Author Archives: HHaricot

This week just seems to have been an out and about very busy week. Monday had roller skating in the afternoon, Tues had Botany, Weds was weds4ed/pottery, thurs multisports and friday conservation. A very social week!

Weds4Ed we did lots and lots of pottery – glazing our previous work and making some new. our experiment was mentos and coke, and seeing if we could replicate it in our mouths… and we did some music and some chinese.

All our kids love arts, and have quite a healthy interest in viewing art and sculpture. So we tied in visiting Aunty M and Uncle M in Wakefield with a visit to the Hepworth and to Bretton Sculpture Park. We travelled up on the fri night with ease and settled into aunty M’s. the next day the galaxy came into its own as we only needed to take one care out with us.

I loved the Hepworth. It is quite unprepossessing from the outside, tho clearly with a lovely playpark! But the gallery space is really well done. I loved the explore cards for the kids for a one pound donation. SB and FrB spent a considerable time doing them. I loved the answers they came up with – so reflective of their very different personalities and hence perspectives. BB found the Moore and Hepworth sculptures resonated with her, and spent some time evaluating them and the information. I also loved the spaceship in there, but was in the minority! BB and I added our own stories to the photo galleries until she was arted out, and we went for cake and tea with the M’s, but frb and sb with DH took so long, that they missed out – LOL!!

we moved on to Bretton Park for lunch and a look around. We will gloss fairly quickly over the effect of home made tomato ketchup on BB. It was all resoved… We went out and started with wood sculpture. we liked some of it, and some looked slightly like a urinal – we had bb with us. she is apt to find similes like this! we LOVED the flat that had been filled with copper sulphate and crystalised out [no photos allowed unfortunately]. We had a good walk around, admiring electric horses, headless seated people, pipes and tubes and the general loveliness of the day. Aunty M and I got separated off, so got to sit at the top of the hill and watch people come up and in. BB was quite worn out by this point…

Lovely evening and meal, and the girls playing castle panic. We also started my regime of Shakespeare. FrB has got a good grasp of English, so I am having her listen to Shakespeare and the iambic pentameter. I have to do a fair bit of explaining of archaic words, but these films are very accessible. We will watch a few more films, and then have a go at a shakespeare study book for children. Anyway, 12th night got a thumbs up! We have lots of shakespeare books, but FrB is not a great reader, even in native French.

On the SUnday we went to Sandal Castle. Wakefield is the place of a deciding turn of events in the War of the Roses – which we will no doubt get to in our British History! we do need to move up the pace a bit i think! we are on Saxons and Vikings now anyway. Having visited my aunt and uncle for years, i had no idea they lived close to a castle!! some people just dont tell you anything. I loved visiting the castle, it was interesting, the shop had a tiny museum bit, and the kids could race around. This did result in FrB hurting her wrist sliding down a bank that i had asked her not to do… but not terribly and she cheered up in the museum. All the girls took turns to read the information boards, and I hope that something sticks!

We had a really lovely weekend. Thankyou very much AUnty M and Uncle M it was wonderful

I love may blossom it reminds me of my youth as the school playing field had a hedge around it and trees inside. It makes me think of little nanny, whose birthday wa the first of may, and who had May as a middle name. It smells of the promise of summer and warmth to come. I love may blossom

This was a 4 day week, with Monday being a bank holiday. We thought we worked quite well. SB particularly wanted to point out that though she had less ticks, she did spend a lot longer on maths and music theory, so they should count as double ticks

it was a really drizzly friday, and when I went off to work there was all sorts of moaning about orienteering in the drizzle! However, the drizzle eased off and they all had a fab time . SB partnered off with Lfish from the deepend, and FrB with C from the manor born. BB mostly was a warrior ninja, tho she did do some of it. When finished, FrB went for gaining an extra tick with Latin with the deependers – she is becoming good at self starting and being home educated

following Easter we had a week of bookworking, getting back to the evening bits and bobs, but also took some time to concentrate on FIL as his health just hasn’t been as good as we like, so DH did some ferrying of him about. We were happy that our niece Liana came to visit, so all the girls loved meeting her again. It is a shame she isn;t so local.

We had chemistry group on the tues, and doing displacement reactions and getting copper onto nails. Also making hydrogen and making it go pop

Here are some girls doing work photos…

We do wish grandad would get a bit better, but it was lovely seeing Liana, and FrB got to meet another member of the family too

normal service will be resumed, and I am blogging frantically [well frantically trying to remember what we have done anyway!]

We didn’t do the ticksheets this week as holiday orchestra. However the girls did lots of music, crafts and games

My parents and nephew and niece came on the thursday and stayed till the following monday and we had a great time I love them coming. It was a shame my brother in law couldn’t make it tho. We had DH parents visit on SUnday as P_I_L not really well enough to stay over.

So the children had lots of Easter eggs, and did an easter egg hunt at home [probably what they would consider the most important thing ] and felt suitably chocolated up afterwards,

As always, we did crafts! I bought quite a lot from yellow moon, and the ceramics where particularly enjoyed. We spent a nice whils crafting in the conservtory

we also played a lot of board games. Ticket to ride was the most popular one played!

We had a fabulous day visiting Wimpole farm. we started with the easter egg hunt. led us all round the garden, and I particularly enjoyed the walled garden. weather was fantastic, not too hot but still sunny the clues were mostly easy to find, but on the 2 that werent the children were v quickly disheartened!! Once we had claimed their Easter egg, we went to the farm area and had a good look around at the various animals before having a well earned lunch [yes we did wash hands!] . FrB liked the pigglywigglies [as she calls them ] The kids enjoyed playing outside and also on the adventure park before we treated ourselves to icecream and came home. SB chose to have some second hand cookbooks from a stall rather than the icecream.

Of course, for me, Easter is about one thing. Family. I was glad to share it with mine and DH parents, and the 5 fab kids

I do actually need to find what DH has done with the concert pics for this! the girls had a busy week tho. They went to the holiday orchestra in the city, which is essentially a non residential music camp. you can choose 3 different things to do. Both girls did the intermediate wind band. FrB did djembe drumming and ? whilst SB did gamelan and recorders . SB was very excited to have got to play the bass recorder for the first time, though she did say it was a bit tricky. The course goes on for 4 long mornings, with a concert in the final afternoon.

Both girls were keen to use this as a sleepover opportunity and it did allow DH to then use this time with his parents hospital appointments. And we have very lovely friends who didn’t pale in horror at the thought! SO they spent monday night with the deependers, and very much enjoyed that, and then a very raucous tuesday night at M’s [whose children they do chemistry with] home weds and thurs with the concert and the arrival of my parents.

They had a great time, both enjoyed it, and I look forward to seeing their concert [as obvs i was at work!] and sharing it.