So, what's the plan?

A new academic year is almost upon us and I've been busy planning the start to Bear's Foundation Stage 2. Had he gone into mainstream school, Bear would be starting Reception next week and I plan to be a little more structured this year with our intentions.

I ordered my new planner insert from Personal Planner, a website I've used for years now for different reasons, but now it's perfect for planning and recording Bear's learning journey. I bought the leatherbound ring binder last year and just have to replace the actual organiser pages each year.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have filled in the planning sheets I included to map out some of the ideas I have for throughout the year. For example, seasonal studies, including our tree study, and this year we're going to add a pond study as Bear has shown an interest in frogs and tadpoles recently. I also want to include a dandelion study and maybe an apple study.

From here I added some other ideas too. We are going to start looking at the calendar, learning weekdays, months etc and including time, as Bear has a grasp on numbers and o'clock. So we're going to move on to other times. Plus I'd like to do some more work on emotions, and his body, so bringing in some science.

I have a rather precariously stacked pile of home education books that I'd like to get read over the coming months that I hope will influence and shape the style that we'd like to adopt going forward... I know some of the ideals that we'd like to go by, and I know that studies such as nature are going to be important to us, but finding our rhythm and what works for us is only going to happen over time.

September is a pretty busy month with all the Not Back to School events planned, plus several trips planned by the home ed community. Our normal groups are back on too so we have lots planned, all which, luckily have missed my work days so we can get involved with everything!

During the first week of September I hope to do some of the same activities that I did last year with Bear. We have our questionnaire to fill in, and a page in the back of the planner that covers what we did last year and what we hope to do this year. And of course, we have to take first day photos! 

What are your plans for the beginning of September? I'd love to hear what your traditions etc are for those first few days "back".

Mama Bear x

Summer Holiday!

Sorry for the impromptu disappearance, we've been on the family summer holiday! I had every intention of writing posts ahead of time and scheduling them but life got in the way and I just didn't...

We spent a week in Nannie's caravan on the east coast, me, Daddy, the boys, Nannie, Pops, Lacy dog and Aunty Sammy! It was amazing! Hectic... but amazing!

Yes, we spend time there all year, but there's something special about the summer holiday. Having Daddy there with us is epic - we tend to go up there during the week so Daddy has to work, so having him there for a whole week, and having him relaxed and not worrying about work is amazing for all of us, especially the boys who love having him around so much.

We spent time on the beach every day, even if it was just a quick walk, dipping our toes in the tide. I have some beautiful photos of me and the boys from this holiday too, everyone took them, many of them without me asking for them too!

The boys love the beach as much as I do. We search for snazzy rocks and sea glass, draw in the sand, stand in the wet sand as the waves come in and slowly sink into it and watch our toes disappear. They love splashing, and got wet near enough every time we were down there. The laughs, the smiles, the shear delight is something I hold very close to my heart and love to continue making those memories with family so close by.

On the proper beach day, where we packed up and headed down there all day to play, we made sandcastles, buried each other, dug big holes until we found the water table, and we even went into the sea! Anyone who knows me knows that this was a really big deal for me, but we borrowed Sammy's rubber ring and went for it, the boys even came in too!

Simon and I even managed to sneak in Date Night! We put the boys to bed in the caravan and left them with Nannie and Pops to walk into town and go for a curry. I had bought a new dress for the occasion and everything! After curry, we called for desert from the shop and walked back to the caravan down the beach. I went barefoot, because there really is no other way to do the beach, but Simon kept his on, but he did carry my shoes, and agree to photos! We even got to watch fireworks from the beach as someone was setting them off locally - it was a perfect evening :)

A perfect holiday!

Now I have all the planning to do for September, because I've been putting it off from denial that Bear is old enough to have been starting school - so more on that to come soon.

Enjoy the rest of your summer,

Mama Bear x

July Recap

July is my favourite month of the year... mainly because it is my birthday, but also because summer sets in and we finally see the sun! This year was no exception and I feel like we waited ages for it and July definitely gave it its all. We have definitely been treat to the beginning of summer now, I just hope that it holds out over the rest of the summer and that this wasn't it for the year!

We had an adventure packed month, including but not limited to some of our best days of the year so far! Bobfest, our local music festival at The Milestone pub at Crystal Peaks is a two day, outdoor music festival to raise money for Bluebell Wood. We spent both days there, despite getting rained off the second morning, and got to see some amazing bands play, including Daddy with his band, Angry Jesters. Both boys love music, and have been lucky enough to have live music in their lives since they were born. They absolutely love seeing Daddy play live, as do I, and we are lucky that they get to play several festivals over the summer where we can go to see them. 

We fit in another trip to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park before the schools broke up and it got busy, spent time in Withernsea meaning multiple beach trips and a visit to The Deep, went strawberry picking with our besties, visited Matlock Farm Park with Nannie where Bear got to ride a horse again, and loved it just as much as he did last year - he totally takes after me and I hope that I can get us all on horses eventually, just waiting on The Cub to grow a bit! We had a play date at soft play with friends, again, before the schools broke up, and an epic weekend trip to the woods with Daddy where we found a rope swing in the trees, collected multiple sticks, balanced on logs, climbed trees and enjoyed getting to spend time with each other with no other plans on the horizon. We went to another of Daddy's gigs, this time at a biker's rally, where the boys stole the hearts of multiple bikers and had an amazing time watching Daddy up close and dancing the night away till the early hours! 

And my highlight of the month, an epic day trip to Blackpool for my birthday. Me, my boys, Daddy included, and my parents. Sun, sand, sea, fish and chips and so many memories made. We get out to a different seaside town every year and I love adding to the memories we make. 

On top of all the adventures, most of which are outdoors as we prefer that to being inside, we have spent an inordinate amount of time in the garden. The boys have enjoyed helping out, both with Daddy and I when we did the lawn and the hedges, but also with the gardeners we had in to do the back yard weeding and tidying up. 

We regularly take books, colouring or Lego outside into the garden to play, and the boys love water in their mud kitchen and water tray. It has even been warm enough to crack out the paddling pool and water bombs for a water fight. 

The littlest helped wash and hoover out my car one afternoon, we have learnt how to play draughts on a huge board at the farm, played with playdough, had meals outside, and even taken naps, (for The Cub, obviously) and we had a lovely afternoon with friends doing a sporty afternoon in lieu of a Sports Day.

Our hours total did not seem to reflect what I felt we had spent outside for July, at only 85 hours outside, bearing in mind in June we managed 98 - it did bring our total to over 400 hours though... For August, I have my sights set on a 100 hour month!

As for intentional learning - we have written letters to friends, done nature journal pages for the summer solstice and our summer tree study, meaning that we have done a full year of study on our chosen tree. I plan to do a page with images from all four seasons together so that Bear can see the changes side by side and we can talk about the differences and what the tree went through over the course of the year. Then we need to choose another tree to study next year - I'm thinking one that fruits!

We have been working our way through a "Starting School" workbook for me to see what skills we have already covered. This is purely for my own curiosity, and not something that I am using to benchmark Bear with per say. I just wondered what we had and hadn't covered so far.

We have done lots of work on numbers this month and have moved on to the teens, working our way all the way up to "twenteen" which is wrong, but cute enough that I haven't overcorrected yet. Bear knows that it is the number twenty, but regularly calls it twenteen and it always makes me smile!

And we picked up an old Orchard Toys game from the charity shop at the start of the month too, Race to Count, which I've struggled to find a link for as I assume it isn't made anymore... but it's a simple one that covers many maths skills including dice recognition, number conversion from dice to numerals, then adding up the trophies at the end of the game. The Cub has joined in a couple of times too, enjoying throwing the dice around a little too much!

The Cub has also done more jigsaws, including a number one, which we did as a matching activity. It's one that comes with a giant poster the size of the jigsaw, so we laid that down and matched the pictures, then matched the coloured doors to the pieces we'd already put down. He's coming on quickly and matching is something he is very good at now!

And lastly, the book I chose for our focus title during July, The Boy and the Octopus by Caryl Lewis was much more of a hit - a full post on that to come as soon as we complete our book review!

What did July hold for you?

Mama Bear x