Snow and Educational Games

Did you get the snow?

It was quite mad here - on the Friday our HE group went to the park, lovely sunny day, all in t-shirts and starting to talk about summer plans.... then 36 hours or so later it starts snowing!

We had around 4 inches here. It lasted the whole day. In the morning the kids played in the garden. Samuel made a huge snowball and Joshua made a snow walrus (snowmen are so last season...).

In the afternoon a friend came over from church, and, being a good egg, brought her wellies and a change of clothes so that we could go off for a walk in the snow. We found a nearby park/common area with more snow for us all to play in.

William worked on a large snow ball:
Josh and Samuel worked on one together:
And they all enjoyed throwing snowballs at our friend, and of course at Roarke!Samuel is doing seriously well on his touch typing course, onto level 2 now, with a touch typing speed of 13 wpm and an overall accuracy of 98%! It also does what the course claims to, as his spelling in improving as well - noticably so.

He's started writing his blog again which is good (ha, just noticed some spellings mistakes on it!).

Joshua is working on both his lego movie and on a story. He's very glad to be back on his sailing course, though there is a two week gap at the moment due to the "easter" break.

This week we've been to the informal teen gathering for the group. It is really good to see the boys and girls of this age (12-14 mainly) getting on so well, and so relaxed. The group of them interact in a way that I am sure bears NO relationship to a schooled group of their peers.

The family is happy that Dr Who is back! A shared family obession so at least there are no arguements over what to watch on a Saturday now! Talking of Dr Who reminds me of a writing activity shared by someone on the HE SP list.

I can't remember if I shared that I'd been on another Government meeting? That, and an increase of media interest again, has kept me busy on that front.

I've also been baking lots. New bread recipes for the boys, some cakes and biscuits for Jonathan and I. He's eating a little more, but its still so inconsistent. He never eats the same thing twice! Oh, and he's starting to learn what "no" means.... he is so into everything and is getting seriously into putting everything in his mouth (other than of course food!) and we find ourselves now hourly removing paper, lego, fluff, anything at all that he has managed to either find on the floor or reach off of the edge of tables etc! Today so far I've made ginger biscuits, bread, and some lovely gf dumplings for our beef casserole tonight.

I'm actually hoping he'll be late in walking (unlike the other 3 who were all walking by this age) as he's hard enough to keep up with crawling!

We've finally got around to putting up a computer that a friend donated to us. It came complete with a proper drawing tablet, mousepen etc, which we've given to Josh to use on his pc (as he is the cartoonist). There was also a proper games joystick, which pleased the boys. Along with the computer were a number of games and, because this is my friend who is the history buff, the games are all historical. This is great! They have medieval villages to build, castles to run, planes to fly, Waterloo to re-enact - all sorts of "educational" games!

If you are not a home educator and you are reading this, you may be sceptical, but for example they have borrowed their nan's books on castles so that they can create a more realistic, authentic medieval castle!

We also got the chance this week to visit another HE family in Gillingham who we are friends with. The kids played really well, and the mum and I had a jolly good old natter, especially sharing experiences of our ASD children. I really value these friendships I have now, something I definately never had with the mums in the school playground.

I know my posting is inconsistent to say the least. Sadly, I'm finding this run up to Dad's anniversary incredibly hard - it doesn't seem any easier than last year - and so I'm seriously down at the moment.

Well, that's the cooker alarm going off - time to put the dumplings in! At least I got the chance to catch up a *little* bit...