Fitting 4 boys into a 12x9ft bedroom!

A spare moment! :) And blogger is letting me upload pictures again, so I am back to post what I SHOULD have posted here last May! These are the photos of the boys' bedroom when we moved Benjamin into a "big boy" bed, moving his cot out of the room and purchasing a second-hand cabin bed to match the bunk bed we already had, for Matthew to sleep on, and for Benjamin to sleep beneath on a mattress on the floor. He was 22 months old back then, and ready to move out of his cot. A floor bed is always best, we've found, as there is nowhere for them to fall.

This room used to be "our" bedroom, as it's the bigger one, and we had a big kingsize bed. Once Samuel was on the way, we swapped the bedrooms around. We got rid of the kingsize bed and purchased a beautiful wooden sleigh bed in "small double" (3/4 size) at eBay for £30 or thereabouts! :) That's my bed with the baby. Neil sleeps on a futon bed on the floor of the boys' bedroom. He gets way more sleep that way when I am attending to a young baby during the night, putting the lamp on, changing nappies, breastfeeding, burping, etc, etc - all that GORGEOUS gorgeous stuff that comes with a tiny baby! I mean that so very much! It's such a gorgeous wonderful time! I can't believe it used to be sort of tiresome on the first two babies, and to some degree on the third baby. I have cherished it to pieces with babies 4 and 5, and am actually LONGING for it before baby #6 is even here, despite still waking at night every single night with baby (well, toddler!) #5. I don't know what the transformation has been. All I know is that I adore it, it's so wonderful. I feel so blessed that I could pop with joy when I'm up at night cradling a sweet tiny person and meeting those raw needs that they have early on. Love it so much! :)

Anyway, Neil obviously sleeps better OUT of the room where all that goes on! ;) Also he does any wakings that the older boys have, once I am doing the newborn/young baby wakings, so being in there to start with makes that a lot easier for him, and he is much less disturbed than if he was getting up and going back and forth if someone has a bad dream or falls out of bed. They don't wake him much. Benjamin is the most likely to wake out of all of them. They sleep through like logs, even with someone screaming and crying in there! ;)

This weekend, we will be moving Samuel in with them! *sniffle* It is sooooo bittersweet for me! He has never left my side at night - never slept for even a minute in the cot. ALL his naps and night sleeps have been in my bed. Only Arthur had done that before Samuel. All the others had slept in the cot (and Benjamin slept in the Amby hammock until he was 9 months old as well) to varying degrees. They've ALL partially co-slept though, for ease of night nursing. Anyway, Samuel is the most delightful little bed-fellow! He is a sweet darling, and settles pretty easily. He still wakes at night to breastfeed, but I know he isn't really in NEED of milk at night so hopefully he will night-wean easily with the move. I will miss him SO much! :( That's the bitter part. The sweet part is that my sleep is really bad at the moment, and I feel sure that it will improve once I have the bed to myself for these last uncomfortable weeks of pregnancy. I am 35 weeks pregnant now!

So, we have changed their bedroom around completely in the last month, in preparation for Samuel moving in there. We bought some Ikea storage furniture at eBay - can't believe how much money we have saved over the years buying second-hand at eBay, and the stuff we are buying looks like an original matching set when we've put all the second-hand bits together! :) I'm very picky and careful about what I buy, and sit in wait for many months if I have to, so the end result is nice to look at and live in, and ended up costing a fraction of the new price! Love that! :)

In order to get onto showing you the "new" bedroom for 5 little boys, I need to first post about when we set it up for the FOUR little boys last year. Samuel was 5 months old - it's not even a year ago but it seems a lot longer because it was a whole "cycle" ago in terms of adding babies! ;)

Here's the cabin bed we bought at eBay. It had stickers on the side still, but otherwise in perfect condition with two mattresses in great condition, one of which we used on top and the other underneath. This is how it looked set up ready for Benjamin and Matthew, before bedtime on their first night there:



Panning round to the other end of the room where their big bunk bed is:



Big bunks! Arthur sleeps on top, and Nathan on the bottom. Nathey slept on his toddler bed until these photos, but when we bought the cabin bed, we dismantled the toddler bed and stored it away, and Nathan moved into a normal sized bed for the first time. He wasn't happy about it at first, but he loves his bed now. His dream is to have a top bunk bed one day! Pretty sure we can make that a reality in time to come! :)



Here's my tiny little Samuel on Benjamin's new bed! He was squirming to get out of my arms so I put him under there and he looked soooooooo happy about it! I remember thinking that one day HE might be the little one in that bed, but I sort of shook the thought out of my head in disbelief, because it seemed impossible to consider with him being so tiny and just "my babyyyyy!!!" at that time! Now it IS his turn, and not even a year later! Can't believe it....



A blurry photo of the boys exploring the view from the cabin bed with great excitement! We had just let them in the room for the first time to see the changes we'd made, and they were BEYOND excited! Benjamin had trouble on the ladder, because it is straight up/down, unlike the main bunks which have a slanted ladder (easier to climb safely). He has NO such trouble now! ;) I was so excited to find a second-hand bed that was an exact match for our bunks! It's a Thuka bed, and the previous owners had even chosen the same colours as we did, for the safety rails and glow-in-the-dark ladder treads! Perfect.



The new bed plan opened the room up much more, and it was oddly more spacious than it had ever been, even though it was housing four children and a Daddy! Neil usually put his futon alongside Benjamin's bed for ease of the (many) night wakings that he dealt with in the early months in there. It's easily rolled away in the day so makes for extra floor space. The only wall I didn't photograph was the one the door opens into, where I was standing. There's a big double chest of drawers with six deep drawers in it, and those drawers house all the boys' clothing. Originally it held only Matthew and Arthur's clothing, and they had 3 drawers each, when we first bought it (incidentally for £50 on eBay!!! Wish I had a photo to show you, but I'll get one of the "new" layout this weekend and you can see it then). Then when Nathan's clothes got added, we gave them 2 drawers each. When Benjamin moved into the bedroom I gave them a drawer each, and the top two drawers across the chest were pyjama drawers - each boy had a half drawer for pyjamas. This made it much easier to grab their PJs at bedtime. This is the system we still have in place, and it works well. By the time Benjamin's clothes needed to go in there, it meant I had to take a look at what clothes I was storing and start to cull the stuff they had. They always had too many clothes, because I'm addicted to eBay! ;) It was a very helpful exercise in decluttering, and part of the much needed work I had to get my head round, managing a small home with a large family. They now have about 5 outfits each, and about the same for summer outfits. Their summer outfits are stored away when it's not summer, and winter outfits get stored away in the summer. If we get to the stage where their clothes don't fit in their drawer, it's time to get rid of some clothes. It has made the most incredible impact on the amount of laundry I have to do, and apart from the fact that it seems like they wear their clothes out quicker (wearing them more frequently), it makes no difference at all to the amount of clothing they always have available to wear. Fantastic! :)

So there it is! I am not sure what to do yet about Samuel's clothes. I have been drastically sorting and culling baby clothes in all sizes (several hugely packed black sacks to charity recently) so that all the clothes we have for each baby size fits into one plastic crate box. Again, if it doesn't all fit, I have to take a deep breath and go through it all again to find something that I can bear to part with, until it all fits. Pregnancy is the only time to do these things - I'm in a relentless nesting mood and ruthless when it comes to decluttering, and I don't have the "awwww!!!" issues that come with not currently being pregnant and being overly emotionally attached to tiny clothing that I might or might not get to use again! ;)

I will try to get plenty of photos when we put Samuel in the boys' room. I am excited about it! We have moved the beds together in an L-shape so they look like staggered height quad bunks. The boys LOVE it! It has opened the floor up EVEN MORE, which we didn't think about beforehand so it was a very pleasant surprise! Once again, the room has never been so spacious, and yet we're adding ANOTHER person to the room, lol! Plan A is that Samuel will sleep on the floor bed that Benjamin has been using, and all the boys will stay in their usual beds. Nathan and Benjamin will top-and-tail in Nathan's bed, because it's an extra long European size bed and those two boys take up less than half the length each when they are sleeping at night. They are also the two boys who roam about their bed the LEAST during sleep, out of all the boys. They are excited about sharing. I never would have thought of top-and-tailing them until I read it as a tip from another large family, as a space saving solution when they are little. While we are still in this tiny house, they will definitely be little enough so it should work well. It's such a bonus not to have to add another bed-space to the room! Plan B is for if Benjamin causes havoc in that bed, or something! ;) In that case we will set up the toddler bed again, which should fit on the "door" wall and still leave a good amount of floor space.

Right now they play in there a lot, as we've added "big boy" toys in the Ikea unit we bought. There's more floor space than there has ever been in either of our bedrooms (since we moved here in 2001!!), and three of them can play happily in there building Lego or doing floor puzzles for hours.

I will stop now and get some photos taken asap, to post soon! Just so glad to have finally got around to documenting the changes in the bedroom! :)

Benjaminny, and a few other bits and pieces

I can't believe he will be 3 in July! Of course July feels like ages away, because it's still like WINTER outside this week (tsk!) and there's the whole add-a-new-member-of-the-family thing between now and then. But it's only 3 months! My little manny is somehow two and three-quarters! I have about 5,000 paragraphs of sweetness that I could happily sit and write about Benjamin this morning. But whatever I type has to last the length of a cup of tea, while the boys build a Winnie the Pooh fort of some kind in the living room, and then I need to take sweet Samley to bed. I really should write an update on just random stuff about Samuel too, because I know I haven't done that when typing "Samley" is a new thing, even though that's what I call him about as often as "Samuel". I wish I had more tiiiiime to write these special memories down!

He's so giggly and assertive and chunky around the chest (since he was born - he has some really defined chest muscles, this boy!) and snuggly. He is usually being a little "cweature" who squeaks and makes cute faces and wants his mummy! He snuggles such a lot, and still breastfeeds in the day time. If he has a nightmare (rare) I will nurse him at night on occasion too. He is SO PRECIOUS!!!!! I love my little Benjamoo.

I just planned to post two things about Benjamin today, so I'll get on with it! A couple of weeks ago, Benjamin and I made brownies - actually Nathan did as well, but Samuel was napping and the older two boys were experiencing the consequences of poor behaviour choices by sitting in corners, so they missed out unfortunately! Nathan did not want to taste the batter, when the brownies were in the oven, so he went out of the kitchen, and Benjamin gladly took on the whole responsibility of cleaning the bowl! ;) He LOVES anything sweet and was very pleased with the batter! He made me laugh because the more he tasted, the more giggly and silly he got! It was almost as though it went to his head or something, lol! I took some photos of my sweet silly boy tasting brownie batter. He was showing me his "taste" on his finger and then eating it while giggling like crazy around his finger! ;) He eventually gave up on the slow scooping method, and started licking the bowl, hehehe! He got brownie batter in his hair big time. Sweet in even more ways! :)











The other night I got into his bed to breastfeed him. He sleeps on a shorty mattress on the floor underneath Matthew's cabin bed. We decided on that when he moved out of his cot, as a makeshift "bunk bed" that would be safe for him with nowhere to fall out of bed. It's a full sized cabin bed width-ways but shorter by about 6 inches (or is 9?). Anyway, we found it on eBay. Did I ever post pics? The big bunk bed is still there and the cabin bed matches it exactly - it was a great find! :) They've been happily installed there since May 2011. Arthur is on the top of the main bunk bed, Nathan below him, Matthew on the top of the cabin bed, and Benjamin below. I found the photos that I took in May, but Blogger is being extremely annoying and refusing to let me open any picture files to upload right now! >:-/ So I can't do that, but I will try to find time to update on the bedroom changes, since I can't find any evidence of having posted about it here before now!

Anyway, so the routine at bedtime is still that I get into Benjamin's bed and breastfeed him. He nearly always falls asleep nursing, which is precious, and I cherish it because I know it won't last much longer! He loves his milky. After he's asleep, I go to Nathan who has usually already fallen asleep, and kiss him goodnight. If he's still awake I get in with him to snuggle him and give him "back-a-rubs" as he calls them! :) Then Matthew, then Arthur, except now that I'm huge and pregnant, the boys who are up ladders have to come down onto the futon bed on the floor (where Neil sleeps for ease of dealing with night-wakings and less disturbance to his sleep than if he was co-sleeping with Samuel and me) for their snuggles. I pray for each boy as I do their snuggles and back-rubs.

Anyway, the other night I got into Benjamin's bed with him as usual, and he didn't go straight to breastfeed, which surprised me. He was just looking at me with a little smile in the semi-darkness, big round eyes all shiny. He looked so happy and secure, and it was wonderful to see him look at me that way. I waited and he didn't do anything different for a few moments, and then in a soft little voice, he patted me and then himself, saying, "Das you, an' das me!" I said, "Yes, that's right." and he said it again, almost to himself, "Das you... an' das me", did a big happy sigh, and lay down to nurse. Typing it out, it doesn't seem so special as it was, but I HAD to record it somewhere because to me that was an absolute Memory Treasure. It was an example of Benjamin expressing his security in our sitation. Him and Mummy. He looked so happy with the world around him, and his voice was so soft and.... something, I can't put my finger on. It was a lovely moment and I don't want to forget it.

He has so very many cute little sayings and ways of pronouncing things, and I SO want to make note of them all! I haven't got time now, but my current favourite is, "I 'pose so, Mummy..." when considering something I've suggested, usually when it's not what he originally agreed with. I love his use of the phrase, "I suppose so" and his way of pronouncing it. He uses such a grown-up, serious expression when he says it, and it's a moment to support him in his seriousness, but I have to work hard to fight the urge to sweep him up off his feet and smoosh his soft little cheeks with kisses for 5 straight minutes! ;) He's such a cutie pea pie and I love him so much!

He has a strong and assertive personality, most similar to Arthur's (out of all the boys) but without the tendency to be anxious and fretty and fidgetty that Arthur has. He is very confident and takes charge easily amongst his brothers. I could see that in him even when he was a baby, well before he was old enough to act on that potential with them! ;) He DOES have typical shyness of new people though, but warms up quite quickly now - much quicker than he used to. He is TERRIFIED of dogs. Shaking, sweating, screaming, TERRIFIED. Of even the tiniest dog in the distance. He even gets like that on occasion when he sees a dog on the TV, so it's more than the anxiety one or two of the boys have had over dogs at the park. Dogs do bound up to them and act playful at the park, and Benji has had a few experiences where he was totally taken by surprise, and once a dog bigger than him pushed him down and even with Neil there shooing it, it would not go away until the owner (SLOWLY) sauntered over and took it. He is so very scared of them now, poor lovey. We have been considering getting a dog to help him with his fear, but the thought of adding a pet with lots of care needs to a large bunch of very young children plus homeschooling is overwhelming right now. Also we need to ascertain if anyone in our household is allergic to dogs before we do that. Neil is allergic to cats (since we met actually, he wasn't when we first met) and has various other triggers to his asthma and hayfever that we don't even know the source of, so it's possible I guess. We've never been in a home where there's a dog, or spent any time with a dog, so I suppose we don't know if any of the boys might be allergic either. But the general thought amongst us all is that we will probably get a dog at some point in the future. The boys actually think it's a great idea, even though all of them are nervous to varying degrees about dogs.

With his assertive personality, Benjamin also tends to be pretty in-our-faces with grumpiness or defiance when he disobeys us. He has phrases like, "I not listnin'!!" with his hands covering his ears and his best frown on. He has been saying, "Stupid Mummy!" a lot in recent months, when he's cross with me, but I've noticed he hasn't said that much these past few weeks, since I have been RIGHT on him to discipline every time he does it. He is sweet-natured in general and loving and kind towards his brothers. He is very concerned when somebody is sad or hurt, and tries to make them better, as all of them do.

I love his little chipmunky voice and the little quirks and mannerisms of his speech, different from all the others because they are unique to him. I can't even get those across in type, so I will have to try to take some video of him to record it for prosperity. Our "video" is a fairly basic point-and-shoot camera and the audio is really poor. Even right up close, the sound is distant and fuzzy, which is such a shame. Our really old point-and-shoot camera that finally died when Nathan was born, had a MUCH better microphone and their little voices were crisp and clear when recorded with that. Oh well.

Benjamin knows his numbers but not letters, though he holds up our fridge magnet letters on a daily basis at the moment and asks me, "What this one?" over and over, and I tell him. I don't know if he's retaining any though - I guess he must be to some degree? He's only 2, and my 2, 3 and 4 year olds learn through osmosis generally, now that I have two homeschooling at school age. I don't task myself at ALL with teaching the littler ones anything at all. I provide activities that they might learn from but they are meant to be independent activities for the most part. They're fine. Nathan learned his numbers and some phonics sounds without any attention on it from me, as Matthew began his school lessons last year. But I have no concerns with a 5-year-old knowing absolutely NOTHING of numbers or phonics or letters when they start school. The curricula we have are excellent and they'll pick it up in no time when they're old enough to actually do school work. Before that, it's play play play and stimulating activities. If they learn as they go, great! If not, no big deal. They are learning though! :)

One thing we do as a group is Bible time at the beginning of school every day. It's first because God is first. We are in Romans now - a chapter a day straight from the Bible. We started with Matthew's gospel at the beginning of the New Testament. After the chapter, we do Bible Memory Verses. We have a system, which I think I mentioned before but have no time to check/link right now. They have learned a lot of verses. We never do a verse or two. They learn whole passages, and with ease too. People usually assume little children (or even older ones) are only up to the task of a single line to memorise as far as Bible verses go, and think it's amazing when they do! They can learn SO MUCH MORE. I have taken a few videos of Arthur and Matthew reciting their memory verses, quite a while ago so I haven't got record of their more recent ones, and again - no time to find and post right now! What I really want to do is get Benjamin on video, but it's hard to clearly understand his pronunciation and he sometimes just acts silly when he's being videoed! ;)

He has learned the whole of Psalm 1 - probably about 8 months ago, just after turning two, and since our system means we go over ones we've already learned regularly, I have him repeat that quite often. He knows it well, but mumbles a lot of the words together. If I can help him say the words clearer then perhaps I'll video him doing it. He LOVES saying it! Nathan won't join in at all, though he sits with us, but Benjamin has been eager for his turn since he was tiny and not really able to say stuff yet!

Arthur and Matthew can recite Psalm 23, Psalm 121, Psalm 1, Psalm 100, Psalm 9:1-2, and then shorter ones that we started with at the beginning - Romans 8:28, Philippeans 2:14 and Ephesians 6:1-3. We are about to start Philippeans 4:4-9 because it's such a useful passage to have in your head when you need it, about anxiety and worry. Arthur knows some of it already because I use it to help him when he is having trouble with panic or anxiety. He has some issues - I haven't had chance to write about it, but yeah. He's very like me, unfortunately! Poor boy with his genes! He's phobic about vomiting and has many many other frets and worries. It's a personality thing, and my mum and I are the same way. Overcoming it is such a HUGE battle, and it's the single most complicating factor in my entire life, not easy to live with. I don't want that for Arthur! :( But I am praying for him and trying to help him, and at least I understand him.

Anyway, getting off-topic and taking too much time on the computer now, so I will stop! Must get my little tiny to bed - he is stumping around on his sweet little toddly leggies right now, with a pirate hat on his head that is way too big, saying, "Maowwww? Maowww?" because when I say the word "cat" he says "maowww?" in such a cute little high-pitched baby voice, associating cat with meowing. He hasn't cottoned on yet that hat isn't the same as cat! ;) It sounds the same, I can see his reasoning! Cute little beep! Going to snatch him up and try not to eat him on the way to bed now :)

April homeschooling update! (long!)

I have changed the weekly schedule a bit for homeschooling. Matthew was finding daily maths too frustrating, and there's no actual NEED to do maths every day for a 5-year-old (or even a 7-year-old), so I decided to try doing the basic "maths, handwriting and reading" routine on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, instead of every single morning. The idea is that on Tuesday we do history, handwriting, and reading, and then on Thursday we do science (astronomy) which incorporates handwriting. So far the reduced maths is much better for both boys, though last week was a short week because of the long Easter weekend and we just did 3 days straight of maths/writing/reading, and the boys were fine with that too. I think it helps that Matthew's maths has changed in this past week - he's getting fairly near the end of Right Start Level A, and there's no more number work for him until Level B! Number work really frustrates him, even the easiest stuff that I can't break down to be simpler! I am definitely seeing improvement over the weeks all the same. But now he will be learning to tell the time; measuring lengths, weights, and liquid volume; learning some basic fractions; working a little with geometric shapes and tesselations; and also geometric solids. He is REALLY looking forward to all of that! By the end of Level A, which I am hoping we'll finish before the baby is due in 6 or 7 weeks (SIX OR SEVEN WEEKS, PEOPLE!!!!! How on earth?!?!), he should be able to tell the time, and the "prize" for completing Level A is a watch from Nana :) He's excited about that too!

Arthur has just finished a fairly intensive section on mental strategies for adding two 2-digit numbers together. It has meant he actually has to use his brain and be challenged, which apparently is "RIDICULOUS!" and "SO UNFAIR!!" and just "TOO FRUSTRATING FOR WORDS!!!!!" This has made maths with Arthur just soooo much fun lately! ;) He has grumped about saying he can't do it (because he doesn't want to try, or make mistakes, which inevitably happens when something is a challenge and you're new at it) and generally taking absolutely ages to complete his maths work. I have found it so hard to keep my cool with him - it is not easy! But he has just sat there until he has completed it, and eventually he reaches a point where he decides to actually tackle it, struggles with the first few equations, and then gets the hang of it and has a real sense of achievement at the end. I always remind him of that pattern the next time we have the same issue, but he does the same thing anyway - albeit acknowledging that I was right just before completing his work! ;)

He is moving onto other stuff next week, and he's thrilled about that (me too!)! I have to look ahead a bit to see what's coming up for him, but I know he has some calculator work for a couple of lessons, and he LOVES using the calculator - it's used very very little in this curriculum so far, as equipping with mental strategies is the main focus. He revisits fractions and geometric shapes soon, and then he's adding thousands and FINALLY beginning subtraction! :) He has begun subtraction last week without me being allowed to teach him the terms "minus" or "subtraction" just yet. He calls it "take X away from" and finds it easy, so hopefully he'll have no issues with it once it's formally taught. He also starts the "times table" (or skip counting) with the multiplication cards next week, but he's not going to be doing multiplication itself until near the end of NEXT year's curriculum.

Talking of which!! We have some funds this month to enable me to buy curriculum, so I have had THE MOST fun shopping for curriculum items that I had been researching and bookmarking for the past year. I bought Right Start Mathematics Level C!!! Exciting!!! I got the Level B to C add-on package, because we have most of the manipulatives already. There's a note in Arthur's maths book (Level B) this week that says there are 20 lessons left and it's time to order the next Level, but since we're in the UK I thought it would be wise to order it ahead. It hasn't arrived yet. I am pretty sure we won't finish Level B before Elijah is born - if he is born at/after my due date and all is well beforehand, I plan to homeschool up to the week before my due date anyway. We will be taking a big break after he is born. He's due May 23rd and if he comes around that time, the earliest I would be looking to restart homeschooling would be the first week of July. I am definitely thinking of taking the whole of June off school, but I'm relaxed about when we start back - I don't have a set date at all. Benjamin's birthday is July 9th (a Tuesday), so maybe we won't even start back until we get a full week free, the following week? Or maybe Elijah will fit in with our days so smoothly and we'll be chomping at the bit to start in the last week of June? Who knows. But I'm not worried about it anyway - I will think about it a few weeks after I give birth and go from there. The boys seem a bit put out to be stopping school for allll those weeks! ;) I told them they can still do workbox activities to keep them busy, and Daddy will be home for the first two weeks after Elijah is born anyway, so they'll go out and such, quite a lot.

So when we DO start back, Matthew will hopefully begin a fresh new curriculum, starting Level B before Arthur has quite finished it. Arthur shouldn't have more than a couple of weeks or so left of Level B lessons, and then can go straight on to Level C from there.

I also ordered Morrell's Handwriting Book 2 - there are two books of photocopiable worksheets, and we have been using the first one this year. Their handwriting is improving, more noticably with Arthur. He needs a little more work on how he's forming his letters, though the finished product of his sentences is getting really neat and tidy now. He is eager to do joined-up writing, so I have bought the second book (which focuses on cursive writing) in anticipation. I think he'll move onto that sometime over the summer or autumn, but I am not sure about Matthew starting that with him yet.

Arthur is doing great with his reading! He is near the very end of the Rocket Phonics curriculum, which is roughly a 2-year course (though you go at the child's pace for however long, basically) from knowing no phonics sounds, to reading at secondary school level. He was better challenged by the last section he did in the book, having to use the "helpers" to decipher some of the words for the first time since the early months with the curriculum. Words that stumped him without the helpers were things like "colonel". At the end of that section he had another test, which I wondered if he would struggle with a bit, since he had been more challenged in that section. He had a list of 100 words (or so) to read straight off as I pointed to them. I thought he might be okay because he had to get 85% of them correct to be ready for the next section. He got one word wrong! I was so surprised! :) He has moved onto stories at a Year 7 reading level (6th Grade) in the next section and is learning about 'ph' sounding like 'f' and 'eu' sounding like 'yoo', that sort of thing. He reads on and off throughout the day, just picking up one of several books that he might have on the go, and reading on the sofa or floor (oblivious to the many small boys gallavanting around him!) for a while and then suddenly hopping up and joining in somebody's game or activity, or starting something else of his own. I sometimes suggest he takes a book upstairs to flop on someone's bed to read, but he rarely does. He prefers to just be amongst everyone and read! I think that would drive me crazy, if it were me, but he prefers it anyway.

I recently put his reading books in a more accessible place for him - they were next to our school bookshelf already, but in clear plastic boxes stacked up, and they looked messy and were not easy to pull books out of when he wanted them. I just wanted them out of the way of the littlest boys (the smallest of which eats paper for a hobby, lol!). I saw an idea on Pinterest for using wooden spice racks from Ikea for little bookshelves, and LOVED it immediately. I love how it's such a space-saving idea, and we need that kind of thing desperately in our tiny house! I kept a look out on eBay for ages, and finally won a lot of 4 Ikea spice racks for a few pounds plus postage! :) They've been here months, but I only got round to getting out the power drill and installing them last weekend. I wish I had a "before" picture, but here is the "after" picture all the same!



I love how they match the beech furniture we already have, and how clean and attractive the look is, with the books facing out. Arthur is so excited to have his books stored there, and takes a book down from there many times a day, replacing it carefully not too long after. I think it's a novelty effect, but he is loving using the shelves! There wasn't room for all four shelves there, but I used three of them, and they store just under 40 of his reading books, which is not bad! His main choices at the moment are Roald Dahl books (lots of giggling from behind a book!), and he has recently picked up Tom's Midnight Garden for the first time. He LOVES Matilda at the moment. He has read all the Roald Dahl books many times, like the Enid Blyton ones, but he never tires of reading them over and over again, sometimes the same book twice in one day! I'm thankful that he's not bored with a book he has already read, because otherwise I would be starting to panic at keeping up with supplying books for him to read! He reads the Little House books and occasionally has a go at the Paddington Bear books as well. I recently added a couple of things to his collection - a compilation of Mrs Pepperpot stories (which he read in a day) and also a box set of the first four Boxcar Children Mysteries. Those are American stories that I had never heard of, let alone read, until recently. But the reviews from friends and Amazon customers alike persuaded me. I am going to read them first though, but they look lovely!

Arthur reads a lot of reference books outside of the story books, mainly geography and history, but some science stuff as well, and nature. Whatever takes his fancy really. We have quite a few good reference books for older children that we've been given, which are just right for him when he is interested in something.

The black boxes on top of the school bookshelves in the photo are our workboxes. I can't remember if I've put a photo of them here before (or even taken one?!). We buy nappy wipes in boxes of 12 packs at a time (I have three full-time in nappies - soon to be four if I don't do something drastic like potty train someone! ;) ), and those boxes seemed perfect for repurposing. I just covered them in black sugar paper and made labels for the fronts with each boy's name. Samuel doesn't have a workbox - he's only 15 months old, but I made them before he turned one and now at 15 months he is VERY eager to be involved with workboxes, and if there was space on the top of the shelf I would add one for him now. It's the perfect size for 4 boxes, so I just put extra in Benjamin's box at the moment and give Samuel one of those when we start workbox activities, so he feels involved! It's usually something like a container of plastic safari animals or something like that. I cleared out the mess under the school table recently and have used several more nappy wipes boxes to contain baby toys and things under there. Ideally I would like a piece of slim-fitting furniture to go at the back under the table, to contain stuff, but I am biding my time on eBay! ;) I added some toddler jigsaws (the lift-out peg type), their yellow giant peg board, and a couple of other toddler activities that Samuel is really interested in, to keep at his level. He plays with those things a lot at the moment.

The TV is another eBay win - our house is starting to be made up of mostly eBay wins, haha! Our old TV broke, and we had no money to buy a new one. It wasn't a big deal since the boys haven't watched ANY TV other than DVDs since March 2010! Two years of no CBeebies - I can't tell you how overjoyed I am about that! ;) They were so hooked on it before. They have times where they watch too much TV (DVDs) but I am trying to limit it. In a good patch, they rarely watch any, but we haven't had a good patch for a while... Anyway, I found a flat screen TV the right size to sit in front of the school bookshelves (conveniently blocking little hands from getting into the games and puzzles inside the cupboard doors!) at eBay for £30! :) It was local enough for Neil to go and pick up, and it seems barely used to us. Yay!

Oh this isn't very "school update" ish, is it?!

So I bought one other curriculum item that I had been watching and wanting for a long while - All About Spelling! I am really excited about it! So far I haven't done any spelling at all with the boys, and I like this programme a lot. But it uses its own phonics alphabet, and it differs slightly from the Rocket Phonics alphabet, so I didn't want to confuse the boys by using the two side by side, before they were confident readers. I decided to get to the point of completing Rocket Phonics and then replace the time spent on that during school with All About Spelling. So Arthur will start spelling lessons soon, and Matthew will not for a while. He is now reading sentences and doing well! He's much more motivated and excited about reading now that he can actually read things that make sense to him, but his progress is much more slow and steady than Arthur's ever was. He isn't slow, he just isn't Arthur, and that is fine. The whole thing is a big learning curve for me. I know how to teach an "Arthur" so far, and that is all! Matthew isn't like Arthur, he's just different, and so I must learn all over again how to teach.

We are not really getting history done every week, nor science. I am not stressing about it really. The boys are eager, and if we have chance we do those subjects, just working through the lessons. Sometimes they behave horribly during the main part of school and the consequence of that is they don't get to do the fun stuff that would have followed if they had behaved better for me and not delayed things. I reeeeally hope they're learning from this! If they are, it's a slow process, but sometimes Arthur seems to make the connection.

I actually decided to split lesson 2 of the Apologia Astronomy course (The Sun) into four different lessons, and made a lesson plan for each one with some extra activities. I like a more relaxed approach and it allows us to explore the subject more thoroughly anyway. I like adding craft projects where possible, so it helps me fit that in as well. The boys are on the young end for the course, so breaking it up and adding crafts is good! :)

In history we have done two projects that the boys have really enjoyed! Using 'The Story of the World: Vol. 1 - Ancient Times', we're learning about the ancient nomadic people of Egypt who settled at the Nile where the land was fertile. I didn't go for the activity suggestions that were made for the first chapter, so we started on one I made up. It turned out great, and it has taken us weeks to complete it, adding bits and pieces here and there where we've found time. I decided it would be fun to make a diorama with "mud huts" - which we had just been learning about the nomads building by the Nile.

We started with a piece of thick cardboard (unbendably thick), and drew a wavy line near one end to mark the edge of the River Nile (I keep typing Neil, haha! I guess those letters are normally arranged that way when I type them!). The boys painted a sheet of aluminium foil with blue acrylic paint, and after it dried, we cut it to the wavy line shape on the board, and glued it on. While it was drying, the boys built their mud huts! I cut wide strips of corrugated cardboard and bent it into a "hut" shape, and cut a doorway on one side. Then I cut a square for each flat roof, and hot-glued them to the huts with my trusty glue gun! ;) The boys LOVED watching me use the glue gun! They tore up strips of kitchen roll and used watered-down white glue to paint layers of glue and kitchen roll onto their huts for some texture:





That was the end of that session, because everything needed to dry. The acrylic paint had dried really fast though, so we could cut the river to shape and glue it onto the board:



We had to wait a while before getting a good chance to do another "messy" session! The next stage was gluing sandpaper to the rest of the board (cut to the shape of the river edge) for texture. After that was dry, the boys painted most of it green with acrylic paint, leaving a little bit of "sand" for the edge of the river. They also painted the dried mud huts brown, and then we left that all to dry:



On the next session, the marvellous glue gun came out again, and I hot-glued the huts to the board. The boys glued on some shiny fabric fish that we had in the craft chest - a pile of "caught" fish by the river, and one still swimming (Matthew begged! He really feels for creatures being caught!). They tore up a couple of cheap green scouring pads to glue on as bushes and shrubs, but that was unexpectedly hard work for little fingers, so the bushes are rather square looking! That's all we got done that session, but I didn't get a photo.

Over the next week or two, every time we went to the park, the boys picked up a few little stones and twigs to add to the mud huts diorama. Finally we gathered them all and since they were small enough, we didn't need the glue gun, so the boys used white glue to stick them all over the land. They had so much fun making the diorama, and the only change I would make is to try and gather everything before starting, and then focus on getting it done in a shorter time-frame. They enjoyed it anyway, but doing it over a week or so would have been better than a month or so, I think! Arthur is going to write a label to go with it, saying what it is, and then we need to find somewhere suitable to display it for a while. Here's the finished product!




The next history project we worked on was an activity straight out of the curriculum activity book - I LOVED this idea! It was about farming the land by the Nile. They learned about flooding and irrigation, the way it happened seasonally. I bought a big foil baking dish for the project and some potting soil. The instructions called for grass seeds, but those take 3 weeks to grow and we don't have the space to have soil and manky water sitting around for 3 weeks without flies and smells bothering us! So I bought cress seeds instead. Those can be harvested within a week, and you can eat them! :) Real crops!

We followed the instructions and made a foil river bed in the soil, and weighed it down - instead of using pebbles and stones, I chose to give the boys some of the blue glass pebbles that I had bought at Poundland recently, because I thought it would give the water a nice blue look.



We made the river fan out into a delta in the north, and the boys put rocks on the south-east part of the Nile to represent the mountains from which the floods would come. They sprinkled all the cress seeds over the soil, and then they took turns filling the river with water.



The idea is to flood the Nile and irrigate the soil like in ancient times, and then wait to see how the crops grow from that episode of flooding. If we used grass seeds, we would re-flood every week, but a one-off flood was all that we needed with the fast-growing cress seeds! They were SO excited to flood the Nile that they were just squealing by the time the river was near to overflowing! After the land was flooded, they got to work adding a few plastic animals from our collection that were appropriate for Egypt - just some gazelle type creatures and a few hippos! Apart from flooding the Nile, I think their favourite part was making the hippos wallow in the mud! ;)




The seeds started to sprout within 36 hours, and ALL the boys were really excited to check them many times a day. There was always a noticable difference between breakfast and lunch, and then again from lunch to bedtime. I'm really pleased to have chosen the cress over grass, because it was much more satisfying to them with how fast it grew. It was great fun to do! And I was GLAD to harvest the cress and clean up/throw away the project after only one week. The river went down as expected over the week, right to the pebbles, and it became kind of yucky with a film over it. It didn't smell too great as we were cleaning it up either! I am so glad not to have kept that hanging around for another couple of weeks! Here's their Nile project exactly one week after starting it, just before we harvested the "crops" and cleaned up. You can see the water looking kind of yucky. And look how tall the cress grew!! The animals were hard to find! :)





Phew! That's long enough for one entry! I think I covered everything I wanted to, for now, so that's good! :) I will post photos when we do a project for history or science, because it's fun to keep track of what they are doing and we don't have a printer so I can't print out pictures to put in their history and science workbooks :( So it's good to have a place to record it all, until we eventually get a printer.

I will hopefully be back soon. I have sooooo many other things that I want to be writing about here, but as always, so little time to do so! I have lots of photos to post. I will try to update again soon. I know I am WEEKS behind at my pregnancy blog, so I need to update there next, when I get chance!