Response from LEA

How pleased am I to have received the following letter from the LA bod today????

Dear Mr Evans

Thank you for your detailed and comprehensive response to my enquiry. I do appreciate what a difficult time you and your children have been through recently.
Thank you also for your invitation to meet with you and your children. It is always a privilege to be invited into the homes of home educating families and to share in their experiences. I am able to then pass in examples of good practice to other families who may be considering home education.
As we are approaching the end of term, I would suggest that we arrange to meet in either Wednesday 16th or Thursday 17th September 2009 at a time of your choice.
I look forward to hearing from you shortly.
Yours sincerely
EHE Co-ordinator.

I knew it would be next term for the visit now, but so pleased with the response. *Very* different from other communcations I have in the recent past.
BIG SMILE :-))))

More experiments.

It really is too late to be typing this out, so apologies for more spelling mistakes than usual, but I really want to blog this before I forget it.

This morning I sorted through LOTS of the children's colouring / sticker / activity books that are lying around in various locations, I secretly disposed of LOTS that I consider either 'completed' but not showing any real examples of writing etc (thinking LEA bod here) or just not going to be used anymore.

I got out the envelope folders that I purchased on Friday for the children to decorate. I hope the children will use these to put there finished 'work' etc. (again LA bod) the children all liked the idea of somewhere to put there work and Angel is keen to show the 'LEA Lady' her work, I have had the conversation with her, about her work belonging to her and she can only give it away if she *really* wants to, and that she wont see it again if she does, she has decided she doesn't want to ;-)

I then collated all the 'arty' type pics that the children have produced over the past x months and glued all the pieces into individual children's 'scrap books' ; something we have ALWAYS done, but given the 18 mths we have had, suffice to say things have slipped slightly, although each book is nearly full, and that is just from taking down pics from walls, notice boards, doors etc in the two downstairs rooms. Angel was amazed at how much she had done this year....It was an eye-opener to me actually.....

After lunch my parents cam round, as is usual, and once Pal was asleep I asked if the children would like to do more experiments. They shouted YES.
We began with this one, as my dad bean telling the children about it;

Dry paper in jar under water!

Small jar with paper pushed to the bottom. Plunged jar upside down into bowl of water; demonstrating air pressure inside jar keeping water out, therefore keeping paper dry.

Under-water volcano.

Small glass filled with hot water (coloured red for visional reasons only) covered with clingfilm. I tied string around the jar to lower it into bowl of COLD water. We had pierced small holes into the clingfilm. This

demonstrated that the hot water rises to the top of the cold water because it is lighter / less dense than then cold water.

'Volcano' explosion

We placed Bicarb and flour in dry plastic bottle. Made a 'volcano' around the outside of the bottle with sand. poured Vinegar mixed with red food colouring into 'volcano' and low and behold an explosion. the children loved this...obviously....

Demonstrating chemical reaction, releasing carbon dioxide, pressure building up, until explosion of froth from flour and Bicarb.

Unfortunately we ran out of vinegar, otherwise we would have had multiple explosions!!

Geyser demonstration.
2 straws secured in a plastic bottle with a bung of blu tac. You blow in one straw and the increase in air pressure in the bottle forces the water out up through the other straw. HRH really is enjoying the 'experiments'.






Cleaning water with a cloth.
2 bowls, one with muddy / sandy water higher than an empty bowl. One end of a clean dry cloth is placed in the 'dirty' bowl and the other end in the empty bowl. Eventually the water will travel up the cloth and down to the empty bowl, whilst doing so the 'dirt' is left behind / filtered through the cloth and 'clean' water is transferred to the empty bowl. This does take a *loooooonnngggg* time. We started at 5.pm and its still going now at 11.00 pm.

water experiments

As it was a very sunny day and the children wanted to ‘do science’ I had an idea of demonstrating evaporation.
This is how we did it;
We poured a glass of water on the ground outside and drew around the water mark, to show the size area of ‘wet’ paving. The children thought it was funny how the shape looked like a man’s head. (Side view)



This is the picture at 10.30 straight after pouring the water on the ground.





I discussed the principles around evaporation, and we talked about how rain is made etc. We decided to come back every 5 minutes and look at how much the water had evaporated.

We looked at the water mark again at 10.35 and the children immediately noticed that the mark had shrunk a little, all of the splash marks had gone and the main part had gone inside the line.







10.40. again the wet area is smaller.

10.45 Smaller still

10.50 Smaller

10.55 end of the experiment; the water has all evaporated.

We took a photograph of a puddle in the shade that did not change throughout the whole period of time we were watching the water mark. This demonstrated to the children that it was the direct sun light which evaporated the water.






In between going outside to monitor the water mark, we looked through a science book and discussed the properties of water. We looked at how water comes in three forms. We looked at information regarding Ice, Liquid and gas (water vapour)
There were various mini activities that we did, which looked closely at the properties of each.
Liquid.
We looked at how water can be poured and we discussed how gravity pulls water to the centre of the earth, this lead to wider discussion of gravity and the layers of the earth. We then looked at how we can defy gravity to get water to move upwards.
We did this by siphoning water from a bowl at a higher level filled with water to a bowl at a lower lever that was empty.
I began this by placing the full bucket on a bench outside and the empty bucket on the floor. I asked how we could get the water from the higher bucket to the lower bucket. Angel said ‘pour the water out’. I then asked how we could do it without touching the buckets. I went to get a length of hose and asked how we could do it now.
Angel said to put the hose in the buckets and the water will run down. I did this and explained that the water needs to travel a little way up over the side of the bucket before it can travel down to the lower bucket. She then said to swap the buckets around. I did, and asked if that would work, as soon as I swapped the buckets over, she said ‘oh, that won’t work either’.
I swapped the buckets back to the original position and asked how we could get the water over the edge of the bucket. Angel said we

needed a pump. I agreed but said that we could use something else. I showed her how to suck the water the little way up the pipe and to quickly place the end of the hose in the lower bucket. I know you can just place the entire hose in the top bucket, fill it with water, seal one end with your thumb and place it in the lower bucket; but they enjoyed the ‘accidental’ mouth full of water they kept getting.
They played happily most of the afternoon with the buckets and length of hose. I would have been happier if the hose were clear, as the children would be able to see the water travelling up it, but I think they like the surprise of getting a mouth full of water....



We talked about how our body is made up of a high percentage of water, and the different ways that we lose water all the time, i.e. sweating, urinating, through our tears, saliva etc. And the importance of replacing the water throughout the day.
Steam
We used the kettle to demonstrate how steam is produced and placed a glass plate near to the spout of the kettle to show how the steam collects as droplets and returns back to a liquid.

We also poured hot water into a glass and placed a glass plate on top to show the collection of water vapour.

Ice
We talked about how ice is made and how the water expands when it becomes solid; this was demonstrated by making ice cubes.
Later on in the afternoon we got three ice cubes (well ice hearts as we don’t have cubes.) and chose three different places to put the ice, with different temperature conditions to see which one melted the quickest. The children chose, in the sun, in some shade in the garden, and finally in the fridge. They all predicted which they thought would melt the quickest / slowest. And we checked regularly to see which ones were correct. They all predicted correctly.
We will be doing more of the activities from the science book over the next few days.

we aslo went swimming this afernoon, which was fabulous, although HRh has sore skin again, he managed really well and had a lovely time. Pal is a real water baby and loves jumping off the side of the pool.

Sad news tonight though, Lynsey's mom rang to say that when she returned home from work, her neighbours were waiting for her, to tell her that 10 mintues after she left that morning, one of her cats had been killed by a dog.....how awlful, she is most upset. the RSPCA and police were called and the remains of the cat were taken away, so too was the murderous dog. Poor Twilight had been 'torn apart' :-((((

work boxes ????!!!!!

A 'new' HE friend of ours has introduced me to the idea of work boxes....from Homeschooling capital..America......Look here for info http://www.workboxsystem.com/id47.html
Although we are very autonomous, the children do like to do 'work' occasionally and at certain times of the day I find it useful to have an area that I can point out to the children to find something to do, and as its usually mealtimes, they often hang around in the kitchen.

I have taken a VERY basic idea of the work boxes and instead of doing 12 boxes of activties etc per child per day!!!! I have allocated one box per child and I will ensure there are a number of activities on various topics / interests each day. (Depending on whether they have been used the previous day).It is completely upto the children whether they do them all, just one or two, or not at all. I just like the idea of having something, the children can do, without me having to think on my feet, or sort something out whilst I am doing something else. Obviously all the usual spontaneous / autonomous stuff is still taking place.
At the moment the children are very much into doing worksheet type things, so this fits in very well.
For tomorrow I have put some maths activities for the big three, which I feel they should be able to do independently. They also all still ahve activites that they started today.

In our typical way, this arrangement might only last a week or two, but for Now, its working and the children, especially Luna and Angel are enjoying looking in their 'self decorated' boxes in the morning to see what 'work' they have to do. I have emphasised that it is all totally free choice, but they *want* to do the activities. Its also a good way of using all the many, many worksheets, print offs etc we have collated over the years but not done anything with.
Angel especially liked that because I know what they like, I have put things in that they are interested in. Bless her......that is the point of HE, as far as I was aware......lol....I'm doing that right then.
Angel also liked the fact that I had printed off some colouring pages for Pal to do too...He really wants to be doing everything the others are doing now, including walking around the shops instead of being imprisoned in his pushchair, something which is not proving to be conductive to getting around the shops easily.

Well today started off with a dash to the supermarket and other localish clothes type shops for summer supplies for all the children, and there was a sale on at one of the blokey shops so I left there considerably lighter in the money situation. lol.

Back home for visit from Lynz aunty, twho has historically cut all of our hair, (she is a mobile hairdresser) so all children had just a trim, because they have decided to grow their hair, and I had a drastic re-style, i think it is called lol....its different anyway......

HRH, Angel and Luna all did 'work' from there boxes and repeatedly returned to them over the course of the day.

Visit from electrician at 8pm. Due to the heavy rain we have had, a leak developed in the ceiling of the upstairs play room. The water was coming through the light fitments!!! The electrician came a disconnected the light from the mains. I have to phone again in the morning to report the roof leaking, as that is not considered urgent enough for out of hours attention....oh well, good job it has stopped raining then.......

On Saturday we harvested the potatoes from a 'Potatoes for schools' challenge, and when I say the amount of potatoes we had out of 3 bags was small, I really mean bloody pathetic...we will not even bother weighing them and entering the information on the web, its just too embarrassing....personally, and from what I can gather from the Early Years / EO yahoo groups list we are not the only ones to have a poor turn out. Think its the size of the bags personally.

Tomorrow I have another counselling appointment and the I need to get in touch with HRH herbalist to collect more cream. However his eczema is returning, so not sure what to make of it, other than the fact he is no longer on the steroid cream!!

Last few days

Sunday -
Being Fathers Day and Summer Solstice, we decided it would be nice to go out somewhere nice. We went to www.raysfarm.com which is a children's farm and a beautiful woodland walk with wooden sculptures from Nursery Rhymes and fairy tales for the the children to find along the way. We ALL had lovely day. Angel was demonstrating her reading skills by reading all the information signs and directions. My parents were very impressed with her. HRH and Angel enjoyed using the map to find the sculptures and they were using the 'key' to identify when we were approaching a bridge, bench, steps etc
Pal walked lots, but still enjoyed being carried too. lol. Luna was completely over excited about seeing Humpty Dumpty...bless her.

Monday -
Angel did some fractions, from a maths work book she has, but I was very annoyed by how quickly it jumped from basic fractions to using fractions in sums......it really put her off, so I drew some basic fractions and Sat with her for some time going over the concept.
We had a visit from Lynsey's cousin who has boy aged 6, (E) he goes to school so their visits are usually after school. We had a lovely chat, mainly about the HE review and her concerns about E's school.The school has recently failed their OFSTED inspection and is being threatened with being placed in 'special measures' consequently the majority of parents have taken their children out of the school, there are only 7.....yes 7...children in E's class now......???!!!! He finishes Infants school in July so she is going to move him to a different Junior school in September.??

Tuesday-
I had sorted the shelves out in the kitchen at some point this week, so that we have a few maths and English resources nearer to the table, rather than having to find them in another room. I thought the children *might* just take the imitative to help them selves at difficult times of the day. i.e. when I am preparing or tidying the lunch / dinner things. Well it works!!! Luna and HRH both fetched out the Geoboards and elastic bands straight after breakfast and spent ages making patterns. We spoke about the various shapes and we talked about symmetry for a while. All the children at some point had a go on the PC. various sites..including..www.girlgames.com, and the usual Ceebies.
In the afternoon I took HRH to see a herbalist that had been recommended to us. She said HRH was a prime candidate for Chinese Herbs and said his 'picture' fitted the remedies perfectly...That's the first time he has been case book. he certainly isn't as far as the health profession are concerned lol.
He has a mixture of herbs to take in warm water, mixed with juice etc. three times a day. He likes the taste, which is helpful. and he has a Chickweed based cream for his skin. We have tried chickweed, before as we knew it helped ease the itching, but the cream we had before was very thick and it tended to leave a very thick greasy layer on his skin which, covered all his clothes and made him hotter at night, not good for eczema sufferers. So far the new cream is proving acceptable, so watch this space.

Today (Wednesday)
Started off with the last Horse riding session. It was a little more disorganised than usual, as some of the volunteer, horse handlers had not turned up. the group usually splits into 2, while the first group is having a ride the second group do grooming etc, but because there were not enough people, only one group could ride at a time, so we were left standing about in the hot sun for half an hour whilst the first group rode. So we went to the urban farm which is next to the stables for the half an hour and returned for the riding. HRH and Angel loved it, as usual. I took Luna and Pal to play on the park whilst my mom walked with the horses and HRH and Angel.

Then we made a 40 minute dash to our regular HE group. This week the activity was paining using natural items i.e. berries, chalks and flowers etc. it worked really well. The children painted on paper and also on clay tiles, which I can later cover with varnish to make them weather proof. So we can display them outside. Lots of general chatting was had by the adults and playing by the children. even a friendly water fight was had. Two new families were there today too. Its always nice to have new blood....new people to chat with and new children for the little ones to play with.

Home and then the paddling pool came out again. Pal and Luna *just* love water, and its lovely that HRH is comfortable enough ant the moment for him to enjoy it too. Angel is enjoying the 'Sharpay' (sp) (from High school musical) pretence of lying by the pool, with her sunglasses on etc. She did eventually go in the pool for a play.
Dinner, small play out side then bed.

Tomorrow we are going on a canal boat trip with a fried and her children. She works at a boat yard and has managed to borrow a 'day boat ' for the day...We are all really looking froward to that.

catch up!

I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up with the daily blogs...Oh well here's what we have done over the past few days.

Tuesday.
We met up with a local HE family who live 2 minutes walk from us. (hello if you are reading) We have been living literally around the corner from each other for 2 years without knowing one another existed. we met on a field!! near to their house and the children got on really well. They have a girl 8 and a boy 6, so a perfect match for my two eldest. They spent plenty of time running, chasing, hiding in the bushes etc. whilst me and their mom had a chat, and we have arranged to meet up again soon. It will be so nice to have some one local who we can meet. Sometimes its a real pain having to pack the children into the car for a play with friends. So here's to a new friendship ;-)

In the afternoon I had another counselling session. It should have been my last one, but the co-ordinator said she is happy to continue supporting me for as long as I feel I need it. I did feel ready for it to be the last session last time, but I had a wobble last week and it sort of took me back a little, so I'm happy for the continued support.

Wednesday

Horse riding. HRH was not looking forward to the session because the backs of his knees were so sore, he didn't feel he would manage on the horse. I explained that once he was on the horse he would probably be OK. He was. Bless him.
My mom and brother took off with Pal and Luna to the park whilst I watched HRH and Angel. you are able to leave your children throughout the session, but given HRH's allergies I was not prepared to.
The children learnt what type of brushes are used for different purposes during grooming and I was very impressed with them both. they both listened to the lady and were able to answer all her questions correctly...I'm very proud of them ;-)
The actual riding went well, they practiced the things they did last week, including, getting the horse to 'go', turn left and right and more importantly Stop .LOL
They then did various exercises to improve their balance and confidence etc.
We didn't have chance to play on the park afterwards, as we usually do, because it was too wet and cold.

Today.
Went into the City centre to do the regular health food shopping.
Whist passing through the shopping centre, there was a regular second hand book sale....oh dear, yes I was drawn over to them, the pushchair just goes towards books now LOL...
Anyway they had Horrible History Books, How could I leave them there. The children are so pleased with them, we bought 10 at £1.00 each. RRP £3-4.00 Bargain.
We did Health food shopping then visited 'The Works', more books I know, but I do have a bit of fetish for them. Although, Pal had by this time figured that if he pushed on the bottom of the pushchair with his feet, he can lift him self out of the safety straps and get out, so it was a quick visit. All the children chose a sticker / activity book and we made a sharp exist.

Back home, big three did *some* activities in their books. Angel read some of the 'Terrible Tudors' whilst waiting for Horrible Histories to begin on TV. All children watched HH and played outside before dinner.
HRH and Luna watched a DVD from the BBC 'Walking with Beasts' series, that are in the news papers at the moment, they loved them.

I have finally completed the paper work for the Clinical Genetics Unit, for the girls. Jut have to wait for any feed back now. I think there are equal cases of Breast and Bowel cancers on both sides of the families, but not sure whether it is significant.

A day in the life of the evans clan!

This is a day with us. Not a typical day, but not a particulary different day either. its from about a week ago too, maybe more.

Angel and Pal on the trampoline

Luna doing jigsaws

HRH on Cbeebies

Angel doing a phonics and reading stile book.

HRH doing a phonics and reading stile book

Angel reading the message book from Lynsey's birthday memorial

Pal doing jigsaws

Luna on Cbeebies





Angel piano practice

HRH 'reading' his Kung Foo Panda book

Story time

In the afternoon we went to a Wildlife activity centre, we did willow weaving, nature walk, pebble painting, making hedgehogs and tree fairies from air drying clay and general playing etc in the outdoors.

HRH weaving his willow fish

Angel weaving her fish

Luna and Pal painting pebbles