Rock the House

Rock the House

Listening to my smallest small loudly giggling away in the bath, under the careful supervision of The Grandma One, and the two biggest Smalls arranging the flower bouquets for a knight and Barbie wedding it is hard to believe today got off to a rocky start.

But it did, before breakfast tempers had been lost, voices raised, pulses increased. I made soft boiled eggs and buttered white toast dunkers for Middle Small when it was porridge that was required. It all went wrong. Very wrong.

It did improve though, and, as I have mentioned in earlier blog posts was probably less than 5 minutes out of the whole day. In the end Middle Small had both porridge and two soft boiled eggs and dunkers for breakfast.

In my twelve dog years of parenting, a friend told me the other day that your parenting dog years is when you add the ages of all your children together, this is the toughest phase I recall. Hugs and Mummy Milk have fixed most things in the past but domestic harmony is a slightly trickier goal at the moment.

Grandma took Big Small swimming this morning, she is on the cusp of independent swimming and just needs to keep going!

Sometimes it feels like there has to be something to take the gloss off or else life would all just be too perfect. It has been making Big Small really sad though, yesterday she told me it makes her feel like the saddest girl in the world when tempers are lost. I wonder where the corner is because I need to turn it.

After an early lunch we headed off out and spent the afternoon at Parham House, it poured for the first five minutes we were there but then the grey blew over and blue skies provided the backdrop for our stroll round the garden and play in the Wendy House. If there is somewhere with a brown and white signpost in a 10 mile radius of our house that we haven't visited I would be surprised!

The Wendy House at Parham is stunning, built in the 1920s all the doors and windows open and it is chocolate box cute.

It is a few years since we last went to the gardens at Parham and my initial impression was that they looked a little more 'shaggy' than usual but, after we had been there a while, I began to suspect that this may be a deliberate ploy as the flowers and grasses were buzzing with enormous bees.

When we went to Horsham Museum we read that there was a unicorn horn at Parham and, although the house part is closed on a Tuesday, we asked the staff and they were able to show us a photo. It is actually a narwhal horn and over 400 years old. S knew straight away that it was from a whale and not a horn but a tooth. "How do you know all this stuff?" I asked her. "Octonauts." she replied nonchalantly. Big Small loves unicorns she also had my camera for most of the visit today which is why the photography on the blog today is way above its usual standard!

I was after some bronze fennel from the garden shop at Parham today but sadly they had sold out. We did have a cup of tea though!

When we arrived home S immediately set to work on a florist's shop of her own and wrote out signs and set up a display. When the customers were not immediately forthcoming she arranged a fairy flyover to attract their attention.

After the start to the day, Parham House & Wendy House there was only one song for this blog post Rock the House.

Peace in our time.

Clash of the Titans

I have watched a whole film with the Biggest Smalls this bank holiday afternoon. I didn't get up and fold laundry from the tumble drier or re-stack the dishwasher (badly!) like I normally do when a film is on. The three of us just sat on the sofa and chilled out to "Clash of the Titans." The older version with Ursula Andress and Maggie Smith. They have, as regular readers will know, watched 'Jason and the Argonauts' and 'The Odyssey' on film recently and Big Small has read: The Horrible Histories Groovy Greeks, Usborne Greek Myths, Usborne Trojan War, Marcia William's Greek Myths etc etc etc . Consequently her knowledge base is knock out for a six year old, every few minutes she told us what would happen next in the film (een though she has never seen it before she was using what she had read.) It was a great movie, quality cast, and, although it was over 2 hours long, even our 4.5 year old was gripped!

Prior to this our own hero, The Daddy One, took the smalls swimming at 8am, whilst I had a really lazy morning doing our vast collection of wooden puzzles with Baby Small. I started out with an eye to ebay them and free up some cupboard space but he still seems very keen on them. Later Big Small and I decided to do some 'maths' but, on the upstairs PC the keyboard typing backwards, the mouse wheel appears to have packed up and the printer out of ink so we did a few quick adding darts games on the BBC website. As a home edder maths is the subject I worry about the most. For my own part I was the classic 1988 GCSE guinea pig, I do love statistics, as an economist they are a life blood, but at university the staff had to run extra lessons in calculus for those who had done GCSE maths to catch up as the syllabus was so weak. S did fabulously in the maths program at explore learning last year but they said she had progressed so far she lacked life experience to go on with the questions. She needs to see why with maths and I try hard to weave in everyday opportunities but I rarely pay cash, and we haven't bought new carpet lately! We do much baking and weighing though. Last year I watched the maths lecture on TED by Sal Kahn and today a response was posted up on the Unplugged Mum facebook page. More TV tonight, it has been a grey and drizzly sort of evening although The Daddy One & Middle Small did manage a few hours at the allotment, we watched Richard Hammond's Engineering Solutions which we all really like, the first in the new series of Horrible Histories and Egypt's Lost Cities, we saw Intech tweeted last week about NASA and space archaeology, the program was great, on a giant touch screen the images show where the treasures lie under the sand, Big Small loves Egyptology and has been several times to the British Museum, first when she was 3 and, more recently, to see The Book of the Dead, the program was clearly filmed awhile ago although the story seemed to have been making news this week, apparently this is because there have been tomb robbers already and much of the work has to be kept secret.

Otherwise

A friend was talking about mental maths a few weeks ago and I thinking on things to do next week when we will be at home more than usual, as it is the school half term holidays, and I found this link to maths radio on the BBC page and, as I was moving about the page, I noticed the list of KS1 topics. (I keep thinking we might subscribe to mathletics or education city but so far I have been able to find what we need for free.)

These are the topics that, were Big Small at a state school, she would be covering. Home Educators are under no obligation to follow the national curriculum and do not have to sit SATs, 11+ etc of course some home educators do but we don't really consciously break life up into topic or subject chunks. Sometimes, of course, it happens that way, usually just before a visit from the LEA, but in the main we just go with the flow.

When I look back over the last week's blog posts I am not sure how I would file: hearing a nightingale sing, taking part in a Medieval play at a real castle, swimming or feeding a calf into these subject projects but overall it seems like an 'efficient education' to me/us although I think our holistic approach of life learning maybe a little more full time than the legal definition has in mind.

The parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable—

1. to his age, ability and aptitude, and

2. to any special educational needs he may have,

either by regular attendance at school or otherwise.

and I was thinking at 6:15pm tonight when Middle Small walked towards me with Peter and Jane 3b in his hand "You know this love of learning that you have, well, would it be okay if you just put it on hold for a while because I am knackered and I just want to sit down in silence with no body touching me!"

Today we have had the marvellous Grandma & Grandie here for the morning so the front path and back garden are swept and the Everest of ironing is no more, The Daddy One managed to spend some time at the allotment and watch the Monaco Grand Prix.

E has been playing this reading game today with the word magnets and wine gums. Hidden under a pile of 2 or 3 words is a wine gum, read the words, eat the sweets!

Despite being somewhere where ice creams have been on fairly conspicuous sale everyday this week The Smalls seem to have, since the dentist, really cut back on the sweet treats, they have, until the word game, been preferring peas in the pod instead but the digestive consequences of over indulgence have been a little hard to handle.

Baby Small has spent the whole day dressed as Buzz Lightyear today, I think yesterday's theatrics have rather captured him. We played charades again last night and S stunned us with her imaginative choices. For one turn she was Baby Small's toy monkey!

after they left we did some drawing on black paper and some knights cutting and sticking pictures, in the kitchen again!

The Revolution will not be televised

Woke to the sad news that Gil Scott Heron passed away yesterday. As I have already named a couple of blog posts after my favorite of his tunes I thought I'd choose "The Revolution will not be televised" for today as there was no TV in Medieval times and today has had a very medieval theme. Sometimes my blog posts are full of text and no pictures but today is all about the photos!

On a very windy day we have been to Arundel Castle, which is about 9 miles from where we live, as they were having a siege weekend. Regular readers will know we have a Middle Small who is very keen on knights so we just had to take him along.

We arrived as the event started at 10am and shortly after wards were welcomed by the loudest cannon fire, the bang shook my whole body and made Baby Small cry. As you can see The Smalls had dressed up for the occasion.

E was allowed to wear the helmet. We had a look around the spectacular gardens which represent the source of the River Arun and Oberon's Palace is the sea. The garden's had a gorgeous smell. Beautiful borders.

Then we watched the siege reenactment but the smalls were really sacred of the loud bangs. Even at a 1/4 charge they had to notify the police and the coastguard that the event was taking place because of the noise. S didn't want to stay outside but said that even inside it was very frightening and gave you a real sense of what it must have been like to be in a castle under siege.

Joined in with a play of Robin Hood, telling a story in a time before printing, we all had to join in. S was Maid Marion, E was first to volunteer as a Badie Henchman. O was Robin Hood, I was an outlaw and Daddy One was Robin Hood's horse for the joust.

If your children (or you!) like: castles, knights, canon fire then the event is on tomorrow and Monday and is very good! Older children could have easily stayed still closing time but as unusual it was me that ran out of steam first. All of the staff we encountered today were both friendly and knowledgeable.

Breathing Light

This is a gorgeous mellow tune from Nitin Sawhney "Breathing Light" - Did you know I have made all my blog titles songs into a youtube playlist?

We have been to LA (Little'Ampton) today to the Lion's Den play park right by the beach, there we met S&E's gymnastics teacher with her dog and some HE friends, but not before the enormous payday ocado order arrived at 7am, it was not raining at the seaside but was a little overcast. There is a great zip wire there and a couple of roundabouts but sadly all the sand seems to have gone from the sandpit which the smalls were a little disappointed about. The grass all around is very brown, months without rain.

I thought we might have called in somewhere on the way home and was considering a mooch around Rustington which, for a small town, has a great array of shops and independent retailers and a museum but before we made it to the end of Sea Lane the boys were sparko! Sea Air!

So we came home and did some bank holiday weekend baking, the oven has been professionally cleaned today so required christening. Coffee & walnut cupcakes and a tiramisu plus potato with sour cream and chive salad to go with burgers and sausages from our fabulous local butcher for supper. Friday is our teenager day and that is 4 healthy appetites to cater for.

S had been doing a flags of the world project on the Barbie website and as the colour printer cartridge is running low we had to cross reference the flags with the atlas and an old sticker book.

Southern Freeze

I like this Old Skool tune and I like the way the name of the band is spelt Freeez

Yesterday's blog post was not really the end of the day, learning all the time as they are accustomed to, the Big Smalls had several hours more energy before finally crashing out around 9pm. S made some freestyle paper dolls, which of course needed to be cut out just as we sat down to supper, she sized the clothes by eye and I was really impressed with the accuracy and they were on the lingo show on CBBC for quite a while.

I watched the coverage of Chelsea Flower show and was really interested by this couple from Scotland who run a thriving business and had won a silver gilt for their stand. "We have no formal horticulture training," they said "we have just picked it up as we have gone along." Maybe because my ears are listening for it but more and more now I am noticing how many individuals have achieved success in a chosen field without following the traditional education and career channels. They are at about 60 minutes on the iplayer clip.

We have done the guided walk at our local RSPB reserve Pulborough Brooks today, unusually there were more guides than walkers. S loves this event and is very at home in the company of grown-ups, binoculars and 'scopes! There was a work experience student along today as well.

After the suncream and sun hats of yesterday it was a return for the welly weather suits and the wellies today. S heard a Nightingale and saw, amongst others, a Shelduck with its ducklings and a green woodpecker. We were at Netley's hide for over half an hour of solid bird watching and she was totally engrossed. I, on the other hand, was playing charades and entertaining run away toddlers. Anna who works at the reserve full time and is a bit of a bird and bug expert is a similar age to me, she started out in financial services and used to volunteer at the RSPB until eventually they offered her a full time paid job. She helped us no end today and is a super star.

Afterwards we called in at library for some books on the second world war and to pick up a Magic Pony Carousel that S had ordered in. Here she is reading it on the swing.

We also popped into Fittleworth park had a game of football and searched for a rainbow between the sunshine and showers.

The Worst Witch

On Tuesday night I read the Worst Witch by Jill Murphy to S. I hardly ever read to her these days as she reads so much quicker than me and has normally finished the book before I am ready to start, well, I say hardly ever, that is relative to how much I used to read to her i.e ten times a day, rather than relative to the national average or some such measure.

Anyway, we have read this book before, several times, but this time we read the introduction on the front page where it says that when Jill Murphy was six she was making books of her own with a stapler. We liked this because S is 6 and she makes her own books with a stapler too.

Then we started to read about Miss Cackle's academy and how on the first page it states that "It looked more like a prison than a school." and as I was reading I was thinking about how school is portrayed in the children's books that we read. In some of S's best books like 'Famous Five,' 'Swallows & Amazons' and 'The Railway Children' the children are on holidays or there is no money for them to be sent to school and this is how they are free to have constant adventures but in other books we have enjoyed like 'Danny Champion of the World' his teacher, physically harms him with a ruler as I recall and in Dahl's other book that S likes, 'Matilda' whilst Miss Honey is an angel of a teacher the headmistress Ms Trunchbull is a terrifying character. Once I said to my husband "Do you think Charlie and Lola go to a Steiner school as they never wear seem to wear uniform?" and he said "Honey, they are paper cut outs." There I go again, thinking too much!