Maths, materials , messing about at the park, a thousand words for snow, swimming.

Blokey took Owen in to town early because he wanted to trade in some games and Blokey has to work in the afternoon.

Sam wanted to stay home, so we worked on his maths. He's started in a new level:

After lunch Blokey set off for work, so Owen and I did his maths work. 

We looked at some old family photos and talked about what were were doing the rest of the week.

Afterwards they children went to play football at the park with their friends until it was dark. 

I had a job getting them to bed as Blokey is working away. The upset this causes in the childrens routine made bedtime a stressful exercise. By the time I got the boys asleep, it was after 9 pm.

The next morning Owen was not in a good mood and everything took so much coaxing and jollying along, this is exhausting , for both of us. 

Sam carried on with his maths, he's getting good at working on his own at the moment. It would be easy to think this new found skill will progress in a linear fashion, but experience shows me , we could have some weeks where he works independently and months where he can't. I try not to take anything for granted these days.

We are trying a new programme today, called Infinity School..as with all things new, I had to battle through some resistance to get them started. It's project based learning in style. I found if I made it as physical as possible they got more interested, with this programme that is easy to do.

Sam and Owen started by thinking about different kinds of materials used to build houses.

They needed to find items made from :

Metal

Plastic

Wood

Glass

Owen was keen to see what he needed to do next.

Once we found various materials we discussed how adsorbent they were and tested them in some water.

We then discussed what materials would be good to use in roof building. We looked and talked about various roofing techniques, these included, wooden shingles, living roofs , flat roofs, tiled and thatched.

The boys went on to wonder why we didn't see tiles made from plastic, because it is light and hardwearing. Also they thought it could be made from recycled plastics. 

We also checked out how plastic and metal were made. Then the boys wondered if plastic was such a good idea, because it was made out of oil.

We then talked about different properties of other materials and why it may be helpful for some buildings to be less rigid.

Which brought us on to earthquakes. We thought of various flexible materials and which would be useful for building in earthquake zones.

Owen rushed the first part but then we had a lengthy discussion and I realised he was just freaking out above us writing it all down, so I acted as his scribe and he was off so fast I couldn't keep up.

Sam wanted to spend a lot more time on this and came up with some really good solutions and building materials.

We then talked about how to get electricity to travel safely through your home, and how we do this. This lead us on to insulation, flasks and energy efficiency. We had a lengthy discussion about how insulation works and the different types there are.

At the end of the session the children were very enthusiastic about the learning plan and are happy to attempt exploring it further tomorrow.

It's really windy here today, so we talk about the weather over breakfast. I have journal work planned today but the children ask to do more of the Infinity School programme.

We start with maths.

Owen is pleased to get his next certificate.

Sam worked on his own again.

Infinity School

Today we thought about the things we need to build our houses.

We talked about the different pipes for bringing in clean water, and taking out the dirty water. Also how to feed electricity into the home and to gain access to it.

We discussed the types of supports/foundations that can be used and different ways of building walls. I explained there are cob houses with straw walls, plasterboard walls and some houses made purely from wood.

So the end of this project was to design a house for yourself, using the materials you chose. The boys had slightly different ideas but explained everything well. Instead of drawing the design, which would have been too taxing for them and they were terrified at the suggestion, we looked at the various ways our houses could look. Sam also was interested in the costings of the different materials.

For the roofs Owen wanted metal joists and plastic tiles.

Sam wanted wooden joists and wooden shingles.

We talked about how beautiful they were, and I showed him pictures of what they looked like when worn.

Both opted for polished concrete floors of different styles.

Owen liked this.

Sam's choice.

For a water system, Owen decided to have an off grid water filter system, using rainwater harvested off the house. I explained that he would have carry water, or make a system to carry the water into the house.

Both boys have seen the builders using piles in house construction on the estate, so they opted for this for their houses.

Owen wanted interior walls using wood frames and plasterboard, with brick for the outer walls.

Sam wanted to build a cob house with cob interior walls..( as long as it wasn't smelly) .

We also found out about the foundations used on a cob house.

Sam thought this would be much cheaper than Owens method and easier to make himself.

Sam wanted stained double glazing in his home.

Owen wanted double glazed upvc bay windows.

We compared the costs .

Both boys chose copper wiring and sockets with USB charging points for their electrics. Sam discussed having solar power too.

Owen still couldn't be persuaded to use water pipes, Sam choose flexible hoses for his clean water and more rigid pipes for his waste water.

We then had a lovely time looking at beautiful cob houses and dreaming of living in a field.

When their local friends came home from school the children headed off to the park for a game of football. Owen rings me with updates, they are playing with the teens from the Nike Academy a lot this week...today the Nike boys beat them. 

Sam and I were up early, so we went for a power walk before Blokey left for work.

We started with maths.

Sam worked independently again.

Then using Brain Box and our atlas, we looked at World history and Geograpy.

Sam concentrating HARD to remember what's on his information card.

I had some important documents to take to the Post Office, so we headed off for a walk. I posted my forms and then we had a play at the park before walking home.

The walk home was a barrage of noise as the children were in full flow about everything they saw. I felt like I needed a lie down afterwards but it was lunch time.

In the afternoon the boys are disappointed because it rained, they were hoping for some snow today. Sam is getting interested in murder mysteries, so I introduced him to Diagnosis Murder and Columbo. He loved both but Columbo is his favourite. We had to look up why Peter Flak had a glass eye too.

Later they went to play at the park with their friend. Their friends mum worries about him walking back when it's dark. Sam and Owen like to walk him to his door, so they can deliver him back safe and sound, as his house is in the next street to ours, the are very sweet about it and ring me first..'we are just taking K home , then we will be back!' I love that they are looking out for their friend.

We wake to snow, so the boys are keen to get out in it, so we walk and throw snowballs as we go.

There s a bitingly cold wind but we are all in good spirits .

Our snowballs are quite icy.....ouch

Sam did the splits twice and needed help getting out of this pose.

More snowball fights!

Snow angels!

Sam starting his first snowman.

Cold hands making the head.

They wanted this one left on the side of the road and they stood there waving to all the passing cars and pointing to the snowman.

We then walked back to our garden because they wanted to build some more.

Owens had horns.

Sam made a smaller one.

We sang 'is it a snowman?

Or is it a muppet?'

Because it had a muppet type mouth.

Rolling more snowballs.

Owen offering advice.

We then went inside for hot chocolate to warm ourselves up and did some maths.

On Saturday we all went shopping, the grown ups were looking for a second hand sofa, the children loved looking round the charity shops. Owen bought the latest Wimpy Kid book from the book shop too.

Sunday we went swimming in the morning, then Blokey and Sam went to collect an old sewing machine from the charity shop. I was very excited about that , as I have been looking for an old Singer machine for sometime now..so no sofa but a sewing machine.

In the afternoon Blokey and I moved swapped two of the bedrooms round. Sam now has what was the spare room. We took the opportunity to give both rooms a good clean and sort out some old toys and clothes for the charity shop.msam was very excited and didn't get anxious at all about the move.