London - a good day.

Rob took the day off and we all went to London.  We bought Merlin passes last week - it feels very extravagant!  £400 for the 5 of us. 

I'd been planning on taking the kids to Alton Towers in June.  It's very close to Rob's parents and I know the kids will *love* it.  That would cost £150 for the day - it seemed daft not to spend the extra and be able to go to loads of other places too.

So today we collected our passes from the London Aquarium.  The train journey was great - story cubes, and games on the Nexus made time pass quickly.

It's very straightforward to get to the South Bank.  One tube journey, no changing, very little stress!  They love the tube.  Fred likes to stand up and balance as the tube rumbles along.

A short walk in the sunshine and we were there.  

There was lots to see at the aquarium.  Highlights included the jellyfish, sharks, penguins, spider crabs, sea horses, rays - pretty much everything!

We went for lunch in Giraffe afterwards.  I love Giraffe, and haven't been for ages.  It was delicious.  Fred amused himself by creating a superhero called Poop Man on the drawing table mat kids get.

It doesn't look much, but for writing-averse Fred it's a pretty big deal.  We had a few rounds of naughts and crosses too.

We had time to go on the London Eye before heading home.  I love the London Eye.  Rob is not great with heights and didn't enjoy going up, but he felt better once our pod was on the way down.  The kids enjoyed it for about 20 minutes, and then were a bit bored.  Probably not something we'll repeat unless we do an dark ride to see London lit up.

We got back just about in time to look after Will and Jeanie, friends from along the road.  They'll be here until bedtime, so there's lots more playing to be done this evening!

Socialisation

There has been a thread on one of the yahoo home ed groups about socialisation - what it is, how much children need, what form should it take. The original poster said that she's been told by a social worker that her child needed 15 hours a week. Someone else commented that a teacher told her that her child was not at school to socialise.

There is a difference isn't there, between the process of socialisation, and the activity of socialising? For me, socialisation is the process of learning about how your society operates, and how to behave in that society. Socialising is being with other people and interacting with them (does this need to be in person? I regularly interact with people online, as does Fred when he plays Clash of Clans and Dino D Day).

I've just checked the Collins dictionary - socialisation is 'the modification from infancy of an individual's behaviour to conform with the demands of social life', while socialising is 'the action of behaving in a friendly or sociable manner'.

I know people worry about either or both of these concepts in respect of home education. People have images of children kept at home, working at the the kitchen table. In fact, there are opportunities to socialise every day if you wish to do so. As for socialisation, I think our kids learn about the 'demands of social life' by having siblings, grandparents, local friends, children and their parents at groups we go to, shop keepers, the postman (really! He's very chatty).

So I've been mulling this over, prompted by the yahoo discussion and our last two days. We've spent them at home, but it's been very sociable!

My mum came over for a few hours yesterday. She stayed for lunch. Betsy and Meg persuaded her into some board games. Betsy spent half an hour showing Nanny her Minecraft world, and Fred gleefully showed her some of Dino D-Day (she didn't know what to make of it!).

10 minutes after she left, Billy and his mum Zoe popped in on their way home from a walk on Ivinghoe Beacon. Fred played Minecraft with Billy, and they went over to Jarvis's house for a while. Betsy asked Zoe to play Moshi Monsters with her. They stayed for a couple of hours. So all together they kids had 6 hours of social contact with people outside of their immediate family.

Today was Betsy's Girl Club. She had this excellent idea to invite home ed girls over and do 'girl stuff'. So, I sent a message to our local home ed email lists and got some lovely responses. The first club was last week, and we had one family (with two sisters) and it went really well. They made cupcake badges and pop-up cards, and played Sylvanian Families.

Today we had a heart theme, and had some wooden hearts to decorate.

Three families came, so we had 6 girls including Betsy and Meg. They played upstairs, then did some craft, then played on the Wii and the DS. It was a lot of socialising and socialisation! We're planning another one in two weeks time, and Betsy would like to do some sort of animal activity. I'll get my thinking cap on (aka go to Pinterest for some ideas!).

We finished the daffodils and I hung them up next to the nature tray. I added the crocus and snowdrop fairies to the tray, as we inch closer to spring.

Oh - great news from Fred.  He's now a level gold 3 in Clash of Clans.  He's delighted!

Making, doing, playing

Back after an unscheduled blogging break!

Winter goes on, not with snow and ice but with rain and floods.  We're very lucky where we are.  The canal is unlikely to flood, as it flows into a brook (which does flood, but further downstream).  We've been on many muddy walks, sailed origami boats on puddles (brushed with melted beeswax first), and stayed in a lot!

I ordered a free trial of a Weekend Box for Betsy and Meg, and we dug into them today.  They're pretty cool, with more content than I expected.

We started with mini kites made from straws and old carrier bags.  Meg in particular loved running with the kite flying behind her.  Freddie wanted one too so I made a stealth kite by request (clear plastic bag!).  I've added 'go fly a kite' to my list of things to offer the kids soon.

Meg really liked the box and was keen to chose another activity.  She opted for snowball cakes - little cakes made from butter, sugar, flour and chopped nuts, then rolled into balls and baked.  When they were cool she rolled them in  a mixture of icing sugar and desiccated coconut.  Cute!  The nuts and coconut were in the box, I had the rest of the ingredients on hand.

Next to do was a colour mix paint activity.  Each box had two small packets of powder paint.  I added a few drops of water and Meg and Betsy mixed it into each colour.  Then they mixed their two colours together.

There is also a map making activity, we'll probably have a look at it tomorrow.

Fred continued to build on his Clash of Clans success.  He's a silver 1, and very pleased with that.  Today he bought some hog riders, something he's been wanting to do for a while.

Betsy, Meg and I started making some daffodil bunting, an idea from the Garden Classroom ebook I've had for ages and not used.  It has some cool things to do, and I've made alist of the ones I think will appeal to the kids.

The daffs need their trumpets gluing on, then we can stick them to some ribbon and hang them up.

Betsy has been collecting photos of birds to make into a bird book.  She picked a pink display folder last week, and started writing the names of the birds today.

Apart from that there's been minecrafting, Dino D-Day, Littlest Pet Shop, Johnny Test, Octonauts, pretend fishing with a garden cane fishing rod, Playmobil.

And here, because I can smell them while I'm writing this, is a glorious daffodil, telling me spring isn't too far away.

Ugh. But, we have a decorated tree so I should stop moaning.

Tired, Betsy coughing, tired, grumpy, tired etc.  I'm boring myself.

Let's look at the christmas tree instead.

Meg's Little Letter pack arrived today. It was a christmas tree craft, and she shared it with Betsy like she did last week.

Freddie was delighted to find a pink sheep in minecraft.  They are very rare, apparently, with a 1% chance of finding one.  Brown sheep are common, and are 50% of the sheep population.  He killed the pink sheep, and stashed the wool in his trunk!  

Elves, candles, trees

Meg is much better today, less coughing, easier breathing, fewer puffs of ventolin.  Betsy is coughing instead, and feeling pretty rough.

Instead of making lunch for mum and the rest of the family as planned, Rob and I did some home jobs.  Freddie went out with Jarvis, Betsy and Meg played with Ethel.

Ethel is this year's christmas elf.  The plan was for Ethel to get up to fun and games with Eric.  Somewhat predictably, I can't find Eric, so she'll have to manage on her own.  The kids were all pleased to see her, and the advent calendar (with chocolate coins and joke of the day.  Today's joke - what do snowmen have for breakfast?  Ice crispies.  Boom boom).  

The wintery nature table went down well too.  Betsy loves the white felt snow.

 After lunch Betsy and Meg came with us to choose the christmas tree.  Freddie decided to stay at Jarvis's, and they went to the playground.

The garden centre had a merry-go-round, and the girl's had a ride.  We found the absolute most perfect tree.  We'll decorate it tomorrow.

This evening I lit the first candle in our advent wreath.  It looks lovely!