I love to start the week by writing the Monday Happy List. It’s a chance for me to sit down and reflect on the things that made me happy in the previous week, as well as to record some of our family adventures. It’s usually a post I love to write but obviously life has changed considerably for us and everyone else in the UK over the last few months. With lockdown easing in the UK our life hasn’t changed much at all. The weeks are looooong but we do manage to squeeze in a lot of living, even if it is in our very small bubble.
Monday Happy List {Week 296}
We were sent the new Playmobil Back to the Future range to review and the kids loved watching the films and building the toys. Having grown up with Back to the Future I love the excuse to re-watch them with the family, they are great entertainment! Playmobil is really popular in our house so building the toys gave the children a welcome break from home learning. We think the range would make great gifts for Dad this Fathers Day. You can read our review of the new Playmobil Back to the Future range here.
Our home learning is getting more and more stressful. The children just don’t want to do any of their work and make such a fuss about it that it takes most of them day to get through it. The main problem is that they don’t like the Maths worksheets but they find the rest of the work quite interesting. Then they get absorbed in the topic and don’t want to finish! They are a nightmare but I’m glad I’m able to sit with them and learn with them every day.
A few things broke up our home learning this week. We took part in a dog training session with the Dogs Trust via Zoom which was so useful. Our training course was cancelled due to the pandemic and the last session was finally re-arranged. Dog training via Zoom actually worked really well and we picked us some amazing tips. It really helped motivate us to carry on with our training which had slipped a little.
We’re been out on some lovely walks this week. We try to combine walking the puppy with some geocaching to keep the kids busy. We went to Bayhurst Wood Country Park in Ruislip and for a lovely walk in Northwood although we did get chased out of a field by some horses which was interesting. The kids have been desperate to find a travel bug so we were out before breakfast yesterday and found our first one!
We took our home learning outside last week and visited a beautiful poppy field in Hertfordshire as we couldn’t find any poppy fields in London. The fields were amazing and we were able to keep to the paths to take a few fun photos. We stopped on the way home to pick up some sandwiches and found a Next store open so popped in to get the kids some new clothes. They had both grown out of everything over the last 12 weeks and it felt amazing to walk into a shop that wasn’t selling just food.
Have a great week everyone.
I am so glad that you and your family aren’t letting being locked down keep you sad or lonely. It looks like the kids are making the most of it.
It sounds like you are all managing to keep really positive which is so lovely! Love the idea of doing the dog training via zoom, I am constantly amazed at all the great ideas businesses and people have come up with during isolation and lock down using things online like zoom etc! School work has become super hard here too, worksheets are ok but after 12 weeks of worksheets they just want “something else” lol.
I honestly think that home schooling if stressful should be left, you don’t need the additional stress. I’ve had to find a better way of managing my own expectations of my 12 year old. Just know you’re doing an amazing job.
And back to the future toys!!! Oh my god!
We really need to go back to puppy training. We’ve also just started geocaching and the kids are loving it. Motivates them to go out for walks!
I think the back to the future toy was good, being huge fan of it I’m a little biased, but they’re good and robust, homeschooling for our kiddies is becoming a little morning for the kids, they haven’t said but I can see it on them.
I still want your dog! What was it like in NEXT? Was there much social distancing? Looking at the coverage of yesterday’s shop opening, it looked like carnage!
Wow, that poppy field looks amazing, whereabouts in Hertfordshire was it as that’s where I am from? I haven’t been into many nonfood shops (just Superdrug once) but it was a strange experience x
That’s a good idea combining the puppy walk with something to keep the kids busy. I’d love to go to a poppy field they look lovely!
Oh my gosh how cute is your dog!! I love that you have had training sessions that have worked well via zoom…great idea xx
Home learning is getting more stressful here too! We are hoping to get dog training sessions for our pup soon.
We haven’t sone our local poppy field yet but its on the list. Your dog is so cute!