Kayaks, Protractors, and Art

Friday was Joshua's kayaking lesson. I hadn't been able to arrange for him to have a lift (Roarke was working) so I decided that Samuel and William could go to the play area at Danson, instead of going up to our local park as no-one else from the group said that they would be going.

So at 12.10 I made that decision, and by 12.45 I'd made everyone lunch, they'd eaten, got ready, in the car, and we were off! Doesn't happen very often!

Josh went straight off; I love watching the confidence he has now, and how he is maturing, even if it makes me feel old and somewhat tender hearted... I took the other two over to the play area, where fortunately there were three other HE families there playing. The kids had fun, and we ladies enjoyed a variety of chat, mainly focused around home education and its opportunities.

Saturday was quite a normal day, other than the fact that Jonathan has suddenly started screaming most of the time. I'm not sure if its another bug, or the "colic" getting worse, but he wanted holding, soothing, cuddling and generally fussing over all day, poor thing. I also only got 3 hours sleep Friday night, and then Saturday only 4 :0( - and not even in one block!

Sunday I felt wrecked, and yet I was due to have a friend over. Stan is the guy who ran the history lessons for our group nearly two years ago, and is my longest-standing friend (was going to write "oldest friend" but that sounded wrong!). We see each other rarely, so any opportunity is grabbed.

I decided to miss church, so that I could cook lunch and wash my hair, in a relatively calm way.

Ha! Anyone who knows how I cook will know THAT was unlikely! I love cooking, its one of my deepest passions and loves, yet I so know why the chefs all swear! When I am in the kitchen cooking for a dinner party, or guests, I get very bossy. I normally start by apologising in advance to Roarke, and then proceed to order him around, as my sous chef, all the time, barking contradictory orders at him all the time ("go and lay the table", "where are you? I need you to stir the roux" etc etc!")

Anyway, things were going fairly well, with only one last minute panic over a recipe, until Roarke rang from church. Not only were they going to be late getting away (he was due to go and pick Stan up and be back home for dinner at 1.30pm sharp), but he had found out that one of the ladies from our church cell group was in hospital and didn't have any visitors that day.

So he dropped the boys off here at 12.40, got to Stan's house as 1.20 (!), and finally back here around 1.50, scoffed his dinner, did the washing up (bless him) and then headed off to London to go visiting. He got back around 7pm in time to take Stan home! It wasn't quite the relaxed afternoon I'd envisaged, but nevermind!

Stan also spent some time with each of the boys. He used to be an engineer, and he got out the technical drawing set I have, and explained to Samuel all about how each item was used (compass, dividers, protractor etc). They also discussed circles, degrees, and angles. Home ed in action! Stan can make anything interesting, and he is so knowledgeable, it was a brilliant opportunity.

This morning I went out to meet with the other new mums from church, which was nice as always just to do something just with Jonathan.

Then, this afternoon the three boys went off to art lessons. A lady in our home ed group is an ex-art teacher. New to home ed, bless her, she’s taken on running art class for the kids that are interested.

She’s come to see, I think, over the past first few “lessons”, that whilst she can plan a topic for the session, the kids will take and run with that idea, using it as a starting point, but meaning that the outcome at the end of the 2 hours is that every individual has an individual outcome that is meaniingful to them.

Amazing!

Today they were doing “eyes”. The lady provided example sketches, in charcoal, and gave them tips on how to draw eyes. Each of my three boys have produced very different sketches. Joshua, with his dysgraphia, has drawn small eyes, obviously wary of “spoiling” the paper, and having to put lots of effort into concentrating on the control of getting any sort of mark on the paper. Samuel has produced some amazing drawings, definately not shy of using all the paper, and I think they show that he has a natural talent. Ironic, for an aspie, when they say that they can’t “read expressions” – he’s produced some very life like eyes! William on the other hand, drew a very good eye (especially for a 5 year old) but then said it didn’t look right.

Why? Well, it was only one eye! So he drew another one!

But that wasn’t right either. So he added a nose. Then a mouth. THEN it looked like an eye! For him, as his literal way of viewing it, it wasn’t an eye if it wasn’t in a face. Fair enough!

Then they were meant to produce a modelled eye, using salt dough. This is where it became “personalised” ;0)

Joshua produced a cup. Samuel made tortilla wraps (well, he does want to be a chef, after all, lol) and William made a pizza, a cannon ball, and a meteorite. Well, they are all the right sort of shape…