Round up in few words as possible

This is Monday again, start of the Easter holidays for our schooled counterparts.
Every day last week I had planned on taking the children to the local farm and everyday it rained. The day it didn't rain our eldest child was marching in Belfast with his Boys Brigade for their annual batallion parade.
So today, once again we thought we would brave the farm, and once again the rain has arrived. Not that it's a major issue getting wet and possibly muddy, but six children (two of them not mine) getting wet and muddy isn't fun to deal with.
There's not an awful lot to report, Mag had a tummy bug on Friday morning and Seb felt he needed to spend the day in bed so it was a very 'non event' day.
As for me I am fed up with nagging all of the children to keep their bedrooms tidy and pick up their clothes. I am toying with the idea of giving myself a break from nagging and ignoring the bedrooms and let them get really messy to see if anyone notices and starts to pick up. Has anyone tried this? Does it work, or is it just more hard work in the long run?
Sent from my iPhone

St Patrick's Day Climb!

Yesterday was St Patrick's Day. After a slow start to the day we decided to go for a walk up to Scrabo Tower. Scrabo Tower is built on Scrabo Hill and you can read more about it on this website http://scrabotower.com/scrabo-tower.html.

No point knocking, there is no one at home!

Its quite a treck up to the tower and around the quarries, this is what happened afterwards.
Worn out.

Resting.

Music Man!

We had a jazz day at our regular home ed meet up last week. I have plenty photos of the day, unfortunately I had my camera set wrong so most of them came out rubbish. Regardless of the photos the children had the bast day to date at the meet up and are now all suitably inspired to learn something that makes lots of noise.

Mag is begging at least ten times a day now to learn the guitar, so that's what the next purchase will be.

Exams, Freefall, Bump & A Birdhouse. How can they all be in the same blog post?

Well a week has gone by and every single day I had planned on writing a few lines to update everyone. So here it is all those few lines condensed into one post.

Monday the 1st of March was pretty much a study day for Mag. The nerves were increasing and I could see that he was starting to worry about the exams the following day. There came a point where I had to tell him to put his books away, enough was enough. I have no doubts at all in Mag's ability but seeing him get anxious like this makes me wonder how children cope with doing ten exams all at once. Well I guess they do, as I did it myself when I was a teenager, but looking at it from a parents perspective is a different issue.

Tuesday, exam day! I took Mag to the school where he was sitting his exams for doors opening and was greeted by the exam officer who showed him where he would be sitting both his exams that day. The morning exam started at 9:30 and he seemed pretty relaxed about it all. Mag was home for lunch then back in again for the next exam at 1:30, after that I had an informative chat with the exam officer to discuss what is next. It was an interesting day to say the least, its been almost three years since Mag had been at a school and I guess it would have been strange for him.

Wednesday was a 'down' day! I had to laugh because what I call a down day is when you do nothing of major importance; rest, watch TV, just hanging out around the house. I posted on Face book that this is what we were doing and everyone sent HUGS. I didn't have the heart to say that I didn't need the hugs, just thanked everyone instead.

Thursday morning I met up with a couple of home educating friends and their children at Indiana Land in Dundonald. Between us we had ten children and the whole place to ourselves which was good. Unfortunately for Mag he is too big to play there but he did get a couple of sneaky goes on the free fall slide. As for the girls, there was three seven year olds lined up along the top of the free fall with the colly wobbles was an amusing site. The mums all stood at the bottom shouting encouragement and each one stepping to the edge then jumping back. I am not sure if I would have done the free fall slide, but they all did it in the end.
At lunch time I had arranged to go have lunch with my friend Lorraine, which we did and had a great afternoon. I didn't want to leave to come home and I think the two of us could have chatted very easily for another couple of hours.



Friday was our day at the science museum, W5. We needed to get out the house again, we have spend a lot of time studying and doing 'school' that this last while so it was well deserved. The day was good except the fact Seb ran into some perspex in the afternoon and ended up going to the children's hospital. He was okay in the end, but left with a nasty bump on his head.



Oh and I almost forgot ... Ashley made a bird box, what do you think?

Holie Festival of Colour

Yesterday we went to the Holi Festival in St George's Market, Belfast. It was hard to take good photos of the performers as there were so many people but I did manage to get a few of the kiddies.


This is the news footage from the festival http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8543389.stm

Frogs and Toothpaste

We downsized our fish tank last week, well should I say we were forced to because we are doing work in our house. I needed the large tank out of the dining room so I bought a little 24 inch tank and set it up in the kitchen. Kind of liking the 24 inch tank we decided not to set the large tank back up again.

With the old tank we made a little frog pond in the garden, got a pond plant and some chemicals to make the water good. We did brick steps up to the top and down in the tank too - a haven for frogs (I hope). We do need frogspawn now, but that will be another venture no doubt, the pet shop said they do some but I am sure I can borrow some for educational purposes.

The frog haven led on to a whole discussion about pond life, and I dug out all the pond life keys we had got when we visited the Balloo Wetlands last year. That resulted in an impromptu visit to the wetlands again. It was very cold, and sadly vandals had burned down the bird hide, but it is still a nice place to visit. We had a look around and studied the water for a little while but due to the cold a couple hours found us home again. The children spent the rest of the afternoon looking at amphibians and pond life in their books.

Anyway - here's the photos!

Seb and Sol warming up after we got back. It was only when I downloaded my camera I noticed what the children had laid out on the arm of the chair. Have a look - cars and a tube of toothpaste for some reason.

Science, Shopping, Fish, Changes

It's been a while, the last couple of months I have been so bad at updating my blog. You would think I had hibernated for the winter or something. I have plenty of questions and messages to reply to as well, so I guess I had better get busy.

The week was a busy one, we hadn't intended it to be that way but that's how it ended it up. Mag is studying hard for his first GCSE exam in three weeks time so we thought that we would stay at home... well best laid plans and all that.

Sol left playgroup this week, it was time for her to move on. She had been asking do 'school' every day when the other children were doing their learning, we decided not to hold her back. Getting to playgroup was starting to get to be a bit of an ordeal so it was for the best all round. I am really happy to have Sol home every day now, I always missed her when she was gone. Though I have to admit I felt a bit teary about having to say goodbye to the mums I had got to know the last couple of years.

Wednesday found us out grocery shopping and getting supplies in for our trip on Thursday.

Thursday we went to W5, the science museum in Belfast, to meet some home educated friends. It was a long day, we arrived at the museum for doors open at 10 o'clock and we didn't leave till 5pm.

Friday we found ourselves in St George's Market in Belfast, then lunch, then more shopping. This time not shopping for food but for fish, we got a fighter fish and a sucky bottom cleaner fish for our tank as well as a pond plant for the little frog pond we are making.

I am not going to say much more now, but try make a point of updating more often now I have broken the silence.

Here's the photos from our museum trip ...

Seb flying a plane!


All the children loved the boat simulator.

My little girl.

They have a pretend supermarket at the museum, all of the little kids love to role play.

My 13year old man!

Playing is very 'tiring'.

Okay seatbelts on, lets go.