Timelines, leaves and lardy bones

It's certainly been another one of those busy weeks. I'm tired. In addition to a home ed group, a friends birthday, having folks to visit and hanging our at the park with friends, Hermione has also been to three basketball and dodge ball sessions through our local leisure services summer scheme.

A lot of the summer activities are free and we're taking full advantage. It's great to be able to try a couple of sessions before having to book up for a regular course of ten weeks or so. She loved basketball and hated dodge ball.

We had planned on going to a folk festival picnic this afternoon but it's been ever so windy. In the end we opted for swimming instead. The pool was quiet and we had a wonderful time. It was a bit of a wake up call when I saw Hermione diving into the deep end and Miles dashing and jumping off the side into water almost up to his neck. They are both growing up so quickly. Craig was there too so I had a chance to do a few lengths. After about four length I felt I had to stop. I didn't feel right. About five years ago I used to think nothing of going to the pool and doing forty or fifty lengths at the end of the day. I'm shocked and appalled at just how unfit I've become. Because I rarely sit down and tend to plod on doing this and that from morn till night I class myself as very active - but obviously that isn't enough. Haven't figured out what to do about it yet - but I think I need to so something. I feel lardy. All fatty and clogged up.

Right, that's enough of that lardy business. It's not a pleasant thought. What have we been up to when we've not been dodging balls and hanging out?

I've been fine tuning an art workshop for a group of home ed children about symbolism in art. It's coming along nicely and sounding very exciting. The children will be working alongside two artists who have agreed to give up thier time to do this.

I've also been trying to arrange an additional tour of a local recycling plant for the group. I've already arranged one tour but there weren't enough places for everyone who wanted to go. I tried to sort it out and please all of the people all of the time - before remembering that just ain't possible and reverting back to one tour and an easier life.

After months of pondering how to do a timeline we have come up with this.

It is made up of a different piece of paper for each period so that if you make a mess of one era you don't have to redo the whole thing. We already have a ruler with the dates for all the monarchs so that wasn't the main purpose of it. We just wanted a visual picture of what goes where together with what we think are key events in the period with pictorial reminders.

We've finished all that we're doing about ancient Rome for the time being. From what I've seen of the national curriculum they don't do much at all about ancient Rome in KS2. They just seem to concentrate on Roman Britain. I felt we needed some foundations to build on before looking at the Romans in Britain. Hermione was holding court over dinner, telling Craig and Nana all about Romulus and Remus, Julius Caesar, the growth of the Roman empire, Hannibal and his war elephants, crossing the Rubicon and the murder of Julius Caesar when she became quite fixed upon Julius' relationship with Cleopatra. Now I have to say, these penny books on Amazon Marketplace are way too tempting. The penny is fine but the postage mounts up. Particularly when t is the third in a week.....Hey ho, I succumbed and we have a book on the life of Cleopatra heading our way. Not long after that she realised Shakespeare wrote a play about Anthony and Cleopatra - no prizes for guessing what we'll be doing next week....

We have also been You tubing. I love YouTube. I don't know how I used to home educate without it! We're very into High School Rock at the moment. Hot favourites this week have been interjections and Great American Melting Pot.

The leaves have started to colour and fall this week. It seems to get earlier every year. The only consolation was that I bought a new harvest story a few weeks ago, and today I felt justified in getting it out and reading it, as Hermione sat rosy cheeked with a mug of hot chocolate and Miles made a leaf picture. We enjoyed it. I'm not sure how they manage to cover so many topics in what is essentially a story about a pumpkin but they do! I particularly enjoyed the refugee theme. I don't always know how to broach that kind of subject without sounding really heavy (which I think can be off putting to wee ones).

I'm sure we've done more. I just forget. Life's a whirl of this and that. Swinging about, catching the breeze.

I'm off to rest my lardy bones. G'nite.