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.

"My First Lapbook"

Just a quick post today, but I had to share...

Super proud Mummy here: Youngest has completed his first ever lapbook, as started in Wednesday's post, Farty Arty.  He only took two days to do it, which was a deliberate ploy on my part as he can be impatient (he has only two settings: super-fast and focused, or asleep!) so I felt it was important for his first experience of lapbooking to not take him too long.  I was especially proud as he's not really done any "proper" writing before (I tried him on a 'learning to write' workbook a while ago, but he wasn't interested)  I'm not interested in pressuring him to write asap, but thought I'd see if he was up for it for the sake of having a lap-book that he had done most of for himself... so I did dotted lines for him to 'write' over to form his letters.  His lines are wobbly, as is to be expected really, but he sat there, little tongue stuck out in concentration, and did the whole jolly lot!  Did he form all the letters correctly?  Nope - but again, I felt it was more important that his first experience of writing was an encouraging one, rather than me insiting that he do it all "properly".  He was so chuffed with himself - he can't wait to show Daddy and the rest of the family... and for Mummy to put it in her blog to show everyone else (Daddy, don't look at the photos!)

That's it for today - I hope all of you lovely Mummies out there get properly spoiled this Sunday (I personally am thinking a lie-in would be nice - but even more than that, to not do any cooking or cleaning all day, AND not have any mess to sort out on Monday.... you're still reading, right 'Daddy'? ;)  Happy weekend, everyone!

Farty Arty

We've all been missing doing some art, and today we seized the opportunity.  Middle and Youngest couldn't wait, so first of all they grabbed the glue & glitter and had fun making a huge sparkly mess!  This led to much fun later, as Middle has started a tradition (apologies for this, but he is a boy!)  One day he decided that as Mummy is so joyful I must fart glitter!  I was so happy to be seen as joyful that I passed over the less refined (and physically impossible) aspect of the statement.  Anyway, since then, whenever he (or his brothers) see a pile of glitter in our house... well, you can guess the inevitable conclusion that is drawn!  After today's arty activities the glitter was positively heaped up, all over the kitchen, and trailed through the house... cue ecstatic laughter!  sigh.

Our art continued with some oil pastels and watercolour paints.  Previously the boys had mostly just used poster paints, so it was nice to experiment with something a bit different.  Eldest as always had a very clear idea of what he wanted to do - and he made one of my favourite ever pieces of art by him...

 Middle experimented for a while and came up with a couple of signs for his "Best Club In The World"...

 Youngest just had fun experimenting with colours, and producing his version of "modern art"...

I had a go at something that I had seen something similar to while browsing on the web the other day. Unfortunately I can't remember where I saw it, so apologies for the lack of link.  It's not how I wanted it to look,  but I've learned what to do for next time...

The rest of today was spent largely on Reading Eggspress - and in helping Youngest who has decided that he wants to do an 'Ocean Creatures' lapbook like his brothers (inspired at least partly by the glowsticks that they chose to reward themselves with for completing their lapbooks).  He is not one to procrastinate, so I spent much of the morning trying to help him find a level of activity that wasn't beyond him - and something that he could complete in a couple of days, so that he doesn't get too discouraged.  In the end we went for a simple folder that we stuck 26 flaps into (one for each letter of the alphabet) - in each flap he chose an ocean creature that began with the corresponding letter sound (the older boys and I helped with the more obscure ones like 'I for Icefish'), then I found clipart of said creatures to print on to paper, and he cut them out and stuck them into each flap.  Tomorrow we are going to write each letter onto the fronts of the flaps - and then he'll be done!  It looks great already, and he's really chuffed to have made a lapbook like his brothers!

Yesterday was much the same too - Mathswhizz, lapbooking, watching Eldest's Horrible Histories DVD over lunch at Youngest's request (hmmm, not stomach-churning at all.....) The enormous cardboard fort that still resides in the front room (blocking the view of my lovely, new, & organised shelving unit, mumble mumble) didn't get much of a look in because the weather outside was so lovely!  We were so happy to see the sun out - it feels like spring has been a long time coming this year!  We all spent as long in the garden as we could.  We didn't get to craft club again as Youngest is fighting off yet another bug, bless him, but fortunately he was well enough to get out in the garden and bounce for ages on the trampoline with his brothers - so although he can't move too far away from a toilet, his energy levels don't seem badly affected. 

Today was sadly not so warm again, (not that that stopped Youngest stripping off and streaking around the garden briefly), and we have been stuck in the house a lot more than I like lately - but no matter: we had a lovely bit of creativity together, and spring is definitely on the way!  The evenings are getting lighter, the noticeboards on facebook are starting to fill up with park visits and woodland rambles... I feel like our season of hibernation is coming to an end - hooray!