Building, Science, Activity books and a holiday

The boys did some building together whilst I whizzed through my chores. Afterwards Owen carried on with his house design, whilst Sam and I played Frustration. He made new rules many times and there was much negotiation as usual.

After the game we spent time going through our activity book from Manchester Science and Industry Museum. There were quizzes and word searches, Sam is doing so well at this sort of thing now and practically finished the whole book in one sitting. We also went through putting the stickers on the things we remembered seeing and read more information about the history of the inventions and machines. There was also a section on child labour in the mills, which he found very interesting. We looked at the Factory Act and Sam was surprised to read that this only prevented children under the age of 9 from working. As he's nearly 9 himself he was quite shocked. I resisted the urge to spout an annoying cliche.

When Owen finished building we did worked on his bilateral co-ordination...aka...Jedi Training..once I was worn out, Sam joined Owen in the game and I did some more jobs around the house.

We then watched the next episode of 24 hours in the past. The people were in service at an Inn this week. The boys then went off very excited to Jujitsu class because they knew their new Nunchaku's ( or nunchuckles as we have started calling them) would be their for collection. The following morning I was somewhere regretting these purchases and am in fear of my life.

Next day I have a hospital appointment , the boys are never keen on the waiting, so we arm ourselves with iPads and puzzle books. I feel very proud when the children are complimented on their behaviour. On the way back to drop my test result at the GP's, I treat them to lunch and we call in at the local library.

They did so well, but on getting home, we find we can't park in our drive and this tips Owen over the edge and ends up with him refusing to get out of the car. As I am trying to deal with his distress, Sam promptly wanders over to the site photographer ( who is on the phone) , so I find myself , trying to sort the car, calm Owen and herd Sam.....Sam isn't easy to herd at the best of times. Meanwhile the other photographer is trying to tell me why I can't park in the drive for a short while. So I am quite frazzled by the time I finally get us back in the house. Owen is still struggling, so I setup a Minecraft video meanwhile Sam is still trying to get back outside...now with his Nunchuckles in hand, in the hope that the photographer will take his photo, with his very impressive camera....and I still haven't eaten yet...I feel quite undone.

Blokey had the week off work so we decided to rent a cottage in the Lake District for a few days. The boys loved the scenery and we covered a lot of ground both in miles and explaining to them how the mountains and lakes were formed.

We visited a safari zoo , White Scar Caves, Whitehaven and had a guided tour across Lake Windermere. We had a great time but the boys were unsettled at night so I looked forward to coming home and getting some sleep!

Back home we went swimming , visited Attingham Park, went for a bike ride and played on the Home Ed server with friends. Sam spent a lot of time outside playing with the children in our road on bikes and bat and ball games. Owen gets help from a friend to make pictures for his new YouTube channel.

History, science, robots and trying to make our boomerangs come back...

This morning started with Horrible Histories then we watched the rest of the BBC show about the history of Britain . It took us up to the Magna Carta and sparked many a conversation about our current laws and politics. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05p3077/story-of-britain

As the children were asking many questions about how Victorians lived yesterday, I mentioned a programme I had been watching called 24hours in the past:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05t5l7t

As this tied in nicely with our museum trip the children were really interested and would like to catch the rest of the series.

Tuesday means jujitsu but Owen ( unusually) didn't want to go. I suspect he was too tired after a full day out. He stayed home with me working on his iPad, whilst Sam and Blokey went to the class.

The next day the boys read and Sam played copious amounts of word feud with his Nanny on the internet via Skype. She is always really miffed when he trumps her triple word scores. Owen is making new friends on the Home Ed Minecraft server and spent time building and playing with them.

Deliveries today..we ordered two new chairs for the living room...much excitement over the fact they have both a reclining and massage function. Owen introduced Sam to some of his new friends and they all played together ..much laughter. In the evening their Nanny and Grandad came over and Blokey and I took Shadow to dog training.

Thursday we met up with friends at Trentham gardens, played in the park and dodged the showers. Sam and Owen decided to try something new at the cafe..with mixed results. On the way home I stopped off to vote in the general election and we had a long debate about voting and politics in the UK. We talked about proportional representation and how the various parties differed.

There was more work on Bitsbox, building apps and coding, working in teams with friends, socialising reading and playing games together.

We had planned on going to the beach but as the weather wasn't very nice we decided to visit Manchester. First stop was the Museum of Science and industry, then a walk round looking at the architecture and a visit to China Town. We also were lucky enough to catch a lecture on the brain and see a sheep's brain being disected ...they weren't so sure about that bit, bless em.

The next day Blokey took Sam swimming whilst Owen and I played on the kinect, training to be Jedi's. I can tell you I was worn out at the end of it. It's hard work slaying baddies, using the force and wielding your lightsaber. 

The next day Sam and I built the windup robots from the kit, we bought, at the museum and Owen did some more coding.

The children also played outside with their foam boomerangs from the museum...we may have lost one...*coughs*