Caught in the Whirlwind

Our lives are so busy, so full of fun and activity, that I shudder to think of what it would be like trying to cram preschool and kindergarten in there. Everything we do with the children is stuff we would probably do with them anyway, excepting the workbook pages Colwyn asks for (I imagine if he were forced to do workbook pages all day, he wouldn't ask me for any).

Colwyn and Lachlann have been really productive on the art front. They draw and write incessantly. Lachlann's writing is mostly just scribbles, reminiscent of a heart monitor's readout, but Colwyn does a pretty good job. His favorite is making love cards, which usually include a nice drawing as well as some combination of the words, "Colwyn" "Mommy" "Amma" and "Lve" (he often leaves out the o). The other day he drew a remarkably detailed Captain Rex, which I meant to save but might have gotten tossed by accident. We live with a near constant litter of construction paper, it's hard to remember what should be saved.

This past week we went to tour the Salem Post Office with our homeschool group. It was the first field trip I'd planned for the group, and I was super anxious about it. Homeschoolers can be a bit.. flaky.. at times, and I was afraid nobody would show, and there I'd be at the Postmaster's door, looking like a total idiot. Well, thankfully, we only had one no-show, and the kids were all super well-behaved. I think the moms learned more than the kids, but not by much. Colwyn, of course, said that the only thing he learned was that post office workers like to go to Dunkin Donuts, just like us. Yeah, he's at that age.

We go to Jen's house every other week for book club. The boys have always played really well there during one-on-one playdates, but for the last four book club meetings, they've refused to play with the other kids. I suspect that Lachlann would, except that he doesn't want to leave Colwyn alone. They just sit with me in the living room, which is fine since they don't really complain, but it leaves me less able to talk freely. We plan on continuing to attend, in the hopes that they'll eventually get used to the group. I think part of the problem is that we now tend to have mainly 5-6 year old boys, and as you can imagine, it gets rather rowdy. I don't want to push them, but I also want to make sure they're exposed to groups like this. It's a delicate balance, and I don't always feel like I'm doing a good job.

Painting

The kids got an easel for Xmas, and they love it. Here's a quick pic of them painting:

Sick Days

The kids are sick today. Well, it's mostly Colwyn with a fever and lethargy, though Lachlann threw up this morning (and is now acting fine). We've been watching TV all day as I really want Colwyn to rest as much as possible (and he doesn't really seem all that willing to get off the couch).

So I decided to show the kids finger knitting. I remember my Amma teaching me this when I was really little, and despite extremely infrequent use, it's easy enough that I still know how. They each did a bit, though I more or less did it for Lachlann but on his hands. Lachlann really enjoyed the long multicolored 'snake' I made for him, too.

We've finally hit a part in the Singapore math workbooks that Colwyn doesn't intuitively know. It's mainly numeral recognition, but there's also some graphing that I had to explain to him. We were doing up to about 10 pages at a time until we hit this part, and now it's more like two or three before Colwyn says he's done. I always let him stop when he wants, and he's so far he's always been willing to come back to it.

Music Appreciation

The other day, we were sitting in a drive-thru line for an inordinate amount of time. The kids were fussy and I was searching through our huge amounts of CDs for something that might entertain them. I tried an audio book, Air Ferrets Aloft, by Richard Bach, but they weren't very interested. Then I found a CD we had bought a few months ago, African Playground, which is one of the Putamayo Kids series. I put it on and the kids were mildly entertained by it.

Then, of course, I got the bright idea that we should do a unit study on Africa. Heh. We'll see how well this turns out, but I'll at least bring the CD into the house so we can play it some more, we'll look up Africa on our globe, and hopefully I'll be able to find some good crafts. We already have two books at home (well, from the library) dealing with african wildlife: Water Hole Waiting, by Jane Kurtz, and Pinduli, by Janell Cannon.

If that goes well, I'll try to find more stuff to do, we'll see. And if all that goes well, maybe we'll do it with other cultures. We already have Celtic (specifically, Welsh) music, and even have some stories on CD from Hugan the Bard.

Of course, me planning anything like this means the kids won't be remotely interested, but we'll give it a shot. :)

Dinosaur Ladders

The boys were coloring yesterday, and Colwyn told me he wanted to draw a picture of a train. I asked if he wanted to write 'Thomas' at the top, which he did. I wrote it out for him on a separate paper and he copied it onto his, quite well in fact. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture.. maybe I'll add one later. As he was making the 'h' we started talking about ladders, and he decided he wanted to draw a ladder instead of a train. After writing out 'Thomas' he drew his ladder, then said, "It's going to be a dinosaur ladder!" and drew an adorable little stick-figure Apatosaurus next to the ladder.

The upside to spending so much time coloring is that Lachlann is already learning his colors. He'll pick up a crayon and try to identify the color for me (without me prompting him, btw) and is right maybe.. half the time. If I tell him, "Oh, Lachlann, that's a pretty blue crayon," he'll respond with, "Oh, blue, okay."

I'm at work now (days), but when I get home and the kids wake up from their nap, we're going to the library, woohoo! I know, I'm such a geek. I've been rereading all the Harry Potter books in anticipation of the new (last) one coming out and it occured to me as I was reading the other day that I'm setting a good example for the kids. They see me reading fairly often, although the vast majority of what I read is either online (news, blogs, fanfic, etc) or during the hours that they're asleep. But this past week I've been reading more in front of them and I'm pleased that my leisure activity benefits them as well.

Drawing

Here's a picture of Colwyn's recent artwork. He drew a few people, two ladders, and made some letters (C, O, L, and X). My budding artist. :) I have to say that I feel quite vindicated that he's discovered an interest in writing letters without me pushing him at all and making it into an unpleasant experience. I guess providing a print-rich environment has worked really well for us. All these little victories give me confidence that we can do this for the long haul.



So our homeschooling group has kind of collapsed. We still get together with the two families who were in it, and between that and our other playgroup, the kids aren't lacking for socialization at all. For example, last week we went shopping on Monday, to Bonkers on Tuesday ourselves, to the park on Wednesday with Calvin and Miles, to Bonkers on Thursday with Thomas and Aidan, and had a family day on Friday with mom and Kristine. Today we met Charlotte at the Touch-a-Truck event (more on that in my other blog) and we all went out to lunch after. Next week we'll do playgroup at a farm and probably have two one-on-one playdates.

I am working on forming a new homeschooling group for young homeschoolers in this area. I think the group I joined was a little too specific in who it accepted, so I'll try being open to people who aren't absolutely positive they're going to homeschool. My goal for right now is for the boys to form friendships, and to be honest, it's not a huge deal if their friends end up going to public school. But if we can eventually set up co-ops and stuff, that would be awesome. I'm hoping that people who are considering homeschooling their kids will see that there are fun activities and a good support system and decide to go through with it.

Two BIG Milestones

I'm so sorry that it's been so long since I posted last. However, I have two great things to brag about.

First: Colwyn has started drawing recognizable things. I am SO pleased. We do lots of art projects but not necessarily a lot drawing. However, the other day I saw him fiddling around with a travel Magnadoodle. I went to peek and saw that he had drawn a circle with a long line coming down from it, and two lines coming out horizontally from the bottom of that. Woohoo! Colwyn's first person! So when I exclaimed joyously at his genius, what did he do? He erased it. :) He'll draw people like that consistently, and if I ask him if they need anything else, he'll draw hair, eyes, and a mouth. Sooo cute. He also drew a fence the other day.. a bunch of horizontal and vertical lines crossing each other.

The other thing that, traditionally speaking, I should be excited about, is that Colwyn now says the ABCs correctly. Previously he would say, "H, I, Kel, O, M, N, O, P, etc." But today he said it all correctly. I'm pleased that he picked it up, especially as I hadn't spent more than a few minutes here and there helping him. Honestly, what's the big deal if he doesn't know which order the letters come in right now? It's not like I'm asking him to alphabetize his books or anything. :)

We picked up some new books at the library today, which of course means returning the old ones. I'm always sad to see books that have become our favorites go back. Of course, our favorites always get checked out again (this week, Colwyn asked for Gruffalo, and I picked up two of Jane Yolen's "How Do Dinosaurs.." books) but I still feel oddly sad. I guess I just find it so amazingly cute when the boys get excited about books, and when Colwyn memorizes parts of them and reads along with us. For instance, Colwyn's favorite out of the last batch was Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs. There's a part that he loved reading to us, and he incorporated it into his pretend play a lot. It goes, "'I'm going to cut you up into little pirate sausages and put you on the barbeque and eat you up, with much too much ketchup!' he added." I could have cried at his cuteness every time he said the "he added" part.

But we did get some good new books this time. I chose a Maurice Sendak book, In the Night Kitchen, which I found to be a little strange, but Colwyn loved. I also picked up a book of Jack Prelutsky's poems, Monday's Trolls. My 5th grade reading teacher loved Jack Prelutsky and I still love his writing. What else.. oh, we really liked David Shannon's Duck On a Bike.

When I was at the Hallmark store getting a card for Mom, I saw a paperback version of Blueberries for Sal and picked it up. Later I was talking to Doug and Kristine about the book. Doug didn't realize what book I was referring to right away, so Kristine teased him about how he didn't know what Blueberries for Sal was. So I told her that I had said to him a few months ago that we really needed to get some Robert McCloskey books for the kids, and he had no idea what I was talking about. So Kristine responded, "Who's Robert McCloskey?" Ack. That totally underscored my point about making sure we tell the kids who wrote each book as we read it. Colwyn now tells us that Dan Yaccarino is his favorite author (which, to be honest, is probably still jsut because he likes saying Yaccarino, though we did get another of his books from the library last time, Unlovable.

Anyway, enough about books. We've been working a LOT in the garden, too. But, you know, it's half past midnight.. maybe I'll write about that tomorrow.

Playgroup, Gumdrops, and Dinos

A few times lately Colwyn has asked to play with gumdrops and cups of water. At first, I had no idea what he was talking about. But I eventually figured it out.. he wanted to play with eyedroppers and cups of water. He likes it when I tint the water so he can experiment with dropping red water into clear water and so on. It's also great for his fine motor skills. And he likes making art with it, too.. he drips colored water onto white paper, and it dries quite nicely, actually.



He also got a new states puzzle and a globe. The states puzzle is a bit advanced for him, but he likes point out which states have planes or buffalos or whatever. And the globe, while small, will be great for pointing out places we read about.





We had a Heritage themed playgroup for our Pre-Homeschooling Co-op today. We all brought food that is symbolic of our heritage, and the kids played while the moms ate. ;) Well, the kids ate some, too. Colwyn and Lachlann seemed a bit more at ease this time, since they've met the other kids twice now. We're hoping to have Dani's kids, Thomas and Aidan, over next week. Hopefully that'll give Colwyn the chance to get to know Thomas a bit better. He always seems to do much better one-on-one than in large groups.

I think the Co-op will be really nice once it gets going. We'll be able to set up "classes" for the kids where if one mom is really good at math, she'll do a math project with all the kids one week, and next week, another mom who is great at science will do a science project with all the kids. That way the boys will get experience working in a group and taking direction from another adult. We're also planning on signing Lachlann up for swimming lessons (I think at the Lydon Aquatic Center) in the spring, and Colwyn will probably take a sports class at the Y where he'll learn about a few different sports.

Tomorrow we're going to our regular playgroup at Imajine That in Lawrence. We've never been, but I hear it's really good. Colwyn's looking forward to seeing his friends, and I'm looking foward to getting out of the house again. I know it won't be long before the kids are sick again, and I want to take advantage of their health while I can.