Day 89 - Darth Maul Eats Tomatoes.

Paul left early again today which upset the boys. He is planning to take some time off work soon which will be wonderful. I decided to take them for a walk after breakfast to shake off the sadness. It did the trick and by the time we arrived back at home everyone was in a much chirpier mood. 

Theo began the next chapter in his Maths text book. He quietly sat and completed the entire exercise without any problems. 

Tristan messed about at the kitchen sink. He enjoyed filling various containers with water and experimenting to see which waterproof kitchen items floated. I had the opportunity to prepare the kitchen for a dinner time activity.

I sat at the table with Tristan and helped him with a couple of activities in his Maths workbook. He enjoyed counting to the number eight and tracing the number.

He also drew four apples on a tree and had a go at writing the number four. He is really starting to understand how to form letters and numbers. 

I sent both boys to their room to play for ten minutes whilst I laid out the next activity. I wanted to combine French and Cookery today.I labelled various prepared ingredients in French before calling the boys down stairs.

 I asked Theo and Tristan to figure out what type of food was in each bowl and to then say the French word for the item. They really enjoyed this task. I had grated all the vegetables which made it more interesting for them as the foods were not instantly recognisable. They managed to work it out and both boys pronounced the French words very well. 

We then set about mixing the ingredients and making our rissoles. It was squishy and messy which equalled lots of fun. 

I asked the boys to take the labels into the work room and use them to create a poster which would remind them what each French word meant. I left them to get on with the activity whilst I cooked the rissoles.

We ate the rissoles for lunch and they were lovely. The boys were incredibly proud of their accomplishment.

Immediately after lunch Tristan asked if he could have his face painted like a bunny rabbit. I did this for him although he rubbed most of it off almost immediately. 

We then went to the park where we met up with another home educating mum and her three year old son. The boys played together extremely well giving me the chance to have a good chat about all things home ed with someone like minded. It was really enjoyable and we look forward to meeting up again soon. Tristan spent the rest of the day telling Theo and I about the conversations he had with the other little boy. He has made some lovely friends recently. 

Theo asked to have his face painted when we got home. A few minutes later he was transformed into Darth Maul much to Tristan's horror.

Tristan changed his clothing and spent the afternoon with his tee-shirt on backwards, his pyjama bottoms on and a deer stalker hat on his head and Theo strapped his light sabre to his trousers and together they sat and finished their posters. Theo looked at me as I stood watching with a smile on my face and cheekily said ' you can't do this at school'. Absolutely.

I  continue to be impressed by their self motivation. Theo drew pictures of vegetables next to the French word and they worked together to colour them in. The posters are now taped up in the kitchen and I have asked them to shout out the French word for a vegetable whenever they see one being used in the kitchen.

Theo asked me what the difference was between a vegetable and a fruit. I asked him to find out and he did. He explained to Tristan and I which led Tristan to ask where carrots come from. I showed him a clip on the iPad about carrots and how they are harvested. 

Darth Maul sat and worked through an exercise in Theo's History text book about dinosaurs. 

I discovered that I had made a mistake today. I thought he had a piano lesson when in fact it is later in the week. Our day became much more relaxed once I realised this.

I cut out some carrot shapes and asked Tristan to colour them in. I then asked him to glue green tissue paper leaves to them before planting them in some paper soil. He also correctly worked out the order of the letters in the word 'carrot'. He was very proud to show his big brother his creation and told him all about carrots. 

The boys played whilst I made dinner. Tristan kept me company in the kitchen for a little while. I was pleased to find him counting apples into a bowl. He did this without prompting.

Dinner was tasty although Darth Maul was not happy to discover that he had eaten a tomato. They are not one of his favourite foods.

We had a great day. Increasingly the boys are asking questions which they then find the answers too without any input from me. Theo is realising that he can ask questions that may be slightly off topic without being told they are irrelevant. He is really becoming very self motivated. Incredibly he can even put on his own socks now without moaning.

Theo wrote his diary when he was in bed and then carried on reading. 

Tomorrow will be another busy day but a fun one of course.

Prudence Clarke

10.09.2013