Busy weekend

What a busy weekend this has been! On Friday, we headed to Barnes and Nobles to pick up a gift for my friend's daughter who turned five. I had warned the kids that they could touch things at the store as long as they didn't tear or break anything and to my amazement they were incredibly well behaved. They even put away the stuffed toys lying around when I said it was time to clean up and go. Of course I could not go to a book store and not get something for the children and myself. So I bought them a board book of nursery rhymes, another book of the story of the three pigs and bought myself a few things as well. I love that being around them makes me rediscover my own love of stories. Good stories. The kind in which you can get lost - stories about heroes and good things happening, stories about people doing the right thing and overcoming obstacles. Stories that are, sadly, not a part of current literature which seems obsessed with despondency and despair.

On Saturday, it was birthday party and sleepover (for Bombie) day. She did incredibly well and came home the next day quite tuckered out from all the fun only little girls can think of! I wasn't convinced that she wouldn't wake up scared in the middle of the night and I would have to go get her but turns out that fear was unwarranted. Besides, I completely trusted the family she was with so on some level I knew she would be fine. But I barely slept. It's all right. I think given the choice between over protection and under, I'll chose the former. I guess I'm old fashioned that way. ;)

The kids made wonderful wrapping paper with celery and carrots for the gift books. I loved how we could incorporate what they were already doing into their friend's birthday!

Today has been kind of an unschooling day. The kids need some down time to play freely and drink the lees of the fun weekend. Bombie is still runningaround with the bag of party favors she received - bracelets, plastic rings and swirly straws and when I sent them outside to play with a Frisbee, they made a birthday cake out of it. Clearly,they're not over it yet. And I'm in no hurry for them to move on. Time moves way too fast already.

Grocery Shopping and other gifts

It wasn't that long ago that I used to go grocery shopping with one kid and then two. Something about going with three scared me though and so I would wait until my husband got home from work to head out by myself. Sure, it gave me a chance to dawdle a little and actually *gasp* read labels. However, it did mean that I would have to sacrifice an evening at home. Anyone who knows me knows that my evenings are incredibly important to me and since we already spend three out of five weekday evenings at the gym another one spent grocery shopping busy isn't worth it to me. So I started taking the kids again with me. And I figured, isn't this the essence of homeschooling anyway? What's the huge advantage of looking at a picture of an artichoke over actually seeing an artichoke and learning what it's called? Who decided textbooks were the essence of learning anyway? So off we went. They learned names of vegetables, they learned to count, but more than anything else, they learned obedience and also appropriate behavior. Yeah, that dreaded s word - socialization.

The funny thing is I feel like God Himself has literally reached down to my level and reminded me again that I must homeschool. Everything had literally fallen into my lap. A case in point:when we came home, the kids asked to play with plastic Easter eggs. I let them. And then soon a fight broke out. They couldn't share! So I suggested that we divide the eggs and write their names on them to identify them. (We're writing initials currently.) I brought out a marker and to my surprise, Bombie got very excited about writing her initial on her eggs. And then Hucksley wanted to write his. So here we were LEARNING TO WRITE! And this morning, I found Hucksley sitting and writing perfect Hs all on every piece of paper he could find! Who needs a workbook? When you're a preschooler, the world's your school!

Rhyme and speech

Bombie warmed my heart early this morning by reaching - unasked - for the alphabet flash cards we had made a while ago and then identifying upper and lower case letters correctly. Hucksley joined in with her and I could really see the wheels in his head turn as he asked me the letters he couldn't quite identify.
After a quick trip to the gym and lunch, Bombie and I worked on her pronunciation while the boys napped. She seems to have trouble with her b and p but only when the sound appears in the middle of a word, not at the beginning or the end. Then we read some rhymes and threw in some more books to finish off the day. Now we're all soaking up the sun. Seriously, sixty plus degrees in the winter? Yay!

More counting and a craft

I don't know what it is about coins but the kids love them. So I figured, why not teach them to sort coins? Bombie did a much better job with quarters, nickels and pennies than I did when I was new in the U.S! (And hey, this was a great use of those baby food jars!)

Later the kids wanted to cut paper. Bombie cut some felt paper and started to say it looked like a tree. So I thought why not see this idea all the way through to the end? I made them cut little pieces out of other felt paper (they chose the color theme) and then put some glue down on the paper. They had a great time then spreading the tiny pieces all over.  Serendipitously, we also had some empty frames!
Seriously, if every day homeschooling is like this, I'm so sold!

Ah, Monday!

After the tired, sleepy weekend, (yes, we're onto week three of being sick - the latest one to fall victim to this unnamed bug is me!) Monday was reading day. Sandra Boynton is quickly becoming a favorite of Bombie's with the cartoon animals. We might just need to head out to the library again: we're going through our books pretty fast!

Library visit

The baby is on the mend! Woohoo! To celebrate our family's increasing recovery after two weeks of sickness, I took them to our local public library. They love going there. Why? Well, for one, it's the only place I will let them play games on the computer. For another, we always come back with a nice stack of books we read over the next week or two. Books for them and books for me! (Mostly about them and raising them right, but that's okay.)

Planes!

Is been two weeks now that someone in the home has been sick. Carver has been the latest one in phase two of the sickness currently with a constant runny nose and elevated temperature. Needless to say we're spending a lot of time indoors.
Today we read about the Wright brothers and then made paper planes.
In addition the current battle with the older kids is to get them to put their toys away when they're done playing with them. It's a tough one but they're learning. Slowly. After all, it's taken me thirty four years! ;)