Break Week

We headed to open up the caravan during March, and Daddy got time off to come with us as a short break away. It doesn't happen very often as he's a busy guy, but it was lovely to have him around for so long. It was during this few days away that I discovered another benefit of home education.

I packed up Bear's learning materials for the week to take with us, some letter and number practice, a new Spring book and some story promt ideas to continue with our theme of stories for the month. I had all the intentions of setting up his stuff at night so that we could do a little learning each morning, but after a fun-filled first afternoon there, I decided against it... And here lies the benefit of home education. Apart from the part where we'd gone away during term time, I was able to just leave all of Bear's materials in the box and enjoy the week away with Daddy. 

Without the education system deciding what weeks we get off, we could choose to just not do any formal learning during our week away, and when Daddy goes back to work after the Easter weekend, (when the schools are on Easter Break,) we can dive back into it at home. 

Instead of worrying about fitting in some formal learning, we enjoyed five days of sun and sea air. It was the perfect break for all of us, including having Nannie and Pops there too.

We walked into town every day, spent time just wandering and picking daisys in the sun. Both boys gravitated towards their Daddy, enjoying having him around, and it was amazing to see him relaxed and enjoying his time off rather than just counting down the weekend until he had to go back to work again. 

We spent a wonderful afternoon at The Deep in Hull. We have annual passes which have a couple of months left before they run out and we took Daddy with us this time. Bear absolutely loves the aquarium, he's a huge shark fan and he finds the entire place fascinating. This time around, The Cub was into it too. He was pointing at every fish we passed, and the look of wonder on his face was amazing :)

Of course, we made it to the beach, all be it, not for long as both bear cubs decided to get very wet in short space of time. The Cub was not phased by being damp... he stood in a tide pool and got wet feet and trousers, and carried on as normal. He isn't phased by much!

Bear, on the other hand, tripped, face-planted, then rolled and laid in the wet sand until someone picked him up. By the time Daddy made it back to him, he was absolutely soaking and Daddy had to carry him all the way back to the caravan. 

One of the highs of the days away was Bear's new hobby... He has a scooter and a bike at home and loves them both. He saw a guy on a skateboard at the local skate park at home not long ago and expressed an interest in having a skateboard. I told him that I would look into it in the summer when the weather was nicer and we would have more opportunities to practice, but we saw this adorable little board in the shop at the seaside and I couldn't resist. He took to it like a pro and in less than half an hour, was pretty stable on it, playing on a spare caravan pitch opposite our van. He spent ages out there and had to be coaxed in for tea. It was lovely to see and something that I will be encouraging now that we are back home again. 

Overall, it was an epic few days away and having Daddy in tow made it perfect. The added move of being able to just ditch the formal learning for the week was definitely a fantastic bonus and one that I have taken advantage of for the rest of the week and weekend while Daddy has been around.

I will be doing a full toy and learning materials reset on Monday evening ready to get back into the swing of things on Tuesday morning. I have lots of plans for our Spring theme and hoping to get out lots if this sunshine is going to stick around.

More on all of that in another post though :)

What have you been up to for the bank holiday weekend?

Momma Bear