Ok, last week (20th - 24th June):

Monday was busy, busy, busy, attempting to get projects finished. We are concentrating on the Space project at the moment. We are taking one planet a day; finding out some facts and oddities; writing (well typing) up what we’ve found including a picture and adding it to a folder with any other interesting bits we can find. We are also going to try and do the activities that we got in the Stargazing leaflet from the BBC ages ago. We managed to make the juice carton rocket which is rather cool.

Tuesday was hall day in Borstal. It was nice to get out of the house and to see some people. We took along some old sciencey bits that we’ve either done or have doubles of to see if anyone wanted to take them, which people did. Came back with other stuff though which slightly defeated the object, but all good! Was lovely to see everyone, even though Callum wasn’t in the mood to run around so he just sat with me on his DS.

Wednesday was work again, but only after the Virgin Media guy came to fix our set box. He replaced it with a new one and replaced the computer modem with a new one too. Much to Callum’s delight it is a WiFi one, so he spent the next 1/2hr trying to connect his Ds to it – without much success to be honest. Will get Terri round and she can see if she can sort it out hopefully. But on a positive note, it does look as if the system is secure!

Thursday we carried on with our planets, as well as maths and literacy, and then met up with Jackie and Azeem. Off to Minster beach we went in glorious sunshine, however, within 5 mins of us setting ourselves up on the beach it poured hard. We continued to sit it out under coats, blankets and towels! Saw a wicked lightning bolt hit the sea on the horizon and shortly afterwards smoke and a fire (don’t think they were related as the strike wasn’t anywhere near the fire). The boys collected stones and some mussels, which I may attempt to eat tomorrow (they are currently being stored in salt water in my utility room sink – lovely, the mussels not the stones) and generally watched the waves. Came back and they played together on the Wii while Jackie went off and collected Hannah from her friends.

Friday we were off with Lorraine and Amy to delve into the depths of a deserted Secondary School. No, we were not breaking in; we’d been invited! It was very odd walking around such a large deserted building and only occasionally did we bump into other people. It was like a disaster movie where everything is just left lying about and discarded. Very eerie! Anyway, the kids loved it and collected as much as they could of their own interest and Lorraine and I picked up some bits and pieces that may come in handy later; the library taking the biggest hit. We’ll be able to swap them with others when finished with, so nothing will go to waste! Just wished we’d had a bigger car, hehe.

The weekend was hot and a bit more laid back. We did transplant Callum's pumpkin and sunflower plants though and are looking forward to them being able to grow a bit more, although I don't think the sunflowers will get that high as we've left it very late to transplant. Oh well.

FIRST WEEK OF BEING TWELVE AND A VERY BUSY ONE AT THAT!

And so to the rest of the time.

Private trampolining is still going well. Would love him to finish a badge before James leaves, but we only have two more lessons, so that's looking unlikely which is a shame. We will be stopping until September after that and I'm convinced that he'll have forgotten half of it by then. We shall see, he normally ends up proving me wrong!!

We've also had another Riverside Rangers meet up. Bird watching this time. Callum was, unfortunately not really in the mood. I think he was still obsessing about his new things as I hadn't had much cooperation out of him on the education front either, but I insisted he went along, even if it was just for the fresh air. Big Sis, Terri, joined us which was really handy as while I was ensuring Callum was ok and helping him with binoculars and generally being the pack horse, she wrote down lots of notes which came in very useful when we came to write it up the next day.

On the Thursday, Callum had his first osteopath appointment. He'd been complaining off and on about having a pain in his back and so I said I'd make him an appointment. We weren't sure if the pains were just growing pains of whether it was due to him using his scooter since forever!! Callum has never wanted a bike, although he has recently been on his best friend's one. He's always had a scooter and has an offroad huge affair at the moment. My worry is that he can only 'scoot' on one side and this would have led to one side being stronger than the other making him lop sided. He wasn't keen on going and had a bit of a moment before going in, but he calmed down once he met her and she'd spoken to him. He wouldn't take off any of his clothes, but she managed to examine him by him lifting his Tshirt. He is slightly wonky and one side of his lower back is tighter than the other, so he had a lovely massage and a bit of manipulation and came home happy! In fact he was really tired and slept until 9am the following day! He had about 3 days of sleeping brilliantly and late into the morning, so whatever she's done, it's been good for him.

Friday was foraging with our friend Carol and her daughter Lauren.
The kids ran off into the mudflats and the water while we had a good forage for some food. Learnt a lot and came home with enough Sea Beet and Samphire to do two dinners. Callum loved both the veggies, but his dad wouldn't try the Sea Beet and didn't really like the Samphire. Oh well, Callum and I will be ok if there's a food shortage as Callum loves trying out different things that we pick, but Phil would probably starve as they don't come clean and in packages. Hehe.

The weekend was Fuse Festival, a local Arts festival, where lots of different wacky acts get together and do performances. Callum loves Fuse and even though it rained we spent 4 hours there!!!

The AirAquarium was a tent with a transparent roof. It was supposed to be an underwater lab (very well done) and puppets made from recycled rubbish were used to 'explore' the bottom of the ocean! Very funny in parts and very clever!
Dizzy O'Dare and Poppet on the Tiny Tightwire

Callum's favourite act of 2011 - Goronwy Thom

CALLUM'S 12TH BIRTHDAY

Hi all, let's catch up again shall we?

Callum's birthday went well. As you can see from the photo, he got a pretty good haul and that's only half of it!! The bouncy castle turned up and was set up before 11am, so he had a good old bounce before anyone turned up. Unfortunately, for the first time ever on his birthday, it rained! Heavily! Pretty much off and on all day and into the night, so Callum, his best friend Callum and my daughter dived out whenever there was a break to have a go. They even gave up at one point and bounced in the rain!!

Bouncing in the rain

Boys attempting to avoid wet surface

We didn't have a party as such as Callum doesn't really like them. He ends up stressing too much about other people/children and whether or not they are doing what they are supposed to or touching his things. He normally signposts his bedroom with 'No Entry' signs or, if he is allowing people in, he has signs saying that its 'a quiet room and not to get loads of stuff out'. Strange boy sometimes, but then that's his Asperger for you. We just had his Sister, his best friend, Uncle, Aunt and Cousin over. We were supposed to be having a BBQ, but that was rained off too, so was an indoor one instead. All in all though and despite the rain, he had a very good time and his best mate Callum D stayed until 8.30pm. Happy 12th mate!!

The weather didn't improve and we ended up getting a phone call asking whether we would mind keeping the bouncy castle overnight. So luckily Callum managed to have another quiet bounce the following morning before it was taken away. We didn't do any education on the Monday as he wanted to look through all his presents properly and get them all out and play with the games, etc.

BUSY, BUSY, RAINY, RAINY

Wayhey, it’s only been a week and I’m posting!!! Go me!!!

Forgot to mention in last post that we were supposed to be doing Catapult Craft at Riverside on the 31st May, but it got cancelled! However, as Callum had his mate Callum D over anyway we decided to still go there for a play and a wander. It was a lovely day and the boys had fun exploring. Callum D stayed overnight (my Cs first sleepover) and they had the whole following day to play on the Wii, the computer and upstairs with the cars and tanks.

We also had dentist that week too and we both passed with flying colours; neither of us needed anything done again!

This week has flown by and I’m having to check my diary to see what we’ve been doing. Weather changed too, so have been ‘forced’ more indoors, so still have loads of plants to get into the garden including Callum’s strawberries which are fruiting (and very yummy they are too).

Monday we had one of my friends over who I haven’t seen for ages, so Callum just concentrated on his Maths and his English sheets that he has to do daily (only thing I force him to do) and then he was back on computer playing his latest obsession Roblox. Don’t mind him playing as he has to type things into it and so has to ask for spellings. I always make him spell it first and then correct anything that he’s got wrong which is becoming less and less nowadays! Finally think we are getting somewhere with Literacy, him reading every night helps enormously.

Tuesday we went off to Splashes Leisure pool in the afternoon to meet up with another friend we haven’t seen for ages. That was lovely as the boys being both over 8 could go in the pool by themselves while we could sit by the side and drink tea!!! Callum had a great time. What made it even better was that the centre actually put on the wave machine and all the fountains plus had the slide open, so there was lots to entertain them both and the Russian student that was with them. 3 hours later they looked like prunes and we were tea drunk! The only downside is that it is so hot in there; I always end up with a headache.

Wednesday we had a private trampolining lesson in the morning which Callum worked really really hard at! He’s now easily flipping himself over by himself, but just hasn’t managed to get to feet. However, the combi moves are coming along really well. Only another 3 lessons to go before James goes off to Australia, so I’m really hoping that he can get something else ticked off if not achieve one of the badges.

We spent the afternoon getting all the projects together and looking for the work that needs to go in them. Unfortunately it looks like we’ve lost some!! Aaaargh!! However, I know that we may have some on the old computer not printed off, so am hoping that it’ll be on the dongle we have and we can upload it and print it off.

Callum's new peg man - this one has arms!!!


Thursday we completed all the odd bits of paper that we found on Wednesday. Inputting the questionnaire results, answering question sheets and completing quiz papers. We are now officially up to date with projects, but still have loads more to do. Running out of time, so will have to complete what we can and finish the rest off another time.

The evening was MAGIC at Monkey Bizz. Haven’t been for months so was nice to go along and let the boys let off a bit of steam. The two Callums had a great time charging about and I sat and read, until I got ‘booked’ to give a home education talk at one of the coffee mornings in September. Eek, must prepare, must prepare!

And so to today: spent the afternoon at Riverside, in the rain dodging showers, with a lady I’ve never met before, Donna, and her Asperger son Elliot. The boys appeared to get along fantastic and had the play area virtually to themselves the whole time we were there due to the weather. We, of course, sat and drank tea and put the world to rights – haha.

This weekend is Callum’s birthday!

Cya

Hi all

Yep, I know, it's been ages AGAIN!!! I am soooo useless at this. In fact I have just spent most of the afternoon on FB instead of doing this. Why? Because I forgot about it!!! Der!!!!
Anyway, let's have a very brief (hopefully) review of May 2011:

The first part of May was getting the Waves project finished for the Home Education Science Fair in Eastling. The project turned out ok and was on the general formation of waves and a bit more on tsunamis. I didn't take any photos of the event itself as my stupid camera has been playing me up lately, sorry about that. Callum wouldn't stand up in front of anyone, but he did demonstrate his 2 wave machines that he made to anyone who investigated his table, so well done him!

He enjoyed looking at everyone's work and the science show at the end was amazing as usual.

Other events in May: We went to see Horrible Histories at Dartford (Awful Egyptians in the morning and Ruthless Romans in the afternoon. A small group of us went and everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy it. The only downside for Callum is that for the second half of each show they do Bogglevision (3D) and you have to wear glasses. Callum doesn't like 3D; it gives him headaches, so he watched as much as he could with and without the glasses. It didn't stop him enjoying the shows though.

Our second Riverside Rangers was doing pond dipping. We were checking wildlife to see how healthy the pond was and found a number of different creatures including a dragonfly larva and water snail eggs.

Callum enjoyed it, but felt that 2 hours was a bit long.

We also had a couple of social days with his friends, which is always good fun. And trampolining as usual. James is trying to get badge 8 finished before he leaves for Australia in August, so he is concentrating on somersaults and combination moves. Callum is finding it hard, but he is still enjoying it and doesn’t want to stop. We did attend a proper competition (only to watch), which Callum enjoyed and it was nice to see what he is working for.

I think that’s about the gist of it for last month.

Cya