Easter Holidays 2017

So you may have noticed that i haven’t been posting much at all this year- this is because I found that blogging was taking up a lot of time to keep up with- however I love that i have a place to keep any links or educational ideas that pop up and may be helpful for future adventures… Are we still on the everyday educating road?? YES!!!

We ARE!

We moved out of my parents home a couple of months ago and had to get settled in- and during this time I found that keeping u with our everyday education easier to document through Facebook… so for more regular updates on our everyday adventures- other parents/ families interested in what families like ours do day- to- day… you can find the Everyday Educate page by searching on Facebook!

WHAT HAVE WE BEEN UP TO???

Well… I’ve been doing a lot of observation with Mayhem, we are pretty cruisey and go with the flow a lot… when a learning opportunity arises -we usually take the time to jump into the moment and dive deeper into his current interests/ questions/ developments.

Progress: I am allowing his learning to happen naturally rather than forcing anything on him- when he decides he’d like to do work book activities- I sit down and help him as he needs & give him lots of praise and encouragement.

He is beginning to take greater interest in reading- asking what words say, trying to follow more when reading books and asking if we can learn to read.. so we are practising the sounds letters make more often and identifying the letters we see.

He also is showing more skill in writing letters too – currently H, I & O are favourites and he is able to identify the name of the letter as well as write them- when i asked how he knew these he replied “I just do”… discussing this with my husband we think possibly the DVDs he’s watched or more likely from his ‘Frozen’ leap frog game- have been helping this development.

Last night he announced that he couldn’t rhyme very well (not sure where this came from) so we talked a little about what rhyming sounds like and identified that the END of the words need to sound the same- after a few wrong tries he quickly picked up which words rhymed- and went off to bed yelling out pairs of rhyming words “Toes…Nose!” …it carrying on after breakfast this morning “Bed…Dead!” …I think it’s safe to say he’s pretty good at rhyming now! (Also calls for some Dr. Seuss reading this week!

PHOTOGRAPHY is also another thing Mayhem is really getting into- having the leapfrog has helped with this- and now he’s moved on to trying out our phones whenever he gets the chance- so I am going to be encouraging him more with some photo projects (I got the idea yesterday while we were in the park & he wanted to take photos- usually he will take a gazillion so I gave him the task of THREE photos and I instructed him on what to look for: 1 photo of an interesting stick, 1 of a flower and 1 of a leaf with interesting patterns OR 2 different colours… He loved this and it kept him occupied nicely… so i have jumped online in search of some project ideas and stumbled across this site with 11 photo projects for kids…

http://kidsactivitiesblog.com/61699/11-photography-projects-kids-can

…can’t wait to give these a go and post up Mayhems pictures!

 

So anyway- on the whole we are all well and the kids are still getting used to not living in the “Big House”with their grandparents- it makes our days with them lots of fun however as they now really enjoy the odd sleepover… MAGICAL MOMENTS we like to call them 🙂

We hope you are all enjoying your Easter holidays and staying safe!

6th Feb 2017

Now that their Grandad has successfully had his Quintuple bypass surgery and been discharged from hospital- to say things are getting back to normal for the kids isn’t quite on par… Because of Dads recovery we’ve chosen to push our house move forward and start planning to evacuate within a few weeks!

The changes that have occurred have definitely seen changes in Mayhem more than the other two- and of course it’s been difficult for the entire family, but with the support of family and friends we have been coping.

To try and help Mayhem and Mischief with their behaviour I found some of the Super Nanny reward charts and popped them on the wall along with some ideas of how we could achieve the results we wanted- such as listening (& what listening might ‘look’ like -give me 5), being kind- sharing, picking up our toys etc.
This went incredibly well on the first day & Mayhem was so close to reaching his reward, but unfortunately back tracked a wee bit… we then spent some time choosing rewards they might like and printing them off and sticking them beside the charts as motivation.

Needless to say we had hoped we would be closer to toilet training with Mischief- we are getting there slowly however (little steps). The move being thrown in will no doubt unsettle the kids a bit, and we’re hopeful that it will give us a chance to create some new routines and have a fresh start.

I have found some great home school events and programmes on that start this week so I am intending to take Mayhem along to meet and mingle with some other families -the programme with http://www.consciouskids.co.nz looks awesome!

I often find myself feeling conflicted when talking with people about our choice to keep Mayhem home. It’s been a constant battle since we expressed that we might go down this path- as I’m sure many home schooling/ unschooling/ natural learning parents come across and I think getting your head around other peoples ideals and expectations can feel hard at times. I have to pop into my facebook groups every now and then or read a good blog/ article to remind myself of why I have chosen this path… this post from one blog in particular did this for me tonight… https://yurtinthehollow.com/2016/09/23/raising-world-changers-second-generation-unschooling/
“Freedom” …’Yes! That is what I want for my children!!!’
I can recall so many times when all I wanted to do was stay at home, be with my family, read books I actually liked reading, paint whatever i wanted- rather than a boring display put together of which i had absolutely no interest… to not feel judged by my peers and then change to fit in… to feel safe and secure to be me. I want my children to continue to be themselves- loud, rambunctious, curious, playful, creative selves- whenever and however they feel they should.

I feel like this path will give them what deep down I truly believe matters most.

 

Jan 2017

Mayhem was gifted a few Star wars Math and alphabet workbooks for Christmas which has been so fantastic! Since the beginning of the year we’ve been sitting down every now and then when he’s felt like it and he goes all out doing the activities- I’ve been quite impressed.
To keep up to date with the kinds of everyday learning he’s encountered I am keeping a daily planner and jotting down any skills/ subjects that we have covered that day- more for myself so that I can go back and see any progress he is having in certain areas or where the learning may have occurred if ever i felt curious.

As of late we’ve encountered a bit of a shake up to the family- Grandad had a heart attack just days ago and is awaiting surgery- he is staying in hospital until he has his operation. We were feeling a bit curious as to what happens when someone has a heart attack and what might happen in a bypass surgery so we watched a couple of (kid friendly) videos. Then we printed off some pictures of broken hearts and band aids and created some nice pictures to take into grandad the following day.

We spent quite a bit of time at the hospital yesterday and watched a few ambulance come in and out of the station ready to rescue!

It’s also had me looking for other resources that might be useful at this time as we explore the body and how it works and stumbled across this website:

http://www.learningliftoff.com/category/games-activities/preschool/#.WIqDAVN96Uk

Surgery is booked for next week so moving into February is going to be a little different to how we had envisioned… updates will come as to how our first ‘trial year’is going.

space

Behaviours

Term 4: Days 144+… 190

Well what can I say… life got pretty busy this last ‘term’ with mummy starting a bit of a business from home, the Grandparents going on holiday for over a month, birthdays galore, halloween, family returning home, parties, Christmas almost here… and just LIFE in general!!!

What have we been up to these past few months that we’ve been off the radar?

Well- the usual mayhem, mischief and monkeying around…

Getting muddy in the garden, enjoying outings with family and friends, shopping trips, gypsy fairs, beach fun, library trips, bike riding – adventuring, dressing up, reading books, watching movies, watching episodes> my goodness how Mayhem got into episodes!!! Dinosaur playing, train engineering, block building, baking, eating- eating creations, eating out- trying new authentic foods- that was fun! Water play, playground fun, park adventures, art making – we made some fun decorations for Halloween using recycled materials…(cans that we hung up with ribbon attached to make ghosts… and toilet rolls with our handprints attached to make bats, and toilet rolls and old string we used to create giant spiders that we hung up outside our front door!)

…and of course mess making… Looking after our animals – which include our newest aditions… Our tropical fish and GIANT snail!!! … and just Making the most of the sunshine now that Summer is here!!!

 

Day 143…

Well today Mama & Grandad leave for 5 weeks overseas holiday/ working…

So we spent the morning catching up with Aunty S and the boys at Chipmunks- we burnt off loads of energy and had a blast! Climbing, sliding, twirling, running, jumping- we put balls on the machine that blew air and watched the balls hover in front of us, we hopped over the pretend crocodiles in the lake and we shot balls from the ball gun machines… so much excitement in one morning…

We then all slept in the car as we headed toward the airport..

We had lunch at the airport and checked out the games, we met up with Mama and Grandad and waved them off… before heading home – we saw airplanes taking off and landing- it was all really neat!

Home again we haad baths, made dinner, watched movies and read before bed time.

Day 142…

Oxi had another round of hydrotherapy this morning- He has AMAZINGLY started walking again- Just in the knick of time! (Talk of having to put him down -suddenly he sprung to life again and gave us reason to keep at the therapy and treatment!!! YAY!!!

So like a true royal- He was lovingly pampered ad looked after.

Then up to Nanny & Grandads we went to visit our cousins and play and hang out with the family… and of course we all lived up to our nicknames- when we found the talcum powder and tipped it ALL OVER the room!!! It was sooo much fun and we all looked like little ghosts when we’d finished.

Then it was time for little picnics and our favourite Paw Patrol programme

We played together, built with our blocks and chased each other around until we were all tuckered out and ready to go home.

Day 141…