Arthur learns to film video clips! And three sweet little buddies!

I mentioned before that Arthur takes dozens and dozens of photos with my camera every day, sometimes hundreds (I kid you not). But yesterday I showed him how to use the video function on the camera. He was desperate to understand how to capture MOVING pictures, and when he tried to do it himself without asking me first, he just got zillions of 1-2 second video clips! So I showed him how, and he started right away! He was sooooo excited to be "filming"!!

I just wanted to post his results! He took 6 very short video clips which I decided to merge together into one video to make it easier for viewing, and for better continuity too! I love that he's so excited about it - you keep hearing him say, "I'm FILMING!!" hehe! Also Matthew was TOTALLY engrossed in a block puzzle game - he wanted to make every one of the animal combinations (you can hear him demanding to make each one over the various clips!) and Arthur soooo wanted to tell him he was FILMING him, but Matthew was really grumpy due to his irritation at being disturbed and just said, "NO! Busy my 'nake!" (busy with my snake puzzle right now!)! I also love that he caught Nathan walking (though you can't see his feet, never mind!). He recorded these little clips over about a 10-minute period, but when I watched them back I realised what a lovely bunch of memories they are - they are of nothing specific as such, but it totally captures a normal run-of-the-mill day for me with the boys, in a few minutes! This is basically what I spend much of my time doing, minus the meal-prep, nappy changing, disciplining (okay, so that's at least FIFTY PERCENT of my time at the moment, or at least it feels that way! ;) ), etc. They still watch way too much TV, and the house is still in an awful state (see the pile of junk behind the stair gate as a miniscule example *sigh*), but I am doing a lot more playing with them, and I read to them and do "learning" things with them (I hesistate to say school, which it IS, but it's so "un-schooling" that I don't want to say we're officially homeschooling with it yet!) a lot more of the time.

The last clip of the video is what a four-year-old boy will eventually film after he's got over the excitement of the initial thing! ;) He was laughing too hard for me to understand what he was telling me at first. This is Arthur to a T, seriously!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

My 5 Things a Day project is going well, but I have yet to complete all 5 things on my list (still!). The house is still a tip, but I'm slooowwwly starting to declutter areas that have been sliding piles of paperwork/craft projects/tupperware (!) for YEARS. And I am actually getting washed and dressed every morning! Genuinely an achievement for me! I read to the boys out loud a lot more, and this means Arthur is now starting to read (or "pre-read" if that's even a description?!) without me getting to the point where I figured I'd sit down with him and start to teach him! I got new jigsaw puzzles to do with them that will stretch them a lot more than the easy ones we had, and they're both surprising me with completing much bigger and more complicated puzzles quickly and with enthusiasm. We're playing Orchard Toys games most days - they are just the most WONDERFUL educational games for little ones that I have come across to date (their jigsaw puzzles are great too, we have quite a collection starting!). Seriously wonderful. The quality is the best I've come across too. We have all the ones appropriate for under-5-year-olds now, and a couple that my mum gave Arthur for his birthday that are for 5+ (which he can do fine, but Matthew totally can NOT join in yet). Matthew is FINALLY learning his colours with Red Dog, Blue Dog, and Dotty Dinosaurs, quicker than when I was trying to teach him in other ways. And they're fun! :) They are enjoying those games while Nathan naps, and I find myself thinking (scarecly able to believe it!) that I'm actually homeschooling my children while we're doing it!!! And it's so easy. I know it won't stay that easy, but for now it's perfect for them, and for me too. And so non-pressurey and informal, which I like a lot.

I have been casually (at this stage!) looking around the internet at homeschool curriculums, and lurking on forums to see what people use and what they like best (or what they dislike), for various age groups, or combinations (number of children in the family, etc). The one I'm leaning towards so far is Sonlight - does anyone who reads here have experience with this curriculum? Probably not, since I don't have a ton of readers, and much less, readers who homeschool! I like that Sonlight has a lot of families on forums using it as their most highly recommended curriculum (for large families, various age groups, etc). I also like that it's a Christian curriculum. I worried a bit at first about it being an American curriculum because I didn't know if that would mean if I used it, my kids may not get a curriculum to learn from that's culturally "accurate" enough, you know? To our British culture, that is. But it looks like I don't have to worry about that, plus there's plenty of freedom in homeschooling to ignore a certain curriculum's history section and build in a whole 'nother one more focused on our national history, etc. I do want a "non-biased" history curriculum though, for my kids - not overly heavy on the country we happen to live in, just because we DO live here. The whole world has fascinating and relevant history, and I feel like it should all be treated the same, not a priority order based on where we live and what language we speak or something. I know I'm thinking ahead, but yeah, just some early thoughts.

So far I'm thinking I don't need to worry about any "pre-K" curriculum, because my own stuff will suffice for sure. I want to be very informal to at least age 5 or 6, at least that's my thinking right now. I'm also spending a lot of time looking into Charlotte Mason's methods, and really liking her stuff so far. I found a page on Year O (Kindergarten/pre-school equivalent, so I guess Reception class in the UK?) at Ambleside Online and that was helpful. I need to read Charlotte Mason's original series on home education - I just ordered it from Amazon so I'll add that to my "Book per month" list for 2009! I'm doing okay on my reading (The Five Love Languages of Children is my book for January), and have nearly finished Ephesians, which I chose for my first book-per-month of the Bible, so that's encouraging! :)

Okay, enough rambling, it's late! I didn't meant to write much other than to post the videos that Arthur made. I'll post photos next time - I have a ton! Thanks for all the birthday wishes for Nathan, and sweet comments on the photos of his big day! I loved reading them! :) I have so much to write about Nathan ALREADY since his birthday - he has literally turned into a "one-year-old" the day after his birthday, in soooo many ways, compared with how he was before that. I'll write more next time! Also will update my pregnancy journal again soon - I am feeling a LOT of precious baby wiggles all of a sudden lately, and am 100% into maternity clothes since I turned 16 weeks (a couple of days ago), just like that! The boys now know about the new baby and Arthur is, and continues to be, absolutely thrilled about it, which I'm so happy about! He wants a baby brother (overwhelmingly!) which surprised me, but he just loves having brothers :) He's a wonderful big brother, and so experienced at it already. I rarely have to prompt him to help me distract Nathan if he's screaming during a nappy change, or crying for me if I go to the toilet. He will give up whatever fun thing he's doing to let Nathan enjoy giving 100 items in a row to him (far less interesting to Arthur, but he's so willing and kind about it!), and says encouraging things to both his little brothers all the time, even when they're demanding of his attention at times. He has his moments (plenty of times per day!) where I have to discipline him for being aggressive towards Matthew, or whatever, and he certainly finds them frustrating at times, but overall they LOVE each other - the little ones adore Arthur and he them. They are a sweet sweet band of brothers, and I can't wait to add more!

Oh I know I said I would stop writing a couple of paragraphs back! But I realised that I could post some photos pretty easily after that last bit about my sweet boys - blogger makes it fairly easy for me now! :)

Here is a photo of Arthur and Nathan a few days ago. They are like this ALL the time (Arthur constantly longs to squeeeze his baby brother in a hug, and Nathan just giggles adoringly at him!), and it's easy to find opportunities to take photos like this:



Here are three photos that I don't think I posted here yet, though they're a couple of months old - Nathan was 10 months old in these. I don't want to miss posting them here! I posted them at Facebook so maybe a few readers here would have seen them a while back. The boys were just being so sweet on the sofa, and I took photos of them - to try to get them to smile I made the usual farting noises (!!) but instead of laughing whilst looking at me, they looked at each other (more "little boy camaraderie" than there used to be these days!). After that, Arthur kept making the farting noises so I couldn't get a good picture! Then I asked them to smile for the camera (the last photo) so that I could take a picture, and you'll see the result! ;) Two little boys who immediately pull "Opposite of Smiling" faces, and one sweet baby who wants to get nearer to the camera (or his mummy behind it!), hehe!







Here's another one that's different but I love it all the same, from when Nathan was 10 months old :)



All 3 boys sitting on Daddy (cropped for potential Christmas card photo purposes! Which, by the way NEVER happened! I did not write or send a SINGLE Christmas card! Which isn't like me, but oh I felt so nauseous and over-busy, and I'm just thankful to have let myself off the hook about it for once!) - Nathan was 10 and a half months old:



A couple of photos of my three sweetie pies on the sofa (they love to be on there together, that's why it's often the backdrop for photos, it seems!) just the day before yesterday:





Okay, DEFINITELY going to bed now! Back soon! :)