Home Industrial: {Our Weekend}

Saturday:

Our Saturday started with a check on the experiment that we started on Friday night. The idea was to put a boiled egg into vinegar and leave for a day to see how the vinegar effected the shell. The children wanted to add more items to the vinegar - which we did, although it did make the experiment less scientific with the contamination issue. I'm guessing they will want to do it again "properly" to compare results. This time though, they added a piece of cheese, a coin, a malteser and a starburst sweet *grin*.

After 12 hours, it looked like this...

We left it so it could sit for the full 24 hours.

Chelsea made porridge (and wondered why I was taking a picture of her in her dressing gown).

After breakfast, I took Kira for a walk with Tiegan, then I had to nip out into town to pick up a new computer mouse and some stationary. The children did there own thing - namely making use of the laptops, reading, and listening to music.

Once home again, Chelsea read a chapter of one her library books aloud. She is reading The Spy from the Wreck by Alan MacDonald.

Soon it was lunchtime, and Callum asked if we could go to the park again. The weather was superb again, so it would have been a shame not to.

The park was really busy - and soon the children got talking to the others down there. It is always nice to see "the weird unsocialised home-ed kids" getting along with the "normal schoolies" *grin*. Made it difficult to take pictures though - you have to be so careful not to get other peoples children in the photos nowadays :o/

We came home so Joseph could listen to the football on the computer with his dad. Callum blew bubbles...

whilst watching Dora the Explorer (love the "gormless" expression).

Callum decided to do an Alphabet puzzle alongside his dad, and make a general mess on the floor :o)

The older two wrote their diaries...

Each of the children (and I do!) keep a diary of sorts. For Callum, it is made up of mainly pictures he draws and photographs, with a few sentences thrown in here and there. The other three record their days through handwritten or typed entries, with drawings and photographs. They include any leaflets or tickets, or other souvenirs from their day. I guess it's a scrapbook/diary combo. The children write down their thoughts and feelings, what made them angry or sad, what they enjoyed and what they disliked, plans for the future, etc etc. We keep the diaries in a ringbinder, so things can be added or taken out at will. I often add a little note or letter to the childrens diaries to congratulate them on doing something well, or telling them how proud I am of something they did or just to tell them how much I love them. They don't have to earn it, I just do it randomly 'cos I'm their mum *grin*. They do seem to like receiving something from me in writing though.

We all watched the X-factor auditions together, then checked on the vinegar experiment.

The egg looked like this...

The coin...

The Malteser...

The Starburst had disappeared.

Sunday:

We had a slow start to the morning, just lounging around doing not a lot. I took the dog for a walk with Tiegan with tow, then spent my time replying to emails and checking forums as the children played in the garden.

I decided the day was far too nice to waste, so we went to a car boot sale :o) This one started at a very reasonable 1pm - how nice not to have be up at the crack of dawn to get to it!

It was busy - but good. We picked up a couple of nature books, 2 new Enid Blytons for Tiegan, a football book for Joe, a set of Jacqueline Wilsons for Chelsea and this Dartmoor Board Game.

We bought ice-creams on the way back to the car, but none of us wanted to go home, so came up with the idea to have a picnic on Dartmoor for dinner :oD A quick stop off at the supermarket for supplies, then home to collect the dog, and we set off for the moors. We had the most perfect family day there.