Our Week In Pictures

This past week has been a school holiday here in Portsmouth, so we have spent much of the week catching up with Hannah's friends who go to school, and also treating ourselves to a fun day out on friday when Dean had a day off of work.

Hannah's week started with a birthday pizza party for one of her friends from the homeschool group.
Followed by a trip to the park.
She met her oldest friend for lunch on wednesday and had a lovely walk in Victoria park and a play in the playground there.






On thursday she caught up with her friend Esme and enjoyed a session at a soft play centre, a really long walk, a play on the beach and a picnic!

And on friday Dean was home from work so we all went shopping to Southampton. We had lunch in Ikea, bought Hannah new shoes and tights in John Lewis, looked around the shops and the absolute highlight for Hannah.........................a trip to Build A Bear!! Hannah was so excited she couldn't even eat breakfast!! She has been saving her pocket money to buy clothes for her rabbit, and Dean and i also treated her to a new bear and some extra bear clothes as well!
Hannah and her Build A Bear friends are very happy :-)

A Sunday School Thank You Card

Hannah's Sunday school class were given some books and game cards this week by one of the ladies in the congregation. The children were really pleased with them and made thank you cards during their lesson to give to her after church.

I managed to take a picture of Hannah's card (very tricky taking a picture under a pew seat so that the flash didn't distract Father Richard) before she delivered it.

Searching For Spring

The weather here on thursday was beautiful, and Hannah's wish was to take her doll out for a walk and look for spring!
We went down to Southsea seafront and walked through the Rose Gardens, Japanese Gardens and Canoe Lake park.

First we walked past the cricket ground which was full of Canadian Geese grazing,


Then across the park,
and past a beautiful carpet of Crocuses

and along to the Japanese Garden.
There were lots of signs of spring in the gardens, and the blossoms smelled wonderful.



The gardens were full of birds and Hannah was really excited to spot Blue-tits, Blackbirds, Pied Wagtails, a Wren and a really friendly Robin.
This little Robin followed Hannah around the pathways through the trees and sang all the time.



Of course, no walk is complete without ice-cream, and Hannah really enjoyed hers :-)
Such a beautiful day really lifted our spirits and showed us that spring really is on it's way.

Learning and Playing

This week Hannah has been reading 'Can We Keep It Dad' which she chose in the library on monday. She has read a few chapters (they are very short) every day and is really begining to love reading.



She has been practising her addition and subtraction,
Learning about the calendar,
and has started multiplication and division.
She can remember her 2, 10 and almost all of her 5 times tables and is using her tables chart and cuisinaire rods to work out simple problems.

She has also been playing with her friends at Baffins Pond,



and with her doll Lanie in the sandpit at Canoe Lake. She pushed her there in her doll pram and showed her all the sights on the way :-)
Lanie had fun too!!!!

Police Visit

It was our regular weekly homeschooling group meeting yesterday, and one of the parents had arranged for the local police to visit the children. They were a big hit!! They showed the children handcuffs, leg straps, walkie-talkies, body protectors, helmets and just about everything else they could think of!
Hannah's friend Jordan volunteered to model everything and made everyone laugh being 'the laughing policeman', and it was a really fun session!

Jordan In Handcuffs
Jordan and Finn check out the uniforms
Hannah chating to one of the officers
Jordan does as the 'Laughing Policeman'!!
And finally Hannah........A self Portrait!!

Another Riding Lesson

Last summer Hannah won a voucher for riding lessons at a riding school in Fareham. Being super absent minded i put the voucher away safely and didn't find it again until last week ......ooops!! Anyway, luckily when i rang them they were happy for her to have the lessons even at this late date, so today she went for her first one. She rode with a group of older children in a hour lesson, and really enjoyed it. She loved riding a different pony, and although she was very nervous, she rode really nicely.

As riding pictures are all very much the same, i took a little bit of video today, so here she is riding at Roshauna Riding School.

Pets Workshop

Yesterday Hannah went to a pets workshop at our local Pets At Home store. It was organised by one of the mum's from our home schooling group - Sarah at Learning Through Life, Love and Literature and was a really good workshop. The children learnt how to take care of their pets, the differences between cold water and tropical fish and were able to handle a rabbit, guinea pig and bearded dragon lizard.







Hannah loved the workshop, and was quite keen to buy a rabbit - luckily we avoided that by helping one of her friends to pursuade her mum to rescue two guinea pigs instead (sorry Debbie lol!!). I'm not sure she's entirely forgotten about the rabbit though!