I decided that over the Christmas break I wanted to get a rough schedule in place so that we started covering a bit of the basics. Reading, writing and math. As it happened what with family being over, spending time generally being with the boys and Kenny time ran away with me (quell surprise) and it didn't get looked at.
I set aside Saturday morning to have a look through it and after 3 hours I had a rough schedule in place. Not a long period of time, just 15 minutes for each. I'm not sure how it's going to go and to be fair I tried to implement it after having 3 hours sleep which was crazy-I certainly didn't have the enthusiasm required and it rubbed off onto Nathan. I also had a few activities in place for Ethan but mainly a couple of Montessori activities.
I would class this morning as an epic fail and I have completely doubted having a schedule at all. After all one of the reasons we're homeschooling is to make the boys learning fun and not have them sitting doing worksheets-exactly what I had Nathan doing this morning although to be fair, I only wanted him to do a couple of pages but he seemed to enjoy it and did 6.
I'm also at a loss on how to introduce ideas to them to spark an interest so that we can go down an 'interest lead' route? It'll come to me but any ideas/suggestions are greatly received!
Thanks :-) x
Tuesday 7 January 2014
Monday 6 January 2014
Potty training.
So a week ago today, we took the nappy off of Ethan (nearly2.5) and popped his lovely pants on. He was so excited bless him. I think he was probably ready a couple of months ago but what with the tiredness and nausea I had, he didn't stand a chance as I had very little patience.
I have followed Gina Fords book with both the boys and can highly recommend her way of thinking with the whole just go straight to pants rather than pull ups etc.
Kenny thought I was a little bit bonkers but I felt in my gut that he was ready. And he was. I did doubt my decision after he had gotten through 6 pairs of pants in 45 minutes but then it clicked and now a week on he's pretty much mastered it!
He's so pleased with himself too! As he should be :-)
I have followed Gina Fords book with both the boys and can highly recommend her way of thinking with the whole just go straight to pants rather than pull ups etc.
Kenny thought I was a little bit bonkers but I felt in my gut that he was ready. And he was. I did doubt my decision after he had gotten through 6 pairs of pants in 45 minutes but then it clicked and now a week on he's pretty much mastered it!
He's so pleased with himself too! As he should be :-)
Wednesday 1 January 2014
Happy New Year!
Why hello there lovely people!
We had a wonderful christmas and a very quiet New Years eve. In fact I was asleep by 9:30 last night and I woke up feeling amazing. In years gone by we would of still been partying until the morning and then sleeping our way through New Years day. I don't miss those times one bit. Yes we had fun but everything's different now, we're different. And I'm so much happier for it :-)
I always struggle at christmas. Since we've had the boys there seems to be a competitiveness between mine and Kenny's mums. I'm not sure what it is but they can't just be normal and enjoy being together. It makes family gatherings hard work and tedious. Don't get me wrong they don't not get on, there's just always an atmosphere. It's never easy. Kenny is far more laid back than I am but it really riles me which is why we don't have that many family things anymore. Not that I miss them, it's always me that has to host them anyway. Hey ho nothing will change so there's no point dwelling on it.
Looking forward into 2014, what are my hopes and plans? That's easy. I'm going to be more positive and rid myself of any negative outside influences. My mood is easily influenced so I'm going to make sure that it's only in a positive way! We'll start to be a bit more focused with our time with the boys and our homeschooling will kick up a notch this year and become more purposeful.
Goals for Nathan this year are for him to learn to read and write. This is just the academic part. The most important thing is that he has fun and enjoys learning and stays hungry for it. This will take a lot of work on my part as if I am tired or feeling under the weather I don't have the patience I need to have but I'm a work in progress on that! We're going to follow his lead on other aspects of learning for example we are going to kick off the new year with learning about reptiles as he is very interested in this at the moment. There will be structured reading, writing and maths daily but only short bursts and just to get a small routine in place.
With Ethan I'm going to do a little bit of Letter of the week and some Montessori activities, number recognition but nothing major.
I have just taken delivery of the amazing Spielgaben set which I will post about soon and will include some pictures of it being used. We will also be using more Montessori materials intentionally.
The playroom is going to have a big overhaul and makeover so I will be sure to take pictures of the before and after. This will be a work in progress though. I'm also going to include more arts and crafts, messy play, sensory tubs and we will cook at least once a week.
My personal goals are to stop procrastinating and get all of the above in place, I will also be blogging every day. Yep every single day. Even if it's not much. The idea of this blog was to keep a log of what we had been doing together and this hasn't happened at all, but it will do me good to look back over the year and see what we have achieved, places we have visited and hopefully happy pictures of our family. I'll also be using my camera more. Oh and having another baby of course! I've also joined the Instagram (I'm @lisarye) band wagon and will be crocheting a square a day so that at the end of the year I'll have a beautiful new blanket. I will be doing more crochet generally through the year as it's something I love doing. I need more colour in my life too and need to have a major declutter which will be happening over the coming weeks.
Sounds like I have an awful lot to be getting on with!
Happy New Year to you all and thanks for reading my rambles!
Lisa xx
We had a wonderful christmas and a very quiet New Years eve. In fact I was asleep by 9:30 last night and I woke up feeling amazing. In years gone by we would of still been partying until the morning and then sleeping our way through New Years day. I don't miss those times one bit. Yes we had fun but everything's different now, we're different. And I'm so much happier for it :-)
I always struggle at christmas. Since we've had the boys there seems to be a competitiveness between mine and Kenny's mums. I'm not sure what it is but they can't just be normal and enjoy being together. It makes family gatherings hard work and tedious. Don't get me wrong they don't not get on, there's just always an atmosphere. It's never easy. Kenny is far more laid back than I am but it really riles me which is why we don't have that many family things anymore. Not that I miss them, it's always me that has to host them anyway. Hey ho nothing will change so there's no point dwelling on it.
Looking forward into 2014, what are my hopes and plans? That's easy. I'm going to be more positive and rid myself of any negative outside influences. My mood is easily influenced so I'm going to make sure that it's only in a positive way! We'll start to be a bit more focused with our time with the boys and our homeschooling will kick up a notch this year and become more purposeful.
Goals for Nathan this year are for him to learn to read and write. This is just the academic part. The most important thing is that he has fun and enjoys learning and stays hungry for it. This will take a lot of work on my part as if I am tired or feeling under the weather I don't have the patience I need to have but I'm a work in progress on that! We're going to follow his lead on other aspects of learning for example we are going to kick off the new year with learning about reptiles as he is very interested in this at the moment. There will be structured reading, writing and maths daily but only short bursts and just to get a small routine in place.
With Ethan I'm going to do a little bit of Letter of the week and some Montessori activities, number recognition but nothing major.
I have just taken delivery of the amazing Spielgaben set which I will post about soon and will include some pictures of it being used. We will also be using more Montessori materials intentionally.
The playroom is going to have a big overhaul and makeover so I will be sure to take pictures of the before and after. This will be a work in progress though. I'm also going to include more arts and crafts, messy play, sensory tubs and we will cook at least once a week.
My personal goals are to stop procrastinating and get all of the above in place, I will also be blogging every day. Yep every single day. Even if it's not much. The idea of this blog was to keep a log of what we had been doing together and this hasn't happened at all, but it will do me good to look back over the year and see what we have achieved, places we have visited and hopefully happy pictures of our family. I'll also be using my camera more. Oh and having another baby of course! I've also joined the Instagram (I'm @lisarye) band wagon and will be crocheting a square a day so that at the end of the year I'll have a beautiful new blanket. I will be doing more crochet generally through the year as it's something I love doing. I need more colour in my life too and need to have a major declutter which will be happening over the coming weeks.
Sounds like I have an awful lot to be getting on with!
Happy New Year to you all and thanks for reading my rambles!
Lisa xx
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