1/4 of a nature trail.

Our group outings never really go as I thought they were going to… I’m not at all complaining, because everyone always has a great time. Today was no different. We’d planned a Nature trail walk using the Nature Trail Sheets supplied by Brecon Mountain Centre. I’d , rather naively, envisaged all the children with their trail sheets to hand looking for clues along the trail and eagerly recording their findings. DOH! Silly me really, it very rarely goes like that. Today, I think we managed to find ONE clue, and that was that… and again, I say… I’m not at all complaining, because today (yet again) the children showed us that the most important thing about being outdoors is feeling FREE, trees are most definitely for climbing, grass is for running around on, sticks are for throwing and friends (old and new) are for adventuring with…..and regardless of the weather we had yet another beautiful afternoon together.

……and it was lovely to meet another new family this week.  How exciting! Our home school family gets bigger all the time

Lets go fly a kite…

Today’s kite making workshop was great.  I think that all the children had a really good go at making their own  kites, with very little help from the grown ups.  Such a simple design, that was easy to follow.  The best bit was that they actually really flew   If you fancy having a go, here’s a template and instructions.  Ours, of course were designed and explained by the very talented Davey…. who then went on to sculpt the most amazing balloons.  He was very popular with the children (and adults) today…. and did I mention he also juggles and eats fire!

We also spent a lovely afternoon in the adventure playground where the little ones ran round like banshees, and then they had a little paddle in the beautiful river that runs through the park.  Another Perfect afternoon.

A Birthday trip to Caerphilly Castle

Today we helped one of  our ‘Odd Sockers’ celebrate his 9th birthday.  I think he has good fun….despite the frosty fingers and painfully cold ears.  The children loved adventuring around the castle in, around, over and under bridges, turrets, archways and motes.   Its lovely to see them running around like a pack of wild things, ages vastly ranging from babies,toddlers and all the way up to 12.  They all get along tremendously, and the group dynamic works well with older ones looking out for younger ones, and younger ones looking up to older ones, and middle ones… well just being middle ones!  All of them learning from each other, and nearly always with a story to tell.

It is also lovely to see our group slowly grow:-) We met 2 new families today.  It always amazes me when we find ourselves with a new home ed family that just happen to live in the same neighbourhood… but never met before.

Looking forward to next week

Pond and dipping and creatures and soggy and wellies :D

Today we met in the Dare Valley Park to walk to the bottom lake for some pond dipping. Wellies and coats were required as the weather had turned slightly from what had been a glorious few days previously.. this did not seem to deter our lot however as they proceeded to get wet, one by one!

We gathered jars, wire and string, identification sheets, a white tray and some empty white plastic butter containers for viewing. Armed also with sieves for dredging, we hunted in the deep inches at the edge of the lake, made murky by wading wellied children. We stirred the mini-beasts amongst woodland and running water, whilst spied upon by ducks, coots, moorhens and I daresay a lot of other less conspicuous creatures.

By far the most abundant find was water shrimp, in varying sizes, and I do believe almost everyone managed to pull one or more up. It was then announced that 50 points would go to the person who could find something other-than-a-freshwater-shrimp.. so next up was a wormy thing that we decided was a leech, and after more freshwater shrimps on of us managed to pull up 3 creatures in one sweep of a margarine tub.. one shrimp, one snail, and I believe the last, (at the time unidentifiable) was a caddisfly larvae. We passed the afternoon in this fashion, and although people eventually became too wet to continue, much fun was had by all.

One of my personal highlights was one of our members ‘rescuing’ an oblivious child from a mud patch and sinking instantly to knee depth in the process, whilst said child floated across without blinking an eyelid… typical!

More fires, more marshmallows and bird food!

Another afternoon at Coed Fawr Taff today, and I dare say there’s plenty more afternoons to be had there.   Such a lovely space for the children to run around discovering, playing, and hiding.  They all show an interest in the fire (especially when the marshmallows come out) .  Its just going to take a couple more trips, and I’m quite sure they’ll be a competent as Ray Mears in starting and maintaining the fire.

Making bird food outside today was a good call, even if I do say so myself.  There was a tremendous mess of lard and varying types of nuts and seeds NOT all over a floor that needed to be cleaned by ME…. YAY.  The little ones especially liked squeezing the lard between their fingers and then rolling them into the seed and nut bag and eventually into a ball.  There was a feast waiting to be devoured by the local natives, which I’m quite sure would have happened the moment we walked away.

It was lovely to welcome a new family today, who I do hope will visit us again soon.  Its funny now to think that when I first started home schooling, I thought it would be a lonely journey, but I’m now part of a group 8/9 family strong…… and I’m sure there’s more out there.  Do you come join us.  No matter how different our personalities, characters, lives, jobs…… we all have at least one thing in common….. and that’s our love and care for our children.  We’re creating an environment that we feels best suits our little ones…… and it really is beautiful xxx

Fire lighting, marshmallows and other Tom Foolery :-)

A beautifully sunny, but crisp day allowed us to stay outside for the whole afternoon, lighting a fire, eating marshmallows and generally having fun   Today we met at Coed Taff Fawr in Merthyr.  Ive driven up and down this road what must have been a million times and never knew this existed.  Its about a 10 minute walk from the main road but then there’s an outdoor classroom with a central fire pit, wooden animal sculptures and a circular walk.  I went a bit earlier that every one this week and did the circular walk with the children.  Its a bit of a steep one, definitely not one for push chairs, but a lovely walk.  I feel really very grateful for our little Thursday afternoons together, and don’t quite know why it took so long to happen….. but  here we are, all together… finally.

Sculpture Trail, Adventure Play…. and Frogs Spawn

We had a lovely afternoon at Garwnant Forestry yesterday afternoon. It was very cloudy and a little chilly, but it stayed dry enough for the children to guide us through the animal sculpture trail using their map reading skills and sense of direction/adventure.  They also enjoyed doing sections of the adventure/assault course, with the death slide being by far the most popular (and causing most of the upsets)…. it was just all a bit too much fun for them.  I think this would be a great summer day trip, with BBQ facilities and plenty of running round space. Ooooo and they also have a MTB track for children… maybe we’ll be taking our bikes next time.

Oh! and we also found a clump (clump!) of frog spawn in the shape of a heart… ahh.

Dream Catching :-)

Possibly a bit to inticate for the small ones fingers, never the less… with grown up helpers at hand…we all made Dream Catchers……. and then necklaces….. and then fishing rods!  The planned activity was Dream Catchers, but you know how it is with the imaginations on the lil ones.  When you have bendy thick wire, the possibilities are endless

We were a smaller group today, with a couple of families needing to stay at home with ill children.  Hopefully everyone will be feeling better soon.

For those who did miss today, here is a nice story of the very first Dream Catcher and a little video of how to make one.

Rolling Candles and Adventure Playground.

Our first successful meet!  It was lovely to see everyone today for Candle making  at the Dare Valley Country Park.  Big J picked a perfect activity that was long enough to warrant us getting together, yet short enough to hold everyone’s interest.  I think everyone, all the age range, joined in (except for the really lil uns).  The wax was a really lovely quality, and smelled oh-so-lovely.

It was absolutely freezing, but with extra warm layers we braved the cold crisp air and spent some lovely time chatting in the Adventure playground whilst the children ran round like crazy/wild things.  Good fun had by all.

It has though, become apparent that we need a more forgiving and permanent home.  As you can imagine, 20-ish children can get a bit rowdy and I’m not quite sure how the staff at the centre really feel about us descending on them with all our chaos!  Im sure it wont be long before we hear from our bank application….. and then we’ll be one step closer.

How exciting

Up and running…… well nearly :-)

Having spoke to the people at Aberdare Library, they have kindly allowed us to use the children’s section as a meeting place where we can do activities with the children. Yay!  Im not sure if the library will be a regular meeting place, but it certainly is very convenient whilst we are organising our funding, at which point we are hoping for a more permanent housing solution.

Hope you can make it, it would be lovely to see you there.