A round up of June and July

We haven't blogged for a while.  I have been getting used to our skating schedule amongst other things.

Jasmin has now been home educated for a year and it has flown by.  We had a conversation today and Jasmin said it has just been amazing.

I feel that Jasmin has grown in so many ways, in confidence, happiness, spirituality, friendships just to name a few. I am so lucky that I have been able to take that journey with her.

Here are just some of the recent things we have been up to:

Skating:

Skating at the moment feels like our second home, it was a hard decision to take to increase Jasmin's skating and it has changed the way we home educate quite a bit but it is paying off and she really loves it.  She is on gold now only four more badges then she can do her NISA levels.

Today at skating a school group was on the ice at the same time as Jasmin's training session, two girls came up to Jasmin when she had finished her training and said "we think you a pretty cool, no really cool - and all our school friends think so and you are ace"  It was such a lovely thing for someone to say to her and made her smile all day. xxx

A very Special Day:

Jasmin has been wanting to get Christened for quite a while and on the 22nd June she got her wish.
She was Christened with all of her family and friends from choir, and everybody from St Timothy's Church, and home ed friends.
It was very special as Jasmin understood the promises she was making. For Jasmin church is such an important part of her life. xxx

Church concert:St Timothy's, Slinn Street, Crookes.

On the 18th July Jasmin is singing in the church concert for charity, it starts at 7pm. There will be lots of childen who are in the choir playing music and singing as well as adults.  It is for raising money in aid of St Tims Church Organ Fund and the Brain Tumour Research Fund.  If you would like to come along please let me knowxxx

Work books and Reading eggs and games:

These have been really useful for Jasmin giving her confidence as she has progressed through the books.  Also reading eggs has been good for going back through the basics and bringing her reading on.
In her writing she is really trying hard to do cursive writing and is enjoying the way it looks on paper.  She is still enjoying writing to her pen friend. I remember having pen friends and waiting for a new letter to come through the post and rushing upstairs to read it. Very special.xx

We have been playing lots of games, monopoly, backgammon, pizza fractions which she loves.

Piano:

Jasmin has started to write a piece of music only using the notes on her right hand, which is great fun. Not necessarily tuneful…. She is working through book 2.

Friends:

We have had some amazing play dates with friends, doing some fab spontaneous crafts and outings:  Felting,  playing in woods, day trips out on walks etc and just playingxxx

Grindleford:

We caught the train to Grindleford with some friends and did a small round walk, had some chips at the cafe, saw a little mouse.  Had a fab play in the park  - a lovely dayxxx

 Music in The Round:

 This is the second time we have been to see Music in The Round, this time the story was Giddy The Goat.  Just as fab, a story told through a musical orchestra with plenty of interaction with the audience.  A great way to listen to musicians, learn about their instruments and take part.

Afterwards we had a fab play in the peace gardens with Beth, Autumn and Evan, ending up with Jasmin getting soaking wet and a charity shop for clothes to get us home.

Playing outside with friends waiting for the concert to start:

 Hammer Flowers:

I love this activity, (thank you Beth).  After finding some flowers in the woods, we separated the petals from the flowers placed them in patterns on the watercolour paper and placed acetate on top, carefully we used different shaped hammers to release the colour pigment from the petals and make patterns with the natural ink.

 Beads:

Jasmin had a go at making some beads and a ring:

Felting at Beths:

I love felting just the fact that you can change dramatically the look, texture and use of wool.   It is so tactile and lots of fun.xxx

Our Cow Molly:

A lovely sunny day perfect for a trip to our cow molly, ice  creams and a play with friendsxxx

An arty day (thanks Beccy)xx

Today we had a wonderful day.  Sat outside in the glorious sunshine doing  just what Jasmin loves the best Art.

Beccy hosted today (thank youxx) and Melanie from Craftsafloat came and did a fab morning with the children.

After talking about primary colours and mixing colours.  The children looked at a seascape picture and recreated it, using watercolours and oil pastels.  The lines were drawn with the pastels, shaded with the water colours and water added afterwards to merge the colours together.

This was followed by felting using merino wool.  The children all chose a seascape picture and recreated it in felt.  We talked through why they liked the pictures, capturing moods and colour.

After picking the colours they started layering the wool, looking carefully at the pictures.  Once all the colours and shapes had been added, the next step was to add warm soapy water to bind the fibres together.  This was great fun.

Bubble wrap was then added on top and pressed firmly down to make sure that all the fibres had been soaked.

This was then rolled up tightly and all the water needed to be squeezed out.   This was done by rolling and rolling (lots)

The end results were amazing.

Jasmin just has to embroider sea creatures and sequins on to finish.

A lovely day. Thank you Melanie and Beccyxxx

Melanie talking through primary colours.

getting started with water colours

water colour and oil pastels

Jasmins seascape

starting layering

making sure everything is just right.

the fun part water squirting

adding colours and spirals

Jasmins seascapexxx

First Ice Skating Competition (proud mum moment)

Jasmin has been practising her routine really hard and tonight she competed in her first in house skating competition.  I was so proud of  her.

She loved all the dressing up and getting her hair done.

It was so lovely to watch all the girls, they all gave each other lots of encouragement. The parents were so lovely too applauding everyone.   There were three first prizes, one in each group and the others received a goody bag of lollies and sweets.

I asked Jasmin how she felt,  and did it make her want to carry on, she said it did, and she loved it.  So we are up at 6.00 in the morning happy daysxxx

before the competition

snake

warm up prep talk

final photo shoot, not v clear. def need new camera!!!

Girls world - Hair designs

Jasmin has loved watching the programme Hair.  She really enjoyed it when the stylists created sculpture with the hair.

She has created all sorts of styles (glad she has a girls world…much better than mums hair)

not sure how you would walk with this as your hair style...

What did we get up to in April (part two skating and biking)

Before we went on holiday Jasmin passed her level 7  ice skating and has just started level 8.

Whilst we were on holiday we arranged for Jasmin to have a few skating lessons, we didn't know until we arrived that it was with  Czech bronze olympic medalist Petr Barna who had skated with Torvill and Dean and Robin Cousins.

Skating is very different in Switzerland, a  lot of work is done on posture both on and off the ice, sticking to the basics for the first year, then moving forward.  Jasmin really ached after each session.  She also learnt the importance of warming up and down before each session.   The ice was so perfect too, no bumps at all... She can't wait to get through the rest of her levels so she can go on patch ice.

The rink was also never busy.

Jasmin also watched the Ice Princess, which must be good as it has over taken Frozen as her favourite film to watch.
We have spent sometime researching ice skating medalists.

Jasmin and Petre starting off a training session.

 Also whilst on holiday Jasmin learnt to ride her bike without stabilisers.  A kind man who owned the village shop let us borrow bikes without any charge for the time we was away.  He was just so happy that Jasmin was learning to ride  her bike.  Jasmin painted a picture for  him to say thank you at the end of the week.

Josh was brilliant with her, showing lots of patience whenever Jasmin became frustrated.

She was so proud of herself when she finally knew she could ride.

Josh showing Jasmin how to cycle

What did we get up to in April (part one) paintings..

Gosh its been ages since we have done a blog post, but we have been up to lots and had great fun on the way.

For three weeks we have been staying in France, in a lovely apartment in front of a castle.  Here we did painting, picnics and our Easter egg hunt.

Luckily for Jasmin in the owner of the apartment was an artist, so he did some art sessions with Jasmin, including preparing her own canvases.

Jasmin with Eric peppering the canvas and paints

getting started

Jasmin's first canvas work

Jasmin really enjoyed her art work and is wanting an easel for her birthday in May.