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

well I suppose it’s not even over yet, but there we go! I’d been feeling ill all the 2nd half of last week with some kind of virus (thankfully no-one else has had it yet) and this week I’ve just felt wiped out. So tired. I normally get up really early with James nowadays but haven’t done all week, I’ve just needed to sleep. Feeling much better today though

So all week, we’ve been a bit lax with anything too heavy workwise. I’ve been keeping up with our reading from AmblesideOnline, we’re on week 4 now, which went well and made me feel like I’ve not wasted the time. M wanted to read the War Boy book I blogged about before so that’s been our history this week. Which reminds me, was supposed to put it in the timeline book - shall do that later this afternoon. Have hardly done any maths, although did a lesson from MUS this morning that went down well. I also got a book about infinity for them called The Cat In Numberland which although we haven’t read yet, looks really good. They’re both kind of obsessed with infinity atm! Also read Katie and the Mona Lisa to keep some art appreciation going But all fairly relaxed tbh.

Wednesday we went out to the nature reserve home ed meeting which was really nice. Managed to speak to some other people. I feel like I’ve been around for a bit and know a few people by their faces, but I don’t know them well enough to chat so sometimes I feel a little awkward at groups. But getting better. Went off to my mums afterwards for a change of scene listening to Bindi Babes (Alex’s choice) on the way. Yes we have more audio books on the go Not so many this time, 3 each. A is getting more into them too.

I’ve been quite enjoying watching M read a few more things lately. It’s been over a month since I decided to stop the reading of ORT books every day and take a step back to see how things would go. I never said anything to M about why, but when he turned round to me one day and said that he gets all confused in his head when he tried to read I took it as meaning I was probably doing the right thing. He doesn’t ever ask to practise reading, but he picks up comics often and will attempt reading lots there. I don’t think it feels as hard for him. The other day we were getting petrol and he read ‘Have you checked your oil?’ only pausing to check he had ‘checked’ right. Ok hardly earth shattering, but what I liked about it was he wasn’t doing it for anyone but himself and that’s how he generally is, doing it for himself. Oh I saw this Artemis Fowl Graphic Novel and think it looks fab. Might have to get it.

And now I’ve lost my train of thought as the kids were fighting over the playstation so have been sent upstairs. Humph.

Been to a car boot today Managed to come back with not too much crud which is always good. Got a Mastermind game after seeing Alex playing with it at Hunstanton, a microscope set, a bloody awful car board game and a couple of books and small things. Was actually quite nice although we’d kitted ourselves up for muddyness and it was typically lovely!

At home we had some patch time and Alex and I played Mastermind with her rules which were slightly easier, but still made her think about it all so of educational value still! (need a logic category).

(Em hair fell out yesterday so we decided on a SB hairstyle as I can do that one!)

Marcus sat and played the playstation - *sigh* He is rather obsessed, can’t imagine where he gets that trait from

There was also some looking at some Usborne beginner books and Marcus wanted to do some of the internet linked bits at the backs of the books so they spent a good deal of time playing the Jousting game.

We also did a little bit of science / gardeningy type stuff in the way of “The Bean Experiment”, am hopefully going to get them to write up (narrate!) what happens in a little book. Oh and kids did more counting practice in 2’s with help from the 100 square on the kitchen door.

And that’s been pretty much it for today, Alex has mucked about with my camera loads, taking quite a few photos of toys and requesting photos of herself. I liked this one:

Back to ‘proper’ work tomorrow again

before I get out of the habit

Hunstanton was fab and loved it all. Although I am so not used to staying up late as I struggled through the days to make up for it. Sea life centre was great and brought some education to the week Marcus was very good at asking questions, not shy at all which helps with my worries about him (him not wanting to do groups etc). I just loved seeing the kids all getting on so well really, I know we say it all the time after we get together, but they really do mix so well with limited bust ups.

Since we got back we’ve chilled out mostly (it’s the weekend!) but in amongst the lazyness has been some early morning sums done in my bed, counting money (Alex managed to grasp counting in 20’s quite well even while Toy story on in background), Marcus also seems to have got to grips with counting in 2’s and 10’s. We discussed sets of numbers so I suppose a very basic foray into multiplication going on there. Not bad really.

Also today we caught the tail end of The Clan of The Cave Bear movie which led to some discussion on Neanderthals, early humans, a bit of evolution (seems to be a recurring theme round the blogs!) and if I could have found the book I got from the charity shop on early people we’d have looked at that too, but I couldn’t.

Been browsing round the web today and come across the DK readers which tbh I never knew existed. How silly am I?? been away from sites like the book people for too long. Anyhow I saw on Red House that you can get some superhero one’s so pondering getting those one day. Unfortunately they aren’t on the bookpeople site which has others I want. Always the way. Seems to be a few boy-ish ones, so am going to try and get a level 1 book about something to test the water with them. Marcus is very into comic books so maybe, just maybe this could be the thing we need to inspire him. Can feel an amazon and book people order coming on.

Today’s been good, not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but good. Started with a lie in again, I’m so bad at getting up. I think I’ll keep some story books near my bed and then when we’re being lazy in bed we can read something.

After breakfast we cracked on with some work, I started by reading some stories which have been lacking a bit lately. We read 2 stories from March in Enid Blyton’s Book of the Year which I love just for the old fashionedness of it. Then Marcus read the book he read the other day again to me. I figured that we could maybe do each book a couple of times so that he can get chance to be good at it iykwim. Actually he is very good at it, but it was nice to hear it with a bit more fluency today. While he was doing that Alex sat with those flip over word games we got from ELC (can’t find link), well one anyway as most of the sets had at least one missing - grrr. She guessed most of them so I don’t think it helped her struggle with the last sound, she just looked at the first sound and found the picture that went with it. Anyhoo, after that we practised some more 3 letter words and I gave Marcus some 4 letter words to practise (no pics just the words). They both did really well.

Did a page and a bit of Miquon with the cuisenaire rods and Alex decided to do a page of sums too, but I think she only did 3 out of about 5 before she got sidetracked (I left her to get on with it, she did really well all on her own!).

It was approaching lunch time then and since it was lovely and sunny we decided to go to the little park with the football and bikes. Then lunch, which the kids ate outside and I decided to declutter a bit more of the garage. Only did a bit and then turned my attention to trying to find some stuff. It’s been bugging me that 6 months down the line and things like lego were still nowhere to be found so, today I did find:

lego!!!!
reader rabbit maths game
next explode the code and Miquon workbooks
critical thinking book
loads more workbooks
loads and loads of books and magazines
scalextrix
learn the recorder book

I didn’t find:

recorders
seeds

and tbh I looked everywhere so I can’t imagine they are in there now which is annoying to say the least.

Kids played outside all afternoon while I did this with a bit of time spent playing the Arthur game again. Marcus was interested to try the reader rabbit maths game but found it too much like hard work which is him all over with Maths I reckon, it is work for him and not enjoyable work! Both kids excited at the prospect of new workbooks (strange), I think I’ll start Marcus on the ETC book 2 as really the 1st one was a bit easy for him, although it has been good practise in becoming more fluent in 3 letter words much more and with writing them. And he enjoys them so all the better. The second workbook has blends which although he can do, I think the practise will propel him that next stage forward. Alex will stay on the 1st book I think as she still struggles with those end sounds. I really need to look into buying the next set for Alex though as we only own 1 set of books 2 and 3. Shall no doubt be thinking about a Sonlight order unless anyone knows where else they can be bought?

Evening has been telly again, but I don’t mind that as it’s not on any other time and James’s dad came round so Marcus read his book again and alex showed off her reading. Also attempted to play battleships on paper with Marcus (thanks to Nic - I had no idea it could be done this way having never played any version of it) but he kept getting distracted.

I had been meaning to blog loads of times over the last few days, however I never seemed to get there.

Tuesday felt like it was a bit of a wasted day, mainly because I’d planned to go to the Home ed group but was feeling decidedly shaky and too tired to face the tram and bus to get there so we never made it. It was a pity as it was a lovely day and they apparantly had a climbing wall available. Anyway I declared it a ‘lazy’ day and I sat on my computer. I half expected M and A to laze about too and watch telly but amazingly it never went on. They found some lego and played fantasticly together making up games. To say I was surprised would have been a bit of an understatement! So we didn’t do any work that day but when James came home from work it was still nice so we headed out for a drive to Chatsworth where we had a look round the garden centre and had a nice walk and play with the frisbee.

Wesdnesday was back to work and we did some 3 letter word practise for Alex, just trying to get her to think about the end sounds really. Marcus did something, I think it was reading Stunt Duck from the phonics book. We also did a bit of Maths too from the Orange Miquon book. Think that was probably the most of it in the day time. At around tea time James’s cousin came over and saw the abacus sat on the dining table and decided to sit down with Alex and do some maths with her. Half of me felt like he was testing her to see how she does with it, another part of me was just happy that someone was taking time to sit with them and do stuff and it made me realise how little they get in the way of time with others doing anything. My parents certainly don’t spend any time with them talking about anything other than what’s on telly, james’s dad definitely doesn’t either, although I imagine at a later date he will be useful when we want to learn about the war and all that stuff (he’s really interested in it and knows all sorts of useless facts ). Even James isn’t that great at doing anything with them. Anyway, Alex surprised me by catching on to counting in 2’s and generally just being good She definitely has a different maths brain to Marcus and can pick it up much easier.

Thursday I read the riot act to the kids. All week long when they go and get dressed in the morning they know I’m waiting for them to come downstairs and start work. We don’t ever do too much, really only about 15 mins of reading and maths plus whatever else I think they might like. Anyway, they always end up playing upstairs and leave me waiting which just riles me as I think it’s bloomin rude. They have all day long to play, I hardly nail them to the table to do work! So I went off on one and probably made too much of it, anyway I made them do lots of work. Marcus did some Explode the Code while I sat with Alex reading through some very basic Usborne readers we got from Barbara. She did quite well with them but got fed up by the last one so we left that. Marcus had a go after that and did really well too, I think it really was a bit simple for him, but was a good exercise in looking at the pics to get a clue to the word. While we were doing this some parcels with some Oxford Reading Tree books came (thanks Sarah!) and we had a quick look through them (not reading just looking at the pics) and I think they’ll be perfect for Marcus. He’s doing well, I think it’s helping making him focus on it once a day. After reading I made them do some maths (I was still being evil) so made Marcus do a page of sums (only about 6 though). Alex did about 4 pages and wanted to do more - she really likes them atm. I really wish I cold find something to help Marcus come along with it, he just doesn’t seem to ‘get’ it all. We’ve been doing some adding in little chunks for over a week now and he still looks at it as if I’ve asked him to perform brain surgery and he just can’t remember what to do at all. I dunno, I’m really struggling with it. Maybe a computer game or something might help. Shall look to see what we have and get him started, I know we have zoombinis. Anyone have any other recommendations? In fact if anyone has any good ideas for things to do with him shout, cos my brains seized up. Don’t want to make it an issue, just want to find the best way to do it with him.

We went to the park afterwards as again it was a lovely day, they took their bikes and scooters down and I read a book on the bench. Came back for lunch and then Alex and I sowed some seeds while Marcus played a bit on his playstation.

This morning we’ve all been up early as I wanted to tidy up as we’ve visitors coming soon. How come no matter what time I get up they’re up with me? But i’ve been grumpy this morning and already had a go at marcus because he has said he still doesn’t want to go to Beavers tonight and tbh I can’t be arsed to waste any more time on it. I can’t help feeling dissapointed that he doesn’t want to give it a fair go. But then I feel bad for getting angry at him and feeling dissapointed, I don’t feel like it’s the right thing for me to feel as his mum, but I do. So that’s got me down a bit. We’ve already done some reading practise but really I can’t face much more at the moment as I’ve very little patience. I hate feeling grumpy

where did I get to? Oh yes, Thursday was a funny day, mostly because we were out of routine and went straight to the bank in the morning after breakfast instead of doing some work. It was cold and horrible on the walk down and a little whinging was heard but it wasn’t all bad. I struggled to keep them doing anything worthwhile when we got home so I inspected the garage for seeds and the kids just pootled about and read some magazines I bought them.

Friday we did some explode the code, Marcus is getting noticeably better with reading, but I still feel he’s not there for books, he’s more at the few sentences stage, but I can stop worrying about him being able to read - he can Just need to concentrate on developing it. Alex is struggling with end sounds so I’m going to work on that with her.

I also introduced the kids to Fimo - they love it. Way behind on the trend but who cares! Made some lovely bits and bobs.

It was a lovely day on Friday and I was keen to be outside doing something and the kids fancied going to the park at Rother Valley. So amazed was I that they wanted to anything we jumped at the chance and took a walk all round the lake stopping at the parks for a play and a general muddying up.

Friday evening was time for Beavers - Marcus was so not keen to go but I made him go to see what it was about. Apparantly he liked it a tiny bit but wasn’t too overly impressed. James took him and noticed they really talked down to the kids and thought Marcus wouldn’t cope well with that. We’re going to try another night for him next week and see how that goes, he’s not looking forward to it.

Saturday was another nice day so James washed the car and I started chopping things up in the garden (my arms ache now!), with us being outside the kids followed and they helped in various ways. James’s dad came round and sniped a bit about Marcus going to Beavers as “well he has to learn to meet strangers” so I bit his head off. I was grumpy. Was sure we did something else but can’t remember now. Oh it was the eclipse wasn’t it? Yeah we spoke lots about it and the kdis seemed to grasp the idea and were really excited to be watching it all night. They were grumpy by the end though so we were glad when it was bed time!

Sunday was miserable weather but Alex and I walked over to the local allotments to put our name down for a plot. We’re 27th on the list so I’m not overly hopeful for anything soon, but I suppose I have to be on it to be in with a chance. After that we headed out for a drive, took a look round my village of choice for buying a house (yeah right) - Tickhill in Doncaster. Lovely village, still a good size, lovely small local type shops and very picturesque and in the country. I liek where we are now, but I don’t like the fact it has no shops, we don’t have a corner shop as it’s closer to go to Sainsbury’s. Makes it feel like there’s no soul to it though really iykwim. Very boring and of course in the city. After driving about we headed over to see James’s aunty who didn’t make it to the wedding and we showed her the pics. She treated the kids to a McDonalds for our lunch so we headed off to do that and then it was home for lazing about. I picked up my knitting needles again after sorting the stash under the bed and Alex is keen to learn so we’re going to try that soon.

Today was a lazy lie in as I’ve been very tired lately but then we were up and did some more explode the code and worked out the number bonds to 10. M & A both wanted more sums after I had felt we’d done enough so they made up some for themselves, Marcus did some writing and then they dissappeared in a whirlwind upstairs doing goodness knows what! And now it’s lunch, so I better get something made, house is empty though so need to be creative!

On Tuesday we started off the day with a bit of reading practise. Alex was first as she’d got ready first after breakfast and for once we didn’t have a performance while she was giving it a go. I think the early start helped. She did quite well, but has a way to go I think, but practice will help. Marcus did some after (the same book, a basic ladybird phonics one) and did well too, again more practice just to reinforce he can do it and to keep the momentum going is needed I think. They both did some Explode the Code too after that.

With Alex looking at her ocean life book last night and the relative sizes of the animals and fish in it, I thought we could maybe do a bit of a measuring thing. So we decided to measure ourselves (actually I should have got them to do me too) and then I cut some bits of paper to scale to show us next to a dolphin, green turtle, orca and blue whale. I should have done it smaller though as the blue whale will cover all our kitchen wall!!! Oh well, a lesson in scale And maths that didn’t involve adding which is also a plus.

That was about it for yesterday. They did patches early and have all of a sudden stopped complaining about having them on at all, even with them being stuck on the eye. Very impressed with them both, and I think it just shows what a difference a year can make in asking them to do it. I just have to hope it will make a difference when they go back to the hospital.

Oh I forgot, we did a few puzzles I printed off the internet. Need to start dating and keeping hold of stuff, never know if I may need it.

Today we were up early as we had visitors in the shape of Barbara and kids and I had to tidy! Trying to gradually get up earlier, I can sleep fairly late consistently and the kids just follow along side me. If I try and get up earlier I’m hoping they will too and we’ll actually get stuff done at a reasonable time. Alex woke up with me so again I set her off with some work this morning once brekkie was out the way. Today we just did some basic sums working out with the base 10 blocks. When Marcus graced us with his presence he surprised me that he actually remembered some very basic sums (2+2, 5+5, 3+3, 10+10) without having to work them out. I know this seems very easy, but it’s a big deal for us especially as no matter how much I show him things, it never seems to stick. I do think he’s needed his own pace with this though and I really don’t want to make maths a huge deal. The problem we’re having is that for the family who don’t agree with HE (and for some reason I’m feeling more like the concerns are being said louder lately) it’s the academic things that they will base their opinions on and if he’s not reading or showing great competence in maths then that will speak volumes to them. It doesn’t matter if he would have been the same in school, it’s just ammunition for them. It also doesn’t matter that he knows loads about cars and types, or can draw 3 dimensional cars or whatever he has an interest in, cos it’s not reading and writing. It gets me down quite a lot. (also substitute he for she soon as it will start with Alex soon too)

When Barbara called to say she was on her way with kids and ds’s my 2 rushed to get their patches on, but I was evil and wouldn’t let them playwith them till B got here. Muahahahah! But once they arrived that was them all sorted for a while, can’t say they were quiet though I sat Barbara down with a cuppa and LOTS of photos and forced her to look at them Was really nice to have them all round

Felt really like putting the telly on once they’d gone, but decided against it. Instead I told them they could do a kit I bought at a toy shop a while ago which makes a stick puppet show. The attraction wasn’t in the puppet show but the sticker maker that was included that made the actual puppets. Anyway, that kept them busy for ages, and meant that I could investigate the public transport options in sheffield so we can make it to some HE groups soon while I actually want to.

This evening after James got home we watched something about hurricanes which sparked lots of discussions, I don’t think my lot are hugely keen on going to America now!! More dolphin stories at bedtime too

I must write up something before another day goes by with me being too busy. Since we got back from tenerife we’ve been really trying to get some “proper” educational stuff done simply because I feel it’s been lacking too much and we’re constantly getting bad feedback from James’ family about HE and I’d really like to prove it does work. For some reason Marcus has also turned into a 6 and a half year old and I can’t quite remember that happening, it does feel very ‘big’ and as such I feel he should be doing a bit more work. Although, this being me it isn’t normally that much!!

So last week we sat down and talked about stuff we wanted to learn and so I have a big list of possible things to do. Funnily enough learning to read didn’t come up for either of them, but they’re both getting there with it all. I wish they wanted to though. Actually my mum was really impressed with M on holiday as he quite often draws and writes stuff to go on the picture and instead of always asking how to write something he just thinks in his head. most of the time it’s wrong, but that’s to be expected with our language!!

It’s become apparent that M is really struggling with the concepts of numbers, adding and all that stuff. We don’t follow a set curriculum or anything, but we might look into something in the future. Anyway, yesterday morning I took our base ten block s and went way back to basics with him and we just counted out the right numbers of blocks for each number up to 12. Then we looked at swapping 10 cubes for a ten, etc etc and I think he stared to get some of it. It was kind of nice just to have a maths session without him just looking all confused!! He managed to work out that 100+100 isn’t something like 100100 or whatever he normally thinks. Nothing spectacular but a big break through for us. Alex did the same after too and didn’t flap and wail so that was good too!!

Also yesterday we finished the Spain project we started just after coming back from holiday. We’ve been looking at maps, themoney they used and writing down what language they learnt over there. We also read The story of Ferdinand and Marcus narrated back the story (with some poking and prodding).

We went down the library and managed to get some books on future learning ideas - dolphins and electricity. Wonder if you can work out who wanted which Actually M’s list was all physics-y kind of stuff which is crap for me as I never did it. But James did electronics at college so he knows what he’s talking about. On the way to the library was lots of nature spotting, M remembered about ‘lambs’ tails’ and we talked about spring starting with all the flowers coming through.

Back home and it was patch time - both of them have to have them for 3 hours a day - ugh! horrible, but actually yesterday wasn’t too bad. I think they’re getting used to them. They can play their computer games while they have them on and I think this helps Although I’m not sure the whole 3 hours is good for M to have on a playstation, we’ll see about maybe dropping it. Alex at least isn’t that obsessed with her ds!

Alex spent some of the evening pouring through a book on ocean life and looking at the sizes of the fish/whales/dolphons compared to humans and trying to read the sizes (so work on cm and metres - yay!)

Finished the night with few chapters from a book from Sonlight - Dolphin Adventure, that I happened to find on the shelf and fitted nicely with our ‘theme’

So a good day and I wanted to record it!

Oh and the hot socks refers to James’ bad neck so I made him a rice thingy that you warm up in the microwave with a sock. Of course the kids then wanted one each to take to bed so have been wandering about with socks all bloody day!!