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The Martins web
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Tue, 04 Nov 2008
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| November already!!Aaaaargh...! |
Crikey time flies!!lol!! Alexander has been busy
with writing his story and with his telescope
because the night skies have been so clear,we saw
the ISS pass over again recently which is nice
because of past email conversations we had with
them regarding TLI and TEI etc.We have also been
looking at constellations. Alexander is also now
doing his Physics diploma and enjoying it,it is
certainly giving food for thought and some
seriously tricky conversations,must sound odd to
passers-by to hear a mum pushing a pram with a
newborn and a toddler and discussing Average
Instantaneous Acceleration and Deceleration with
a teenager whilst splashing through the leaves!!
hehe!! I think Alexander is having to actually
put some unexpected effort in on this Physics
course but he is enjoying that and is sitting
down everyday with his books to read or reread
before he does something else.He is enjoying it.
On Halloween,Alexander,Liam and Toby hollowed out
a pumpkin to make pumpkin soup and roast the
seeds as a snack (these turned out to be
revolting by the way though the soup was
luvverly) and then Alexander helped Toby with
making the pumpkin shell into a lantern.
Alexander also spent a few days at his friends
house near Eastbourne,more importantly from a
confidence point of view he got himself there on
the train!! We have a few more book reviews
now,and Alexander helped clear out a load of junk
and non essentials from the shelves where we keep
his HE stuff. Alexander has also been reading
about and discussing paranormal
activity,crystals,spirit orbs etc which have all
sparked his imagination.This all links in with
discussions about the environment we live
in,religion through the ages,history eg witch
hunts etc. Believe me this house is full of odd
conversations!! Right now Alexander is yakking
about psychic activity in buildings and places
whilst busily sewing on his St Johns Ambulance
badges. Alexander also went diving at Wraysbury
near Windsor at the weekend in near freezing
temperatures and got another 2 dives on his log
book. Last night was presentations at St Johns,
ALexander was awarded 4 certificates in We've Got
Issues,Scuba Diving,Makaton/Communication With
The Deaf,Radio Communications level 2, and also
his Bronze award for his Grand Prior!! Well done
Alexander!! In short,we havent been lacking on
things to be doing!
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Posted 08:12
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Tue, 21 Oct 2008
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| Back on track in more ways than you can shake a stick at!! |
Roughly 4 weeks since our last post/blog. We now
have Nicholas Isaac who is just coming up 4 weeks
old and very cute. Thankfully Alexander and Toby
adore him and things have very quickly settled
down into a rhythm. Alexander has been busily
working on a story which is so far rather good,he
is thoroughly engrossed in it at the moment,to
the virtual exclusion of everything else but
thats the beauty of HE I guess!! He is also now
on the Physics course which should stretch his
mind a tad...lol!! Alexander and Liam have been
having indepth chats about it all and poking
about in Liams Msc level text books which scarily
Alexander understands with only the minimum
explanation.GULP. I have also been challenging
Alexander every other day with biology based
questions such as asking him to give me a
relatively indepth explanation on DNA and
mitochodria etc but verbally not written and then
a few days later asking him again so I can assess
how much of that info he has retained. Doing well
at it he is so we're happy with that.At the
moment it seems one of the better ways for him to
learn so we're going with it. Alexander has been
busy yakking with his other HE friends and with
friends from St Johns and school etc.Today was a
first for him,he caught the bus into Eastbourne
with a friend of his just for the fun of it.Proud
of him. Alexander has more open water diving on
the weekend of November 1st which will be the
last open water diving he will have the chance to
do this year. Hopefully he will also be doing the
Scuba Organisations first aid course next week
which will benefit him in multiple ways.We are
also planning a trip to Pumpkin Cottage again
this year (we went 2 years ago) which will be
nice.Add to that a trip to GOSH coming up, we
have an opportunity to go to the British Museum
again which will be good.Alexander is also going
to Newhaven Fort with a HE group we go to which
will be good.All in all we are busy and getting
places so we are happy badgers. Photos of
Nicholas on shortly.
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Posted 11:24
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Thu, 18 Sep 2008
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| I broke the rune tiles and am not popular.... |
Alexander is cross with me.I moved the tray
holding the rune tiles he's been making,somehow
managed to drop them onto the floor and now they
are in the bin in many more pieces than
originally intended.Ooops...he says he is going
to remake them tho,as long as he can put them
where I wont go!!Cheek!!Alexander has been
looking at animals and their places in the food
chain etc and their evolutionary heritage.He has
been choosing to look at the slightly more
unusual creatures such as a Jesus Lizard etc
which is an interesting and appropriately named
lizard considering it walks on water!! In
addition,Alexander has been doing book reviews
and more on mythology still focussing on
Norse,and starting to look at Physics more now
with it in mind to do the diploma we have found
for him to do that looks ideal. We did attempt a
carrot soup last night,it went hideously wrong
because somehow we got distracted and forgot half
of the ingredients until it was past the point
where we could reasonably rescue it!DOH!!First
time we have done anything quite that dopey and
hopefully we wont make the same mistake again!!
Today,Grandma and Grandpa are arriving for a 2
week visit coinciding with Tobys 3rd birthday
tomorrow and number 3 being being born by
Caesarian next wednesday (24th) so we plan not to
do an awful lot in this time. That said,Grandpa
is a Ham Radio beastie so no doubt there will be
a lot of discussion along those lines seeing that
Alexander has been looking at Ham Radio for a few
months now... We were fortunate enough to be able
to update Alexanders Word package for utter
peanuts thanks to Liams work so we are grateful
that we have the odd perk! We have also been
having fun with our dear old friend
limescale,experimenting with what household
products deal with it the best. Believe it or
not,WD40 is absolutely the tops at it!!
Tomorrow we are off to Drusillas Zoo for TObys
birthday which is an entirely fun day out but as
with everything,we learn every time we open our
eyes and want to see. Then its Frankie & Bennys
for Tobys birthday dinner and cake. Lovely!We may
well not update this site now for about 2 weeks
possibly 3 so traaaaaaaaaaaaa fer now!!
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Posted 11:51
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Fri, 12 Sep 2008
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| Funny ole month,delightful weather and courses that seem WICKED!! |
Alexander is still in the land of HE kid...and
thats coz it is working properly again so hats
off to him for pulling it together! We have
discovered a college that does distance learning
courses in all kinds of stuff that is infintitely
more affordable than the GCSE routes that are the
usual for home ed,and are as respected by those
that matter f not more so. The nice thing as well
is that these courses seem to rely more upon the
quality of the coursework than anything else
meaning that the knowledge is as a result more
longterm memory than the short term memory that
is all too common for exams. YIPPEE!! Alexander
is now looking at doing the Physics course we
weren't sure if we would be able to do previously
so all happy there! Alexander has been reading a
lot over the past week or so,all sorts of books
from Steinbecks 'Of Mice And Men' to
rereading 'The Hobbit'. In addition,he has been
reading Liams IET magazine in paricular the
articles on Saturn,Mars and so on,and about the
varying landers that have been sent out in order
to investigate such planets. This has in turn
lead to some in-depth conversations between
Alexander and Liam that leave your head spinning!
Nice to see and hear tho I must say! Alexander
has also taken it upon himself to do things like
making salt dough etc to play with Toby and his
little friend and in the process doing Makaton
with them,he does like little people. Alexander
also spends a good bit of time yakking with his
friends both HE and non-HE which has been good,he
is altogether more relaxed now.
Hopefully within the next 10 days we will have
paid for his Physics course and Alexander can
then make a start on that,we also need to update
his Word package but that isnt a major issue,we
just feel the one on his laptop already isnt
really up to the kind of thing he likes to do
based on it being 3+ years old.
So,in short,all good here though I really need to
get my act together and do our Ed Phil follow up
to a standard I find acceptable!! The bones are
there because I do it as a running document
through the year but it needs pruning and tidying
and organising.Yawn!!hehehehehehe!!
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Posted 03:33
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Wed, 27 Aug 2008
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| Rune tiles,icky muffins and rain....... |
Alexander is still working on his set of Rune
tiles that he is making out of salt dough,it is
taking longer than anticipated because he wants
to get the runes exactly right which is fair
enough.Also,salt dough starts drying out if its
left too long so its a little at a time.That
said,Alexander and Toby are enjoying the play
aspect considering the delightful weather we
continue to enjoy... Alexander is now on Facebook
and in touch with a much larger HE kids community
which is taking up a lot of time but is so nice
to see!The other day we attempted to make cheese
and sweetcorn muffins but they were baaad..was
very funny but a bit of a disappointment!We also
made mushroom and leek soup which was nice and a
sweet potato cheesecake which was vile!! Thats
the last time we use a recipe discovered in an
ASDA magazine,each time we use a recipe from
there it doesnt work - it might well be something
to do with us but the other common denominator
is.... It continues to rain and poor
Alexanders melon plants could take no more and
gave up the will to live quite literally.Hey ho!!
We have had a sort out of all Alexanders HE stuff
and although there isnt the quantity of written
stuff that there was last year,he has more in-
depth stuff of the kind that is of interest to
him and less general.He has been printing quite a
bit out and filing it and we are generally happy
with it.Recycling bin is quite full this week
tho!! On the whole,we're happy with it all at the
mo.Good eh?!
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Posted 12:10
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