well maybe....

You're a girl power mommy! You love to be girly,
but you're no pushover. Your kids are learning
that gender differences don't have to mean
gender inequality. You've taken back pink, and
you don't care who knows it!


What kind of a freaky mother are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Ellie's Birthday and Other Pics.

"Everybody's singing to me!!"


Yummy Chocolate cake!!


All cleaned up and opening pressies - "This is a good book!"


"Me looking cute"


Jacob's self-portrait


Joel's self portrait


Angels - top left going clockwise; mine, Phoebe's, Jacob's, Abbie's, Joel's.

Another Week Goes By!

I really must get back in the swing of this, although to be honest I haven't had much chance this week to be on the computer. Paul was preaching on Sunday and is again on Thursday (at college), plus he's doing a 'scouts' talk on Thursday too, so he has been busy on here most nights this week. Oh, to have the luxury of two computers!!

Anyway, what have we been up to..? Well, nothing exceptional really I don't think.

MATHS:
Joel has been working hard on addition with numbers up to 20 and started on subtraction today. He seems to have got a fairly good grasp of the idea, although I don't think he would quite manage so well without the pictures and being able to circle '10', but as he is not required to be able to just yet that isn't a problem :) He seemed to get the subtraction OK today too.
Jacob has been doing 'money' which he apparently loves and definitely 'gets', so that's cool, I'll be able to send him shopping for me soon ;) !

HISTORY :
Started looking at ancient civilizations today - REALLY ancient - like UR!! Interesting - as always :)

ENGLISH :
At LAST I am beginning to see my eldest son able to formulate ideas and put them together in some semblance of a sensible order to create writing that is at least a little bit interesting to read! :) Just Write is working really well for him.
Joel today (in Write about Me) had to draw a picture of his favourite part in a film and write about it . He drew a great picture of Medussa hanging onto a pipe at the end of 'The Rescuers' and then wrote. "Medussa got stuck on a pipe and the alligaters tride to get her." (spellings his) I thought this was excellent for a boy only 1 term into 'Yr 1' (just turned 6). His imagination and visual memory are SO much more vivid than Jacob's and it really shows because his creative writing now is almost reaching a level with Jacob's. He simply has more grasp of vocabulary and language usage and yet I cannot think that he has had any more exposure than Jake. It's not that Jacob is 'slow', he just doesn't seem retain what he has previously learned very well and almost has to re-learn things over and over! I'm not particularly worried any more - I just see it as difference in personality more than anything else and I don't think English is ever going to be Jacob's strong point, but we can't all be fantastic at everything we turn our hand to can we? You watch him prove me Oh so wrong now, and get and a 1st Class degree in English some day!!!

SCIENCE :
hmm - well that has taken a bit of a back seat, must get back on track with that one! But Jacob and I did finish off the first section on 'Classification' the other day (i.e. what it means to 'classify' things/beings), next we will look more specifically at how ANIMALS are classified and the main classification groups.

GEOGRAPHY: haven't done it yet this week - probably one for tomorrow.

ART :
Made some 'angels' for the Christmas tree today with lots of glitter glue, paint and red glitter. The girls have this great Advent calendar with an activity to do most days. Today's happened to fit with Joel's bible reading about 'hosts of angels', so we made angels. The kids loved it - I hated it - I just can't bear the mess that that kind of art brings with it, and with carpets everywhere it's not easy to clean up, but I showed brave, happy face and praised the children for their beautiful efforts :) There's still red glitter in the carpet mind!!

SOCIAL SKILLS :
Went to lunch on Friday at a friends - she has 5 children too, three of whom she is currently schooling. They all played fantastically together :) Plus all their usual clubs and activities that they do (which cover P.E. too). They are not lacking in this department for certain!!

R.E..:
Well that's kind of dropped out of my curriculum this term. There just doesn't seem to be the time to take it as a separate topic and to be honest we are covering so much RE in other subjects (particularly History and Geography, as well as Bible study every morning) that it seems almost superfluous. It is a shame though, because I was looking forward to having a good delve into Judaism with the boys. I guess there's plenty more time this year yet though (and in years to come) and I think at some point it will simply 'slip' into place anyhow.

OTHER NEWS :
Well my sickness is all but gone and my headaches - well I haven't had one for over a week now :) But I have learned in recent days that I really cannot travel long distances in cars! I went to a meal in The Wirral at a friend's house, with 11 other home-schooling Mum's on Monday night. We had a fantastic evening - great food, lovely conversation and nice putting faces to names I have known for a while and never met the people, as well as making new contacts. The Wirral is about an hour's drive away from me and going there I felt just a little queasy, but returning home on a full stomach was another matter! I literally dived into the bathroom as soon as my friends dropped me at my door (at 1.30am) and .... (I'll leave the rest to your imagination!) This completely wiped me out for a whole 24 hours. My poor children must think I am permanantly sick at the moment!! My fabulous friend a few doors down took all four of my 'noisy' ones on Tuesday morning, Ellie slept and I crawled back into bed until Helen returned the children - all fed - at 1pm. I then plonked myself on the sofa with pillows and blankets and allowed the children to overdose on TV and Playstation time! Then sent them to their rooms for a 'quiet hour' while a dozed again on the sofa (with one ear on Ellie who was playing in the room). When they emerged - more telly!! Well actually I did try to encourage them to find a game to play together. The boys got out Top-trumps, but ended up throwing them at each other! Joel then took himself back to his bed and slept til tea-time!! Jacob was then bored and consequently could think of nothing better to do than watch more TV (The girls were still resting at this point). I was too ill to persist with the 'go play something' tac, so more TV it was!!

Paul is doing fantastically well so far this year with his course - upped his grades significantly on last year's average. So all this time on the computer is paying off for him :)

Abbie had a podiatry appointment on Monday because she is quite pigeon toed - I think. The podiatrist said that she has one leg slightly longer than the other (mm's, but it makes a difference) and yes, her right foot does turn in. So we are awaiting shoe inserts to help 'correct' the problems. We'll see if they help...

Ellie celebrated her first birthday on Saturday!! We had friends and family over for tea and she had a fabulous time with the chocolate cake I made her!! :)

Pics to follow shortly!!

Back in the Land of the Living!

I have about 10 minutes to blog, so I'll see how much I can post in that time!! I am just about emerging back into the land of the living - at last :) some days I still have crushing migrains (like yesterday when I stayed in my darkened bedroom and gave out instructions for the boys to do this and that bit of schoolwork), but the sickness is lifting and when I don't have a headache I can function almost normally.

Today was a pretty good day. We began with Bible study (sadly neglected of late), then maths - both boys are progressing nicely :) Joel has just completed Part One of SingaporeMaths 1A. Then we stopped for lunch and spent all afternoon doing Geography in various shapes and forms. Jacob actually said to me that Geography was more like History sometimes - which with 'Galloping the Globe' it is, because we look at famous people related to each country, and literature, etc... We are currently studying The U.K. (more specifically England at the moment). Today we read a children's version of 'A Midsummer Nights Dream' (Shakespeare), A story of George & The Dragon, by Geraldine McCaughrean, which was quite enthralling!, looked a little bit at Florence Nightingale (who she was and what she achieved), read about C.T. Studd - Missionary to China, India & Africa and then looked at major rivers and landmarks in England and plotted them on a map of England. The boys then filled in their 'passports' to Britain with bits of information they had learned today and on other days. Previously we have looked at transport-networks, major industries, traditional foods (like the 'Traditional English Breakfast' & 'Friday Fish & Chips'), population numbers, and other famous Authors (like Charles Dickens). Next we move on to look more specifically at London and then Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland (and maybe S.Ireland too, but that's not part of the UK apparently!!). That covers the rest of the month (once a week) before we move into a new country in Europe. The U.K. is taking ages to study purely because is consists of four countries, each with their own individual cultures and characteristics, but it is great fun and the boys are hopefully learning things they didn't know before about their homeland ;)

Of late swimming lessons have been my saving grace, because the boys now have their lessons an hour apart, which means we are at the pool for more than 2 hours!! This has meant that I have had an allotted time each week when I HAD to give the boys something constructive to do - school work!! They have been able to do bits of English, spelling and Maths down there without too much trouble and seem to (strangely) respond well to the environment!! I am still very aware though that Joel is so much more able to attend to whatever task is set him until it is completed (get the job done) than Jacob is. He just seems to wander off task at the slightest little nudge in the wrong direction!!

Other than that there have been dribs and drabs of school happening. My friend Cath has been coming in to do Art with them as usual and this week they are making collage faces - should be interesting!! You should see the self-portraits they drew :) I might photo them for you... Another friend of mine also took them on for a couple of hours last week to do some card-making. Joel made Ellie a birthday card (she is 1 this Saturday) and Jacob made me a Christmas card which he couldn't resist giving me!!

They have also managed to keep up with their Maths and English with a little minimal input from me - which is great and reassures me that they are heading towards being able to study more independently - not that I want to be totally hands-off, just to know that I can be if I need to be and that they know how to carry on without me. Afterall, I figure that at some stage their knowledge will supersede mine and then they will have to be able to carry on alone! Now there's a scary thought!!

So now I'm looking forward to getting back to more of a sensmblance of normality. But amongst all the 'uuugh'ness we have had all our lighting re-wired and our cooker (well our landlord's actually) is now fusing out the power every time we use the rings!! The washing naturally has piled up on a regular basis and as soon as I hit the bottom of the wash-bin a child is sick in the night and I get behind again!! Cleaning, well....I have re-enlisted a cleaner!! And there are piles of clothes 'to be put away' from at least a week ago still hanging around!! My sort-out of a few weeks back never quite reached completion and I still have two baskets of clothes to 'file' into their appropriate boxes when I eventually find a few spare moments.
Ellie started walking a couple of weeks ago and is now a constantly following bleating sheep - demanding to be held far too much!!

I guess that's about all for now folks. Paul is home and tea is cooked. Baby is bleating and kids are squabbling...get the picture... got to go!! I'll try to do some reading-round another night, Hope you are all OK. :)

If You Were Wondering...

I am still alive!! BUT I am suffering terribly with constant headaches. Yesterday I felt like someone had my head in a vice and I spent the entire afternoon & evening in a darkened room! Staring at a computer screen only makes it 10 x worse so I'm not on here much at the moment. It's a normal thing with me in early pregnancy, so any medics out there don't go worrying!! I suffer migrains with P's and this is basically an almost constant migrain - related to pregnancy. As I can take nothing but Paracetamol, which barely touches it, I just have to get on with it... :( But I'm afraid it means I won't be around here too much until it all goes away. I'm having to keep my eyes down to type this!! Catch you all later.

Sorry Folks

Hi! I'm still feeling pretty green most of the time, hence not much blogging of late. Currently typing whilst giving my baby a cuddle (quite an art to master!!), but there's really not too much to report and I just hope blogger doesn't eat my post as I don't have the where-with-all to type stuff twice at the moment (as happened the other night)! We're just plodding along... doing about an hour of school most days, occasionally two on a good day! But I just tell myself it's not for long and they are fairly well ahead of their peers anyway (in most areas), so it's not going to hurt them any. Made a Giant Panda and a pigeon from the Canon Papercraft site today - great - took most of the afternoon - fiddly, fun and mind-easy!! These are to add to our 'Noah's Ark' mobile - when we eventually decide to put it together. Need to find some simpler, smaller animal makes first though :) And that was about it today - oh, and we coloured a map of where the mountains of Arrarat are/where, which the boys made a nice job of.

Nothing else today - except kids TV!!

Baby has fallen asleep here now, so I think I might go do the same for a bit!

A Little Bit Here and There.

We are not doing much around here at the moment, but I'm trying to do at least a little something each day. So for the last two days we have been doing 'looking at Great Britain' - I made a list of about a dozen questions that I wanted the boys to find the answers to from our collection of Library books (I gave them page numbers to help a little). They started answering them yesterday and finished off today. Then we sat down and looked at some other 'facts' together - analysing graphs and pie-charts (so I guess that was a bit of maths thrown in there too). Other than that we've finished off our Europe puzzle (at last!!)

Europe Puzzle


and we rounded off today with a little 'regular maths'. And that's it, but it's seemed like loads!!

I've also been trying to get on top of a mountain of washing that's just building up and tidy the house (very unsuccessfully) a little/lot ready for Saturday, when a friend of ours is going to take on our cleaning for us - only at the moment she couldn't see many surfaces or much floor to clean it!!