Friday 10th April
Cori leapt at the opportunity to take a swim in the sea for the first time in over a fortnight, and she came back happy beyond measure. In her absence we did nothing special - a relaxed playing with the train set etc.
It's being Good Friday, Cori gathered some flitters when down at Fenella beach:
These Finn here explains (in Manx):
They were then cooked. Sadly not on a fire, as it should have been (fires are outlawed due to covid19), so they were boiled. They made them too awful, even for Cori, and that's saying something!
Another major task for the day was the dying of eggs, which was definitely a task for when Oshin was in his nap!
They did a good job (even if Orry did spill the dye at one point!):
You'll note the Rice Crispy treat beside the eggs - this was a the great surprise for when we got back from our walk, which Orry inevitably tried to not go on!
When Oshin woke up, he had great delight in discovering the giant ostrich-size egg which Cori had crafted out of plaster in a balloon the night before with much effort. The inevitable soon resulted, much to Cori's horror:
I'd been toying with the idea of doing a film or the like for work to cover the Round Mound on Peel Hill, so the walk we took (to earn our treat) was up the hill.
I'm amazed to say that Oshin did it just about all by himself (and he would have happily done it all, if we'd all not had the patience for it and I carried him for as long as he'd let me before he shouted to be put down again!):
If you're wondering what the Round Mound looks like on Peel Hill, it's hidden under the lump of gorse behind the boys here:
Whilst we were out, Orry gathered some flowers for Mama, and a stick too. With these he industriously sat down at their art table to make her a beautiful thing - a flower stick, with a lovely card/picture attached - Cori was very impressed!
This evening's exercise was done, at Joe Wicks' direction, in fancy dress, which made for two very sweaty boys at the end of it!
Saturday 11th April
I indulged my long-standing desire to do a 'lesson' on the engineering of the Laxey Wheel. Needless to say, Finn was only too happy for this, and Orry had fun too.
Even if you don't have the patience to watch all the video presentations, I recommend the first two (and, any dads/granddads viewing this, you will probably find them all interesting!):
Then we chatted about mills, which we have seen inside of before, and so Finn drew one of those also:
Orry has been jealous of Finn's working on coding, so I made good on my promise to do a bit with him. For the most part, it was him using a mouse, which is quite the skill to master when you're 5! But he enjoyed making his dog move around the screen by the direction buttons. A good thing:
Our outing in the lovely weather was just to the beach. We took some balls to kick & throw about for exercise, which we thought made it legitimate for us to be there (when you're allowed to exercise, but not loiter anywhere)... Which made Cori frustrated when the police wandered over to tell us off! Still we had a good time while it lasted:
After that came a bath, of course, whether we wanted it or not! The kids were horrified to find covid19 there in the tub... or, at least, that's what I think they were feeling about it!
Since Finn's been reading the books since months ago, he's been desperate to watch the films. At last we did so, and all enjoyed it:
You can sometimes measure how successful a day is by how self-sufficient the boys are. By how they were before dinner, it was a very successful day!
Sunday 12th April
Easter Sunday, of course brought the usual egg hunt. Oshin didn't quite get it, Finn enjoyed the finding, Orry loved getting sweets & chocolate!
Once the allocated number of eggs had been found by Orry he disappeared. This is what we found him up to...
... Orry's egg didn't last long. He was, however, impressively generous about sharing it with other people. He was open-handed about others having the things that he was enjoying.
In contrast, Finn lasted much longer on his things, and took great pleasure in not allowing Orry a free-hand to eat what he wanted of Finn's stuff!
Orry was learning joined-up handwriting just before the schools closed, so he enjoys doing it now. We often find little bits of writing around the place, such at this one - see if you can make out what he's written:
That's right - it says, "Crazy man made by poop made by crazy man. Crazy!!!"
I could only convince Finn to come with me up Peel Hill, and Oshin was forced, begrudingly to start with, into the carrier. But it was lovely up on the hill again:
Finn was delighted to, weirdly, meet a cat up on the top of the hill. I outlawed stroking the thing, but the cat didn't seem to be put off!
(Note that the cat was a Manx one, which is not that common).
When we got back to the house Orry ran to the top of the stairs to ban us from looking in the corridor. We had to pass through closing our eyes to wash our hands in the kitchen (of course), before he ushered us all into the living room as he got ready.
He then unveiled for us a great game which he'd had the idea for and told no one about, working industriously to get done.
He had written out a sheet with 'machinery' written on it for each person, then he had chopped up the same word into its letters ad hidden them around the house. We then each had to find the letters to complete the word. - Amazing!
However, since it was 5-year-old Orry hiding them, it was as good as impossible. For example, here are two 'easy ones':
Do you see them? Here they are closer-up:
By the end, we gave up, but Cori by far the best:
Of course, we've been finding letters since then, hidden in the bread bin, or under the coffee machine etc.!
(Orry chose 'machinery' as his word as we'd been using it when speaking of the Laxey Wheel the day before).
Around the Machinery Game we managed to speak to granny and the (British) cousins on the computer, which was a first (for Granny). What a nice Easter treat!
Another treat was the unveiling of Cori's Largest & Smallest eggs (belonging to an ostrich and a bee hummingbird). The boys were very impressed... we think:
Also novel, was creating large-scale animals in Duplo. Pictured here is a flying dog. Not pictured here is its rear end, complete with a doorway to let the poop out:
Monday 13th
The long weekend of no work also included the Monday, which was much more lazy that the previous days. The start of the day included Osin mysteriously deciding that he wanted to be a monster (it was very odd - he saw it on the rack and demanded to be put in it!):
The highlight was catching the tide right to get into the enormous cave normally inaccessible below Peel Castle. Everyone was very impressed by it:
It was a lovely morning to be out, so we treated ourselves to enjoying the empty beach and them strolling around the castle:
The stroll around the castle was somewhat nervous, as there is rarely the space to keep the required 2 metres distance if we were to meet people. But, we thought that it was worth the risk as few people were out, and people tend to go one way around. As it was, we didn't meet anyone, thankfully.
Back home, I did one of Finn's maths sheets with Orry.
This is a pad of tear of sheets of fun maths problems. Each sheet is set in a scenario, so Orry's was in a shop, with prices having to be marked to half-price, or tallies done of the stock, or the price of someone's shopping basket added up.
Orry hadn't done one before, as they have always been beyond him. But we managed this one, and he seemed to enjoy it.
It was clearly very difficult for him, but he really enjoys when he works something out and solves difficult things, so it was just about right.
We did, however, discover that he doesn't know/understand multiplication. We've done it with him before, but he's only ever been doing (repeated) additions. - Now we have something to work on with him!
Another task done when back was planting, which was as mucky as you'd imagine (and the carpets especially suffered as Oshin wandered off halfway through!):
Beyond that, it was a chat to family in Ohio, and trains:
A good Easter Weekend!
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