Week in Review
In my life this week (fortnight!)...
My pregnancy is going well! I'm 22 weeks now. I have had a growth spurt (or rather, the baby has!) and my bump is much bigger than before. I'm feeling well and it's SO nice to have my stamina back. I get tired and breathless fairly easily, but I have normal stamina now - I can stand to sing worship songs with a baby in my arms at church and not feel faint, lol! I have had the MOST joyful couple of weeks since we found out that we're having a baby girl, and I think it's sinking in properly now. :) I have already bought quite a few items of VERY cute girly clothing at eBay, and I'm trying to slow down a bit now because I know that Neil's sister and my brother (who each have a daughter) are passing on ALL their girly baby clothes to us in the coming months! Yay! :) It's so exciting!!!!
In our homeschool this week (fortnight!)...
Well, my memory is now completely hopeless, so I am not sure if I can even remember last week! Arthur had another history lesson with Rosanna (my doula's daughter) which he had a great time doing - he made another part of some medieval armour he's been working on - he has done the shield, and this time he made the breastplate. It's sized to him so he can wear it and have a lot of fun doing so! ;) He does a lot of writing and "book work" with his history lessons, as well as hands-on stuff and crafts, little plays, etc. He really resists written work for me, so I'm glad he's doing SOME at least, elsewhere!
We've done some conversational maths with Matthew and Nathan this past couple of weeks, here and there - usually as they're getting dressed or ready for bed. They seem most open to it then, and take in more too. Nathan has no trouble understanding any concepts (so far). Matthew struggles with almost everything, in his head, but he seemed to take in and comprehend the addition stuff we were talking about in casual conversation. Hmmm...
I ordered 'All About Reading' Level 1 this week. We have 'Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons' which we used with success, I guess, with Arthur when he was 4-5 years old. He was bored by Lesson 70, and by then I wasn't sure if it would work for Matthew, so I researched and bought Rocket Phonics, which is GREAT! Arthur was away with reading by then and would have done well anyway, but following through with Rocket Phonics made a big difference. We got halfway through the 2nd (and final) textbook, but haven't done any more. There are some grammar tips in the remaining lessons which would be handy to do with him, but otherwise he is reading fluently at almost teenage level so I didn't think it was necessary. He reads for several hours each day (silently), but he likes to read things out to me that he's just discovered and which interests him (nearly everything, lol!), so I make sure I get to hear him read frequently and correct any mispronounciations. He still makes mistakes, but then he hasn't been formally taught some of the more complicated rules of reading the english language. I think I will look for a grammar curriculum at some point soon to fill in the gaps.
Anyway, I have been teaching Matthew with Rocket Phonics, and he loves it, and he IS progressing, but painfully slowly. He's not really reading, even though he can sound out the words and sentences at the stage of the book that he's at, just verrrrrrry slowly - and he retains almost nothing for the next lesson. I have had my eye on All About Reading for many months, coming across excellent reviews, and testimonies from people who have dyslexic children who are something like 9 years old and still not reading, etc. Also we use All About Spelling and it's FABULOUS, so I am already leaning with a bias towards trying All About Reading. I talked about it with Neil and he said YES, buy it and try it out. It's SO expensive, so it wasn't an easy decision! I was going to buy the pre-reader level for Nathan and eventually Benjamin and the others, and maybe to let Matthew fly through first for confidence, as well as Level 1. But the cost was too much, so I ended up going for Level 1 alone. I think he will be fine starting that without any pre-reader stuff. He doesn't know his alphabet thoroughly enough yet, though he has a pretty good grasp of his phonics alphabet - he just doesn't retain much so he may have forgotten half of it already! :/ I need to run over that with him first. And I feel confident doing an overview of the alphabet, uppercase and lowercase letters, and phonics sounds with Nathan before starting him on Level 1 straight off, as well. I have told them both that I've ordered it, and that it will be FUN! :) The bonus is that we're tracking it from Wisconsin (it's on a plane today!!!) and they are loving that each day! :)
Arthur has spent many hours this week (and last week, but more intensely so this week) following his history reference books through the wars and using whatever is at hand to recreate the strategic battle plans, and then acting them out with the pieces. He LOVES doing this right now, and he is learning a TON about the various historical wars. Mainly the First World War this week, but also wars worldwide from hundreds of years ago. He knows so much stuff that I don't know, now! I actually thought to take a couple of photos of him doing this around breakfast time this morning, so I could add it to my review post here! :) He chose to build simple army components out of Duplo this time, to re-enact some of the battles in the first world war.
Arthur has various BIG history reference books that he reads for pleasure, but this one he's using is The Usborne History of Britain. It's HUGE, and absolutely fantastic. My mum bought it for him, for his 8th birthday (if memory serves!), and he has read it cover-to-cover more times than I can count since then, and dips into it daily for his latest points of interest. It covers history from prehistoric times to modern day, and is full of photos and charts and so on, and the text flows really easily for kids to read, from what I have seen. When Arthur reads with interest, he retains pretty much everything, so he has the most amazing grasp of British history now! The things he comes out with when other adults randomly include him in conversation about something in British history from 1000 years ago or something, usually makes them lost for words for a moment, before thinking what to say next. They usually catch up with me at another time when he's not around to express their awe at his knowledge and compliment me (ME! Haha!) on the homeschooling progress! ;)
We've started the Apologia Science curriculum (Zoology 2) on sea creatures! Arthur has decorated a blank workbook by cutting out pictures of various sea creatures, and we've started work on the reading (we take turns reading aloud, but he read today's in his head and told me he remembered what had been read MUCH better that way, so I guess we'll go on like that then!). He is so excited with the material and can't wait to do all the experiments. So far we've done the first little one, creating gyres (circular ocean currents) with Cheerios and a hair dryer (and a brother blowing, since we only have one hair dryer, lol!):
He is doing some writing and drawing to fill in the various worksheet options (he isn't interested in all of them, but that's fine), and they're being glued into his workbook, along with photos like the one above, to show experiments. Right now we're trying to drink down a 2 litre bottle of cloudy lemonade as fast as we can, haha! We need it for the next experiment with a balloon, to demonstrate deep sea underwater pressure. I am really excited about this new curriculum! It gives tons of ways to stretch their "muscles" learning-wise, and it's FUN! We can record it, that's another plus, because Neil is really keen to have things recorded in case we are called upon to show what we've done at any point (which I know we have every right to refuse, in the UK, but anyway). I really like that aspect!
Arthur's interests spill over onto his brothers constantly. He draws them in with such enthusiasm, into his battle strategy games, sea creatures stuff, archaeology, dinosaurs, weather - any of his interests which flare up at any given moment. He CAN'T be ignored, such is his infectious excitement about these things, and they just get carried along and end up learning along with him, which is wonderful!
I have tried working on colours with Samuel this week - he is exactly two-and-a-half today! Halfway to another birthday already! Yikes! I have a sneaking suspicion that he is colour blind. Arthur and Benjamin are not. Matthew and Nathan are. Arthur and Benjamin knew a dozen colours with EASE (I told them once what a colour was, and therefore they knew that colour from then on) at 19 months old or thereabouts. Matthew and Nathan didn't know their colours, even the basic ones, consistently until somewhere between 2 and 3 (nearer 3), and even then it wasn't a dozen of them until more like 3.5. I only worked on blue, yellow and red with Samuel, and he didn't retain it at ALL, and couldn't tell me which was which afterwards. Soooo.... I know that's very little to go by, but a mama of many boys, some colour-blind, some not, KNOWS! ;) Or probably does. Now for Elijah - it'll be a while before we have any clues with him yet. And our baby girl will NOT be colour blind, but I'm hoping very much that she doesn't carry it (like I did, and which she has a 50% chance of doing).
Samuel has been doing lots of spontaneous practical skills this week, things like pouring water. He likes to go round after everyone has left the table and pour what's left of each glass of water into one empty glass. He is learning the limit and what will make it overflow, and I've noticed his ability to pour carefully without spilling is really good for his age. He likes Montessori activities and gravitates to them constantly, so I think it would be good to set up some of the many Montessori activities I've pinned to Pinterest, for him to do.
Elijah is climbing, being strategic about placing toys, boxes or sofa cushions in specific places to enable him to climb somewhere he wants to be, opening and emptying cupboards, and has finally mastered taking magnetic letters and pictures off the fridge, and having them facing the right way to stick them back on properly again! He spends ages doing this over and over at the moment:
The main thing Nathan wants to do right now is draw. He wasn't well last week and the thing that seemed to cheer him up and improve him the most was when I let him have his dot-to-dot colouring book and some paper, pencils and crayons in bed for a while. He builds and creates a LOT, always more imaginative and complicated things than his bigger brothers, and he spends a lot of time and energy doing so. He gets very upset when things are damaged by careless brothers, poor love! I hope he'll be receptive to the reading curriculum, because I'd LOVE to teach him to read now. He wasn't interested in learning to read yet, last I knew - which was some months ago now.
Benjamin plays, draws, (he still scribbles, like his brothers at his age - he'll be 4 in a few weeks, so if he's like they are, he will suddenly start drawing recognisable things overnight pretty soon), builds things, enjoys fine motor activities, spends hours with playdough, etc. Nothing "academic" yet at all - he ISN'T ready in the least, and it astounds me to think that despite being 3 (and NOT READY!!) he would be donning a school uniform and heading off to proper school in just over 2 months if he wasn't joining his homeschooled brothers! Some kids MIGHT be ready, but unsurprisingly most are not, and my summer baby certainly isn't. I have no plans to do anything academic with him this year, and maybe not for the first part of next year, depending on how he naturally progresses over that time. We'll see. NOT on my radar yet.
So much for a quick review post!! :/ I just can't do "quick"!!
Places we've been and people we've seen...
We've been to our old church twice in the past fortnight, with our usual church the middle weekend. Both were special occasions, and the boys have LOVED seeing their old friends and doing fun activities. There were games and fun stuff, and a bouncy castle, etc.
Matthew's birthday was last Friday and now he is SEVEN!!! Nathan came down with a temperature of 100 the night before, and a sore throat, but he seemed fine the next day, thankfully! Rosanna came round and Matthew requested some party games that are for littler children than he is, but he just wanted them so we did them. He wanted pass-the-parcel, pin the nose on the clown, and musical bumps, balloon bobbing, etc. They had so much fun! He didn't want a party with a bunch of kids (which would overwhelm him anyway, even if he was excited - his autistic-type tendencies mean he doesn't deal well with party-type situations in general), but we have almost enough children for a proper party anyway, so it works! ;) He got a kite for his birthday and wanted to go out to a big field (dog-free for Arthur) in the afternoon, and we had PERFECT kite-flying weather so we went! Rosanna came too. I have a ton of photos, which I desperately want to find time to post as a separate post here, for memory's sake, but I know that I've not managed to do that for MANY birthdays now, despite really wanting to. :( So I'm not sure if I will, but I will try!
Nathan was fine over the weekend and then on Monday he was crying with tiredness by 10am and slept until noon. When he woke he was dizzy and nauseated for 3 hours! :( Poor boy was so miserable! He recovered gradually and then was FINE, running about in the garden with his brothers and eating normally again. Weird virus! Then on Tuesday evening Benjamin was flopping about exhausted before he's usually tired, and when I took his temperature it was nearly 101 and he had a sore throat. :( He had chills and aches and nausea overnight and was pretty miserable, but FINE the next day like Nathan had been. A bit more tired than usual, but that's all. Thursday night (last night) he had a temperature of 100 at bedtime, but wasn't distressed with it, and he's been complaining of a poorly tummy (he couldn't define it as nausea or pain so I'm not sure exactly how he felt) on and off in between. It hasn't affected his energy or appetite, so I don't know what to make of it! I'm wondering if tomorrow will be the day he has dizziness and nausea like Nathan did? And if anyone else will come down with it - it seems to have at least a 4 day incubation period before symptoms start, but overall it's just SO WEIRD!!! :/ We haven't seen people because of not being sure of our germy status, these past couple of weeks, so we'll see how we go over the next week.
The boys have been out in the garden a lot because the weather has been gorgeous and warm. The last couple of days have been colder and with heavy rain showers. The boys had water play, chalks and paintbrushes, etc. on the good weather days, and had a huge mud/water fight which necessitated immediate baths upon entering the house, hehe! Fun times! :)
Things I'm working on...
Keeping up better with the housework. I have energy and a slightly less foggy brain again, so I'm trying to tackle kitchen chores at the start of the day and it makes a big difference. I clean up breakfast, start the dishwasher, put the night load of wet washing in the tumble dryer, and start a new load of laundry in the washing machine. On a good day I will sweep the floor! ;) I change nappies and dress little ones, then get myself washed and dressed, and then it's time for Elijah to nap, usually, as all of the above takes half the morning! Once Elijah's napping, the boys have usually been too noisy while I put him to bed, and their well-known consequence for this is 10 minutes of silence (nothing whatsoever to do/read) sitting on the living room floor when I get downstairs. Right after that I read aloud a chapter from Wind in the Willows, which they love, even if the littles don't understand all of the language. Then there is an opportunity for school type activities, and then 'Lijah wakes and it's time to make lunch. Elijah is clingy and screechy if I'm not holding him or RIGHT THERE within sight lately (well, the last couple of months really), which is tedious during times of pressure like getting a meal ready on time! I need to enlist the kids to help with chores and meals and so on. They are really resistant and it's hard work with the Asperger's Syndrome reactions. I need to work on a new way to tackle this. They do entertain Elijah for me as best they can, and often very successfully, while I start lunch. The afternoon is free-flow. I need a bit more structure, maybe. I am working on thoughts anyway. I also want to work on getting back to more focus on God in our days.
I'm cooking...
Who knows!! lol! It's been one of those weeks where I have no idea whether I'm coming or going when it comes to meal planning! Three times I had no idea what to give the kids for dinner (when it was already half an hour late) - they did get fed, by the way! ;) Neil and I have had a takeaway twice after the boys were in bed asleep. I had to throw out two packs of minced beef which I'd planned to make into spaghetti bolonese, because it has been "one of those weeks" and I forgot/didn't think in time before they went past their dates. :( I HAVE baked banana cake twice, and chocolate chip cookies today though! And a chocolate "house" birthday cake, as requested by Matthew, of course! :)
I'm grateful for...
Healthy children. And that this virus seems very mild. And that it's not Lyme Disease - Nathan was bitten by a tick about 21 days before he started being unwell and I was beginning to get worried about that, with how weird the symptoms were. Then Benjamin caught it from him, so yeah - phew! ;)
Kicks from my baby girl! :)
Summer time!
I'm praying for...
Wisdom and patience in parenting my more difficult children.
This virus to go away! We have our annual family gathering for my grandfather's 88th (!!) birthday on July 6th and CAN'T go if we have any sort of virus lurking about, given how old and increasingly frail my grandparents are. I couldn't BEAR that! :(
Something I have my eye on...
Still baby girl clothes, lol! ;)
Shoes that are small enough for my tiny walker (he's a proper toddler this week! Hardly any crawling and steady, faster toddling EVERYWHERE!) - I found two pairs of shoes in size 2F (!!!!) and 2.5F on eBay, so hopefully he'll fit one of those (probably the smaller pair right now) and can actually have some protection to his feet outside now!
That is a CRAZY long Week in Review post!!! Have a good weekend and week ahead, everyone! :)
