Weve has a busy week this week, I dont know where its gone! I havent had the energy to blog, each evening Ive just collapsed in a heap!
Thankfully Sophie cooked on tuesday making some lovely felafels and Tsatziki ! Shes keen to try them again and see if she can improve them on the recipe she had which she felt was a little too bland for her liking.

Yesterday we joined other home edders at Techniquest, the hands on science centre. We'd been having a lazy day but I felt the need to get out and do something and out membership needed renewing anyway. Its good value at £45 a year, considering it would cost £20+ to get us all in for one visit usually, ( for home ed visits you get a big reduction if you prebook!)

The kids found lots of exhibits which connected with our Human body science projects, Sophie got to grips with the internal organs in life size and Connor managed to steer a car'The wrong way'( controls in reverse) and raise his heart beat by 30bpm just by thinking angry thoughts ( and when he gets angry he gets ANGRY!) from 68bpm at rest to over 100!




This was their favourite new exhibit.. an optical illusion in 3D!

Brighter Blessings

Isn't it funny how life works? Feeling dreadful last night to things feeling better, well even OK today... and what caused the turnaround? Finding out that Sophie couldn't go to our local school even if we want her to, we wont get a place and we'd have to appeal. I phoned this morning and we have missed the closing date for applications( something they don't advertise BTW, forms are given out by schools and only to schooled children)The suggestion was we write every month and get turned down in the hope a place becomes available at some point.

There are however places at the second best ( of pretty dire) schools.. no way Hosea!!!.. So that's it, decision made, my hand is forced and she can't go to the local school so shes going to be being home educated. There's no way I'd consider the school we were offered.I know a child there who is begging to be home educated, leaving school every lunchtime and returning home saying "I'm not learning anything worth learning (so whats the point!??) and being returned!

So strangely I feel better about things today. Money is an issue, will continue to be I think but I will see what I can muster to get round it.Ive never been one to wallow for long before looking to a solution and something will come to me, hopefully I will get more hours in work soon.If not I will keep applying for similar opportunities now Ive passed my lifeguarding course.
At least the neighbours got the hint and were quiet last night!A nights sleep has certainly made me feel better

The kids have worked quite industriously on and off all day getting through quite alot of their workbooks and handwriting. Connor has worked in his Human Body project for a bit labelling a skeleton and is now building a Hare skeleton kit which he had for Christmas, shielding it from the rabbit in case she gets upset ( Bless!)

Sophie is working on her lapbook on the Romans having completed a Harry potter exercise( she finally got to the third chapter!!)

They both seem much more settled and happier when they are actively engaged in activities.We tried autonomy and child led learning and despite months of deschooling ( which they certainly benefitted from) it never led to them getting into anything apart from fights with each other and refusal to do anything!So structure it is for us, thats not to say we dont have a degree of autonomy and are very flexible about what, how where and when we do things but without structure it seems we all go mad. Chloes need for structure extends to her thriving in a very traditional 'prep' school environment, alien to anything available here in state schools so I guess its not surprising the others need the 'setting' of at least some of their day! It seems very much to calm and reassure them when theyve 'got their work done and its time for choosing'

I'm getting increasingly disillusioned with CGP Maths books, the english ones are great and cover all sorts but the Maths are a couple of pages on each thing and provide little opportunity for consolidation of ideas.Weve done the letts wizard whimstaff books but again, these are mainly useful for fun and revision. I hated maths at school and Sophie tried Kumon ( BLLEURGH-BORING RIP OFF!!!!!) so I guess Ill have to order a book from several schemes from somewhere like Amazon and give them all a good look through. Im seriously thinking about borrowing from Waldorf and Montessori approaches to maths, the hands on and 'rhythm' of lessons and topics makes so much sense to me when thinking about how my children respond best to things they find challenging!

Feeling down

Really down.... I think at last my resolve to remain here has completely gone. Ive never liked this house, we moved in because it belonged to a friend and was cheap. He just wanted someone to look after it following numerous tennants wrecking it ( and its still a wreck pretty much)
Its too small for all of us, we cant have visitors and people dont call generally. Friends who have been here have said the can see why it drives me nuts. We all basically live in one room which is approx 4m by 5m.
Recently we had new neighbours, relatives of the lovely people who lived next door before them. Theyve been here about 3-4 mths. In that time Ive become more and more depressed, the children more tired. Neither work and they play dance music with a ferocious base line until the early hours, keeping the kids awake .
We've politely approached them about it on several occasions. The excuses have ranged from "He's just upstairs watching the telly whats the issue?( what? with dance music pounding away?) to tonights "its not that loud, hes just testing his speakers" ( as our living room furniture was shaking perilously and lampshade swinging!) and "I cant hear anything wrong with it to be honest, its in my house" She then claimed it was all fair enough since she had hurt her leg last night tripping over the towbar of our caravan ( yes, really, that was the justification!)

The previous family left saying "err well good luck, we wouldn't want to have to live next door to them"... incidentally we never heard them... they had 3 kids, inc a toddler who alledgely cried all night when he was ill!!!

We've decided to phone the landlord who we are aware knows their landlord and have a word. If that fails we will have to move for definite. Now doesnt seem to be the time to try and buy and rents here are ridiculous money ( which we dont have)

To top it all Chloe went back to school tonight, complete with football boots( £6 in a sale thankfully!) and everything else she needed for school....and thats all our budget for the week gone..... sometimes I feel like everything is falling apart around me and theres sod all I can do about any of it as much of it simply depends on other factors/people. Im seriously contemplating the kids returning to school to get our head back above water without cancelling their dyslexia tuition, Chloes OT ( which Im battling the LEA to get them to pay for as they should be... inc writing to the assembly member!)
and they have pleaded with me not to do( so dont I feel awful) but I cant see how I we will afford to move otherwise:(
I shouldnt moan, I have so many things to be proud and thankful for, I just cant summon the energy for them at the moment. The downsides seem to cloud everything.

A day without rain! AT LAST!!!!

Loads of fun yesterday, IKEA with friends in cardiff(top 2) no pics of their kids because I dont know if its ok to put them here( although there are some cracking shots)
The bottom three are in a local park we love in the summer which has a lovely playground and paddling/swimming pool. Its not so much fun in the winter but we made the most of it, its soon to be redeveloped and the kids enjoyed sharing the plans with the park warden.
Connor is pictured here with Billy the Seal who inhabited the lake in the park from 1912 to 1939 after being caught in a fishing net in the Irish Sea and donated to the little zoo which was in the park. He used to swim with the children! The kids love the story and never cease to be amazed that a seal lived in the park and that when he died they discovered Billy was a Billie!!!
While we were there they found out there is a big park birdwatch next sunday morning so we'll be joining that weather and bleary eyes permitting!

Rain and more rain.... I can't stand it! Its not even like theres anywhere to go when its raining here! If I had any money Id book us all some cheap flights and get myself off somewhere warm!
I swear Ive got seasonal affective disorder!
As it is, we dont have any money.None at all, after totting up what needs to go out this week I cant even go shopping or put petrol in the car although clearly I will have to or I wont get to work, the kids wont get to Dyslexia tuition, swimming, trampolining etc! So I wont be going anywhere warm in a hurry! Ah well, one can but dream!
Since were now in minus teritory without spending a penny Im having to enforce a strict "No buying, no spending" rule, no Chloe, you cant have new football boots, no Soph and Connor we wont have whatever you guys want for dinner which depends on me going shopping for it.. you'll have whats in the house already!( only snag is the kids do need things, Chloe especially needs jeans! I do however have a bit of paypal!Ebay here we come!)
We'll also be spending much more time at home unless its absolutely essential to go out, no loss I guess, its endless gales and storms here, howling down the valley. The fence is shaking perilously and I hope it doesnt come down! I really dont need the agro!Ah well, maybe we'll get to tackling the girls extremely chaotic tip of a bedroom! Its serious bomb site teritory!

We had quite a chilled day today. Woke up late and the kids seemed in the right mood to 'do' something and so I decided we'd do some maths and english. Connor especially is quite resistant to working at it usually but is much better when Darren is around. He happily sat and worked his way through a page of maths, english, some spellings weve started to practice and a couple of pages of his Book. Sophie did her maths,english and some handwriting. They were amazed what they had got done in just an hour. I'm really pleased with the way the work now and are happy to sit down. Connor is really pushing on with his reading of his own accord. He hates 'chunking' but is getting the hang of combining his sounds although this still needs work. Often he really amazes me,he read the words 'completely' and 'mystified' tonight....a couple of weeks ago he was struggling with fairly easy four letter words. I think the storyline featuring bottoms getting bitten and sardines stuck up the noses of incompetent pirates is spurring him on!!

They spent a while on the playstation before lunch. I went off to work and Sophie came in with me.She told a couple of the kids she already knows that she is home educated and they said that was really cool... they werent so enthusiastic at the thought that she'd spent sunday morning 'working' but one reckoned that the positives she could think of ( esp getting lunch when she felt like without queuing for ages) would make it worth it!

We got home to find Darren had put up an IKEA unit in the bedroom we'd bought to go in the living room! It works really well and I have somewhere to put books, photos and ornaments in the bedroom :)! I have to resist the urge to go and spend money I havent got on them!
Sophie spent about half an hour before bed reading 'Harry Potter and the Philosophers stone' aloud and was really pleased to get to the end of chapter 2. Her teacher in school would never let her read what she describes as 'interesting books' because she hadnt finished reading what they wanted her to read... while her friends were allowed to read Harry Potter, Michael Morpurgo etc, books Sophie only accessed when they were done as parts of whole class based work. I'm starting to see how and why kids get switched off reading in schools, especially when they arent 'allowed' to read things considered 'too hard' for them. I can see the improvements already and am so glad she had something which meant she 'had' to have a go.Shes realising she can do it.
In the meantime the 24 hour a day rainfall shows no signs of stopping so Im planning to take them out more this week regardless of the rain if we dont go and 'do' something I think we'll all go loopy!

From the briar patch

40 words

Touch Typing online

I'm quite pleased with my score since Ive never been taught to type or used any sort of ttype training software.

One of the kids targets for this month is to do more typing practice. They are one finger, one word at a time typers!