Coughing like crazy!

So yesterday Wiyot started complaining that his mouth was tickling...

I had no idea what that was supposed to mean! However, today (and throughout last night) all he has done is cough :(

Poor little fella sounds awful. Really wheezy and short of breath... He should be going to gymnastics on Friday, somehow I can't see it happening!

As I was getting him ready for bed, I mentioned that I would book an appointment at the doctors for him in the morning. I wasn't expecting him to suddenly burst into tears! Evidence that he's still traumatised from our trip to the A&E on our holiday to Florida.

For those of you that don't know the story, last year we went on holiday to Disney World, and Wiyot came back with a rather unfortunate souvenir. On our third day there he tripped over in the villa we were renting and cut his head open on the coffee table. Luckily, there was no fractures, concussion, infections, swelling, or even bruising! However, he did have a gaping hole in his head that looked rather like a third eye, allowing you to see through to his skull... Nice! I'll spare you all the grisly photo's in case you're eating while you're reading!

An ambulance ride, seven stitches and a week of antibiotics later... Wiyot has a lovely bright pink scar on his forehead, reminiscent of Harry Potter. I knew I should have bought him the accessories from Universal!

Well anyway, as you can imagine, it was not exactly a pleasant experience for the little fella! I guess I'll be finding out tomorrow just how big the doctor phobia is :/

Not much home ed-ing today, although I have been using the time to do some research. I've been trying to find some Montessori books that are available at our library. I've also been constructing word lists to help Wiyot with his reading. At the moment focusing on the vowel sounds of ay, ee, igh, ow and the two oo's (eg look and zoo). He know's them on our speed sound cards, but as of yet, hasn't got any books to put the sounds into practice.

As I was looking for word lists, I found a rhyming word exercise and realised I already have cards made up to do this exercise. It was basically a number of different pictures and you have to match up the ones that rhyme. As soon as Wiyot is feeling up to it I think I'll get him to give it a go.

For anyone that might be interested (as well as me if I lose my other list :/), here are the words that I chose to include in my lists:

Words with 'ay'

• Day
• Play
• Stay
• May
• Say
• Way
• Lay
• Bay
• Hay
• Pay
• Away
• Clay
• Gray
• Tray
• Spray
• Sway
• Crayon
• Holiday

Words with 'ee'

• Bee
• See
• Been
• Deep
• Feed
• Heel
• Keep
• Meet
• Seed
• Tree
• Week
• Cheek
• Green
• Sheep
• Queen
• Sleep
• Sweet
• Teeth
• Sixteen
• Street
• Between

Words with 'igh'

• High
• Sigh
• Fight
• Light
• Might
• Night
• Right
• Sight
• Thigh

Words with 'ow'

• Low
• Tow
• Mow
• Row
• Own
• Slow
• Blow
• Snow
• Yellow
• Bow
• Bowl
• Elbow
• Show
• Grow
• Crow

Words with 'oo' (short u)

• Good
• Hood
• Wood
• Book
• Look
• Cook
• Hook
• Woof
• Foot
• Wool

Words with 'oo' (long u)

• Poo
• Zoo
• Boo
• Igloo
• Shoo
• Moo
• Food
• Mood
• Roof
• Hoof
• Boom
• Bloom
• Broom
• Room
• Zoom
• Cool
• Pool
• Tool
• Balloon
• Moon
• Spoon
• Hoop
• Loop
• Boot

Well that's all for now folks!

Cruising

No we're not on vacation... although the new Disney cruise ship does look very appealing!! Rather, we are cruising through our days in a fairly autonomous fashion at the moment...

Funny, in the past I thought I'd follow more of a structured approach to learning. The temperament that Wiyot has though, definitely suits the more autonomous approach. 

As with anybody really, if it is something that he is interested in, he will sit and do it for hours! Otherwise he becomes very passive and defeatist. 

Currently he is interested in a number of subjects; tectonic plates, volcanoes, stars and planets, dinosaurs, human anatomy and physiology, among other things! He is also really enjoying helping me in the kitchen with a variety of tasks; peeling garlic and onions, doing the washing up, measuring ingredients, making breakfast and baking :9

Recently we joined an online maths tutor called Maths Whizz. He really enjoys going on there, quite often laughing while playing the maths games, such a great way to learn! Even better, at the moment I don't even have to ask him to play on it. All I do is turn on the computer and he comes over and requests to play on it :D

He's still doing well with his reading, often pointing out words when we're reading to him. Recently he has started reading to himself and requesting to read to us. Just this morning he got into bed with me and pointed out the rhyming words in one of his reading books!

Another thing we did today was making our own bread :9 He read the recipe, measured out the ingredients and discussed various things with me... what the yeast smelt like (Shoshone's poo apparently!), what the dough felt like, why the dough was rising, etc... 

The rest of the day he spent playing with his Thomas the Tank Engine Duplo sets, running around dressed as superhero's with Shoshone, playing hide and seek, and taking apart and fixing our Guess Who board game... 

Bizarre! :D

Feeling quite content at the moment though, was feeling fairly stressed about the whole "officialness" of it all since January... I got a book from the library on Friday called "Twenty chickens for a saddle" based on a home educating family in Botswana in the 80's and 90's. I'm only half way though at the moment, but so far am enjoying it. I think its really helping me to relax and have faith that what we are doing will work and will be for the best. I've also been watching various talks given by Ken Robinson, one called "Changing Paradigms" is particularly entertaining... very thought provoking! 

Well I think I've rambled enough for tonight!

Over and out!

I'm Back!!

So I've been back for a couple of weeks really, having a nose around... and have done a few posts on my other blog.

Today I really wanted to post here though.

Over the past months the home ed had kind of slipped for  a while... Not being of school age yet it was not so much of a big thing and we were mainly doing things if he showed an interest. For example after meeting with a local home ed group, I realised that he is intensely curious about the human body. Since that time we have spent many hours looking through my university anatomy and physiology text books... I am fairly confident he is more knowledgable about the inner workings of the body, than many much older children. I personally didn't do anything on these subjects until at least 11, for him that would be such a waist! Being able to learn about what interests him is one of the reasons I loved the idea of educating him at home.

Anyway... with January and "compulsory school age" around the corner, I figured it was about time I started back up with the daily "lessons." Not in a regular school day sense. More like, after we've finished our breakfast we spend however long doing a few bits n bobs.

The amazing thing is, while he's just been enjoying himself over the last few months, the phonic sounds he learned earlier this year have settled in and he can now easily blend the sounds together to read phonic words! Wow, that was a long sentence... hope it made sense! He could sound blend before, but now he doesn't even need to think about it!

To cut a long story short, it seems that things I'd prepared and bought ready for when we "officially" began, may now be redundant as he has already passed that level!

I am so proud of him I can't even put it into words!

The best thing about it all is that he didn't know he could do it either! He is so proud of himself and is really enjoying being able to read the words. Consequently I can do much more with him before he gets tired or bored and actually wants to do it!

I really could not ask for more :D

It's a sign!

Shoshone's got two more signs under her belt :-)

The other day she signed bath time for the first time, which is basically rubbing your hands on your torso as if washing. And today she signed bird, supposed to be your first finger tapping your thumb in front of your face like a beak, but she did it more like "duck," which is all of your fingers instead of just the one. This one was a surprise as she just did it, commenting on the storks at the beginning of Dumbo... I know Disney again! Plus I can't remember the last time I showed her that sign!

She's getting better and better at cruising round the furniture, crosses the gap between the sofa's and goes round corners... still very slowly, but it's progress :-) And she's learning how to get down from standing, phew! Yesterday she climbed all the way to the top of the stairs, all by herself, with me behind her of course! She did it really quick though, which was pretty surprising and worrying, at that speed she could be at the top of the stairs before I even notice she's gone. MUST GET THE STAIR GATE DOWN!!!

Can't remember if I mentioned this before, and I apologise for the subject, but it's big progress... Wiyot has recently been going to the toilet all by himself. He has been doing most of it by himself for a while, but always wanted someone to go with him... make sure he didn't fall in or something?! Now he just take's himself off to the toilet, even turning the light on and off and getting tissue. He doesn't wipe by himself yet, I'd rather supervise that for now :-S On a more pleasant note, he also dresses himself too. My baby boy is growing up fast :_)

Update...

So thought I'd share a little bit of Shoshone's progress. She's been doing baby sign language for a while now, her first sign was milk (imagine a milking a cow action), followed by drink ("fancy a cuppa" action) and also sleep/bedtime (classic prayer like hands at the side of your face). The bedtime one was particularly impressive as I hadn't signed it to her for quite some time and then she suprised me with it by using it to tell me that her teddy bear was sleeping!!! Could not belive it, she did it a few times before I really belived she was actually signing about her toy... Wiyot used to do a few signs, but never like that!

Anyway, not long after she learned the sign for more (one hand taps the back of the other) as well as eat (kind of pretending you're holding a sandwich and putting it to your mouth) but usually she just does the more sign. The latest one she has done is our own sign for "all gone." All the others are based on British Sign Language, however when Wiyot was a baby he developed his own sign for all gone and it's just stuck. Our "all gone" is like turning your palms upwards, the way you show someone you have nothing in your hands... Here's a pic of Shoshone demonstrating... think it was the first day she signed it :-)

All the junk behind her is some of our home education stash, lol

Last week she started pulling herself up on the furniture, and is now crusing along, very slowly. Also caught her climbing the bottom step (time to get the second stair gate out!!) and trying to get onto the sofa, funny girl! Only problem is she loves to pull herself up, but hasn't quite got the hang of getting down :-S She just stands there fussing and shouting till I go to help her out... I've tried showing her how to do it by moving her legs or letting her drop slowly to a sitting possition, Wiyot has repeatedly demonstrated for her, but she still hasn't quite got it. Oh well, soon I hope!!

Wiyot's now read two books, both Ruth Miskin one's but we've kind of tailed off for the time being... Really bad I know, cos he'll probably forget some of what he's learned...

My problem is I struggle to find the time to do things! I don't know how other mom's do it, doing all the home ed stuff, as well as the general home owner stuff, plus anything else that they are interested in (ie I'm a crafter and am attempting to sort out the garden...). At the moment all my time seems to be taken up with just the basics. Food, cleaning, changing nappies, tidying, washing and when it's not raining while Shone naps we go into the garden...

Blah, blah, blah... getting off subject!!

Any way thought I'd share some of Wiyot's arty creations. Here's some paintings we did a few weeks ago.

The bottom two are mine, the rest Wiyots. His bumble bee in the top right was really cute, I cut the face off in this pic, I'll have to take another one.. It was going really well, nice and pretty, but he gets all carried away with the story behind the pictures he's drawing and they tend to end up looking like scribbles... With the bumble bee he decided it was raining, you can see the big fat rain drops coming down, lol.

Guess what this one is, I was so please when he told me what it was I had a little tear of joy :_)

Mickey Mouse!!! Wicked!! The pink one is to do with another pic he was doing... His Nanna getting an X-ray (she broke her arm a few months ago and Wiyot still talks about it!), the pink dude is the Doctor.

If you got the last one, bet you wont get this one... (the yellow one)

It's Walle (from the Disney Pixar movie). Bellow Walle is Wiyot, Zurg (from Toy Story) and Daddy... I know there's a bit of a theme here... bet you couldn't tell we're Disney fans!! Walle was the first toy Wiyot bonded with and we took him to see the movie at the cinema for his birthday :-) He took the toy everywhere with him, until his head fell off... I sewed it back on, but I guess it lost it's shine after that. I can still see his sad face when he came to show me headless Walle :_(

Now for something a little different...

This one blew me away, I was cleaning the bathroom at the time and had to run to get the camera to capture this creation...

Mommy, "ooOOoo that's a nice castle!"
Wiyot, "No, it's the Great Sphinx!"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG, and I can totaly see it too, lol, brilliant :-D

So you might think we've moved on from Disney, but you'd be wrong... He learnt about the great sphinx from Little Einsteins on Playhouse Disney! lol.

Hmmm, that's all for now, just wanted to share these with you :-)

Not been doing much lately...

I have a tendency to take on so many projects that I can't possibly keep up with them all...

For the last few years I've had the desire to grow my own veg in the back garden. So as well as all my other ongoing projects I've finally made a start on this one. Think I might start another blog about my adventure... Anyway, think it will provide some good projects for Wiyot and Shoshone. Plus it will, hopefully give them more of an idea where food actually comes from.

As for the HE, Wiyot read his first book last week and did so with no trouble at all. He's also been busy painting and drawing and constructing various things with Stickle Bricks and Duplo. He's also suddenly become very independent and wants to do everything by himself. Getting dressed, brushing his teeth, helping me with the laundry, washing up the dinner plates, etc. don't know whether it's all come from a couple of the Montessori techniques that I did with him? He's been learning Cantonese with his Dad too :-)

Gotta go now, when I get chance I'll blog about the books I bought for him, as well as the Montessori one I got from the library.

Math buttons

Yesterday I decided to do a little math exercise I found here. We had 10 buttons, I would take x amount, Wiyot counted how many were left on the table and then had to work out how many I had in my hand. Wiyot absolutely loved it, we played for ages. He especially liked it when I either took zero buttons leaving all 10 on the table, or took all 10 leaving nothing.

After playing for a while I decided to change it a little bit by adding our number cards that we'd made some time ago. I also made some new one's as we didn't have a zero card and needed an extra 10, I also made a + and = card. Then we did the same game but Wiyot also had to find the right numbers and make them up into a sum.
Wiyot enjoyed it so much I had to call an end to the game, lol.

He then wanted to play it again in the afternoon. I decided to
change the game to a Montessori exercise I found in a library book. In this one he had to count the buttons into cups. You're supposed to do it with 11 cups labeled 0-10, but I only had 6 so we had to do it in two stages... Think he enjoyed this too as he liked playing with the buttons. As a bonus we got to discuss "too many" and "too few" when he got it a little wrong... Think he was having trouble counting the larger numbers in his hand. I also asked him things like which cup had more buttons, etc.

I made some Montessori word cards as well which he had a quick go at. He looks at the picture eg a cat and then has to work out the letters that make up the word by saying it out loud. He did most of them really well, think he struggled on "web" thought the b was a p... Will add pictures of them another day.

I ordered some books for him the other day, they arrived while we were playing with the buttons. Am looking forward to using them next week :-)