The age of steam, and Santa too...

Every December I take the boys on the Santa Train, a ride on the Great Central Railway's steam train leaving from Loughborough, with a visit from Santa too! And today was the day.

The Great Central Railway is the UK’s only double track, main line heritage railway. It’s the only place in the world where full size steam engines can be seen passing each other, just as it was when steam ruled the rails. We love the way the stations have been preserved, history truly comes alive. And this year the boys were not too scared to have a look at the engine and the furnace.
"Santa" made his way along the train chatting to the children, Isaac didn't like him at all but Reuben was very happy to engage, he was just a bit perplexed with all the "have you been good?", but Santa, I'm always good!!

Our steam engine

The boys enjoyed trying to disappear in the steam

We're moving!

The train has a wonderful authentic feel

Photographer Daddy

Think Tank science museum

Think Tank is the science discovery museum in Birmingham, about an hour away from us by car. We have been here before but it was impossible to take it all in in one day so came back for a second visit, and this one was a whole day job too!!

It's very hands on and excellent for the boys who are now nearly 3 and 5. Our favourite bits were Kid City, a miniature city where children can interact with everything and role play being in the adult world, I was nearly in tears when I saw Reuben filling up one the cars with fuel, just like I do!!

The next best bit was the planetarium and the show we saw called Earth, Moon and Sun, here is a trailer:



Other things we enjoyed were programming the robots, especially Thespian Robot, a humanoid actor robot, looking through the galleries and finding out more about our bodies, and the lovely science garden outside where you can explore these areas:

Energise - Harness renewable energy to power a mechanical theatre - which turbine or solar panel will you choose?

Mechanise - Use a host of intriguing machines to feed the 8m high 'Terminus' machine - can you get enough for an explosion of dancing balls and whistles?

Mobilise - How does it feel riding on a wagon with square wheels on a bumpy road? Find out

It was very cold on this visit so we gave the garden a miss (although last time the boys spent a long time on the terminus machine, and there is more water play) but here are some pictures of the other things we enjoyed:

Isaac weighs his vegetables

Space commander Reuben on a mission

The boys operate the mechanical arm

Water play

Isaac tries to copy the design

Brick laying

This pipe needs mending, must put hard hat on!

Picnic lunch

Cars

Reuben programmes the robot drummer

Isaac check out his tools in the garage

Reuben operates Thespian robot

The phones in Kid City are all connected

Thespian robot

The favourite bit, water play!

Solidarity with Tibet

Not strictly a home ed issue but very much something close to my heart. I am an avid follower of the Dalai Lama although not a fully practising Buddhist (I remain non denominational) and the Tibetan cause has been on my mind for many years now, I went to see the Dalai Lama in Nottingham some years ago and enjoyed chatting with a very diverse group of supporters, I also met a number of Buddhist monks of the Tibetan tradition over the years and myself and Martin sponsor two monks in exile in India and enjoy some wonderful correspondence with them.
When in the last year we started hearing reports of self immolation we were heartbroken, what can we do to help? We plan to visit "our monks" in India soon and in the meantime I try to support as many campaigns as possible.

Today, the 10th December is Human Rights Day so it seems fitting that the Solidarity with Tibet campaign would organise a virtual event today. This can be found on Facebook here and any anyone interested in finding out more can visit their website here

I STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH TIBET!

Facebook page

Just wanted to remind you that the Facebook page still contains a lot of links to resources and interesting things I come across that won't necessarily make their way into the blog. Facebook is good for this sort of snappy sharing.
Find us here

Be the change you wish to see in your children

This sentence means so much to me!! The banner was designed by Lauren Fisher at Sparkling Adventures, see here for the original post. You can download it from her post and she will also send you a sticker if you send her an email.
In her words: Whenever I see behaviour in our own children that I don’t like, I stop and examine myself to see where I model it in the first instance. I can’t necessarily change my children, but I can change myself.
I also liked: Let’s not waste any more time blaming others, our environment or our life circumstances. We can improve the world today, simply by first improving ourselves. For the sakes of our children, let’s start changing today.

You can lead a horse to water...

One of the things that bothered me about how the blog was going was the way I was portraying the boys, as if they were magical creatures who spent their waking time engaged in wonderful activities with never a cross word between us... and of course that's really not how it is... here's an account of a disastrous afternoon and how we learnt from it.

After a few weeks of really crappy weather which included a flood and our vegetables freezing, this weekend finally the sun shone! So this morning I asked the boys if they wanted to go to the park/woods/anywhere outside of the house! They didn't... Reuben wanted to play games on Disney Junior and Isaac wanted to play with the ipad, they even closed the curtains as the sun was too bright and they couldn't see their screens... So this is where I made my mistake! You would think that someone like me who spends a lot of time going on about non-coercion, would immediately see the possible scenarios here. I didn't... I was so desperate to go out that I decided for everyone that that was what we were going to do, I picked their favourite park and playground and made them a picnic with their favourite food, waited till there was a lull in the games and bundled them into the car. Oh foolish woman! It didn't matter that they love that particular park and food, they hadn't made the decision to go there and to eat it, I had.

As soon as we got there Reuben said he was tired and needed to be carried, but as we got to the playground they seemed happy enough.

Knighton Park in Leicester

It only lasted about 15 minutes, Reuben got very angry with something he couldn't do on his own, shouted at me to do it for him, I helped him for a while but it wasn't making him any happier and I hated the task (using a digger to make a hole out of very wet sand), the fact that he was making me feel coerced and cross did not escape me. Isaac was hungry so we tried to sit down for lunch and Reuben wasn't hungry and got cross and upset again, to the point that I suggested maybe we should go back to the car, much shouting ensued... go for a walk then? We then went for what turned out to be a nice walk but the mood was ruined and Reuben was cross. We had our (very late) lunch in the car. I tried to salvage the situation by suggesting a film but the next show we wanted to see was nearly 2 hours later, so we went home.

But in the car on the way back we discussed what had happened and had a think about how we could do it better next time. Suggestions included Reuben playing his game till HE was ready to go out (we could have done, we had nothing else planned) and mummy going for a walk in the garden (we do have a huge garden that we rarely use in the winter, I saw a fox earlier this morning and there's horses in the paddock so I could have found plenty to do there and Reuben could have played his games), we then planned the cinema for tomorrow and a walk in town to see the Xmas lights.
My mistake was making decisions based on what I thought was good for the boys, surely a few hours in the park are better than spending ages in front of a screen? But any activity, as good and healthy as it may be, cannot really be appreciated if someone has forced us into it. And any good that might have come from being in the fresh air was overrun by all the anger and upset that Reuben felt. In a way I am lucky that Reuben is very vocal and articulate and has no problems in expressing his feelings, I always know when something is not right and needs fixing!!!

A few changes

I have not been writing in this blog for a few weeks now, it was a combination of having to deal with personal issues and a need to change direction. I liked the idea of a sharing resources, of posting about the good stuff we did and discovered but this led to some problems. Mainly I found myself worrying about not offending anyone who might have a different approach from us, and as a family of very autonomous learners this proved difficult. I also found myself not fully immersed in the boys' activities as I was always taking pictures and thinking about the blog angle... not good!

But I love writing and I love this platform so the most honest thing for me to do is record my thoughts and our family journey. Not everyone is prepared to embrace a free range way of life and that's ok, but I have done so much soul searching, thinking and questioning these last few years that I would like to share the journey.
Other changes I have made are to the look of the blog and the removal of all ads as I felt slightly uncomfortable with them, I am also no longer affiliated with Amazon or any other sponsor.