Typical week

What does a typical week look like for a home educating family?  

There isn't a typical week!  But this is what we did this week.

Monday - good friends came over for playing and lunch.  Betsy and Meg got the dressing up stuff out, and wore interesting costume mash ups.

The hama beads came out, and Meg spent a long time making a squirrel and a dog.  The grown ups helped by picking out the colours she wanted.  Betsy made a cat.

After lunch we walked along the canal to the playground.

Tuesday - a quiet day.  Meg made me a hama bead coaster.

The beautiful weather continued, so the kids played with water in the garden.  Lots of Minecraft and GTA5.  Meg's good friend (2 doors down) came back from holiday, and they spent a very happy afternoon playing and giggling.

Wednesday - mum spent the morning with Betsy.  They went to the playground, Hennes for t shirts, Clarks for shoes, and Costa for a brownie.  Meg and I ran errands in town, and Fred stayed home for the 40 minutes that it took.

Meg bought a Lego Friends set with her pocket money.

After lunch mum went home, and the kids played in the garden again.

Fred has been having some issues with an online Playstation friend.  It came to a head, and he was so upset.  I am now trying to find him some home ed kids to link up with, and have started a Facebook group to try and make some new connections.  His online life is very important to him.

Thursday - the monthly local home ed meet up.  This had worked reasonably well for us last month.  There had been a few older boys for Fred to hang out with, and the girls had liked the toys and activities on offer.

This time it wasn't so good.   There were only two big kids, and one of them had to leave early. Fred was bored after about 40 minutes.  I really want to support a local group, but it's important that I balance that with the needs of my family, especially Fred's.

Next time I'll message people a few days before, and see if I can persuade other families with older kids to come along too.

Friday - monthly meet up with home ed families at nearby National Trust places.  This month it was Hughendon, where Benjamin Disraeli lived.  Gorgeous sunny day, good friends, hills to roll down, an orchard to eat lunch in.

After huge amounts of running and playing (and the odd stick-related injury), we looked around the house.

The staff were very welcoming of our reasonably large group of slightly noisy children.  They gave them an I Spy sheet, with items to spot.  The kids loved it!

The best bit was downstairs in the basement.  It was a Second World War display, with a bomb shelter, 1940s-style living room, lots of RAF map making information, and RAF uniform to try on.

In the shelter:

In the 1940s living room:

This poster amused me:

 Map making:

Uniform:

Rob would love the RAF stuff, I might suggest he goes one weekend.  I can imagine him spending a couple of hours reading everything there!

Now Meg is playing with her friend Teddy on the trampoline, Fred is playing GTA5 and chatting online, Betsy is playing Clash of Clans at Jarvis's.

The week was a pretty even split between out and in.  Lots of playing, laughing, chatting.  And there will have been learning too, even if I don't see exactly what it was.  That aspect is typical!

Home days

I was feeling rubbish for a couple of days, so we cancelled plans and stayed at home.

The weather was glorious, and the kids spent some time in the garden.  They watered the sunflower seeds and my allotment seeds.  Only Meg's had germinated.

Meg's bean was looking like it wanted planting.

Meg played with the Playmobil.  The family in the car is so cute!

Betsy and Meg put all the kitchen stuff back together, and played happily for ages.

Plus the usual gaming time on the laptop and ipads.

At the weekend we went to Rob's parents for a family party.  It was a really good couple of days.

Not quite to plan

I had a clear idea of what we'd be doing today.  Supermarket delivery between 10 and 11, then over to Caden and Mile's with a packed lunch and egg decorating supplies.  

Problem number 1 - Meg was asleep until I asked Betsy to wake her up at 10.25.  10.25!  For goodness sake.
Problem number 2 - the supermarket man phoned at 10.30 to tell me he had a puncture.  He was nearby, and I could wait maybe 2 hours, or go and collect from him.

So at 12.00 I was still putting the shopping away.  Oh well!  Lunch at home, and off to our friend's house without egg decorating gear, as it felt like a step to far today!

The kids had fun though.  It was mild enough to play outside, and they have a big garden with a trampoline, slide, playhouse, swings, sandpit.  Heaven!

Betsy landed badly on the trampoline and came inside to do a puzzle and some painting.  Freddie and Betsy did some colour mixing (eventually it all ended up sludgy brown) and Meg painted too.

I drank tea, and even managed to do some knitting!  Happy me :-)