Going with the (slow) Flow

It's been a slow day today - for no reason that I can see particularly, except that we've just had a fairly busy weekend.  It doesn't really matter though - we just go with the flow - and seeing as we all felt fairly sluggish today, a slow day it was.

We started off with MathsWhizz.  This time it was Eldest's turn to have problems logging on.  For some reason it wasn't working on his little notebook laptop, so I had to log on through mine - it worked fine on mine, but that had slowed us down.  Middle was logged on to the main PC in the study but somehow managed to turn the computer off three times, in the midde of an exercise!.  So he came and logged on to mine to finish his afte Eldest had finished.  Youngest has lost the privilege of going in the study at the moment, due to the chaos created (and things broken) when he has been in there recently - so he had to wait his turn on my laptop as well.  Consequently, by the time they had all finished MathsWhizz, about 2 hours had passed, instead of the usual forty minutes that it takes them on average when doing it simultaneously.

Youngest and I had some fun with words while waiting for his brothers to finish - we got out our magnetic boards and letters (I got them from Amazon years ago for a teaching resource - but I bet they still do them)... I made the alphabet and we sang the song together; Youngest made up his own "alphabet" of random letters that he read out to me; we had a 'quiz' where I said a word and Youngest tried to spell it; finally he was inspired by something he spotted out of the window, and had a go at spelling that too (I helped with the tricky bits)...

Once they had all finished their Maths (and letter fun), we had a game of Alpha Animals.  Youngest and Middle play with us, but they use the simpler version of the game while Eldest and I play the full version - and Middle was thrilled to win.  They were even more happy that Mummy lost (due in part to some impressive bluffing on the part of Eldest who steered me towards a certain answer on the card... I thought he was helping me; it turned out he was playing me!)  Youngest also showed significant prowess in the con stakes... on being asked for an animal (or bird, fish etc) that began with the letter H, he announced "hamonite".  When given a quizzial look from Mummy and protestations from his brothers, he totally brazened it out, saying "Yes!  It fights things with its hands, and lives in the Savannah!"  It was so funny, we couldn't help but laugh - he loved it.  Every now and then afterwards someone would mutter 'hamonite', and go off into fits of the giggles again.

This afternoon the boys watched "My Genius Idea" (CBBC), a programme encouraging creativity and inventiveness, and then I asked Eldest and Middle if they'd like to do some more on their lapbooks.  Eldest finished another page, and then decided that was enough - he just wanted to flop about.  Middle had a go at a 'Volcano' acrostic, coming up with some lovely ideas (such as the line "Lava pukes on the ground") - but got stuck on the 'O's, and was getting discouraged, so he put it away for another day.  The younger boys wanted to get crafty next - more specifically, doing their own crafty thing, as opposed to Mummy's suggestions - so I got the craft box out (the big one with stuff in that they can help themselves to without my nagging them not to waste things... well, that's the plan anyway, since the lesson learned last year in Craftboxes and Cocktails), and they had fun just experimenting with the contents.  I love the fact that they are still small enough to be excited by glitter and shiny things.  Eldest seems to have grown out of that now - but he was feeling too flobberly to get up to much by this point in the day anyway.  I sat with the younger two and had a play as well - Middle very generously told me I should put mine in an "art museum" (gallery)! 

by Youngest...

by Middle...

by Mummy...

So it may have been a slow day - but it was slow and peaceful (mostly!) - and any day with glitter in can't be a bad day.  Over all, that's a nice way to flow.

Maths and Modelling

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I do love Mondays! 
As tradition dictates, we've had a lazy start to the morning with no expectation to leave the house... of course, if that was the case more than one day a week it would drive me slightly potty: I need to get out & enjoy the fresh air most days - but just one day a week of lazing indoors is kinda nice!
Today was a bit more work than I expected though, as I had to sort out issues with MathsWhizz.  Youngest now has his own account - he's only four (they say to start at age five), but he loved doing the test exercises on their site, so I thought I may as well sign him up and just see how far he gets at his own pace.  Well he loves it - not least because he gets to be like his big brothers.  Every morning he asks "can I do Maths today please?" You'd think it would be music to my ears, but I'm still getting over how weird it sounds!  Anyway, he loves it - so it didn't take us long to discover that is new account had been randonly deactivated (as had Middle's, though he wasn't as disappointed about it as his younger brother!)  So I've been phoning and emailing, and it's sorted again, to Youngest's relief!So other than MathsWhizz (eventually) Eldest and Middle have also been working on their lapbooks, and watching "Animals at Work" (recorded from CBBC), which they're really enjoying.
We wanted to do some arty stuff too, but I didn't have the energy for cleaning up afterwards, so painting was out - then I remembered something I'd pinned to my Pinterest board, from the Imagination Tree, inspired by Alberto Giacometti's sculptures.  We had a roll of kitchen foil handy, so had a quick look at Giacometti's work, and talked about how long and skinny they were - "like someone has been stretched to the size of a giant", said Youngest - and then we had a go.  We didn't have any modelling wire or wooden skewers to add stability, but it turned out fine, because we used plasticine to stick the models to the kitchen table, and then experimented with our figures until they stood up.  Some worked better than others, but it was a good 'hands-on' type lesson in proportions and balance etc.  So that was our day's highlights (we've also had housework to share and letters to write etc, but I'll spare you the details and leave you with our Giacometti-inspired artwork...

 

 

 Mummy's 'Handstand'

 

Eldest's 'Gorilla'

Middle's 'Ballet Frog'

 

Youngest's 'Cat'

 

 

It's all Encouraging (well, mostly!)

Eldest has gone off MathsWhizz at the moment, so he asked if he could do a workbook today instead.  No problem there - the boys have a drawer each with workbooks in (that I was beginning to think would never be used), so he found the Maths one from this set, and got to work.  It was really interesting to me how exercises that I know he has done on the computer with little problem became harder when presented in a different medium, in this case on paper.  I suppose this is why it's important that they have a variety of resources available to them, to help them to consolidate what they have learned - and I'm encouraged to note that left to themselves they naturally choose to use different methods of learning after an amount of time on another...  Of couse, there's also an element of referring back to his old school workbooks that he hated - maybe the association is still too strong!  Nonetheless he said even though the workbook this morning took him longer than MathsWhizz would have done, he still preferred it today, so that's good.

Also today Eldest completed his lapbook, hooray!  He really wanted to finish it by the end of this week so we can show it to relatives at the weekend.  I was definitely more involved this time.  Every chapter was chosen by Eldest and he chose what to write, what photos and mini flapbooks to use etc;  I just encouraged him to find extra interesting facts when he came to a page and lost inspiraton - and I helped him with the layout, such as showing him how to make all the chapter titles the same size & font etc... I think it does look more 'grown-up' than his previous, first ever lap-book, which is nice, but a bit sad for me personally too, as I loved the chaotic creativity of his first one... but he's really proud of this one, and quite rightly as he put a lot of effort into it!  Both styles are effective, so it's good that he can choose which he prefers, next time.

This is the front page...  all other pages included at the end of the post, for those of you who'd like to see.it all... (Grandma and Grampie, either don't look, or when we see you tomorrow you'll have to pretend you haven't seen it yet!)

Middle is full of cold today, bless him, though we've had no colds or illnesses in the house all winter, so I can't complain!  He was still keen to learn and do stuff though - and inspired by his big brother he also rejected the online MathsWhizz, had a look in his workbook drawer instead and found his wipe-clean workbook on Telling the Time.  Thanks to the learners clock we have on the wall next to the kitchen table, he is completely used to me casually asking "what's the time today?" and being able to work it out... so his workbook was no problem at all.

I absolutely LOVE the fact that just by giving him space to gain his own confidence, he is really starting to want to try things for himself.  When he left school he was really discouraged and refused to try anything as he had so little belief in himself... it's totally lovely (not to mention a relief) to see the change in him *Happy HE Mummy dance*
He did a little more on his lapbook today as well, but ran out of steam quite quickly, so I just encouraged him to finish the flaps he was working on so we could stick them in and not lose them - it took us about two hours of distraction and re-focus (writing one word at a time before he wandered off, or so it seemed!) and then it was definitely time to just rest!

Youngest was in a funny one today - he loved watching Middle do his Telling-the-Time workbook, and was able to join in with some of it - but then he just wanted to build things with lego (which is fine) and then generally interfere with everything his brothers were doing (not so fine), which was tricky as they both seemed to need a lot of my involvement today so I wasn't able to distract Youngest from harrassing whichever brother I wasn't helping at that point.  Happily, he eventually found the wooden train track set, so that occupied him in the end.

Oh, and also encouraging to us - simply because we are really hoping that our nestbox with camera will be used this spring - was this footage caught this morning (please excuse the sound track - I haven't worked out how to turn off the built-in mic on my laptop when recording the nestbox images)...

... it's lovely to see that having found the next box and given it the 'once-over' last month, the blue tits are still popping back as if to check it's still there and still vacant... oh we do hope they will nest in it in due time - what a lovely spring project that would be!

It's been such a positive and encouraging week - and I think in part this is because after the most recent wobble & self-examination earlier this year, I have become much more confident in our approach.  Having now given myself permission to adopt a partly adult-led approach, things are flowing so much more easily.  I had become so caught up in the 'autonomous v structure' debate, when it turned out that really wasn't our issue at all!  I'm so grateful to be part of a community that can help bounce ideas around and share helpful books & blog-posts.  Anyway, we're still very child-led too: yes, I do ask the boys to do a bit of English or Maths every day, four days out of five (whether online, in workbooks or otherwise), and I usually have a game, some baking or an art project up my sleeve in case the boys seem uninspired - but they have the power of veto in all of that if they can't face it - and the rest of the time is theirs: they lead the way when it comes to choosing projects that they want to do, or the subjects that they would like to do lapbooks on etc - and I make sure they have lots of time available for free-play, imaginative games, educational TV etc.  It just feels like the perfect balance for us for now - and when it stops being so we will tweak as necessary!

Anyway, now for the weekend, and time with Daddy after a very busy week, hooray!  So I'll leave you with the rest of Eldest's most fantabulous 'Desert Animals' lapbook...