A tiring day

Today we headed out to swimming straight after breakfast and had na hour and a half of fun in the pool.  There was front crawl, back crawl, surface diving to collect treasure form the bottom, racing, trick playing and splash wars.  We had great fun together and emerged a little tired at about 11.  We headed home to collect the dog for a walk, we were slightly delayed by the need to get a new tyre fitted on my car.

After the mobile tyre man came and we’d had some dinner, we headed out along the canal to walk the dog and enjoy the beautiful day.  We spotted various trees and had a go at some more photography (if we fancied).  Ot scooted about and B and I walked most of the way together.  We saw roach swimming and feeding as well as geese, ducks and coots/morehens.  We headed back a little sooner than usual because Tig and Ot had their first gym induction at 4.

Once we were back home we did a quick bit of maths; Ot worked on his Chance in conquor maths, getting a silver certificate and B worked on mathseeds and reading eggs.  Once this was done, everyone enjoyed a 30 minute screen break before getting into the car and heading out once more to the leisure centre for the boys gym induction at 4 and B’s gymnastics class at 5.

Tig and Ot enjoyed their induction, the chap who did it said they were really good and worked hard.  The found out how to use the rowing machines, exercise bikes, cross trainers and treadmills.  They’re booked in for the weights induction at 7-8 onThursday, after which they can goto the sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  B enjoyed his gym class, doing well with the balance bar, jumping on the trampet and forward roll/back bend activity.  he also improved working on his handstand and enjoyed the simple bit of bar work.  He was very pleased to see his friends and we headed out to KFC after with a couple of them to celebrate getting to the first ‘red’ coloured week on our sticker chart for gym.

Everyone enjoyed KFC, although we did get a little rowdy!  After that, we headed home and everyone pitched in to collect and fold washing, empty dishwashers, put away toys and do dad’s chees and onion sandwich.  We finally flopped down in our chairs and chilled on screens for a while.  

I read hte first chapter of the original Swiss Family Robinson; B fell asleep and TIg and Ot eitehr really enjoyed it or were to tired to speak or move!  Everyone headed upto bed and fell asleep in super quick time!

Photographer to scientist and back again!

This morning, it was beautiful so we decided to head out to chase water, to the pretend beach, which is one of the boys’ favourite places.  I took along a selection of dinosaurs and plastic animals, my pentax camera and iphone so we could have a go at the diy.org photographer badge if the mood took us.
We did lot of ball throwing, paddling and sand smushing whilst creating some innovative scenes for the various animals.  They had a go at landscape pictures.

These are some of the fantasy scenes the boys created and took pictures of….

We made a colaborative piece of land art

Talked to a lovely lady with her dogs, Seumus and Ruben;  played with a very cute 145 week old labrador called Maggie and even had a quick climb and a play on the park!

After lunch and a brief foray into anthill on the pads we had a bit of free time, mainly screens but games not online.  After that we had a go at dissections, of the virtual kind!  Everyone used froguts, an app on the iPad, which was especially good for B as there was audio fr everything so he wasn’t waiting for help with reading tricky parts.  Tig and Ot worked through a disection based unit on fish from emind and B had a go at an online Salmon dissection .  (biologist diy.org patch)

Froguts was everyone’s favourite because it was a ‘proper’ dissection;  the fish however could lead to a real life dissection as we can use the fish afterwards (cat treats if it’s very mangled).  The boys then worked with me to draw a diagram of the fish, their choice of internal or external view and added labels.  We did a diagram of a mushroom last week and I notices that they hadn’t got the simple line part of the idea and were struggling with label placement so this was a great opportunity to have a go.  Also, internal diagrams go towards yet anotehr patch :0D.

After tea, everyone gets ready for bed and can then have their internet based time, on Minecraft, Roblox, Youdtube etc and do their own thing.

Anglers in the making

This morning we had a chat with a fishing expert (Daddy) and found out what we’d need in a tackle box.  He showed us how to use rubbers on floats, add shot, use a bread punch and a disgorger.  After we had found some worms, we headed to the canal to see if we could catch a fish (or 2).

It was a beautiful sunny morning and the walk along the canal was lovely; Sherlock had a great old time sniffing around and  checking that all was in order.  We set up one at a time and gor fishing, using our telescopic poles-perfect size and weight for the boys.  

Soon we were in, catching some little roach and perch.  Some patience was required as well as careful watching of the float to spot those sneaky bites.  It was great to see how much the boys control over thier poles had become and how more proficient they were at keeping them steady and moving them to the best places.  We had one snag, a couple of tangles and a fun, fishy morning.

As well as having a great morning, we also did 3 activities that count towards our Angler patch on diy.org and remembered to video and photograph them all!!!!