It's Friday evening and this week has been our "practise school" week! I just wanted to get a feel for how manageable it will be to homeschool - I mean, it WILL be manageable, and we WILL be doing it, but I wanted to get an idea of the potential tricky bits and tweak the plan a bit in advance of actually starting school officially. Also I thought it would be good to give the boys a little taster so that they're not in for a big adjustment or anything when we start on Monday.
ON MONDAY!! I have just realised how significant Monday will be. It will just be an ordinary day here, and we've been doing practise school at the time I will be doing real school, every day this week anyway. But on Monday I officially start educating my children at home. Arthur starts the official alternative to going out to school, which he would have been doing for 3 weeks by now, if that had been our choice for him. My niece, Ella, was born the year after Arthur, but is in the same school year (she's June and he's the previous November, so they're in the same academic year), and has started school this month for the first time. It felt odd seeing photos of her standing at the door all sweet and proud in her new, slightly-too-big school uniform, all ready for school, when Arthur "should" be doing the same but he's not. I didn't feel bad or wrong in any way, just to clarify! But it's a strange feeling that we've chosen something so different from the norm. To be actually carrying it out, that is. It's also wonderfully freeing!!! How I LOVE not having to purchase school uniform! How blissful it is not to worry about getting everyone ready in the morning and hauling all of us out in rush hour to get Arthur to school. I am almost gleeful (hehe!) to never be dealing with The School Run! I always felt I would perform dismally at that one. Thank the Lord I never have to do it! ;)
Best of all, how thrilling and joyful it is to not have to be apart from Arthur as he starts school. When I first reminded Arthur that he would soon be starting school, about a month or so ago, he initially thought I meant he would be GOING to school, and he looked anxious about that, like he did not like the idea. He was relieved when I quickly reassured him that I wasn't sending any of my boys to school, but that they would all be learning at home with Mummy :) He doesn't have any clinginess or anxiety issues - never has actually. He has always been my one baby who has never been clingy or had seperation anxiety, or cried when around new people, etc. He is very independent and strikes up conversations with basically anyone who comes within about 20 metres of us, anywhere we go, hehe! He strides off confidently to chat to groups of children or adults at church or at the park. Sometimes at the park he asks why we can't go over to a group of people having a picnic and talk to them. He seems quite taken aback when we stop him - we don't always stop him, but sometimes we don't have time to stop, or we see that the group is kind of busy and doesn't look like they would appreciate an endless one-sided conversation with a 4-year-old at that moment! ;) But, even so he is very happy to be staying home to learn. He says he would miss Matthew too much. And little Nathey. They are such great buddies, and Matthew is his best friend. I am glad that they'll be together and not separated in school hours during the week. And that I get the privilege of watching them learn, and knowing all that they do - I wasn't crazy about the idea of a whole big chunk of the day passing without me having a clue what was going on with Arthur - what his conversations were like, what things worried him and what things made him smile, how he tackled his work and his play, etc. I'm so thankful, in so many different ways, to be homeschooling! :)
So - Monday is a big day. It's going to be low-key and normal for us, but the fact is that on Monday I will begin something that will be a major role for my life, every day (pretty much) for the next TWO DECADES! Or more, if we have more children than this. I think that makes simple old "Monday the twenty-eighth" a pretty momentous day! It begins. A new chapter, almost, and a long one at that. One that I'm so very excited about! I am way less doubtful about it than I was a year or so ago. I feel able to do it, and excited about the future. I don't forsee putting any of the children in school (out of home) at any point during their schooling, although I'm open-minded as circumstances dictate. Moreover, GOD dictates in our home. So I will remain open-minded to God, and God alone. With that in mind I feel pretty optimistic that we'll homeschool forever, and set out to do so! :)
Nearly everything is ready for next week. Right Start mathematics turned up on Monday, and I have flicked through it and fiddled with all the hands-on manipulatives (wheeee!), and this weekend I am going to read it thoroughly and get prepared. I'm having a problem with Math Mammoth in that it downloaded great, but the computer can't seem to read it. I think it's an ancient reader that's the problem. And if the computer can't open it up in printable form, then I can't print it out. And so we can't use it! I have it on my laptop too, which CAN read it (much more up-to-date software) but I don't have the printer installed on the laptop and who KNOWS where we've put the software for installing the printer! So frustrating!
For practise school this week, I have used the time to do one "lesson" per day with the boys. A lesson could even be colouring or something, just to get the idea of sitting at the table and observing the rules of school-time. Also the discipline and training aspect of little boys in their Active World Trays on the carpet with their toddler manipulatives and educational "for school only" toys. On two days this week I did TWO lessons with Arthur, to give them an opportunity to see that we'll be doing one thing, and then switching to something else straight from the first thing, all as part of the same school session. We'll be doing three different subjects within each school session from next week, and my plan actually calls for four, but I am not sure how to fit that in yet, and don't have the fourth subject fully planned yet. It's alternating - Art (drawing instruction) on Mon, Wed, Fri, and then Nature Study instead on Tuesday and Thursday. But I haven't got either of those two sorted in my head yet. I have been prioritising the three Rs and Bible study really.
So this week I let Arthur use the first book of the Jolly Phonics workbooks, which he has enjoyed. He knows the sounds already but it's nice letter formation practise, and he likes colouring in the pictures. Matthew has worksheets from an early (pre-school) maths book (How to Sparkle at Counting to Ten, I think it's called) which I bought a long time ago. He draws a line from the birds to the worms, and draws in missing tails on mice, and so on. And colours the whole lot in afterwards. After his first practise school session in his tray, he said he liked what he played with in there, but he was a big boy too! And he wanted BOOKS like Arthur, hehe! So, I will have something for him to do alongside us at the table that doesn't involve much input from me (like the worksheets, which is why I started doing that with him the next day) while I work with Arthur. And he will always be involved in Bible Study and character building. And Nature Study probably, to some degree. But for other subjects I think I will have him in his tray like before. So, this week I worked on doing two "subjects" so that he would have one at the table and the other in his tray. He did fine with that. Today he did everything at the table, even while I did Arthur's reading lesson.
I figured Arthur may as well start his reading lessons back up this week as part of "practise school". He had done 31 out of 100 lessons, but we had a HUGE break over the end of my pregnancy and since Benjamin was born. When I looked in his writing book (an exercise book that he does his letter writing in at the end of each reading lesson), the date of the last lesson was back in May!! That's ages ago, so I backtracked to lesson 30 to see if he handled that okay or if he needed to go back further. He breezed through it, so we did lesson 31 again the next day, and now he has done lessons 32 and 33 to finish the week with no problems. He is doing great with his reading and I have trouble slowing him down to sound out the words slowly before reading them the fast way, as he just reads them the fast way on the first go in general. So anyway, that will be nice and easy for next week - we'll just continue with the reading lessons that we've been doing already this week. New for Arthur next week will be the Bible Study that will start our school day every day, and also Maths. How that boy LONGS for Maths, haha! ;) I think it's what he's looking forward to the most, and I think he's the "type" to just love that subject, whether at home or out at school. I adored Maths too (till about age 14 when I had a horrible teacher, lost all confidence (and ability, seemingly!) and have disliked it ever since), and I see the same things in his eyes. He hasn't started it yet so part of it might just be anticipation over something new, but he's quite logical and mathsy in general and always has been, so I think Maths will be one subject that he's quite natural at and really enjoys. I'm so eager to start with him!!! :)
The school area is almost finished. I love it sooooo much! I will post photos of the first day of school here next week and you'll see it then. The display area is almost set up the way I want it, and we have the furniture set up of course. I want to get a simple waterproof table cloth for arts and crafts though (it's a NICE table!), and also a rug for underneath because there's a piece of carpet missing against the wall and so it's just rough concrete under their little feet! But rugs are expensive so I still haven't found the combination of design/colour/size and PRICE that I'm happy with yet. Must get that done soon! The stuff on top of the school cupboard is taking up way more space than I thought it would. All our usual living room/computer-related stuff is there - TV, DVD and video players, computer and related bits like scanner and printer. Also the phone and the CD player! It all sits piled on the top, and the TV is therefore right over by the edge that's against the school table, where I don't want it to be! Neil and I are considering getting some strong shelving to put the stuff on above the TV, which will then be able to go at the other end of the unit, near the window and away from the school area. I think that will take a while to figure out and fix up, so we'll be schooling for a while with the annoying clutter of machines all over the cabinet next to us! :( But oh well.
This week we didn't do school on Monday because Arthur and Matthew played washing each other's hair in an entire bottle of suncream, while I was upstairs settling Nathan and Benjamin for naps! Urrrrgghhhh. I try to start them napping right before starting school with the boys (around 9am or so) - Nathan usually still wants to nap just after 9am, but he has been resisting it a fair bit this week. And when I got down ready to start school, I had a MESS to clean up that took all morning. Alllll morning. Including 4 hairwashes each for the boys as they hung their heads over Benjamin's Tummy Tub (bucket-style) baby bath and I just shampooed and rinsed and shampooed and rinsed, and so on and on, because the stuff would NOT come out! Even after I gave up and just towelled them off, their hair dried looking like we hadn't washed our children's hair in many months! It was so stringy and greasy looking! A good bath/hairwash later on made a big difference, but it could still do with washing out some more even today! So, no school on the very first day that I set out to trial it to see how it worked, haha! I was a bit nervous and discouraged at the time, I can tell you. I just wondered how on earth I would ever teach consistently with all the antics that go on here on a regular basis! :S But school went fine the next three days. Today both Nathan and Benjamin cried and clung and wouldn't nap all morning, so I was still tending to them at 10.30am when I started at 9am! So we ended up not doing school this morning. Once Nathan went for his nap in the afternoon, we did school then. Benjamin slept part of that time and then spent the second half of school on the floor on his playmat/activity gym thingy, which he's starting to really enjoy and interact with.
Nathan has had some days of practise in the Active World Tray during school, and he does NOT like it! Training him this week has probably been the hardest aspect of school so far, and I'm persevering but I soooo hope he gets it soon, because it will be really disruptive to school next week if not! He is just beginning to really assert himself and resist things that I tell/ask him to do, with lots of tantrummy fuss and stroppiness, lately. So this is another opportunity for him to do the above. Which is trying! But, I know he's "only" 20 months old, yet I am NOT about to let him continue in this grumpy resistance thing he's starting. I did with the others to some degree because all I knew was that it was normal at that age, to be expected, and the way to handle it was to distract, ignore, or just ride it out and wait for the "phase" to pass. Well now I have two children who are really well practised at grumpy resistance, and I have no plans to make that THREE children who are really well practised at grumpy resistance. I hope it makes a difference this time! He does not get away with any sort of toddler-ish strop or tantrums, like his brothers did. He is learning to stay in the tray and play, but he whines and tantrums about it, and gets out a lot, and I am currently doing a lot of putting him back and cheerfully telling him, "School time, Nathey! Stay in your tray!" a million billion times over, and re-introducing him to the toy(s) and books he has in there. Two of those mornings he finally got out of his tray and lay on the sofa with his monkey and baggy (his blankie - he pronounces blankie, "baggy", which overwhelms me completely due to the sheer CUTENESS with that helium-chipmunky voice and the tenderness of his tone as he says it, but that's another post really!) and when I asked if he wanted to go to bed, he said yes, and took his nap when I popped him in his cot.
Matthew is doing great during his "tray time" while we do school. When he's in there, he stays and he is absorbed by the educational manipulatives I put in there for him. They have wooden cubes, coloured "counters" in different shapes (vehicles, dinosaurs, etc), coloured sorting bowls, mini animals and fish (hundreds!), counting bears, linking rings and giant beads, giant pegboards and pegs, lacing and threading toys, and fuzzy felt. They get one of those for a school session, sometimes two if it's a small activity, and they may swap trays to play with a different thing halfway through school if they want to and they ask me. They also have something soft to rest on (pillow or something like that) to one side in the tray if they need it, and a couple of books next to that. Matthew has to play quietly, and he is doing amazingly well with "no noise with your mouth" - I'm surprised by how well he's doing! :) He doesn't sit silently and does need reminding, but he complies well and doesn't get out of his tray for the most part. I thought I would have a hard job with both the boys in their trays, but it's really just Nathan.
We had a slightly hairy day this week when Neil got a migraine at work and set out to come home halfway through the afternoon. He didn't have any painkillers with him (or at work) and for some reason he figured he would just get home and then take some. So of course he did not get far before he had to pull over into a service station on the motorway, and was completely unable to leave his car and walk, let alone drive any further! His commute is an hour each way, so that was not great. He phoned me from his mobile and I didn't know how on earth he would get home. I put the phone down and told the boys we had to pray for Daddy because only God could help him. I prayed aloud and then Arthur prayed, and then Matthew prayed out loud with me for the first time! :) He told me HE could help Daddy, and when I asked how, he said he could put his cape on and be "Super Mashew!!" and then he would zoom like this (appropriate gesture) and then flyyyy down like this (appropriate gesture) and rescue Daddy! So sweet! :)
Neil called back shortly after and could barely talk to me, or think what on earth to do. He couldn't get out of the car and see if there were any painkillers to buy, even. So the boys and I prayed again, and then I started phoning around asking people to pray for his head and for help. I put him on the church prayer chain, and called a couple of friends. And Facebook :) Then I phoned my parents, at Arthur's request (though I did have to tell him they would not likely pray because they are not Christians), and my Daddy suggested that I call Neil's sister or brother. Neil's sister actually lives 10 minutes from where Neil works - I can't believe I didn't think of that! So I called her, but there was no answer three times. Then I called his brother - it was 5.30pm by this time - and he was on the train at Blackfriars in London, after a training day there for work! Bless his heart, he instantly told me he would go and fetch Neil, but that he would have to get home (an hour's commute) and then change his clothes and drive an hour to where Neil was on his motorbike. Such a star!
So I did the boys' dinner, and got them ready for bed, and then had my first experience putting three small boys and a baby to bed all by myself! It was HAIRY. But I did it. I was so exhausted and had a headache myself by the time they were all asleep, and I hate that Benjamin had to cry such a lot as I tried to juggle settling the older boys to bed and rushing back to bounce his Amby hammock to try to settle him. He wanted a long unrushed bedtime himself, like he usually has, and I couldn't stay long enough to settle him properly because I HAD to get the poor tired boys in bed. I have to stay with them until at least one of them is asleep because it averts Horrible Disaster Bedtime that way. The ideal situation is for Matthew to be the first to fall asleep. I can happily leave Nathan and Arthur to go to sleep by themselves in the same bedroom, but Matthew can be a monkey at bedtime sometimes and keep getting out of bed and winding the others up while I'm out of the room. Not always, but I wasn't willing to risk it! Arthur did mess around and go downstairs for time out in the porch until his brothers were asleep in the end (LONG time for him, but it had to be done for me to manage it in the end). Nathan is having a strange phase lately where he is clingy and cries for me if I leave the room. I can't remember the others (well, Arthur didn't have these phases, but Matthew did) but isn't he too old for separation anxiety now?? I can't remember if there's another common phase of it around this age? Anyway, he has regressed on settling to sleep by himself, which he has been doing for ages just fine. He cries till he's in a complete state now, so I stay with him or else he just doesn't nap. Which doesn't work because he REALLY seems to need his sleep in the day still.
Anyway, I digress! So bedtime went okayish. Benjamin cried way too much and I hated that, it stressed me out. But in the end I was able to spend a long time settling him after the two middle boys were asleep, and then put Arthur to bed. Neil got home around 9.30pm after waiting 6 hours by the motorway with a horrible migraine! But God really did answer our prayers. Ian was able to get him home, and he took him some painkillers too. By the time Neil got home, he was surprised to be feeling almost fine! Which is just unheard of with his migraines so soon. He was able to chat normally and even ate the dinner I had waiting (although I was about to put it in the freezer since I didn't think he would be able to stomach food), and then went to bed. He took the next day off work because driving and working would not have been a good idea, and rested quite a bit but otherwise seemed a lot better, which was a big relief! Thank you Lord! Thank you if you saw my Facebook plea (!) and prayed for us! I was happy to survive dinner/bedtime with all four little ones for the first time too! :)
I am not sure what else I wanted to write! I know there was a lot more, and I MUST get caught up with photos too, but suddenly my mind has gone blank and this is long already. I apologise if it's kind of school-heavy and boring for some, but I do really want to record a LOT of stuff at this stage in our schooling. I know I will forget it all otherwise, and it's important information for when we've been doing it 10 years and people start to ask me how I started out and how it went. Or when I start with Matthew or Nathan or Benjamin, or wonder what to expect when starting to train Benjamin to sit in his tray while I teach 2 (or 3?!) older boys. Next week I will want to keep track of a lot of stuff as we go along. I hope it will go well, and that I'll remember to be flexible, and not too hard on myself if it doesn't all work exactly as I hope it will!
Now I am off to read some of the Right Start mathematics curriculum before going to bed. Oh. Make that, feed Benji-boo-bean and THEN read some of the Right Start mathematics curriculum! ;) He's stirring. Back soon! Thanks for the comments last entry. I figured out two things - 1) switch my settings to notify me every time anyone comments on any of my posts at any of my blogs (yay! So helpful! Now I won't miss any!) and 2) reply to comments on my own comments! :) Easier to respond and thank people specifically, where I get the chance to! I see other bloggers do this all the time and can't think why I didn't do it myself until now!
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