"He travels like a lightning streak and he strikes from town to town. Then he gets you when you're weak and tares your playhouse down."

Day 53:

As an enthusiast of all things LEGO I love a good challenge and being able to only build in one colour has always been something that I have enjoyed doing. With todays #creativelockdownproject word being 'Monochrome' it gave me the chance to get in to a mini LEGO project. For some reason the first thing that came to mind was the devil minifigure so I chose to stick with red and create the build around that little guy. To see more of satan's thrown room check out our Instagram page HERE.

“Colours are brighter when the mind is open”.

Day 16:

While Opeie was mark making with inks yesterday he commented on how lovely the water was when cleaning his quill in a glass of water. The blue pigment was really striking and he decided that he wanted to keep it to make 'potions'. This morning while we were sitting eating our breakfast we were looking at the water again and decided to fill a few bottles with different colours for the sun to shine through. A little bit of colour during these strange times is really good for the soul and has made us realise that we can add a lot more little happy colourful touches to the house to make us smile.

"There are no lines in nature, only areas of colour, one against another."

It's science time again and we've been making water walk! No! we're not crazy but like myself, my little lab partner is very inquisitive and when we stumbled across this experiment online we knew we had to give it a try. When looking for experiments for a 5-year-old it can be difficult to find the right level of interest. I don't want to set up an experiment that is too simple so his attention sways but I also don't want something that he can't fully understand or get involved in. Walking water is the perfect experiment for a 5-year-old. 

You start off with an odd number of cups, preferably the same size. We used 7 but the experiment could work perfectly with 5, even 3 cups depending on the amount of food colourings you have to hand. We filled every other cup with water (around 2/3) and then mixed different food colours to the cups with water in (Red - Empty - Yellow - Empty - Blue - Empty - Red).

We then took 6 squares of disposable kitchen towel and folded them up, placing one end in the coloured water and the other in the empty cup, forming a chain along the 7. All that was left to do then was to wait, which was probably the most difficult task for Opeie as he wanted the magic to happen there and then. I knew that this was going to be annoying for Opeie so I set up another experiment while we waited, to teach Opeie how to test density (which I will write about very soon).

Well... I'm sure you can imagine what happened, no need for me to explain. The experiment turned out amazing! and was another great activity explaining the basics of colour theory!  Most importantly though the experiment was a fun and stimulating activity for my ever curious mini lab partner.

"I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay Wastin' time"

I can't even begin to tell you how much I am loving this sunshine. Waking up in the morning and seeing it desperately trying to find a way in under the blinds, sets me up for the day and where there is sunshine there is adventure. If you read our previous post then you will know that after a trip to Liverpool to pick up Mrs M's passport we were eager to get back there with the scooters to scoot Albert dock. Well, last weeks sunshine and lack of needing to be anywhere important was all the fuel we needed to pack up the Micro-scooters and head out.

Opeie was the DJ during our journey and with Justin Bieber and Taylor swift being his choice of soundtrack I couldn't get there (and out of the car) quick enough. When we arrived the sun had dulled a little but we were confident that weather wise it was going to be an awesome day. I used our outing to put the Pedalflow to the test as it had not been out long distance and I really wanted to see what it could do.

The thing that was so appealing scooter wise during our previous trip around Albert dock was the flat, smoothness of the area and the huge amount of space to bomb about. On top of that there were ramps to raised levels, which made our scoot even more entertaining. Its great to be scooting around new cities as it gets Opeie asking lots of questions and for homeschooling these kind of days out are a great source of education and experience.

I mean where else are you going to scoot past a picture of the Beatles made entirely of Jelly beans?

Scooting together has really become our thing. That special father/son time where we can concentrate completely on having fun while whizzing around. It has given us an extra level to this amazing relationship that is continuing to be built daily. This awesome bonding time is made even better when Mrs M and Seth are scooting with us.

The evening we got back from our trip, I sent a picture to a whatsapp group of all the cool moms I hang out with. One of the moms recognised the Beatles jellybeans, which started a conversation about the universities we all attended. Emma over at Another Last Story mentioned her time as a student in Leeds and how lovely the city is. Which without thinking got me asking "Whats the scooting like?", it made me chuckle to myself that I have actually reached the point in our family scooting adventure that I am measuring the appeal of a new city solely on the ability to scoot there. That's how much of an impact those wheels have had on our life though.

As much as we love those wheels of ours, the afternoon wasn't all about scooters. With every city scooted we also try to hunt down any museum or educational establishment to add in to the adventure, Its what makes our home education so great. We had visited the Tate and the Museum of Liverpool during our previous visit but this time we headed towards Liverpool's 'World Museum' as I had read some great reviews (and they've got dinosaurs!).

The great thing about all three of the museums that we have visited in Liverpool is the size of the lockers available which comfortably held a Pedalflow, a Mini Micro and our bags and coats, genius! When we were getting them back out before leaving there was a mom with her two children who was very impressed by what we were pulling out, which started a long chat about Micro Scooters and all the benefits to having them and again the impact they have had on our lives. I think that may just have been another customer coming their way.

The museum was great, with lots of different themes to keep us both entertained. The dinosaurs where what had me hooked when I was researching online but there was and eqyptian themed floor, a planetarium, an Aquarium and lots of other interesting things to look at and information for the little sponge that travels with me.

(Get a room Starfish!)

I was expecting the dinosaurs to be Opeie's favourite part of the visit but it turned out to be and exhibition called 'eye for colour - the rainbow revealed!', a collection of information and activities around how colour is formed and how the eye processes colour. Opeie got to learn about how colour is used in art and we went over colour mixing again but this time using light too.

There was a great section on colour in the animal kingdom and how colour was used to attract mates, scare off predators and also how it was used to stand out. Opeie's favourite part was using colour as camouflage to blend in to a surrounding environment.

We could have quite happily spent the bulk of our visit at this exhibition as there was so much great information to keep us entertained. Using the Dog, Fish and Bee heads below you could move them around to look about the room and it gave you an idea of the colours that these animals can see compared to what we do. Opeie of course used them to pretend he was a spy and I had to jump out and make faces while he was looking around.

The museum visit really added to our already eventful scooting adventure and as we pushed off in to the sunshine we were reminded yet again of just how much Micro Scooters has been shaping these amazing homeschooling days together.

"Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud."

Back in November I wrote about Opeie's news paper 'Happy Times', which started out as a fun activity one afternoon, thought up by Mrs M. They took photos of Opeie's toys and came up with funny stories to go with the pictures. Opeie got so excited making it that we decided to incorporate it in to his homeschooling and back in Decemeber we started the second edition which Opeie decided was going to be titled "The rainbow edition".

The news paper has been great for both Opeie's reading and writing, we've used this for all sorts of different activities and it has really helped with keeping him motivated with this side of learning. On top of all the other positives its great for keeping me coming up with new places to go, its all about the experiences.

When I asked him a few days back why he loved writing Happy Times? He told me that he thought it was like the blog, but on paper which I thought was really lovely. Its great to see Opeie so confident with what he is creating too. Whenever we have people over he is eager to get it out and show it off.

I'm really hoping that when he is older this will be something great to look back on, to show him all of the great things that we got up to during this homeschooling adventure. It has been interesting for me as we have gone through the pages to see the clear development in the penmanship and the confidence in his writing.

'Happy Times' is here to stay and as his writing progresses I'll look more in to the structure of the sentences he is writing to help him further with creative writing. Even though I am loving the home education I still have days where I worry that I am maybe not doing enough but then I see him producing work like this that he is excited about doing and it completely backs up our decision to keep Opeie home and educated in a way that is suited to his needs and development.

When I put a green, it is not grass. When I put a blue, it is not the sky.

Well there was bound to be one day during our 'Art week' that Opeie wasn't all that bothered about, Cutting shapes out of a piece of coloured paper and sticking them down was never going to have the same appeal to a 4 year old as throwing paint around the garden but the whole idea of the week was to show Opeie some different art styles and to show that pretty much anything can be deemed as art.

Our artist of the day was Henri Matisse and his paper cut out style of art. We started with a piece of coloured/patterned paper, cut shapes out and flipped and mounted them on a larger piece of white paper making positive and negative shapes. It was a nice quick activity but as I said Opeie didn't really get in to today's art so I'm going to have to really think about something more entertaining for our next activity.

Our morning of Matisse ending in Opeie doing multi coloured scribbles and us creating a fox paper aeroplane so in the end a great start to a day of creativity.