This is what Helena did today while I spent the whole day cleaning the pantry – we have moths and I was worried we had cockroaches but it turns out they just visit the plastics cupboard on occasion.

9am – She’s just got up, is in pjs and she’s microwaving a marshmallow which was in a book she was looking at. In true experimental style she tried 30 seconds, as suggested, then 30 more, for fun, and achieved caramelisation.

9:15 – she’s now microwaving multiple marshmallows (white and pink) on a different unburnt plate

9:30 – making spoon people out of the resulting marshmallow goop

9:45 – making marshmallow accessories, such as ice creams, donuts to go with the spoon people

10 – she comes to show me her range of tiny things, then eats them

10:15 – now for work, she is helping me, unsolicited, by making labels for the unlabeled jars. She is sounding words out…

10:30 – she has just calmed down from getting upset about trying to sound out ‘pumpkin’ and getting ‘pan’ which she knows is all wrong but not how to fix it and has moved on to telling me what she could make out of glad wrap and tin foil if I’d let her have them

10:45- and back to label making

11 – still more label making (smaller neater and with pictures) and to help herself she has gone and got her blends chart.. so that’s nearly 45 minutes of spelling!

11:15 – she’s moved on to looking at a book and working out a saying to remember the names of the parts of your lungs – ‘lunch and breakfast’???

11:30 – now she’s upset with me due to not finding it easy to get her box of animals out, (it’s amazing what can be my fault) possibly she also should have had more than cornflakes and marshmallows for breakfast.

11:45 – she’s been making things for the Sylvanians. Something to do with riding animals… I wasn’t listening to the story/dialogue which has been going for a while now.

12 – a drum has been made with glad wrap over some pottery she brought that she puts her pencil shavings in (she keeps all her pencil shavings)

12:15 – The Sylvanians been moved about, one is wearing a newly made tape jacket which has glad wrap under it so it doesn’t stick. The Sylvanian has just been thrown on the floor as something didn’t work out right…

12:30 – she is now re-trying the thing that didn’t work, glasses for a Sylvanian using a rubber band and now GLUE not tape, it’s still not working and I’m getting shouted at.

12:45 – we are all eating lunch her Grandad made and she is multitasking reading a making/experimenting book.

1 – still reading

1:15 – making her self and me some toast

1:30 – looking at a making, using old toys, short video

1:45 – outside filling a rubber glove with seeds (pantry chuckouts) she put out for the birds ealier this morning (still in pjs).

2 – still outside – the glove (hand doll) and some other random bits are now being carried about in a box

2:15 – reading on the loo a book that she found out side

2:30 – having a chat with her baby (a doll,) while lying on the lounge floor

2:45 – reading while on the lounge floor, possibly, maybe, sort of putting stuff away

3 – putting stuff away! Actually NOT. It turns out she has been button sorting in our room… books everywhere, soft toys on the lounge floor.

After that she finally takes off her pjs because she needs to get her togs on and it’s swimming lesson time.

At no point during the day did Helena say “I’m bored”. The stuff she did is pretty weird, well seems pointless to me. The tasks she set her self maintained her interest, she can focus, she can look for resources….