I love to write a grateful list, it's a nice reminder of all the lovely things in my life and something I can look back on with the girls - after all, it's one of the main reasons I started writing a blog, to track my journey though life. But over the years, Mummies Waiting has changed and the happy grateful list went away for a while in favour of sharing other posts.

This month however, I'm bringing it back! Although I can't write every week, I want to do a monthly round up of all the amazing things we've done, seen and learnt over the previous month. Being grateful for the little moment and keeping these memories saved forever.

So without anymore chat, here's what we got up to in July.

 

A month of Home Education and gratitude! | July 2019

After a tip off my sister, we started searching charity shops for Barbie toys. We've been in and out of many shops with no luck, but we did manage to find an awesome Barbie car and 2 Barbie horses too! The girls were so chuffed with their new toys and I'm totally grateful for the money and environmental savings!



 

We worked with a new brand this month and got sent a copy of the first 'Night Zookeeper' book. The girls loved it and we read the whole thing. We then jumped onto their website and worked on our writing online.



 

Kairi tried really hard with her reading this month. Even when hitting a tricky patch, she pushed through and worked it out. Naminé has also been really open about learning to read and has asked to read before I've asked her multiple times. We read many many pages of the 'Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons book' and Kairi read to Coco many times!

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Our new topic this month was learning all about animals including humans. Part of the topic was our bodies and the bodies of animals too. We used Twinkl to print off worksheets and download presentations to learn what we have in common and what are out differences. We sorted animals into groups and created our own.



 

We learnt about Pictograms and how they help us to work out the most of something. We looked at eye colour in our family and found out which was most common.



 

Another new topic for the month was a computer based one. We started working on presentation software. What is it? What can I use it for? and How it works? We mapped out our own presentation to teach others and learnt the basics of the programmes we were using.

Kairi created a Roblox presentation idea and Naminé created a Dinosaur idea.



 

We've done a lot of writing this month and Naminé mastered more letters in her name, she loves practicing to write it and has gone from 'Min' to 'Nam' and is adding more letters each day.

Even when we are not sitting down and doing home ed, both girls are always writing something!



 

As part of our 'Animals Including humans' topic this month, we looked at our senses. What are they and what do we do with them? We became sense detectors using our senses and brains to work out the answer to a puzzle. This was a super fun activity that both the girls loved doing and was really simple to set up too.



 

A big problem with using a computer is not knowing where all the keys are to be able to type. It makes coding and making presentations take a lot longer and feel more frustrating than they actually are. We spent a lot of time learning where different keys are on the keyboard using education.com and in just a month its amazing how much more Naminé can find.



 

We've been missing home a bit this month. It's summer and we would love to have visited home to see our friends and family. So we took the next beat option and face-timed our cousin Olli many many times! It's been so great to see all the cousins chatting and I love how close they are!



 

A big part of growing up is knowing your style and who you want to be. We tested out our own style this month, even though mummy may not love it. We worked on 'our body, our choice' and we decided to wear what we wanted to wear.



 

Naminé was really at the point she wanted to have her own computer, but at £600 for something that would meet her needs and grow with her for a bit, it just wasn't in the plan.I took two old computers apart and made one that worked!

I then took Naminé to Argos to get her own keyboard, she was so excited to have her own computer to play on and has spent a lot of time playing and learning with Kairi. Naminé loves education.com and keeps asking to do it, it's great to see her with such a big passion for learning.







 

It was lovely to have a visit from family this month. Nanny and Grandad came down for the day and we went to see the raft race down the river for Aquafest! We even got a chance to take a ride in a raft set up by the scouts!

There was a great stall with wild birds so we spent a bit of time asking the man questions about the birds. Due to us talking about herbivores, carnivores and omnivores on a trip earlier this month, the girls were really interested in what the birds ate and what their teeth looked like.





 

Coco had a hair cut this month, he went from a big fluffy mutt to a little cute poodle!

He's so much cooler now and ready for his adventure to Great Yarmouth next month.





 

We took the train and went with Nanny to KidZania! I am so happy I got to work with this brand and we had so much fun learning to be pilots, fire fighters and housekeepers!

It was also great to play the 'go find it' game on the train. It kept the girls occupied and made the journey go much quicker.





 

After a lot of asking (I wanted to make sure they actually wanted too!) We took the plunge and dyed their hair bright pinky-purple! It won't last forever (it's already started fading) but we're both very happy.



 

Kairi lost another tooth this month. That was her 4th one and this time the tooth fairy was far more organised in giving money rather than having to leave a gift at Argos!



 

Sports day marked the start of the end of the academic year. Naminé loved her first sports day and Kairi enjoyed some of the races too.

There was a family race and daddy joined in. At the end the girls got a certificate, medal and ice-cream.







 

We tried a few different art topics this month to see what we enjoyed. A particular favourite was looking at transient art.

I set up this super fun and easy tuff tray using the Mrs Mactivity subscription I had been gifted. The girls made pictures for ours and eventually their play grew into other activities too.



 

We hit our 60 day countdown to Disneyland Paris! So we got to work and started our Disneyland Paris prep, writing packing lists, buying a new bag, making a paper-chain countdown and just generally starting to feel excited!

I even made the girls education books to diarise their trip, thanks to our Twinkl subscription! A family favourite though has been watching a new Disney movie every few nights. It's been great seeing the girls 'discover' new films that they love.





 

As we went to the home ed picnic that marked the end of the academic year, we took our 'last day' pictures to see how much we have grown and changed over the year.

I have to say this always feels like such a proud moment for me. I can see just how much they've grown and changed over the year and I know that I'm the reason for that.

Kairi is reading, Naminé is writing, they have a love for learning. These are pictures and memories I will cherish forever.





The weather got really hot towards the end of July, so we had the pool up and plenty of ice-lollies. (Honestly you'd be amazed at the amount of ice-lollies we've been through this month!)

Then we headed to Tesco to do the weekly shop to find out that all the freezers were empty!





 

It's been a slower month this month. With groups stopping, new things starting and the heat! We've definitely had to change our routine. We've had plenty of park trips, we went around the town explored places and just generally had lots of fun. It's memories like these that make me feel so happy to home educate.



 

Top 3 things I was grateful for in July:

• Working with some awesome brands! We took day trips out this month to the Dinosaur Park and KidZania, we got an awesome waffle maker, luggage organisers and a subscription to Mrs Mactivity. I've truly been blessed with some amazing work and have loved putting my skills to the test.


• The support of my husband. We've had some challenging behaviour this month and sometimes it's been really hard to deal with. I'm thankful for my husbands support because it's been much easier to deal with when it's both of us.


• Picnics out with friends. The girls have such a range of friends now and it's so nice to be able to go out on picnics and chat to other parents too. It makes this lonely world feel a lot less lonely!

Top 3 products/buys I've loved this month: (Affiliate links!)

What's on your list this week?