We decided to take a little detour around Story of the World and bring in some English history, so decided to think about the Celts. Something that we all had some ideas for, and some good stories to read and nice books. A smaller group today as Kentwell is going on, and some of us were being re-enactors [and some had returned] The children got to have a lot of time today to play, run around and just love being with their friends. When people like to sterotype home educated children as having poor socialisation skills, all I need to do is look at a group of children that have known each other for many years, playing in greatly mixed age groups, laughing, having fun and bringing a smile to my face.
So today, my crafts were an easy one – colouring in celtic knot patterns, and a complicated one, making a replica round house. I loved the roundhouse one, and I loved the not very replica roundhouses that the childrens’ imaginations conjoured up, and the far more replica than i intended versions too… We started off with airdrying caly formed to make an incomplete circle of approx 10cm diameter, and into this put short sticks [from elder] at 1cm apart. A taller stick went into the blob of air drying clay in the middle, and these were allowed to dry. for the roof, we had a 12cm diameter cardboard that was cut along the radius and sellotaped to make a gently pitched roof. pVA was used to then stick on either straw or hay [or whatever the imagination felt appropriate] when this was dried, twine [or imagination provided alternative] was woven through the sticks to provide the basis of the wall, and for those increasing the realism, a concoction of hay, mud, rabbit droppings and pva was then smeared on – lol!!! They all looked fab 
[will add pics]
Michelle brought copper wire and some really fab and inventive wirework celtic knot inspired designs were made by all the children. BB was v much impressed with her ring that she made, and SB made a great pendant and also some other things. I loved all the things made and thought it was a very imaginative and thoughtful craft.
Zoe brought ingredients for oat cakes, and also making butter to go on them. I love home made butter, the oat cakes were delicious, especially with some of SB’s jam on them as well. I think all the kids made some of them. Merry had a fimo totem of a boar out of fimo. SB’s looks a bit more like a dimetrodon doing a poo, but there you go 
Plan to add photos. We adults managed to do lots of chatting and catching up, having not seen each other for a while. Fab day with friends