A glorious day

What a wonderful day I have had today. It has been wonderful even though Miles had the longest and most furious tantrum yet because I refused to spread anything further on his bread (by this time he had margarine, coconut oil, jam and chocolate spread on).

The weather has been bright and fresh. The girls enjoyed the structured time we spent together looking at Ping and doing our 'normals'. We have spent most of the day busy outside and now the children are all asleep or on their way to sleep with a contented rosy glow. Today has confirmed why I chose to home educate. The children have had the time and space to do lots of things, learn, grow, play, exercise, breathe fresh air....ooooh I could go on but I won't. It's been a very good day.

Once again the story of Ping went down a treat.

Following the story we talked about factual and fictitious stories. We played a little game where we each took turn to say something and then we said whether it was fact or fiction. They enjoyed that.

We looked at the illustrations in the book and considered what materials the artist had used. He had used coloured pencils on most pages. We drew and coloured our own pictures and tried to imitate the effect he had used on many pages to create a multicoloured sky. We also talked about authors and illustrators and how generally they are not one and the same.

Certain word and phrases are repeated throughout the book. I suggested we write our own story using a repetitive phrase. This didn't quite go to plan and turned into a session where the girls told me a short story (a couple of sentences), I wrote it down and then cut up the words on separate pieces of paper and then they put it back together again in the correct order. I was very impressed. I'm amazed these days at the extent of their sight words. They are growing in confidence in this respect all of the time.

Once we had finished we went out into the front garden and I carried on picking stones from the lawn area and the girls rode round and round on their bikes for an hour or so.

After lunch we headed back to Tweddle Farm. We have bought a family annual pass. We were the only visitors there. t was great to be able to wader around and look at the animals without having to wait for other people to move on. The children could play on whatever they wanted in the play area. Oh, the joys of home ed.

As we headed home we passed the Nature Reserve again. If the weather stays nice over the next few days I'd like to go and check it out. Also, on the journey back Soo mentioned that she would like to keep bees. I think it is something we should find out about, see how practical that would be. Could be good. We also need to sort out a composting bin.

A letter arrived today to say that there is a place for Hermione at Rainbows. Unfortunately it clashes with Jazz dancing. I think we will give Rainbows a try and see which she prefers.