The Wellyboots Tribe Step Forth - again!!

Mood: EXHAUSTED!

Well having two kids at home full time for the last two days has shown me a taster of what our homeschool will be like after Christmas! Boy are girls SO different!! Phoebe has been out the last couple of mornings and Ellie was out one and asleep the other. Caleb was of course asleep too and Jacob was at school. This provided me with a great opportunity to 'do' stuff with the other two . I decided it was about time I got organised with Joel and have drafted a trial timetable to last us until Christmas at least. But them I have had to add Boo into the equation and she is SO full on an keen, but boy do I need a bit of peace now. I am all kidded out and I think I'm going to blow if one of them asks me one more question that I have answered at least three time already - which they are all so apt to do!

Anyway today consisted of Joel doing his usual Bible study and handwriting, followed by maths. Meanwhile Abbie was doing some 'rainbow tracing' (lots of different coloured lines over a single dotted line). Then they had a little play and squashed the bottles for re-cycle (anything to get them to have just a little fresh air, but not too much as it was rather bracing!). Then back in. Joel wrote and entry for his journal and Abbie played with pink cornflour & water goo. This was a fantastic activity - letter formation practice (gross motor and tactile learning), science (uum don't ask me the science of it, but I guess a bit to do with substance in suspension, as it doesn't actually dissolve - and now it has gone solid of course), art/science (we added blue to it and looked at colour mixing - made it purple and then added more pink to make it almost pink again). It's something I have always wanted to do, but didn't dare in a fully carpeted rented house, but now we have a wooden floor we are so much more free to do these things.

After a bit Joel joined in just for fun and I couldn't resist taking some piccies!

After that Abbie wanted still more so, as I was running short of fresh ideas, I gave her the EarlyBird Singapore maths book that I had lying in wait for her. She promptly whizzed through about 10 pages (4 whole lessons) with the greatest of ease! THEN she did a whole load of writing practice. Half a page of the letter 'a' and a half page of 'o' . Then she copied the words; ox, orange, ant and arrow - with reasonable letter formation so long as she remembered to 'start at the top' of each letter. I was quite amazed actually with all that she achieved today.

Meanwhile Joel was 'adding detail' to a story he had previously written and kicking off about having to rewrite it now that it was longer because it was too much writing - oh, the contrast - one can't get enough writing into her day, the other wants to do as little as possible!!! I then sent Joel upstairs to doing a touch-tyoing lesson courtesy of the BBC website - very cool and he loved it. If he can type well enough I might let him off the writing occasionally, so it's in his long-term interest .

And that was just today. Yesterday was much the same; LOTs of writing with Boo - on paper, on the whiteboard, over and over. Especially the letters 'a', 'g' and 'b' . I'm trying to get her writing her name so that I can actually tell what it says (not just the A at the beginning) and so that the letters are written correctly and in the write order. She currently writes Abigiail (extra i) and the a's and g's are so curly as to be almost unrecosgisable. We made some good progress yesterday though, I think. I'll know how well it's gone in when she writes her name on something at playgroup tomorrow!

My family project for the month is to read "The Lion,The Witch & The Wardrobe," ready for the new film's release next month. I've found some good study guides for it too, so we might 'lapbook' it - I'll see how it goes.

Pics posted later, so check back, or go see them on my Flickr account.

Mood: strangely drained!

At last Blogigo is back up and running! Don't know what happened there, but as it's midnight I'll make it brief!

Jacob is still doing great at school and loving it. The head rang me today to give me a little update. Last week Jake was sent home with an ORS level 10 reading book, which he read in an evening - too easy! I wrote a note to the teacher just to enlighten her a little and ask why - as politely as I could . Apparently it was a mistake and he should be on level 11. I still think this is a bit too easy, but apparently the level is based on how well he can infer and comprehend, not just on his reading ability. I will grant them that his ability to infer and comprehend is probably about where they have him placed. So he can race through the school books if he likes and read more appropriate stuff at home for pleasure!! Otherwise she assures me he is settling in well, if polite, articulate and generally a bright little lad (I knew the last bit, but I never saw the former two at home).

I think he is pulling out all the stops and having a great time because of it .Shame he couldn't do it at home for me really .

Joel is working well too in the absence of his brother and consequently we are more able to do some fun stuff. Today we did Bible Study, handwritting, journal entry, cookery - making shortbread (which included practical maths of course), listening skills and art (leaf rubbing and making a tree picture). All that before 3.30pm and with an hour out for lunch and girly pick-up and a couple of little breaks hither and thither too. We would never have achieved all that in a day with Jacob at home. Then of course Joel had swimming today too, so that was PE!

Jacob and I had a chat tonight because he can see that since he went to school Joel has got to do fun stuff at home and he feels we never did anything like that when he was here.He is, of course, in essence correct in that observation, but he doesn't quite get 'why' that is. I have tried to explain to him that it is becasue when I ask Joel to do something so that I can prepare the next bit of school (or do some household task) he simply gets on and does it with very little fuss, thus freeing up more time for us to do the 'fun stuff' like art & cooking. The fact that we never did it when he was here was because he was invariable still on his first task long after he should have finished it and that held up the whole plan for the day. I did point out to him though that since he has been at school he has been doing lots more fun stuff even than Joel - music (every day so far preparing for Christmas), art, drama & dance, PE... and that his lessons are more 'fun' because they have an interactive whiteboard and lots of 'visual' tools - AND of course it's been easy because he hasn't yet learnt anything new to him!! Today they did handwritting practice and from what I could gather they were covering the basic joins that Jake did WAY back  - joining a-t and t-i- etc... (forward tail joins), so that was a doddle for him too! No wonder they think he is bright!! However they did do shape poetry today and wrote a poem about stars i the shape of a star today - that's something that was on my list 'to do soons', that we hadn't done yet and he thoroughly enjoyed it . He really likes poetry - touches a button in him I think. I can remember it did with me as a kid too, much more than prose.

Phoebe has been practicing drawing lions all week and has them off pat now - bless her .And Abbie wrote (well dictated) a story with pictures today - bizarre story line, but cute but the pic's were quite good.

Mood: guided!

Mood: breathing fresh air!
Listening to: casting crown - lifesong

At the end of last year I had really had enough, but Jacob pleaded for another (YET another) chance to show he could change. SO I gave him one. I told him that I wanted to see a marked change in attitude and aptidtude by half term. I wanted to see him trying to work more independently and concentrating better at given tasks. Then of course we moved house, so I decided to give him a couple of weeks in the new house - now that the added distraction of being sat at a table that looked out onto a constant stream of 'cool cars' passing by was removed and replaced by a garden with nothing going on! But of course, nothing changed. In fact it possibly got worse with the boys only now having each other to distract! So  I decided I'd had enough and rang around to find a school with a place in Yr4. Jacob & I both wanted to find a 'Christian' school if possible and I believe I have got about as close to that as I'm going to find in the state system. The headmistress is definitely a Christian and holds a Christian assembly every morning - with Christian songs like "Seek Ye first" (not the most up-to-date songs, but it's better than most I'd say!). The children pray at the start and end of each day and before Lunch. In the reception area there is a display about "Shine as lights in the world" with little candles showing ways the children had thought of that they could be lights - "helping Mummy with the dishes" - that kind of thing. Jacob has settled in well it seems and is loving it so far, despite last week being a bad week to start, with his usual teacher off sick and Thursday being a 'power out' day and the whole school tranferring to another just down the road for a good part of the day! He has also settled into the routine really well. I made him a checklist for the mornings and he has managed so far to get himself ready and do his Bible study before breakfast. Have breakfast and watch 15 minutes(ish) of TV before the taxi arrives at 8.30am. I am SO impressed with him - he has never been as organised over anything else as he is over this. He even did his homework on Friday with little fuss, in no time at all & with minimal assistance (once I'd helped him understand the task). He's not too challenged by the work either, in fact it's a bit easy for him atm I think. In literacy today, he said they covered short and long vowel sounds and adding 'ing' to words - he was "shocked" (his words) because he couldn't believe this was Yr3/4 work when he covered it so long ago. I think they were just re-enforcing the doubling  letter after short vowel & drop the 'e' after long vowel rules, but still that was easy for him. Numeracy was mental maths - he's usually good at that, so we'll see. He said it was times tables. Then they did 'vibrations' in science and he could tell me everything that happened - facts, fact, facts!! To be honest though, the academics of school are not the reason he is going. He is going becasue I want to still be friends with him and have a relationship worth having with him by the time he reaches the end of his primary years. The rate we were going we would have lost that I think. I didn't want him to grow up saying "I was homeschooled, but Mum & I fought and argued all the time - I really didn't enjoy it that much and I have a poor relationship with my Mum because of it." With him at school I am more able to feed my other children's needs. Then by the time Jake comes home they have had their fill and I am more able to give him the time he needs to 'download' his day - which he does for about 20 minutes before he vegitates with the box/PS for a bit, prior to doing any h/w he needs to do.

On Mondays & Thursday's of course the girls go to playgroup. I couldn't believe how peaceful the house was on Thursday - I got SO much done! But I have decided these are days I should make the most of with Joel (until January) to do things I can't do with littler ones around, so today, as  I had the added bonus of very tired babies after a hectic weekend, Joel & I had the morning entirely to ourselves - WOW - what to do?! We thought of cooking, but I was out of eggs and chocolate, so we couldn't make the 'brownies' Joel wanted to - save that for another day. We opted for painting instead. I am no artist, but I have a book, so I grabbed it and gleaned an idea while Joel did his own thing for a bit.

"Our Street" by Joel - the house on the right is a good representation of ours.

 Then we 'took a line for a walk' and did some colour work. Producing these pieces of work;

(mine - "shades of red")

(Joel's "shades of Blue")

(mine - Jester/teapot)

(Joel's line walk)

Joel is SO chuffed with his masterpieces and was so thankful for the time.

So that's us and where we're at and I am "'lovin' it!!"

On another subject: The weekend was so busy because it was Paul's graduation service on the Saturday

and Caleb's dedication service on the Sunday.

Nanny with cousin Josiah(L) & Caleb (R)

Both of the above events went very well and were thoroughly enjoyable. We had masses of family staying Saturday night (an extra 4 adults an 4 kids!) and even more around on Sunday - 22 people I think for Sunday lunch!! The house was spic & span on Friday morning and now I need to start again. Why do we do that - clean up before a hoard of people arrive, in full knowledge that our hard-worked for almost-perfection will be altogether distroyed about 5 minutes after the visitors arrive?!! Aah well - gives me something (else) to do this week

Mood: plodding!
Listening to: kids mucking about downstairs!

After moving house and wanadoo taking almost 6 weeks to get us re-set I am eventually back on line! It's been a tough few weeks - in lots of ways, but maybe, after this weekend which is set to be hectic again, life might turn a corner. I'll post more this evening - Oh, no I'm out - maybe later today if I get a mo! Save to say the house is great though not yet 100% sorted and Jacob starts 'school' (gasp!!) tommorrow - at lovely village Cof E school, with taxi door-to-door!! Long story - I'll tell all later... Otherwise life is good