For The Reading Record

Stitch will be 7 at the end of the month. He's just begun reading "Cool!" ~ his first Michael Morpurgo book. This little snippet is just for the record.

When the Internet goes down...

Today, well actually for the last week or so, our internet connection has been atrocious! Mostly we have soldiered on, but today it just went down ~ completely dead! As about 50% of the kids schooling involves computers for one thing or another, and a large portion of that requires an internet connection (strange how different things are for us now than when I first started out with Jake), this basically meant I had to give the children an impromptu games day!
They did what work they could, that didn't need internet, and then they spent a large part of the rest of the day play Monopoly city together ~ starting at 12.15 and finishing at almost 3pm!! 

Most stayed the course, but the little boys ended up going off to play after a while - I think they went and played lego upstairs. Minnie won ~ although she looks cheesed off here, she was thrashing them all!

I wasn't feeling like playing the game, so I had some luxury 'free' time to get my latest little crochet project finished. I only needed to do the breast overlay, the tail and sew everything together. I loved making this ~ especially working with the thread for the eyes ~ so fine, so rewarding!

A certain little man was more than a little chuffed with him (he'd asked me to make him a doggy with a tail) ~ and named him "Puppy" (of course!).

So today was quite a productive day, despite the lack of internet, and then just about the time we were packing up for the day, it came back on again, but VERY slowly! It seems to have picked up again now (thank goodness) ~ here's hoping it lasts!

So while I have a decent connection, I'll share some snap shots from over the last couple of weeks. There seems to have been a LOT of reading going on, which makes me very happy :D

Minnie has read Pride & Prejudice (devoured it to be fair!), dipped into Emma and given up and moved onto Sense & Sensibility ~ I think she's having a Jane Austin phase ;-)

TP recently finished reading Black Beauty - I'm proud of her for that - and is now reading 'Go Well, Stay well' ~ a book I read as a child about her age and absolutely loved . It has some deep and challenging content and she is gripped by it! I don't think I've ever seen her so engrossed in a book ~ even when she read 'Shadow the Sheepdog' (that Lilo is currently enjoying), which was probably her favourite book - until now!

Lilo, as I said, is reading Shadow the Sheepdog. This is a real step up for her, but I felt it was time to challenge her a little. She is still not great with texts that contain a lot of conversation, but as this story does not have quite so much as other Enid book, but it's also the KIND of story she would enjoy, I thought it would be a nice introduction to next-level reading. She is definitely enjoying it  and I hope it will give her the confidence and inspiration to continue in her reading journey. It's amazing for me to think though, that this time two years ago she was still almost completely illiterate. It's been a slow but steady journey for her, but she is certainly doing well on it now :D

DD is ripping his way through Five on Treasure Island and enjoying as much as I remember doing at his age. I think this was my favourite Famous Five book of all ~ and I read lots! They may not be perfectly 'politically correct', they may not even be brilliantly written, but the stories are perfect for inspiring the adventurous spirit in us! I just knew DD would be ripe for these and I was right ~ he can't wait to turn over the next page :D

Stitch is reading an abridged version of Robin Hood. It's actually quite a stretch for him, and he tends to rush himself a little (as he does in all things!), but he's doing pretty well. I feel perhaps he does better when he reads to himself than when he reads aloud to me, but that's rather hard to gauge!

Chip is enjoying some interactive Bible reading on their Hudl, amongst all the other many stories he loves to read and have read to him! He also has loved playing with these really cheap pegs that I bought for the chids to make 'dens' with (to hold up all the blankets).

There's been some experimenting... DD instisted on trying to get this Knex windmill to turn. I did try to explain that the design was not really going to work due to flat sails and general instability, but he had to try :D

And we have continued on making our Art Journal. I thought this weeks (which was a colour wheel) would be too simple for most of the children, but surprisingly they were all happy to do it and enjoyed it :D Nothing like going back to basics for a little reinforcement! This week will be on shading ~ I'm expecting that to be a bit more stretching for all of them!
   The week before last I was particularly pleased with Stitches work this week ~ love his cars! His pencil control and patience for these little projects has come on in leaps and bounds this year. I am so grateful for a few years of experience that has taught me not to panic, or push a child beyond points they are not yet ready to go. I may not always get it right, but I do more often than I ever did before. Stitch enjoys a little bit of writing and drawing, and is even beginning to enjoy colouring. His dexterity for these fine motor things is still a little challenged, but it's coming, slowly but surely and at his own pace. 

Finally Blogging...

It's taken an age for me to have five 'spare' minutes to put a blog post together. Once the old PC died life went a little nuts. While it was dead I did THREE photo-shoots (all unpaid), which resulted in such a 'back log' of work it has taken two solid weeks of catch up. I think I am finally there (pretty much). There are still a lot of things I need to spend time doing, but half term is coming soon... However, I do have the promise of 3 more PAID photo-shoots before Christmas so I need to keep on top of things now. Just need to pray they actually happen, because on the basis of them doing so we went out and bought I new PC. Needs must!

Anyway, some 'Home-Ed' updates...

Jake (Bugs) has now been in college for almost half a term. He loves it in many ways, but in other ways finds it frustrating/annoying and most definitely he is SHOCKED by the amount of work he has to do!! The enjoyment outweighs the rest atm, but he doesn't like having to write everything down and, because he already has a fair amount of 'ability' with a camera & with processing he doesn't feel he has learnt anything very new yet ~ apart from dark room skills, which is entirely new! He's not sure he likes all the analysis and 'how to's, but I think he realises that things will get more challenging as time goes on (at least we hope so). The biggest stretch for him is not in the actual work itself, but in managing his time and keeping on top of all he has to do. The work all has to be presented 'artistically', and him being such a perfectionist means this can take a VERY long time!! All the same, he'll be fine I think, when he gets better into the swing of it all :D. Next week they are off on a residential week to Wasdale YHA, shooting landscapes I think, so that should be a lot of fun for him.

Taz just continues on at home with most of the same work he was doing last year atm. I haven't done anything about contacting the college for him yet. REALLY MUST DO THAT ASAP!!!

All the others are settling well into a new 'school' year and working well. Even Stitch is managing to apply himself a little better this year and mostly gets his required work done each day. He is bright as a button and I have no worries about him ~ I just wish there were more hours in a day to make it all a bit more tailored to his needs.

Chip, well he is rising 3 and not one to be left out of ANYTHING! He needs an almost constant 'playmate', be that human or techno! He has mastered the computer mouse and now likes to commender a laptop for as much of the 'school day' as he can! When he's not at the computer he wants to have someone play a game with him, or to join in with whatever work they are doing! This works a large part of the time, but sometimes it's a challenge. However, he has an amazing ability to concentrate and is a whiz with a colouring pen, so that helps!

Lilo is doing really well with her reading and writing. All About Spelling has absolutely proved to be the right program for her (I somehow knew it would be) and she is coming on in leaps and bounds now. DD's spelling is still more natural to him, so he is slowly pulling away, but keeping him working alongside her motivates her to work hard at keeping up and thankfully is not holding him back, so for now that continues to work well. We started Level 4 this term and I hope to complete it and Level 5 this year. If we get to Level 6 that will be a bonus, but I don't think we will. The real issue I have now is that that Stitch has decided he would quite like to join in these lessons, but of course has missed 2 1/2 levels of work, so can't really just 'jump in'. His spelling is amazingly good though, for a 6 year old, so I don't think that taking him back to Level 1 is the right thing either. I think I'll just have to try and think of a way to catch him up quick, so he can take part. ATM he does Reading Express, or Explode the Code Online while we are doing AAS.

In other news, TP has decided that she REALLY likes taking pictures and is learning to use Lightroom. She's not ambitious with it, but just enjoying it, which is lovely. Her heart is still set on an animal career of some kind. The other day she talked about the RSPCA ...

The highlight of most weeks seems to now be 'art afternoon' on a Wednesday. The children now really look forward to this and to a large extent it is proving to be quite successful. Even Taz is enjoying it!! We've studied Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso (used an online program called 'Picassohead'), Romero Britto  & done some Word Art (sometimes the work has taken more than one session).

I have a couple of things I'd like to get time to look into at some point. One is seeing if organising a 'Forest School' group to run from my back garden might be an option. I wonder if there might be some H'Ed families locally who would like to take part. The Moss, where we live, is an very interesting place in terms of flora and fauna, and could provide a great base. We have a big back garden and an adjacent field which we are permitted to use (although I may need to check with the owner for this purpose) and can provide shelter on terrible-weather days, and hot cups of tea for grown-ups :D. It's a thought. I have a contact number. Watch this space...

I have also been contacted by someone interested in bettering 'music' provision to H'Ed families in the North West. I'm not sure where this might go, but hopefully somewhere...

As for me, I seem to be constantly in a whirlwind of never ending 'stuff to do'. I feel I wear a sign over my head, saying 'in house computer technician' much of the time and I often I knew just a touch more than I do. I know enough to wear that sign, but not enough to make things happen in a snap, so everything seems to take forever ~ from networking issues across the PC and laptops, to internet connection issues that drive me WILD!! Paul hasn't a clue, so it all falls to me. I enjoy it UP TO A POINT and then it's just a time drain and a stress. Currently I have on-hold three 'tech' jobs; build Paul a PC for down in his church office, build Jake a PC to use for college work & convert an OLD HP510 laptop (which is dead slow, but still works) to a Chromebook or Andriod laptop (either would be fine as it's just to get something working for Chip to use in the daytime when the others need the other laptops for schooly stuff). I tried to do the HP510 last night, but without success, so now that's going to be a more frustrating job than I had hoped :(. Doing the two computer builds MIGHT be easy, or not... It depends on how the two towers that I have redundant upstairs play along! But first I have to do a whole load of file backing-up and user data cloning, so as not to loose too much in the process, so it's a whole lot more complicated than it might actually otherwise be! Besides that I try to keep on top of home-ed, now with three secondary age children who need stretching and three primary age children who stretch me! I am trying to swim twice a week, for a couple of hours each time (to loose weight), and have just committed to swim 2 MILES in Windermere next summer, in the Great North Swim! I still need to decide a cause to do it for :D. And I am continually trying to push myself as a photographer and get my business to be some kind of success. That's not proving to be easy either, as most people actually don't want to pay very much for photography services, and I don't want to charge less than I consider I am worth! I really need to try and find a market outside of my immediate social sphere, but that is a challenge without being able to drive.

OK ~ that'll do for now I think, and if you got this far, WELL DONE!!

Birthday Come ~ and Go!

Can you believe May sees two birthdays in our house and I haven't blogged either one? ~ slap wrists!

Bugs turned 14...


Those of you with sharp eyes will notice I can't count!!!  ~ check the bottom of the blog...

 'Strawberry & Chocolate Oreo Cheesecake'!! (home-made I might add, and super scrummy!!)

A couple of weeks later (last weekend) he had his party ~ a houseful of teenagers over for a BBQ/Wii evening. It was great fun :-) I've decided I really like teenagers, or at least I really like all the ones I know! 

 (that's Bug's GF on the Guitar Hero btw)

Then we did a few more weeks school ~ a day of which I blogged here;
There's been some sewing (Minnie's been doing this x-stitch forever!), earing and necklace making (Minnie is wearing hers in the picture) & some shrinky-dink making ~ everyone really enjoyed that. We watched them curl, flip & shrink on the sandwich pan and talked a little about polymers (although I must confess not a lot, as I'm not very knowledgeable myself about such things - anyone want to offer me a science lesson on this?!)

The younger three also had a 'Wild Things' week :~ read the book a couple of times and made masks, told the story back - which DD is getting really good at, wrote about our own imaginary 'wild thing', drew monsters, made monster puppets with empty toilet rolls and topped off the week by watching the film ~ which is good, but a little serious I thought, compared to the book.

The boys had a trip to Manchester Velodrome with scouts and very much enjoyed that ~ came back asking to go again!

And then Stitch turned 4 on Friday ~ where did those four years go??

10 points to the person who spots the theme in most of the birthday pictures ;-)

This time last year we spent the week with him like this ~ with Pneumonia!

Aside from birthdays and fun stuff there's been all the 'normals' around here too. DD & Lilo are both doing really well on Explode the Code Online. Lilo has zipping through the lower levels already, as I had hoped she would. DD is also progressing steadily and is surprised to discover 'I can read' :-) He really can too! There are a couple of letters he consistently forgets the sound of still - 'd' & 'w' being the main ones, but essentially he is sounding out and beginning to read short sentences. It's all seemed very effortless with him and I believe it will be with Stitch too, when he decides to give it a shot. Atm, he's pretty much refusing to do anything schooly unless it's on a computer, or he can work with me ~ fair enough I guess, but I'm feeling really stretched & tired right now and can't always give him what he needs/wants from me :-(. I'm hoping September will be a little easier with Baby able to sit and play more. Just now I am feeling a bit burnt out and creativity is almost non-existent in regards to school. I am just so grateful for all the online resources that serve me up ideas so readily and take so little adapting to make them work for all three of the youngest. In that respect, it makes it simpler that Lilo has been such a slow-to-learn reader because her 'literacy' work is not that far behind the boys! That said, she is gaining speed at quite a pace now and the other morning, presented me  with a book which she has been apparently reading in her spare time & has now finished..!  

This week the oldest four are off on 'Energi' camp again ~ it comes around quickly. Paul is taking the week off and we are planning to spend some time doing 'fun-stuff' with the littlest four. A trip on a 'real train' is planned to either Liverpool or the beach, depending on the weather. I got a free 2 month family railcard (online from the Daily Mail ), so that makes it affordable and a treat for the littlies, who don't remember the days when we went everywhere by train as a family!

So that's me caught up for now. I'm missing not being Off The Path this weekend though, it just wasn't possible in the end :-(

Observation answers; ~ 1. Bugs had an extra candle on his cake, 2. All pictures involve chocolate cake!