New Skills

Stitch decided it was time to learn to use a pair of scissors. He's doing really well. He still needs helping to get his fingers in the right holes, but once I had his fingers placed he VERY quickly got the ideal of opening and closing his hand to use them - I showed him for about - oooh - 30 seconds!!

He has also decided he want to learn his colours, hence the strewn pens on the table. Each time he takes a lid of he says to me 'pink?', to which I am supposed to respond with the correct colour! :D I'll think he will pick it up quickly.

He enjoyed playing with this Colour Wonder set too (as did DD) - such a clever idea :D!! The only trouble was he didn't understand when the middle section refused to colour in and he just kept putting the paint there which essentially wastes it and tbh, I don't think it is generous enough to start with. He was most upset when I encouraged him to change picture (to one without any blank bits), but after a short sulk he did do so. Lesson learned - select the picture you ask the toddler to do CAREFULLY!

History was fun this week - consisting of making and playing a game about Roman architecture. They played in teams of two - the younger team won!! :D

DD made these 3D dino-puzzles that he has, but it was still a bit hard for him. He roped in Lilo, but even she found them hard. With some help from yours truely they did get a couple completed before the Stitch came along!

Today we talked about the passage of time on Mars and what it might be like to live there. The children were amused to consider that Bugs, Taz & Minnie could all have a driving license already if they lived there (leave you to work out how!). We talked about why living on Earth is so good and what we would all miss if we didn't and had to live in an ecosystem to survive. Bizarre thoughts! 

Bugs and DD have both had 'challenging' weeks. Bugs has been seriously argumentative with all and everyone, but mostly Taz and myself - that makes everything so much more stressful for me to begin with. DD has been loud, screechy and ratty all week. He is either shouting, yelling or screeching about something nearly 90% of the time. He has worn me down this week: my voice is completely shot. So much so that I have decided I have to take a rest from singing AT ALL until after Christmas - no choir, no band :( . I have lost 3-4 notes in my middle range - NOT GOOD! My throat is not sore though and I attribute the loss mainly to spending most of my days raising my voice above 7 children's banter and noise. I try to keep my 'classroom' quiet and calm, but end up yelling to do so!! BUT - DD is the main culprit. There is something about his pitch of voice that goes right through me and when exaggerated by sheer volume and wailing, well...it drives me nuts!! It is his voice that I have to contend with so much of the time but he is too young to  really understand the damage it is doing :(. I could do with going on a silent retreat and not talking for a week, but that is NOT about to happen! The struggle with DD though is that he is a one-to-one kid in a one-seven family! He was great today when I sat down and did some book work with him - page after page of it! He is bright enough, picks things up quickly, is interested and relatively keen to learn, but he does not wish to work independently AT ALL and when he is told he must he will always find something to whine and cry about. It's not easy. I cannot assign any more of the big kids time - they already spend at least one 'slot' a day with Stitch to keep him out of mischief and occasional slots with DD too, but I can't let him have a helper all day - it's just not possible and he must learn to work alone some of the time, but the process is painful - esp for our eardrums!!

Change subject... Minnie has been doing some science experiments - this was always a favourite of mine :D -

I've been doing some experimenting too - with 'actions' in my new Photoshop Elements 7 that came in the post on Monday (YIPEE!) -

Other than that it's all been pretty normal round here :D

The girls are practising for Christmas the play (at church) and singing the same songs over and over, but that's normal this time of year and I actually quite like it :D

They are doing one at Little Drama Group too, but they haven't brought the scripts home yet for that one!

That'll do for now.

Plans for next term - sort out some fun lapbooks for the small ones to do and try to finish off Lilo's ABC Lapbook with her (nope we still haven't)! I think it will be good review for her now and help firm up some of the sounds she still forgets too much of the time.