Keeping up some momentum...hopefully

We started looking at explorers and began by watching The Lost City of Z. It's a film based on the life of Percy Fawcett and his travels in the Amazon. It took all morning to get through the film because it raised so many questions from the children. We stopped the film frequently to research many topics. Some of these included, feminism, World War One, PTSD/Shell Shock, chlorine gas, the Amazon, the term 'civilisation' and colonialism. 

The real Percy pictured here. he and his wife were very much ahead of their time and an incredibly interesting couple. The children were facinated by so many aspects of the film and we made a list of other related facts the children would like to look at later.

Sam made pain au chocolate later, he's getting good at managing this on his own more and more now.

We have started watching the Rotten series about the food industry on Netflix this week too.

The first one was about the honey trade. You also learn about bees too.

Nest it was peanuts and food allergies.

Then we learnt about the garlic trade and forced labour.

We then had a few games of Triominos. These games can go on a long while and be pretty challenging .

Owen and I have a particularly long game, whilst Sam hopped round us eager to 'help'.

We also listened and learnt about Chinese characters.

In the evening the children attend their jujitsu class and on their return want to learn about dangerous aminals, so we do that.

The next morning the children want to learn more about Brasil and the Amazon.

We watch the BBC programme about Amazonia, presented by Micheal Palin. This week he talks and visits Indigenous populations in the rain forest. This raises huge and important questions from the children.

They then go off to find out more facts about the Amazon.

Then they helped with tidying their rooms.

Later in the week Sam decided to do his maths lessons.

And write in his notebook.

Owen faced wheeling it the Hama beads and made a design using 'L' from Death Note. He is currently devouring the novels.

I was impressed that, despite some major setbacks, he persisted with his design until he had finished. This is something he couldn't do before.

Sam wanted to write a story.

We also met up with Brian's parents to celebrate his and his dad's birthdays. We had a lovely meal.

Over the weekend the children played at home. The weather was really cold and there was sleet and snow on and off. We played games and watched films in the warm under blankets. Blokey went out to get dog food and also got us our fav meals to cook for an easy supper.

Trying to get them going.......

It's really hard get the children back into a routine after Christmas. I doesn't help that I am still feeling unwell. I am beginning to think I am having a reaction to my medication.

Monday we visited Birmingham. It was a very eventful day, the car broke down just as we arrived. Sadly we had to leave Blokey to wait for the breakdown vehicle, whilst I took the children to Sealife on my own. There was a huge mix of stress and anxiety for the children and they both rushed me round at break neck speed.

We loved the Penguins 

The boys enjoyed spotting and identifying the different types of tree frog.

There were many octopus facts for them to read about.

And of course many fishes.

A bumblebee tree frog.

We spent quite a long time watching the otter juggling a pebble. They are adorable creatures.

Then back round for a second loop and more Octopus facts.

More penguins ..them watching us this time. The children read the penguin facts and spent time identifying the named penguins by their flipper band colours.

Lion fishes.

More penguins.

We headed back to our stranded car, just as the mechanic arrived to look at it. Thankfully he managed to locate the problem and get us mobile again. So we parked up and headed off to find somewhere for lunch. The boys were pleased because we had promised them an Indian restaurant meal and knew of a suitable place nearby.

We had an enjoyable but freezing walk along the canal and wharf.

This lead us into the city centre where we looked at the different buildings and enjoyed our lunch. Happily  the journey home was uneventful. On getting back we were sad to find Shadow had struggled with his separation anxiety whilst we were gone. 

We did some chores together in the morning as Nanny May was coming to visit. Owen vacced and Sam cleaned the bathroom. We emptied the recycling, dusted and had a general tidy round.

Following on from that they did some maths lessons.

And looked up facts and pictures relating to Blob fish. 

When Nanny arrived we popped into town before heading home for our lunch. We chatted and played until it was time for my Mum to go home, then after dinner the children went to jujitsu class. Sam has had a tricky day and had a massive meltdown first thing. He recovered as the day progressed and went to bed happy but tired. 

On Wednesday we looked at various languages. Sam is very interested in Dutch at the moment as well as Eastern languages. So he spent some time looking at various languages, translating phrases using Google and finally writing them down. 

Owen practiced his writing...under huge duress.

We did jokes which lightened the mood a bit.

Sam wrote in different languages.

The we headed out for a walk and talk.

The sun even came out for us.

Owen has also been researching more stuff on sound engineering.

Sam wanted to earn some money so did chores after getting up. He likes cleaning when he's stressed as it calms him down. So the skirtingboards took a right beating. After that he worked on his maths, and went off to research video editing software. 

Owen stayed in bed a long time reading his books. Then after breakfast he wanted to do some drawing. He was hyper critical of every stroke of the pen. Most of his work he screwed up and threw away, even though I though it was good ( and probably made the mistake of telling him so). These are the two I rescued.

Following on he did some maths.

Friday

As I had a Physio appointment it meant getting us out of the house early. Whilst I am fine with this, the boys take some organising. Once there, they charmed the staff by helping them solve a PC issue. This involved installing software to enable them to convert word documents to PDF's. I got treated, the boys were occupied and felt useful and the receptionist was very impressed. Afterwards we had a quick walk round the shops by but nothing really interested us, so we headed home for lunch.

In the afternoon Sam researched and installed some new video editing software. He used the last of his Christmas money to buy it, then set about getting to grips with using it. When the local kids came back from school he went out to play at the park, despite the bitterly cold weather.

Owen is still feeling very uneasy about playing locally and preferred to play online with his home ed buddy. When Blokey got home they had a curry together. Iam still struggling with this bug, so had a small snack.

Over the weekend we played, did chores and really enjoyed this film:

The children asked a huge amount of questions about the Blitz and why the women in the film were paid less than the men.

We also enjoyed the first of Mr Palin's new documentary. The episode we caught up with was about Brazil.

We also started watching a natural history documentary about Scottish Wlidlife.