Wild Camping Trip

Summer is in full swing and we're doing our best to make the most of the weather (which has been amazing).  We decided to take off on Friday night to a secluded beach, away from the crowds that arrive this time of year.  We took what we could carry and had endless fun... rock pooling...sea swimming...fire building...pancake cooking...shell collecting...tree climbing...and spending quality time with family and friends.  Camping at its best!  

Painting

We got the paints out yesterday, which we haven't done for a while and something we should do a lot more often as we had a lot of fun and it inspired some great creative thinking in the children.  We started off with just the primary colours and white and they really enjoyed seeing all the interesting colours they could create.  Keziah paints with lovely colours in abstract shapes and Reuben goes for detailed pictures with lots going on.

Reuben started this game after washing his hands.  He found boats and filled them with 'people' then put 'fish' and 'squid' in the sea, which he and Keziah then fished out with wooden tongs.  He initiated this all himself with no input from me (I was cleaning paintbrushes!), which seemed to come from having some creative time first.

Bikes!

Reuben learnt to ride his pedal bike last weekend.  We'd been looking for a second hand pedal bike for ages for him and eventually Andrew found this one for a tenner outside the bike shop round the corner from us.  It did the job as, after a couple of pushes from Andrew he was off!  It was great to watch and to visualise the saying "once you learn to ride a bike you never forget" - he was back on his bike at 7am the next day trying out 'stunts'.

Keziah is still flying on her balance bike, which she loves.  

Train Trip

We went on a train trip to Truro today.  This was in Falmouth before we got on the train.

We took a look at iOrchestra on Lemon Quay and had a go on the percussion instruments.

Seren had her first time on a swing at the park.

A favourite moment of mine!  I asked the children to look at some books in the library whilst I fed Seren and they sat quietly, engrossed in books for quite a while.

We discovered the lovely community garden outside the library.

We met up with another home ed family and went around the museum with the explorer bags, looking for different things... 'find something smaller than your hand' etc.

Then some colouring sheets in Truro Arts cafe.  A fun day out!

Role play

These 2 love to role play at the moment and are almost constantly playing different characters whilst at home.  I'm not entirely sure who they were this afternoon but it looked fun!  I've enjoyed adding to the dressing up bag over time when we have a fancy dress party to go to, but they'll wear just about anything they find and somehow relate it to their character.

Growing and making food

We love to cook in this house so have always involved the children in this process as much as possible.  Pizza making is great for this.  The dough stage is fun and tactile.  The toppings stage is creative and tasty!

Every year we try our hand at growing our some of own veg.  The rest we get mainly from a friend who has an allotment.  This year we stuck to just 3 crops - broad beans, sweetcorn and gherkins.  The beans and gherkins are being harvested already but the corn has a way to go yet.

This is Keziah's sunflower which she planted in 'Seedlings' (creche at our church).

We definitely find that the children are much happier to eat all their veg if they've been involved in preparing or growing it!

3 peas in a pod.

Nature study

We thought it'd be fun to do some drawings from nature in our garden.  Keziah and I started off with some herbs.  She picked some oregano and did a great observational drawing with even the hairs on the stem detailed.

Reuben was keen to go around the garden measuring things and recording the measurements.

Seren enjoyed the exploring the herbs too.

Reuben discovered a Oak tree hiding behind the fire pit and a spider.

Zip line

The children set up a zip line for their playmobil people.  It worked quite well!