Call of Duty and a couple of other games.  There's a lot of negotiation happening during gameplay.  I can hear Fred introducing one friend to another, encouraging them not to kill each other/destroy their stuff.  It's fascinating.

Today we went to Billy's.  There was gaming, joking, trampolining, and guinea pig handling! Billy and Dallas are taking care of two guinea pigs while their owner is on holiday.  They're gorgeous.







I finished some socks last night.  They are happy socks.


Me and the kids are off on an adventure tomorrow - we're going to look after a friend's kitten. On a boat!  We're very excited.  It's a beautiful dutch barge in Keynsham (near Bristol).  Looking forward to it, though sad to leave Rob behind.


Tuesday 24 March 2015

Butterfly World

We went on a home ed trip to Butterfly World today.  We came here two years ago and a couple of years before that.  This is the first time we've been so early in the season, and I would say it's worth waiting for the summer.  The gardens, while still lovely, are much more beautiful when in flower.

There were lots of families that we knew there, including some good friends.  We walked (grown ups) and ran (kids) around the gardens.  I really love the gardens.











Then we headed to the playground.  It's a good one - big sand pits, a decent slide, and an excellent climbing frame.  We spent most of our time here.  






Betsy, Meg and I went to the workshop (Fred was happily occupied with friends).  It was quite disappointing.  It was quite dry and schooly - answering questions about the rainforest.  No insect handling like the last time we visited.  After looking at some of the minibeasts we headed back to the playground.




Fred had built a structure in the sand, and was carefully adding sticks to the front.  It was impressive.





The kids took it in turns to do the long jump into it.



After some more climbing we went to see the leaf cutter ants.  It's a great set up - a long length of rope goes from a tree to the nest, twisting and turning along the way.









Another, smaller colony on the other side of the room was taking blossom petals.  We even saw one ant carrying an entire flower!

Finally we went to the butterfly tunnel.  Fred and I wondered how Betsy would like it, as in the past she has been a bit scared of butterflies landing on her.  She was fine, but Fred got really worried.  He didn't stay in long, and was convinced one had flown into his pocket (it hadn't, I checked).

While we were still inside, we were lucky enough to see an atlas moth.  It had recently hatched, and they only live for about 5 days.









On the way home we saw an unusual cloud.  It looked a bit like a funnel, like it was being sucked up  y the ground. Fred took a photo of it.