Life is a Highway - it’s the journey, not the destination

What with all the war stuff going on here, I was thinking we could get a model of a plane for Marcus to have a go at. Have had a look online to see what there is, although been a bit dissapointed when looking at sites that it doesn’t show you the skill level or even what paints are required (some sites, not all of course) Anyway, it reminded me that we actually do have a model car that M got for his birthday last year that had been awaiting a father/son type day to get started on. Of course, this hasn’t happened as neatly as we’d have liked so it’s laid in wait in the back of a cupboard. I dug it out yesterday and we duly got started.

As expected really, M was a bit heavy handed at first with the painting, but as it progressed he got better and better and has really enjoyed doing it. It’s not perfect by any means, but for a first model he’s done really well. It’s not quite finished, I’ll do a pic when it’s done, should be done by the end of the weekend.

We’ve been doing quite a lot of looking through books about the wars. We drift from one world war to the other quite easily! This book arrived yesterday and M was over the moon at it. He is absolutely obsessed with guns, not just with playing with them, but knowing the names and everything about them. I, of course, am not the best at supplying him with the information (but my FIL is) so I thought this book would come in handy. We also cleared the library of almost every war book around, oops! I managed to pick up one of those Michael Morpurgo books, Jan mentioned in the comments. It was the Private Peaceful one which I’ve started to read to see how it would be. I’m not sure just yet that it will be good, always got to check for anything that might cause anxiety and nightmares. The first chapter has the boys dad dying and him blaming himself! Might be a book better read in the day time! I’m enjoying it so far though. Haven’t read anything in ages. I did pick up this book from the library too which is lovely. Yet to read it to the kids, but will do soon.

Alex and I have been playing some games. We got Landlock and Castle Keep from PlayMerrily. A absolutely adores Landlock, even though we’ve only played a couple of games of it. She just likes to make up a little world for the gnomes! Also of note is that M played his first ever full game of chess with me. I’m not great at chess, and have hardly played it but he did really well with the game and I only just beat him. I should probably have let him win, but I was being a bit of a meany!

Also had a couple of nice visits from Jax and kids. Finally managed to actually get to chat to her on the second which was nice, even if my children were just being awful. I think they’ve had too many e numbers or something lately, but they’ve just been going mad. Acually, maybe it’s the paint fumes!! Apart from that though, we’ve been a bit stuck in the house as FIL has had to borrow our car. Meant I missed our violin lesson too

Speaking of violin, A did her practise in that today (I need to try and make her do more as we’re just never managing to do it) and she’s also started her new recorder book I got her. It’s called Recorder Wizard which I quite liked the look of and so far she’s been able to do it on her own as it has a cd with it. She def seems to like the recorder and is getting much better at it, mostly from her own steam too which is good. She can play Mary Had a Little Lamb well now. It’s actually taken her this long to be able to cover the holes properly (and she still sometimes struggles) as her fingers are so small. Of course I did find my old recorder book as soon as I ordered the new one, but hey ho. She has a few things to go through now.

:)

Violins are going down well. Although I do wonder at my own ability to teach them both, visions of eventually getting them lessons (if they decide they want to) and the teacher saying I’ve been rubbish! Ah well. They arrived last week and until I got some form of book to learn it I’ve been googling bow holds, watching you tube videos and basically just letting them have a go at playing the strings. Our book arrived this weekend so yesterday we had our first ‘proper’ lesson which was rhythms being clapped then plucked then bowed. M took one look at the book and proclaimed he wouldn’t be able to do it as it had ‘notes on the page and I don’t know what they mean!’ A was enthusiastic. Both did well with it all, but A struggles to get a good sound sometimes from the bow and was beating herself up about it saying she was no good They’re not normally that competitive but she definitely doesn’t like struggling with this, which is a shame as I think she has really good musical ability. Anyway, today we practised the same thing again, but she decided she’d just stick with plucking and she was so much happier with it all so saved for today.

Had a bit of a maths day today too due to having done none all week (Mon was a wash out as wasn’t feeling well, yesterday we just didn’t get round to any). Looked at rounding numbers, not sure if that wooshing sound was the wind or it going straight over their heads lol! I feel much better with maths at the moment, but sometimes I think I just either give them far too easy stuff or way too difficult things. Just don’t seem to be able to aim and hit the right level for them. Or at least it feels like it. We played a game from the Games for Math book and also kids requested Junior Monopoly. I put new batteries in their watches so we can learn about time. Oh and they both did a sudoku puzzle (at M’s request!!! - thud)

Need to make it to the library tomorrow so ought to find out their books.

I really wanted to add pictures to my holiday blog, but have lost my little adapter thing for my memory card so the holiday blog will have to wait Feel I should check in though

Had a nice day today with a trip to the theatre to see a concert type production of Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes and Dirty Beasts poems. Lots of instruments to see up close which was great as both mine love musical instruments at the moment. Both really want to learn the violin (as do I) and since I can’t fit a piano in the house (the other thing I want, not so much the kids) I went ahead and ordered some yesterday. Apologies to anyone who will be able to hear them (prob whole of Sheffield!) Kids v. excited though, hope they arrive tomorrow.

Generally feeling much better and have got over my little wobble about M and his reading. I *know* deep down that what everyone says to me is true but at the same time I felt it was something that should be made public if you know what I mean. But yeah, feeling much better about it so thanks everyone for their comments

Loving HE just now, just watching the kids making friends so easily, having such a good time, not feeling stressed out or feeling not good enough. You can’t beat it really

I have no money. Am pondering music, and instruments and I want to buy lots. For both the kids and me. I especially would like to learn something like the clarinet, or maybe the violin. Well actually I do want to learn the violin, but am afraid of the sound really! It would be nice to get good at something, I think I could have done well had I had some more encouragement as a child. School forgot about me once I went into High school and my parents couldn’t afford private lessons (I assume). So I think for the time being I’m going to start looking over music and try and refresh my head with reading it and have a think. Shall try and get my recorder playing back (might encourage the kids - actually A is quite good with it so far) Oh and I did start trying to learn my first chord on my guitar, then James tried to retune it and the string snapped. *sigh* I do love music

In other news, I’m ill. Been feeling crap for about a week in various guises. But the last 3 days I’ve had a really sore throat, earache and just feeling rotten. So I’m going to go back to window shopping.

as I wasn’t feeling well. Time of the month (or 3 weeks in my case) and have had awful cramps today. So we did our work on the couch all snuggled up this morning which was nice.

Maths was a game from the Games for Math book. Just keeping going with addition atm. Also tried to concentrate a bit on the adding of something (1-9) to 10 as so far they haven’t noticed any pattern.

Then we did some reading practise. M read the first one of the ORT Stage 5 and then Alex read it too. Checked their knowledge of some tricky words from the Jolly Phonics manual. M doing well and knows quite a few, Alex hardly any! Which doesn’t surprise me really, she really can’t read words if they are on their own, she needs pictures and context so she can guess! Shall have to do some googling tonight and see if I can find any ideas on how to approach this reading. She reads the books after M and I don’t want to discourage her, but I feel I should be doing more. I sometimes think she’d be the kind of kid who could learn to read on her own eventually as she is always picking up words from when I am reading aloud. Hmm lots to ponder about. if anyone has any ideas do shout!

Then I had had enough of making them do stuff so read them the last few chapters of Alex’s Fairy Chronicles book. Am steering her away from the Rainbow Fairies They both really liked this book which is a surprise, I didn’t expect M to like it and actually he didn’t hear the beginning as I think I read it to A when she had pox.

I went for a lie down and the kids played for a bit. The french dvd went on again, A really likes it and I found her out the book that I had that matches (it’s the usborne french one). She reminded me I have a tots tv french video somewhere so I’ll look that out. Then all I need is to connect the video player and we’re sorted.

M at some point sat down with me and tried to read some more of Yuck’s Big Bogeys. He still finds this kind of thing really hard so I’m not pushing it too much, I think I’ll leave it for a while longer and concentrate on the ORT stuff as he’s doing great with that. I guess I’m a little impatient, I’ve made an extra effort to have some good boy books on his shelves in the hope he’d pick them up and read them, but so far he’s not biting.

Can’t remember the rest of the day. James fixed M’s bike as he’d worn out a tyre by skidding on it too much, so they both played a while on bikes. Then xbox was allowed and I found out some old cd’s I had bought ages ago for the kids. Alex decided to put them on and has been listening to them this evening. So we’ve had Peter and the Wolf, some Sleeping Beauty Ballet (complete with dance from A) and lots of Putumayo World Playground 2. Even M came down to dance to that one, he likes it too. I reckon I could tick off PE if I had a category for it, but I don’t!

Another good day here today, helped in part by the sunshine although we weren’t out much in it. Wasn’t it just bloomin gorgeous?? Like summer.

Anyway we started the day with a little recorder practice. Alex seems to really like it but her fingers are just not big enough yet, Marcus was a bit self concious but once he realised I was only after practising one note was a bit better. He struggles as he rushes so much and doesn’t always stop to think what he should be doing iykwim. But a good first lesson I think, not going to go by the book we have yet, but just experiment with rhythms and notes for a bit.

After that we did some maths. I feel this is coming along well now that I’m paying more attention to it. They did a dot to dot from the red miquon book and you had to do it by counting in 2’s. Both of them got the hang of it well, Alex is much quicker at working out the next number though! Sometimes I forget there is 15 months between them as the are quite often at a similar level. Also did a ‘guess my number’ game where they guessed hwat number I was thinking and I had to say higher or lower. More work definitely needed there as it was clear they didn’t have much of a clue about that!!

Also did some Explode the code again, M read another ORT book (still level 1 but gaining confidence rapidly). Actually all of a sudden I’ve noticed M trying to read almost everything, it’s like all of a sudden he’s realised he could do it if he tries. I never realised how long a process reading is and it’s quite an eye opener really (although why I didn’t think it would be a long process I don’t know!!). It seems so long ago that Marcus looked at a word and realised it’s sounds added up to a word, so to still be at that struggling reader stage is quite weird and I suppose a little frustrating. I hope our fairly relaxed last year where we did hardly anything hasn’t kept him back too much, suppose I’ll never know though! Getting some of those DK readers from Amazon soon and think M will be fairly impressed by Spiderman and Star wars books - here’s hoping.

Then we got out some old cereal boxes and did some junk modelling. Well actually what I had in mind was making some magazine holders but the kids had other ideas. Well who can blame them since we hardly do any crafts round here lately? Paint just scares me in this house, so will have to be just sticking I reckon

And then we had lunch And James finished work early so managed to join us so that was nice. I also was looking at some maths games sites so since I was looking at them the kids just had to play them didn’t they? So they did some tessalations, adding, and measuring plus a little more work on higher and lower numbers. Sneaky but good Alex managed to get herself onto some other games that had spanish language in it which kept her amused for a while.

Afternoon was Sainsbury’s shopping (been putting it off as can’t stand to go at the weekend) and then we popped to see W and her daughter and grandkids were visiting. The baby had chicken pox so you never know, we may actually come down with it. Tried to entice M to go closer by saying he could have a day playing the playstation if he was ill, but it didn’t work

Home for tea and telly and M has just read James his book from earlier on so all happy