Sam, Cheryl and a feathery friend. 

If it is tuesday, it must be woburn....

Our feet have hardly touched the ground since cheryl arrived on friday. we have kept her so busy that she is going to need a vacation to recover!! After picking her up at gatwick we made a mad dash for home and got back just in time to grab lunch then run to muddlepuddle. The theme this week was native americans and I think the children all enjoyed themselves. I helped them do navajo fry bread, which seemed to go down a treat, though I am not sure a real navajo would have recognised it. Sam made the biggest coil pot ever-using up most of the clay I think ( sorry merry!).

Saturday we were up bright and early for our trip to cambridge. We met M's parents for a father's day picnic. It was an idlyic day, there is nothing nicer on a sunny day than punting along the backs. Cheryl was very brave and had a go as you can see by the pic below. She was very good and there were no crashed and no one fell in the cam! We picniced on jesus green before returning back up river. Most of the colleges were closed to visitors but we were able to have a look around King's College Chapel-what a beautiful buidling. We finished the day off with a little retail therapy before heading home to light the bbq.

Poor cheryl didn't even get a lie in on sunday because we were up early again, this time to go to the East of England show. My nct branch runs the mother and baby room there each year and I was scheduled to work on sunday. Sam had a blast as usual-he really loves going to the show. He was fascinated by the traction engines and the old cars. He also enjoyed the fairground games and won himself two fluffy dogs. The mother and baby room was very busy with parents trying to escape the heat.

Yesterday we shared the joys of tesco with cheryl-at least we went early enough so that it wasn't too busy. We spent the afternoon at the Raptor Foundation near huntingdon. We all enjoyed seeing the birds and getting to hold them. As you can see from the photo sam got up close and personal with one of the owls.

Not much in the way of formal HE in the last few days but lots of interesting discussions on everything from how traction engines work to greek gods. He is such a curious little boy, I love the questions he comes up with-well most of the time. He is really enjoying having cheryl here, they get along so well-and she treats him to ice cream!!

Today we are off to woburn safari park and sam is excited about the prospect of monkey jumping all over the car. I hope they don't I am a nervous enough driver without animals leaping on my roof!

On a personal note I am very pleased that somehow my jam managed to set! I know that makes me sound like a very sad person but never having made it before I was convinced that I was doomed to failure. It didn't make as many jars as I anticipated but I am quite pleased with the result.

A punting we will go... 

A proud mommy moment..

so excuse me for boasting. We went to the fitzwilliam museum in cambridge today and over the main entrance is a frieze depecting a greek god in a chariot. As we walked up sam said, "who is that greek god in the picture mommy?"-my immediate reaction was one of disbelief, you mean he has actually been listening to what we have been reading!! Once I picked myself up off the floor we had a family summit to try and decide who the god was. We determined that it was definately male ( hard to miss really) but I said apollo and M said zeus. Sam then said that he was going inside to ask one of the ladies at the desk. They did not seem at all surprised to be asked such a grown up question from a 4 year old-but this being cambridge maybe it happens everyday. Turns out it was zeus-lots of points for daddy! S and I enjoyed the museum, he really seemed to take in what he was seeing. M wasn't so impressed he felt it was a bit of a hodgepodge without an overiding theme. Be that as it may it still had more to offer than Peterborough Museum.

We had a thoroughly lovely afternoon in cambridge. After the museum we went for tea and cakes and then wandered along the backs watching the punts. Sam kept shouting-"Don't Crash, Don't fall" in to those who were having a particularly difficult time. That could well be us on Sat as we are taking cheryl there for a picnic on the river. We even got sam to agree that one day he might in fact go to college if it meant he could mess around on boats in the river.

Strolling along the backs in the sunshine was a nice way to end a fun day. This morning after doing our formal learning we had friends over to play. Everyone disappeared upstairs to play so J and I got to have a peaceful chat and I got lots of cuddles from the baby. From what we can gather the sam, B and I spent their time parking cars in the garage and building new cars out of lego.

We picked tons of strawberries yesterday and am going to attempt to make jam. I have never made jam before so it is going to be an interesting experience!!

a movie of our launch 

Dad is great!!

This is what both sam and I sang today. M came home from work this am and decided to take over the morning's lessons. Sam thought it was fantastic. First M took him on a tree hunt in the woods. They picked a bag full of leaves and brought them home for identification and tracing in sam's nature notebook. Sam also learned that it is a good idea not to pick stinging nettles!! Luckily daddy was able to find a dock leaf. While the boys were out exploring nature I was busy ebaying and amazoning. I have 6 things listed on ebay but no bids yet!

After catloguing Sam's leaves we went out to launch his bottle rocket. As you can see from the photos below it was a great success. They intend to take it out again tomorrow, this time testing whether the temperature of the water impacts the distance the rocket will travel. It is all too technical for me, my job is to take photos and refill the water jug!

Sam introduced M to the delights of the Hot Wheels website. While I was fixing dinner the two of them were engrossed in the games. This does not bode well for the future.

Tomorrow is french and berry picking at the local pick your own. I may even be brave enough to attemt some jam making!

One 

Two 

three 

Blast Off 

Grandpa can you get me a job with delta?? 

A lesson in trees 

Let's go fly a kite....

That was the theme of the day as we went to the kite festival this afternoon. M's parents came up which was lovely and we all went together. ( except for M, who is of course, at work!!) Sam had a whale of a time flying his kite with Nana and Grandad who remainded cheerful in the face of biting wind and freezing cold. (Yes follks it is June, not October) Sam was fascinated by the kite buggies-I am sure they have a proper name but they are essentially dune buggies powered by kites. He is convinced that as soon as he is old enough he is going to have a go. It does look like fun, though he would have to be a lot heavier because I could see him easily being lifted off the ground by the giant kites.

Yesterday we took the books to a playgroup fete and sales were slow. I am beginning to wonder if it is all worth it. Maybe I should just concentrate more on mystery shopping. At least with that you know at the outset what you are going to make. I have one more event in the pipelines and then I will have to go hunting for more business.

A quiet weekend on the HE front, some Headsprout and some reading but not much more. Next week we have to get back into our morning routine. I don't expect that we will get much formal work done from fri onwards because Cheryl will be here and we will be busy playing tourist. Then of course it is camp and we are all looking forward to that!!

let's go fly a kite 

are we camping yet? 

What is red and black and wiggles on the living room floor??

Sam in our new mummy bags pretending to be a worm. M got home early today so we headed into town for some retail therapy. We bought our sleeping bags for camp as well as a lantern and a few other bits and bobs. Sam had great fun after dinner trying out the bags, even though being adult bags they were miles too big for him. He was so excited that he asked to sleep in his bag and was so chuffed that he went to bed without asking for a story or his bedtime milk. There is some hope then that he may get to sleep at camp afterall.

A low key HE day, only head sprout and some reading. He read the first half of Green Eggs and Ham to me and was ever so pleased with himself (as well he should be). We spent the morning at our NCT weekly drop in group as we were holding the annual NCTTea Party. It was nice to catch up with people we don't see that often. Sam is very much the older man of the group now and I can't tell you how many times I got asked if he was going to school in sept. That led to lots of interesting discussions about HE. All of them were positive, at least to my face! After the tea party we wandered over to central park for the teddy bear's picnic being hosted by Peterborough Sure Start. Sam had fun on the bouncy castle and ran around like a loon in the sand and water. He was filthy but exhausted when we finally made it home.

Tomorrow it is Happy Faces and Activity World, so another fun but busy day.

Homeschooling Heaven...

or at least it felt that way this morning sitting out in the sunshine doing our work. We used the new picnic table to do our written work and the snuggled into the new camping chairs for reading. It was so nice to be about of doors-even if the wood pigeon on the roof had to express his opinion every five minutes!! We tried out the new Stepping Stones book that we got on Monday. It is all about developing thinking and reasoning skills and really enjoyed it. He got more of the answers than I did and I had the answer key. Actually there are no 'right' answers for most of the puzzles, just suggestions. The first book in the series is aimed at K-3 but even I had trouble getting some of the sequences. I guess that proves what I have always known, my mind does not work in any logical way!!

Had lovely afternoon with Merry and the girls. We planned out the next session of the local muddle puddle group. Merry is basing the session on Native Americans and have managed to come up with somethings that everyone should enjoy. Merry is going to suggest that the chldren come in costume. Since many of the tribes had a liberal attitude to nudity, especially amongst young children I know that sam's first choice for a costume would be nothing. Thankfully I don't think Peterborough is quiet ready for that yet. Sam and the girls got on well, I think it is so nice that he plays equally well with boys and girls and hope he never reaches that stage where it is no longer cool to play with the opposite sex. Josie was adorable and I got to have a lovely long cuddle. I am so thankful what we have made such good friends within the home ed group here in Peterborough and that the group even exists. I can imagine it must be very lonely homeschooling (especially with an only) if you don't have any friends who are following the same path. We are so looking forward to meeting everyone at camp and putting faces to blogs.

Had dinner outside and then sam spent ages watering all his crops. He was horrified to find a slug in his sunflowers and I was summoned to remove it. We also preformed rescue service for a frog that gizmo was chasing. He was a lovely brown fellow and we plopped him in the pond. Giz was very upset that we had ruined his fun. Finished the day by reading two chapters of Superfudge. I am not sure who laughs more, sam or I. I hope we manage to find some on tape or cd at the library.

Long time no blog....

or at least it feels that way. Haven't meant to be so neglectful of the blog, just seem to have been busy the last few evenings with sam and the latest book for my book group.
The week ended on a highnote- a bug hunt in central park with our local mudpud group. Sam was in his element and really had a good time, as did I. It was nice to catch up with everyone and meet Jax and her children. When rain stopped play merry kindly asked us back to hers and the fun continued.

The weekend was full of tidying, running errands and movies. Saturday we did all our jobs in the morning and then spent the last part of the afternoon watching The WildThornberries. Sam really enjoyed the movie as did I. It was far better than any of the disney animated films we have watched lately. Sunday brought more decluttering and tidying and more movies. We watch Dinosaur from Disney, which we hadn't seen for about a year. That seemed to make a difference because this time sam didn't ask me to fast forward through the scary bits. The house is starting to look better but have a few more boxes to get rid of before Cheryl arrives next week.

On an HE front we are still progessing through Headsprout, Explode the Code and Singapore Math. We will start science again tomorrow, having taken almost a week off. Sam's favorite thing at the moment is the Stories from around the World book from Usborne. He has two at bedtime and really seems to enjoy them. We are also reading Superfudge by Judy Blume-I am not sure that he gets all of it but he thinks that everything Fudge does is very funny. I remember reading Judy Blume books growing up and it is nice to be able to share them with sam. (though I don't think he is quiet ready for Are you there god it is me margaret.

It was a busy monday morning here-Sandra from Ichtus Resources came by with most of thier stock of great HE books and Merry and the girls stopped by as well as D and her son J. The children all played really well while we had a chance to look through all of the great books. Managed to stay pretty much in budget, though have ear marked a few things for future purchases. Spent the afternoon playing penny racers and running errands.

Social Butterflys

A quiet couple of days on the formal HE front-other than Headsprout we haven't done much sit down work. We have been far too busy concetrating on the social side of things.

Yesterday we were supposed to meet "The Boys" at central park but due to the lovely summer weather we decamped here. I love having them all over and everyone got on really well. The girls (the younger siblings of the boys both aged two) and conall (my godson and another sibling of one of the boys) were in the thick of things. Whatever The Boys were doing they had to do too. Sam was delighted to be able to show off his room and they all spent most of the afternoon up there-you can imagine what that was like at the end of the day!! Sam went to bed shattered, his sugar buzz having run out about 6. The picture below is of all of the gang (minus L and her two).

Today we went to see the cousins. I got lots of smiles and cuddles from both of them. James is now 2 months old and very cute. Sam and Benjamin got on really well, the older the get the better they get on. Sam had great fun making a swamp out of Benjamin's sandbox (sorry Jo!!)-though in his defense she did give him the hose and say he could put some water in there. That is my son-give him and inch and he takes a mile. I did feel sorry for her, though, when he proceeded to lecture her on the evils of disposable diapers when she complained that James's had leaked twice today. I never imagined that he actually listend when did our nappy talks for the real nappy road show. Just shows how impressionable they are.

A rainy day picnic