Use the Force, Luca

It began with a letter to Luca.

Despite loving stories and books (and when I say loving; I have a child who will listen intently to 2 1/2 hours of a serialisation of Jaws on radio 4 in one sitting), Ferdy does NOT like reading, and he does NOT like writing. So when I suggested writing a letter to Luca, the son of one of my best friends who lives in Mexico, Ferdy's acquiescence was a chance not to be missed.

Firstly we looked up Mexico on the map:

Gil pointing out Finland where we went this summer

 Next we wrote the letter. Ferdy wrote 14, for the date, and: 'Do you want to come to my Star Wars party.' (he isn't having a Star Wars party as far as I know, but it's a good way to try and get one). I was also so excited that he put a full stop at the end, I forgot to suggest a question mark. He does quite a lot of mirror writing (muchlike Leonardo da Vinci..) and found it quite funny when I pointed out he had invited Luca to his ytrap.

We then put the letter in an envelope and headed off to the post office.

Ferdy asked the lady for a stamp to Mexico (£1.45) and together he and Gil posted the letter.

Ferdy had requested that we go to the woods afterwards so we duly obliged. We took a picnic and went to Kedleston Hall to do the woodland walk. On the way we listened to the brill Atticus the Storyteller's Greek Myths which Ferdy and I loved, and Gil loved so much it lulled him off to sleep.

It was a beautiful autumn day and we did a nature walk, punctuated with a few light sabre / stick fights, through the woods. The trees are vast and impressive at Kedleston and there are loads of logs to play on / under / make dens with etc. We also learnt all about hermits (is it a crab Mummy?) and spotted fungi, caterpillar eggs, a hornet, a squirrel with a nut, a brachiosaurus (see pic), collected conkers and acorns and even saw a kestrel catching a mouse on the way home.

'Can you see the brachiosaurus in front of Gil?'

Ferdy did this assault course four times

In the cafe later (yes, a cafe always features on our days out), what could be more blissful than a massive pile of books and an ice cream. We even managed to do some maths when I found a Dr Seuss book and I don't think Ferdy noticed that we were doing subtraction..

A few things weren't successful today: Ferdy really did not want to read to me (we have agreed that every Friday he will read and write something) and in the end we settled on a few pages of a Star Wars book; he seems also to find it really hard to both think of how words are spelt, and then also write them, so I end up spelling things for him. He did go off and get a Star Wars book to copy how to write Star Wars (how many times will Star Wars feature in this blog I wonder..?) so maybe getting him to copy stuff might help? But to conclude, it felt like we'd had a good day, mainly because we all really enjoy being outside and the woods were quiet and slightly magical. And we're sure we saw Yoda too.

We are anticipating a reply by the end of term!