Seriously Cool School!!

All is going well with our new system so far :) Boo tells me it is like having non-book day every day and even J1 is almost finished by Lunch time. He took one look in his box today and said "looks like an exciting day...a couple of not so good things, but good in all." so that is praise indeed of the system to hear positive stuff coming from him! J2 is doing as he always does and finishing before everyone else, but I can't doubt the quantity of work he does because he has to do what I set out for him! Boo is loving it and often carries on finding things to do even after she has 'clocked out' and Beefie is doing well with it too, keeping going and getting finished every day. She is finding the typing a little difficult I think (and is very slow), but that just gets easier with practice doesn't it :D Belle is managing to stay the course of her 10 activities (which is more than she has EVER done before) and even Bleb is (C) is pretty much getting the hang of working with us until his box is empty :D I am definitely less stressed with them only doing 10-a-day and so are they. It IS a lot of effort to get organised with the planning at the weekend for the full week and then the replenishing of the boxes each night is tiring, but I think once I get more in the swing of it all it will definitely be hugely worth it!

SO today, despite my trays for Natty only still being on order, I did manage to set up a little bit of TOT-SCHOOL and here's what he did :D

Of course the others could not resist joining in, but he was not complaining - he likes to work with the others and it made him feel that what he was doing 'must' be fun if the others wanted to too ;) The spaghetti posting didn't last long, he decided it was much more fun to break it into tiny pieces and throw it around! The bead threading he kept going back to over and over all day - I lost count the number of times I gathered those beads together again! The misfit monsters he enjoyed, but in reality that was something for Bleb and he didn't really get it. The magnetic 'pictures' again he revisited all day. So all in all a successful day. I have additional fun stuff lined up for tomorrow ;) He may not have had a great deal more attention from me today but he was certainly a lot more positively stimulated than he has been of late.

And lastly - for my nice regular readers who know my older three children, they have each set up a blog. If you want to comment you have to be invited, so if you want to do so, just give me a shout and I will invite you - they would love visitors of course, but I want to monitor it closely.

Their blog addresses are;

Boo @ www.babsyboosblog.blogspot.com

J1 @ http://crazyjakesplace.spaces.live.com

J2 @ www.machillinplace.blogspot.com

Another activity I tried for the first time today was to try and alleviate some of the stress of writing that Beefie exhibits. I wanted her to write some 'news' but knew she would struggle with it, so I decided to do something new :D I took her somewhere quiet (yes, that can be done in this house) and got her to record onto my phone what she wanted to say - warning her first that she was going have to write it all down, so probably best to try not to say too much! She did it - once she got past the giggles ;) - and then went on to produce a good (for her standard) piece of writing with no fuss whatsoever :D - Big Hit! Will do that again! Here's what she looked like whilst writing up - how sweet does she look ;) -

So That Didn't Take Long Then...

Only 2 1/2 hours to mow the grass then!! That with a flymo and without even doing the edges nicely - glad I started early before the day got hot! It's growing so fast atm that might be an every weekend task - I just hope it doesn't fall to me every time - I'm exhausted - lol!!

Just TOO Hard…

This evening we had our first guests over for a meal, but it was a farewell meal for our close friends H&G. That’s H that is always there when I need her, who my children adore as their adopted granny and would gladly be with anytime, H whose house has been like our second home these last seven years, H whose door is always open, H who has been my ‘titus women’ and whose wisdom and love I shall sorely miss. G whose gentleness of spirit reaching down and reads you like a book! G whose hospitality (alongside H) knows no bounds, G who nothing is too much trouble for, G who loves you with his eyes! And their daughter E - funny, quiet, thoughtful, arty, loving - and my babysitter! This family leave a hole in our lives and I am sad that they are leaving :( When they drove away tonight I went inside and sobbed. The children saw, but I couldn’t hold back the tears, not even for them - and I can’t now either. Me and goodbyes have never been good with each other! I know we will see them from time to time as they have a good many strong ties in this town, but somehow it just wont be the same here without them. We have inherited their huge dining table and it will be an honour, a challenge to me and a legacy to them, to use it to feed as many guests around it as they have over the years. It will remind me of them daily and of it I am glad. I didn’t want them to leave - I still don’t but they have and I must get used to the idea :( ! I know they have work to do where they are going, and I pray God will show them what that is as soon as, and as they move on with God this will be their next level of ministry - whatever they do , I know God will be blessed by them and they will be blessed by Him also.

Goodbye H&G (&E) - see you soon!

Lazy day...!

Decided that it was too hot today and I was just too tired to fill boxes last night, so in the end the kids filled their own this morning with whatever 10-12 activities they chose! I know that is seriously not the way it is supposed to be done, but Thursday is our non-book day and at least this way they have had some structure to their day - and they have been able to feel like they have achieved something! The little ones (E, C & N) have muddled in with what the others have been doing and it's worked fairly well considering I have cossetted myself away in the study (which tbh is so close to the school room that it can be considered not that detatched really) catching up on my 365 a bit more! It's been just about every 3 minutes that one or other of them has come to me with a "Muuuuummm" but that's not been so bad without the pressure of having to be with any one of them at any point. Now two bigs have gone out to practice a puppet show for the Nantwich Family Fun Day and C is 'running' (crazy boy - too hot for that) on the Wii. Nearly time for tidy up - might wait till it's just a little cooler before I tackle todays big job of mopping floors ;)

Boo did manage to make this today and when I asked her how the seats rise, she said "it goes so fast and the pressure pushes them up." - pretty good conclusion then :D Not-bad for un-schooling ;)

And then the day was topped off with this (making use of borrowed equipment!);

Our New Home

Thought some of you might like a tour of our new home :D - enjoy! It's not quite how I want it yet, but nearly enough for photos ;)

PLEASE PRAY...!

I have a friend who's little boy of 5 is in a critical condition. They live in the countryside and about a week ago the children were out playing. They went near a field they had been told not to go near and the little lad had a farm gate fall on him. The little girl ran back to get my friend (Mum), who fortunately had another friend with her at the time who is a Dr, but when they got to the lad he was not breathing and had no heartbeat. They did resuscitate him, but he is now on life support and are not sure if he is going to live. The Dr's are saying that if he does live he will have severe brain damage and the information (not 1st hand) I received tonight said that an MRI scan has showed little or no brain activity.

We are praying for a miracle here - please join me. I have not used names here as I have not actually spoken to the little lad's mum myself (this is news through another closer friend) to get her OK. For now just pray for 'River' and pray for his life!!

Thankyou - and spread the word to pray - the more that do the better. Let's nag God to let this little man live and live in abundance. That see those Dr's agast by our miracle :D

Wishing I was Wonder-Women

As I sit here tonight, with stuff still to do and feeling so hot I can hardly breath, I am wondering just how some women do it all! It's not been a bad day, but one of those when towards evening I really begin to resent Paul's calling because he has 'committments' that call on his time and energies. School went well again today and the kids definitely like the new system - as do I, but boy is it intense! Can you imagine trying to ensure that all 7 children do each of 12 activities and that each one of them gets to do some stuff with you too - the younger ones more. That's 84 activities a day going on around me!! Couple that with all the ordinary house-hold stuff like making lunch, chivvying kids to do their chores, doing my own chores (Weds = hanging washing out and getting in, endlessly loading dishwasher, hoovering through this rather big house, cleaning down kitchen at the end of day), a million trips to the toilet with a drinking-lots-just-trained toddler, finding the bits of things I forgot to put in the boxes and answering the cry of "Muuuuuum!" to the point of distraction! Even with only 4 help tickets each that's still at least 28 pleas for assistance above and beyond that which I have already assigned them!

And then to boot P is out from 6 on a Weds, so cook tea and clean up after it, put kids to bed after chivvying to shower and tidy rooms (again) before they hit the sack. All this to the whimpers of "It's too hot, I'm too tired, can I do it in the morning?..." (all of which are echoing loudly in my own thoughts as I tell them "no!" - and myself too, knowing that tomorrow is likely to be little different and then there will only be double the workload - never good!).

Now, after blogging, I have to go and stand in a room infested with tiny flies (someone left the window open & light on last night) and think up 84 activities for tomorrow (it's almost midnight now)! I only stood it for a little while last night then felt I was so crawling with flies I gave up, only leaving me even less time this morning to shower and get myself and two small boys dressed etc... (which I eventually managed to do late morning).

I'm thinking that I need to drop to 10 activities a day because, although they are not complaining and the activities are varied enough, some are struggling to complete them all and today they would have been working longer than I really want them to - for my own sanity! I need to think more imaginatively for tiny too - he is so Mummy hungry bless him, but unfortunately so is C. Today I was looking at a book with N, but it was like none of the others could see this; it seemed a grand time to themto ask me a million questions about nothing in particular and it was the moment when E lost all common sense about her own work and when C chose to throw a tantrum about doing a puzzle I knew he could do relatively easily with some thought put into it. Poor N just kept tapping my arm and calling "Muuuum" quite loudly to draw my attention back to him and his book (which he was really trying to enjoy with me). I got quite annoyed with the others tbh, as N really does not get enough time with me and even when I try to make it happen it gets kyboshed and he ends up being a bit sad :( He had a box full of activities to do today, but I only managed to do about 5 of them with him - it was just too hard to concentrate the time on him :( I'm hoping that as E & C get more used to the system they will afford me more time to work with him and he will get used to being part of 'school time' - he is only just 2 afterall.

So - multi-Mums out there - how do you do it all? How do you homeschool several ages, keep a clean and tidy home - not spotless, just respectable - and have happy, thriving-on-your-love kids - and not feel a complete wreck by the end of the day?

Good moments of the day were when E & I realised that she knows all but 3 of the letter sounds of the alphabet now :D & C did a 24 piece puzzle completely unassisted (once he got over the grumbles)! :D