Happy New-ish Year!

Well I never did manage to post the photos of Isaac’s birthday celebration did I? The camera went doo-lally and I’m still not quite sure if we ever managed to get the photos off it. I didn’t manage any posts after that as I was ill for most of December, but well for both birthdays and Christmas and really have just been lazy since ;o)

Birthdays December '08

Despite the laziness on the blog front I’ve been super busy round here. I am helping make costumes for Emily’s dance show next month so that is taking up any spare time I have. Speaking of Dancing, Emily got her Grade 1 exam results back and she got a distinction! She had set her heart on it since getting one in Primary and I kept trying to play the whole thing down just in case she was disappointed, thank goodness she wasn’t! I was so pleased for her, she worked really hard.

Isaac’s big news is that he has started one full day at Montessori. Each Wednesday he has lunch there and in the afternoon they do cultural activities (this term it is about magnets) and French(which he adores). He has also started bringing home pre-readers which he was very pleased about! He feels very much a “big boy” now!

Getting Back On Track

February was not the best for various reasons, so I’m pleased we are well into March and looking forward to Spring.

The garden is coming to life with all its spring bulbs and frog spawn in the pond and my thoughts are turning toward the vegetable garden and how behind i am already!

Education wise we seem to have found a comfortable rhythm to our days once again after the hiccup of February when things were all over the place. It made me realise that even though we don’t follow a strict timetable we do need a guideline to follow or things tend to fall apart. It is also important for me to make sure i have books and websites at my fingertips and things printed ready for the week ahead. I had gotten out of the habit of doing this and it was wasting a lot of time. So to aid me I’m in the process of creating a few google pages to keep our “curriculum” all in one place. So if any of you grandparents/uncles/aunts want to keep track of what we are up to, take a peek. Or anyone else for that matter, hopefully this may be of use to other HEers. I love seeing what other families are up to and have found lots of useful books that way. One of my favourites at the moment is La Paz Home Learning.

Isaac has really got into his Montessori activities now so i’ll leave you with a few pics.

Insets For Design

Helping his sister with a amphibian cards

Our version of Cylinder Blocks

Pick your Posture

Today started off with an impromptu yoga session brought about by these cards that i made last night….

Emily has been joining in with my yoga sessions over the past week and really enjoying them. I remembered these photos Meg posted about a while back and set to work!

1. emily_cobra, 2. lion pose, 3. triangle, 4. triangle_duet

I’ve been thinking for a while now that it was about time we tackled grammar with Emily so I’ve been busy putting together the Montessori farm kit. I had a free kit from here but ended up purchasing one from Montessori For Everyone too. I plan to start this next week with her.

Isaac has been a little monkey today, really mischievous, mainly i think because he’s tired. He had a busy day at nursery yesterday and no nap on the way home. I had thought that he would be a breeze to put to bed but i think by the time we got there he was over-tired and it was gone 8 when he finally succumbed!

We began Story of the World again today, after a month and a half break! Emily was pleased to find she was able to tie in the Kingfisher books she got from Auntie Sarah for her birthday. We’re back on to Egyptians again (Middle Kingdom)

Montessori

Isaac had his second taster session at Montessori today. I went with him last Monday and stayed the full 1.5hrs. He loved it so much that he cried when i took him home so i wasn’t too worried about this morning! Sure enough he had a great time :o)

It is really wonderful to go and observe the children in a Montessori school, to watch them so absorbed in their activities. One of my favourite parts is snack time. They reserve a place at the snack table then go and wash hands. They then carefully carry their cup, saucer and plate to their place and take their plate and fill with their chosen snacks. They pour their own drinks and when they have finished they do their own washing up. Sometimes the children are as young as 2.5 years but they do everything so very carefully. It was clearly one of Isaac’s highlights, as i knew it would be ;o)

So he starts in January for 3 morning sessions. He will almost be a year younger than Emily was when she started. I think Emily is almost as excited as he is!

Moving on….

It’s all change at Blogger then. Quite impressed i managed to remember my password after all this time!

Couldn’t face posting for the rest of last year for many reasons but mainly due to upheaval of the build which i am happy to say is now finished – well mostly. We’ve a lot of decorating to do and the builder has to come back to do some extras we added but it’s definitely looking better.

We’ve started back with “school” stuff properly this week (after a false start last week) and so far so good. I’m sure E needs quite a bit of structure as without it she becomes quite a handful and almost like a completly different child!

We are covering Europe at the moment and E wants to” learn about water and everything to do with it” – nice broad topic title ;o) We aren’t very good at following topics. We start off well then things slow down and eventually fizzle out but i’m following her interest so i guess it’s fine really.

I is doing well, his speach finally coming along nicely which makes life easier. I think he is ready for some of the practical life activities so we may try that soon. I have the registration forms ready to fill out for the Montessori nursery that E attended, can’t believe it is time to start thinking about it already. E is so excited about him going – partly, i shouldn’t wonder, because it means she gets me all to herself for a few hours a week and partly because she can’t wait to go back and see everyone.