Our fairy walk and talk.

Tuesdays used to be my day off. I pack the littlies off to Grandma and Grandads for the day and head out or stay in or fill out those annoying forms that sit in your in-tray. You know the ones? The ones you can't fill in with a littlie hanging off your leg or boob. Or the ones that you have to call a number....press one for customer inquiries....press fifteen if you've forgotten what option one was.....
Anyway, days off are gone for now. My eldest has finished school. Her deregistration letter went in just before they finished for the Christmas holidays. We knew quite some time back that it was time to go. If we didn't try home education out, at least for a little while, we'd have had some regrets. It wasn't the fault of the school, I'm not anti-school at all, it was just the right time to leave. We'd explored the avenue of flexi schooling with the head teacher but she wasn't keen. It seemed like a lot of paperwork so we decided against it. Not long after that meeting my daughter decided that she wanted to be home schooled with the other two. We let her truly make up her mind before the Christmas holidays and then when she was certain we handed in the letter.

It was a pretty emotional time for us. Leaving the school behind was hard for me too. I was active within the PTA, helped out whenever I could and had lots of playground mums as friends. I'm continuing the friendships obviously, but its different when you don't see everyone quite as often. The headteacher was great. She said we needed to do what was in our hearts and what was best for Penny. She wished us well and said that Penny was welcome back at any time if she chose to return.

So since we've 'started' at the beginning of January so much has happened.

We're learning without even realising. Everything they do is learning. Even if we're out shopping they interact with people of all ages. The supermarket isn't so much of a chore when it becomes a learning environment. There are numbers everywhere and so that presents maths opportunities. Labels on things are great for word recognition....Apples, pears, cakes....ahem :)

We obviously don't want to be in the supermarket everyday so we've done lots of other things.

We have an annual pass for Trentham Gardens Its quite close to us so we go quite often as a family. On my 'day off' My biggest girl and I took a stroll around the lake there. There's a fairy hunt on at the moment. The sculptures there are amazing. We took looooaaaadds of photos!

 

Whilst we walked we chatted about the seasons changing. The last time we went there was in the autumn. We had a great time picking blackberries and popping the himalayan balsam seeds. Now everythings changed. The blackberries are all withered and gone. The himalayan balsam is nowhere to be seen, although I suspect its invasive growth isn't too far away.

There were all kinds of fungus amongst the damp branches lying all around. We took photos of those too. Although I need to learn what kinds they are. Its a learning curve for me too. I really need google in my pocket...

So I'm quite enjoying my days off. They're still days off you see, I just spend them with my girl instead and we learn together :)

Drop. Drop. Drop.

A salt picture. Quick, awesome art.

Last night a drew some swirls on a large piece of paper with pva glue. I sprinkled it with regular table salt and let it dry. Putting it up on the wall before bed, I crossed my fingers and hoped my biggest girl would enquire as to what it was.
The next morning she did. By chance some pipettes I'd ordered from ebay dropped through the letter box. We were ready to go!
It really couldn't be simpler. Just dropping coloured water onto the salt they merge to create rainbow patterns.
She's inspired. Currently she's dropping the water onto paper towel sheets to get different effects. Next its black card instead of boring white. Whatever next? Important thinking colour wheels, tie dye, rainbows, light...steady mum...dropping colours onto paper is fine for now ;-)