Monthly Archives: May 2012

Extended breastfeeding and the art of conversation

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We’ve been having a quiet week at home so far, with Rabbit off Pre-school with a sickness bug.  She’s fine now, and the children have enjoyed extra unstructured time to play together which has been interesting to watch.  There has been lots of imaginative play, some good sharing and co-operation, wonderful if messy creativity, and reasonable attempts at clearing up after themselves.  I must admit I can’t report exactly what it has all been about.  We’ve done some Maths at the start of each day but then I’ve mainly left them to their own devices while I’ve attempted to catch up with housework.  In the afternoons, they have been doing Reading Eggs, Mathletics and Spellodrome, and a lot of playing in the garden.  The big boys have also been to Beavers this evening and had a tennis lesson which they really enjoyed.

Tiddler has been joining in more and more with everything the older ones do – he has even been demanding the right to “do Maths”!  His speech has also suddenly moved on again, with lots more sentences now.  When daddy left for work one day, he said “I want to go and look out window” and there have been lots more like that.  He also tries to join in every conversation, and copies everything he hears.  He’s been asking to sing certain songs over and over again, and is obviously trying hard to learn them.  He loves “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, and joins in loudly with the bits he knows, especially “WHAT YOU ARE”. He also likes “The Wheels on the Bus”, shouting “ALL DAY LONG” with great enthusiasm.

The strangest conversation I have had with him today occurred during his evening breastfeed.  There has been a lot of debate about extended breastfeeding recently, and I haven’t really commented on it yet.  Maybe I’ll do a serious post about it sometime…Anyway, this evening, he kept stopping to tell me something which was very important but I couldn’t understand it at first.  It was something about monkeys and dinosaurs outside, and then he started saying “Ribbit ribbit said the frog”  which he told me was at Granny’s house.  He then said there was a frog and a fox (no doubt about which Granny he was thinking of) and the fox was having breakfast.  He carried on feeding for a while and then stopped to tell me that the fox had porridge for breakfast, with honey, and some water.  Having communicated this important message, he was happy.  I could feel his satisfaction at knowing enough words to be able to tell such a long story.  I love this stage of development (I think I say that about every stage!) – it’s so interesting to find out what is going on in their funny little heads.  It cheered me up anyway!

A day out with Thomas and a day to recover

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Yesterday we went to a Thomas the Tank Engine day at the Eastleigh Lakeside Steam Railway.  We set off early and arrived in time to eat our packed breakfast in the blazing sunshine while waiting for the tickets to go on sale.  We had a good view of the miniature trains, including Thomas, Gordon and Henry, which kept the children entertained while we were waiting.  Once inside we met up with my aunt and uncle and two cousins, one of whom is over from Australia with her two smallest ones, and it was lovely to see them all.  The children had a wonderful time – they went on three train rides, played in the playground, had a walk round the lake (where we saw a swan with her seven babies), saw a Punch and Judy show and a magic show, had lunch in the cafe, and later on an ice cream.  Half way through the afternoon, we decided to decamp to the nearest pub so that the adults could have a proper catch up (as we usually only see each other once a year) and that was very successful too.  Luckily we found a pub with a nice beer garden, which had a bouncy castle and a playground so the children were happy.  We set off home when we should really have been thinking about supper, so we stopped at a service station, where we met – completely by chance – another cousin who was returning from a family wedding with her three little ones, so the children had fun playing together.

Today was quite a contrast as we had a day at home, and daddy had the day off work which was great… particularly as Rabbit was sick three times and very poorly all day.  So she stayed home from Pre-school and lay on the sofa watching Cbeebies all day, the boys did some work (rather slowly as they were very tired) and Tiddler pottered around quite cheerfully, and helpfully had a four-hour nap in the middle of the day – we really did wear him out yesterday!  So we managed a satisfying amount of washing, tidying, cleaning, cooking and garden chores – though of course not as much as I hoped, but maybe my list was a bit ambitious.  I’m now studiously avoiding looking at it until tomorrow.

Time for a round up…

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It’s been a mad week, and I haven’t blogged anything that happened after the Museum visit on Tuesday.  I can’t remember everything we’ve done, but there are a few bits and pieces I want to record here.  On Wednesday, we had a home education group meeting at our house.  The children had a lot of fun playing in our overgrown garden, and luckily we managed not to lose any of them among the long grass and rather impressive array of weeds wild flowers we are currently cultivating.  Monkey and Owl set up a very good obstacle course and all the children had a go, the older ones helping the younger ones so that they all succeeded in completing it.  We had a teepee at the half way point, and I suggested that each child could go in there and either sing a song or count to ten before continuing.  I particularly enjoyed listening to Jingle Bells sung very quietly and sweetly by a lovely four-year old boy!  After the group left, we went to the Beavers’ Jubilee party and the children had fun playing games and eating lots of cake.  When we came home, Monkey decided he had to write a very important note for the milkman before he could go to bed.  I believe this is known as “writing for a purpose”!

On Thursday, Granny (my mum) came to visit so we had a peaceful and productive morning. In the afternoon I decided that, instead of fighting against it, I should use the overgrown garden as an educational resource, so we spent a long time drawing wild flowers and trying to identify them.  Owl, Monkey and Rabbit all did some really good drawings, and I thoroughly enjoyed doing it with them.

On Friday, the other Granny (I need some granny code names…) came to take Owl for his violin lesson, and afterwards she looked after Owl and Monkey while Rabbit was at pre-school and I took Tiddler to his Musicbox class, which he loves.  Grannies may not be essential requirements for home educating, but they certainly make it easier!  Later in the day, the boys continued writing their Lego stories and worked on their Prehistory project a little.  Owl and Rabbit did reading eggs, and they all played in the garden a lot.

Today I took Rabbit and Tiddler to Dramabuds, and Suburban dad took Owl and Monkey to football.  Then they all had their haircut, before the big boys went to another Beavers and Cubs Jubilee party.  Rabbit painted a box for some treasure that she had collected on the way home from Dramabuds (sticks, leaves and a stone!), before going to her ballet lesson.  She then spent the rest of the day playing in our new train paddling pool, joined by Tiddler after his sleep.  I pottered around for a bit trying to do some domestic tasks, before admitting defeat and joining in with them.  I pulled up a chair and sat with my feet in the pool, and for a while the two of them did the same with their little chairs, which was very sweet.  It took a long time for Tiddler to decide to get in but he did in the end.  Rabbit was in and out constantly, jumping and splashing so we all got quite wet anyway!  They also spent a long time playing with the plastic balls that came with the pool (we have loads already, but there’s nothing quite so exciting as new stuff!)  When the big boys finally returned home, we had a rather late but very nice supper in the garden – although the boys had taken a packed tea with them, we guessed they would be hungry enough for a cooked meal, and they certainly were!  Banana smoothies for pudding went down well too.

British Museum

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I am beyond exhausted but I really want to blog the British Museum visit that I did with the boys two days ago.  This is the kind of “home education” I want to do more of – getting out and about, and making the most of the many interesting places there are to visit, which we would not have so much time for if the kids were in school.  However, at the moment I would struggle to take all four of them up to London on the train, so we still try to fit in all the outings we want to do into the holidays, and occasionally at weekends.  I know this will get easier as the kids get older, but in the mean time I am very grateful for the help of the friends who made it possible to spend some time with the big boys, doing something just for them….

My friend collected the two little ones, and then the boys and I walked up to the station and caught the train to London.  The boys enjoyed the train ride, during which we played Thomas the Tank Engine top trumps and discussed our Prehistory topic which we are just starting.  We then had a short (thankfully) ride on a crowded tube train, and a pleasant walk in the sunshine to the museum.  By the time we had arrived, had the obligatory toilet stop and met up with Owl’s godmother, we decided we were ready for an early lunch.  We had a relaxing cup of coffee while the children ate their packed lunches, but had to speed up once they were finished as they were showing signs of needing to move on (let’s just say some running around, chasing each other and fake slipping on banana skins was involved…)

I had already identified the two rooms we wanted to go to – I knew that would be enough, and I was determined to keep it simple.  The rooms were Britain and Europe 800 BC – AD 43 and Europe and the Middle East 10,000 – 800 BC, and we spent most of the time in the first one.  I asked them to draw pictures of anything they liked, and they both spent a long time drawing the Lindow Man which was gruesome but fascinating.  They then drew a selection of other objects including shields, mirrors, coins, spoons and a helmet.  It was a successful activity, and gave them something to focus on, though it came more naturally to Monkey.  Owl likes everything to be perfect, which is quite a challenge when you are trying to draw something quite detailed and difficult, but we got there in the end.

                            

We then had a look at the hands on table, and were able to touch and find out about several artefacts including an axe head which I think was 5000 years old.  We then went into the second room and had a look round more quickly, before giving in to demands to visit the shop!

We stepped out of the museum into a beautiful sunny afternoon, and walked up to Euston station to wait for daddy’s train to arrive.  We spent half an hour or so on the grass outside, eating the rest of our packed lunch and doing some of the Usborne Grammar and Punctuation cards which proved very popular and filled in the time peacefully.  We then walked into the station to meet daddy for a quick coffee (grown-ups) and giant chocolate coin and drink of water (children) before getting the tube and then the train back home.  It was rather hot and crowded, but not too bad and we played top trumps again (woodland animals this time) to pass the time.  We arrived home in time for the boys to have supper while daddy collected the little ones who were also worn out and happy after a busy day with their friends including a long walk and a farm visit.  It was a very tiring but lovely day.

I don’t know how you do it…

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If you are home educating and have little ones, you’ll have heard this a few times…  “I don’t know how you manage to home educate at the same time as looking after your baby/ toddler/ pre-schooler.”  There are so many ways to answer this, that I never know where to begin.  So every time someone says it to me, my reply is probably something different, but may include the following:

  • I’m quite good at multi-tasking – I’ve been doing it non-stop since my first child was born nearly 8 years ago
  • I remember vividly the stressful (to put it mildly) experience of having a child in school, a pre-schooler and a toddler, and being pregnant… that was much much harder than home educating
  • Home educating 4 children is no harder than parenting 4 children (of course you may be one of those people who say “I don’t know how you do it, I couldn’t cope with 4 children” – I don’t know how to answer that one either.  What can I say?  I’m not you… you might find it impossible to cope with, but to me it’s rewarding and fun and I think I’m the luckiest mum in the world)
  • I’ve been a teacher with a class of 35, so a one to four ratio is easy
  • The gap in ability between children in the same year group can be so great that complex differentiation is always required when planning lessons…in some ways it’s easier, or certainly no harder, to plan home ed activities for ages 2 to 8
  • My toddler sleeps for two hours in the morning, and my pre-schooler spends four mornings a week at pre-school
  • My older children teach the younger ones/play with them/ read to them often without being asked (yesterday Rabbit went through a whole vehicles poster with Tiddler, asking him “can you say car?  can you say fire engine?” … and he solemnly repeated every one!)
  • I have brilliant friends, including other home educators as well as friends who send their children to school, and my parents and my mother-in-law, who help with childcare and education in many different ways

If you asked me that question today, my answer would be the last one on the list.  Today my two oldest boys enjoyed a brilliant educational and fun experience, visiting the British Museum with me and a very good friend, while another lovely family looked after my little two and took them on a wonderful walk through a National Trust park to a farm.  I will blog the Museum visit later, but for now I just wanted to say how lucky I am to have great friends who made this lovely day possible.

Lovely educational stuff!

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Today we have rediscovered these lovely Usborne activity cards.  I think Monkey has done some of the word puzzles on his own recently, but it is the first time in a while that we have done them together.  Owl and I did three of the Maths puzzles together (learning about co-ordinates, identifying even numbers up to 3 digits, and understanding probability.)  Then Monkey and I did two word puzzles ( a castle word search, and matching pairs of words with opposite meanings) and one space-themed Maths puzzle which involved addition and subtraction.

There is a great variety of themes and topics, and they range from fairly easy to very challenging.  Sometimes we have used them to reinforce particular topics, but it’s also fun to choose some at random as we did today.  Usborne has lots of similar sets, including Grammar and Punctuation cards which we didn’t get to today, but the boys were both keen to do some of them as well, so maybe we’ll fit that in tomorrow.  Anything that makes them excited about Grammar and Punctuation is good for me!

50 things

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This afternoon I took the children to meet some friends at a local National Trust property.  We collected our “50 things to do before you’re 11 3/4” scrapbooks, and set off into the park. After a picnic lunch, we walked along the river looking for somewhere to try and catch a fish.  We saw plenty of ducks and geese, but no fish.  Tiddler discovered what happens if you grab a nettle, but luckily he also found out that crushing dock leaves in the same hand makes it feel better (or at least it was a nice distraction!)

We managed a few activities on the list – all the children looked inside a tree with a big hole in it (and found lots of spiders’ webs), and balanced on a fallen tree.  Owl hunted for bugs, and found an ant and several woodlice.  We didn’t manage to get a bird to eat bird seed from our hands, and although the children had fun fishing, all they caught was mud and leaves.   When they had had enough of that, we took them to the play area where they enjoyed the zip wire and lots of things to climb on.

On our way out, we collected stickers for our scrapbooks and planted some seeds, before setting off home.  It was a lovely afternoon out, and I’m sure we’ll be back there soon.  We are also feeling inspired to do as many of the 50 things as possible, so we will be planning some more outdoor activities and making good use of our National Trust membership.

Checklist

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I’ve been thinking about lists and how they reflect priorities.  I suspect I’m not alone in having lots of to do lists on the go (some make it to paper, and some are just in my head!), and my mood at the end of each day is often related to how much or little of these have been ticked off.

Today, for example… a low score on domestic tasks.  Mainly just clearing up in the kitchen, and a bit of tidying up which was partially undone by Tiddler.  Suburban dad has done better on his list of DIY tasks.  He has been putting up shelves all over the place, which should help us in the war against clutter.  Of course, his success is partly the reason why I’ve done so little, as I was mainly keeping the children busy and out of his way.

Then there are the lists of regular and occasional activities to be fitted in – Saturdays are full of those – and there is quite a sense of accomplishment in looking back over the day and seeing how much we have done.  Today has included Dramabuds, Football, a Christian Aid coffee morning, a church fair, Choir, Ballet and other bits and pieces such as making hair appointments for the children, browsing in a charity shop, and for me a lot of walking between the various activities (over two hours, but a lot of it was at Rabbit’s walking pace so not as impressive as it sounds!)

In all the busy-ness of life, it is easy to forget that there are things that are more important even than all the worthwhile things above.  Maybe I need a new checklist…

  • Have I played with my children today?
  • Have I read to them, listened to them read or looked at a book with them?
  • Have I listened – really listened – to what they have to say?
  • Have I looked in to their eyes and given them my full attention?
  • Have I told them I love them? praised them? said that I enjoyed something we did together?

Today, I think I have done just about all of them, but not necessarily each thing on the list with each child.  It’s challenging with four, but not impossible.  So today, all in all, has been a good day… but I think I can do better.  I think I need to judge the success of each day less on the other lists and more on this one.

Monkey’s milkshake recipe

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This is Monkey’s version of the milkshake recipe which I posted about a few days ago.  He has written several copies, which I keep finding around the house.  I think he has probably copied it from the book, but he at least he is getting lots of writing practice.  I wondered whether to suggest making some different milkshakes and writing recipes for each one, but maybe I shouldn’t interfere as the whole thing was his idea in the first place.  It has led to lots of reading, writing and interesting discussions so far, so I might wait and see what he comes up with next.

Latin and French

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Owl has been learning Latin for a while now using the excellent Minimus series, and Grandpa has also been giving him extra lessons which I think have been very thorough as we have long lists of vocabulary to learn.  Owl has been making flashcards of some of the words (the picture shows just a few of them) and has been doing quite well at remembering them.  It’s been good for me too – my Latin needs a little revision!

While Owl was making his cards, I gave Monkey the eeBoo French flashcards (which I posted about a couple of days ago) to look at.  He was really inspired by them and asked if he could make some of his own.  I cut up some card for him and then left him to it.  He worked very hard on them and I love them!  I think this will be an ongoing project.