Round up of the last year

Well here we are again after another long absence. We'll finally nearing the end of the alphabet, just a few more to go. To be honest I'm whizzing through the last ones as she knows them pretty well, I just like to finish what I start. I may go back to I and L as she's a little hazing on differentiating the two but otherwise is more of an act of ticking them off the list.

Mischief is learning so much all the time it astounds me. I never had any contact with kids before having one of my own and their development fascinates me. I never thought I'd find this aspect of being a parent so amazing and rewarding.

On Christmas Eve Mischief's daddy said to me 'I thought we'd decided we were homeschooling' this took me rather by surprise as I didn't know we had made a decision. And esp as he was the one resisting it and he's the one that's taken the impetus to make the decision. So the Christmas break was filled with thoughts on how that would look going forward.

In the new year, to make space for the Christmas and Birthday presents we had a toy cull and boxed up everything that is now to young, no longer used or close ended. We are left with four main 'activites'  a few smaller bits and heaps of puzzles. She has a massive trunk in her room, which we can now shut and have additional space in, and we rotate out a marble run (biggest hit of Christmas), farm set, train set and Lego (another great hit).

This has led to much more focussed play and we can see her problem solving, concentration and coordination coming on leaps and bounds. I truly believe less is more and rotating in this way means she enjoys the toys that are out rather than floating from one thing to another. This has also had the benefit of improving her imagination as she is now making up stories for the people on the train or in the Lego houses. 

One of the things I made for Mischief has been a felt solar system, inspired by Counting Coconuts. I gave this to Mischief for Christmas and she loves exploring it while we read about the solar system.

She decided to do this in my bedroom while i was getting dressed a week or so ago. I told her the order of the planets and she found the right one and laid them all out. Then she matched up the pic on the three part cards and then matched the words. She did it all by herself and I was so impressed.

Finally, she has just started classes at the local gymnastics club. I've been wanting to do this for so long but been putting it off to fit in with daddy's treatment but the time came we just had to do it. The local homeschool group does classes there and I thought it'd be a great way to meet other families locally, esp as her friends are going to preschool more now. She's still a little young for the homeschool group but I hope she can move up in a few months. She's already earned her first badge after just three sessions! Proud mummy and daddy.

Well, there is tons more I have missed over the year but I think that's enough for now.

Homeschooling future?

So I haven't posted for ages but we have been plodding on with the tot school we've been doing. Unfortunately we've had to pretty much fit it in between various hospital visits and appointments so letter of the week has become more like letter of the fortnight or even letter of the month in some cases. Still, mischief is still enjoying it and seems to be soaking everything up. 

Anyway, mischief's daddy seems to be coming round to the idea of homeschooling. She's certainly not starting preschool in January as we don't have the brainpower or time to figure it out. 

The it hit me today. Why aren't I praying for guidance. It has to be what's right for the whole family and it had to be God led. So that's what I'm doing and have a couple of others on board with the praying now too. So watch this space. 

Here's my favourite pic of the day. 

First Prayer

Since being on holiday Mischief has started saying her own prayers. For a while now she has been adding her own things to be thankful for to our evening prayers but yesterday when I was drying her after her shower she started praying by herslf totally unprompted. To say I had a moment is an understatement.

She prayed for such diverse things as lovely food, holidays, pjs and sleeping bag, Aunty Maxine, doggy and Babbitt, the seaside and many more I can't remember. I was lovely and she went on for about five minutes, each one starting with Dear Lord, thanking for something and Amen.

Tonight, whilst on the toilet for her bedtime wee she said Dear Lord, thank you for soap and wees and poos, Amen. Odd but strangely lovely.

I adore how loving she is, even going as far as kissing and cuddling a page better when there is a sad character in her stories, and I love that she's started praying now too. Long may it continue and I pray we can help her grow in her love for Jesus. I caught them reading her prayer book together.

Lack of Letter S

We have been soooo slack with tot school recently. Bad mummy! I'm not quite sure how life has got in the way quite so much. But as we've hardly done any work on the letter s it decided to bring tot school away. That's right, we're on holiday in our spirit-home, Cornwall. This is the time we have finally managed to introduce Mischief to The Lizard! I'm so excited to be here and get her excited bout it too. My folks have been coming since before they were married and Mike and I have been coming since we first stared dating so I've been coming nearly every year for 34 years!

I thought the letter s was very appropriate with all the sea, sand, stone, seagulls, sandcastles, starfish and much more. Unfortunately there seems to be a distinct lack of sand this year but we've found some and I have some ideas. She's already having a whale of a time and been splashing in the sea. (See what I did there?!?)

Rhubarb Crumble

Daddy and Mischief picked the first rhubarb over the Easter weekend. they had great fun making a crumble and Mischief thought it tasted grand raw, but did like the finished product too.

Letter S Display

We seem to have lots of books featuring the letter S, especially Thomas books.

Thomas books are always popular but particular favourites have been Stormy Weather, Smiley Shark and The Big Big Sea.

In addition to the books we have the S box from the alphabet, a stack of S's, Spencer the train, stacking cups, a squeaky sun, S phonics cards, number 6 & 7 cards, sheep puzzles, starfish puzzle, star and shape puzzles, salad set, snow dome, animal self correcting puzzles and block books for S, 6 & 7.

The stacking cups are always a hit as is the salad set. She told me the sun was from downstairs and spent time counting the S letter tiles into the cups. Before I'd told her what letter we were doing today if asked what letter she thought was on the tile, her answer: maybe an s? Not sure where she picked that up from but a proud mummy moment.

Stars Sensory Tub

Well this week's letter of the week is S and the theme is star and space. I don't have much space themed stuff to create a tub so we stuck with stars.

We dyed lots of star pasta and raided the Christmas decorations for stars; gold and red, matt and shiny, glittery and plain. I also found a moon for space. To that I added a snow dome and some space party cups for scooping and stack of s's from a game.

As you can see the snow dome was a big hit.

Farm Sensory Tub

For this weeks farm vocab theme I whipped up a quick farm themed sensory tub.

I kept the pinto beans as they have such a good texture and added various farm elements. There are the chunky pieces from a Melissa and Doug farm puzzle, farm lacing beads, wooden tractor and trailer, letter g tiles, tongs and scoops.

She spent a long time filling the trailer and was quite perplexed by the beans wedging in the beads. She figured out that she could push them out with the 'needle'.

Letter G

I Many thanks as ever to 1+1 for the printables. We mostly did printable work this week but we took a couple of field trips too. So the letter this week is G, theme goat, vocabulary theme farm.

Mischief loved the display this week and was thrilled to get her paws on the big G that usually hangs on her wall.

She was mad on painting this week and I had some new brush paint pens and she loved the extra colours. The excitement meant she wasn't as neat as usual but so enjoyed painting the printables.

She even did a spot of two handed colouring.

For the first time she also odd all the cutting on her cut and stick sheets this week. Mummy held the paper but she cut them all out, usually she cuts half of one then gets 'mummy finish it'.

We took two trips to local farms this week which tied in nicely with the vocab theme. Unfortunately we didn't see any goats but she loved the piglets and cows.

She's actually got into her magnetic poms poms this week too.

She loved making the bunch of grapes in this one then had great fun lining them up along the edge of the baking sheet.

Finally we used the geo board to make the letters we have learnt so far. She named them a bit but then concentrated in making a wall of yellow bands. I was impressed by her determination.

Letter G display

I seem to be able to do a little more each week and I'm quite pleased with my second attempt at a letter display. 

This week is G, theme goat amd vocabulary theme farm. So we have lots of books with G in or about the farm.

Several farm puzzles, a big tractor floor puzzle which I suppose really we should have done last week, g alphabet box, her big fabric g from her room, glue for lots of sticking this week, a giraffe lacing card and various other g related items. Can't wait to show her in the morning.

Letter T

My favourite, and I think Mischief's favourite activity this week was stolen from Counting Coconuts. We made a tree from tissue paper and she loved spreading the glue and sticking the paper on.

Cutting and sticking seems to be a favourite generally and she is getting better with the scissors. This week she even managed to cut out some of the items herself and part of most of the others.

We also cut out all the images from the vocabulary theme and she chose where to put each one on the letter T. Daddy was amazed at how nearly she did it.

She's going great guns with dot stamping and painting is her other favourite thing to do. I'm impressed how well she get the dots in the circles and she got all the little trains and letters in these activities.

I was really proud of her line tracing this week as it was the first time she'd done this activity and has only really been copying lines very recently.

Her colouring is also getting more intentional and although this does look like a lot of scribble she's clearly focusing on specific areas and colours.

We certainly did a lot with printables this week.

Satsumas...

Well Mischief has taught herself how to peel satsumas, and very pleased with herself she is to! Mummy and daddy aren't allowed to help anymore. I thought she'd be a lot older before she started doing this but the fine motor skills and muscle strength seem to be all there.

First letter display

I haven't done a display for our weekly letter before but as the theme is trains I realised I had quite a bit of stuff I could use. 

I set out her small train set with trees, some plastic linking trains, a spinning top, tiger finger puppet, letter t block book, tortoise puzzle flash card, letter t phonics flash card, letter t foam puzzle piece, a clock for time and transport puzzles. I had some more bits to add but the table is quite small. 

I thinkable liked it when she saw it this morning. 

We then played with the rest of the train set for a bit. 

T for tent...

Well we're studying the letter T this week so Mischief and I took the opportunity to have lunch in the tent in the garden. She loved it and had so much fun.

Not a very flattering phot but more to follow.

Spring has Sprung...

With the advent of some warmer weather we have spent a lot of time outside. We walk our dog most days anyway but Mischief just can't be kept out of the garden.

Last week we took a friend to the local Nature Reserve for a picnic and the girls insisted on a bench of their own and the had a good run around.

The weather really warmed over the weekend and we had a picnic on Saturday and Sunday too. Sunday we met some friends from our NCT group for lunch at a local National Trust property and the children had a fab time. It was so warm and the grown ups had a great lazy time while the little ones entertained themselves.

Letter D

We had fun with the letter D for duck last week. As ever I thank 1+1+1=1 for the printables.

Mischief dot stamped

She's getting pretty good at this and really enjoys it. 

Letter stamped

She did pretty well at this too and kept most of the stamps in the duck. 

Cut and pasted

Mischief is getting better at cutting. Mummy still had to help out but they all were partly cut out by her. I understand her frustration though as the safety scissors are rubbish. She did all the sticking though. 

We also coloured and painted and had fun with playdoh. We made up some rainbow letter pasta too, she enjoyed mushing the bags again.

And then had fun mixing all the colours together.

Button Snake

I saw this great idea on Counting Coconuts and had to make one for Mischief. I too sewed a loop on the end to hold and instead of squares of fabric I cut shapes. I cut two of each shape so we could do some shape and colour matching.

I made it some time ago but she's only really started shoung an interest recently. I did catch her showing it to Babbitt though.

She is getting better at buttoning now and although doing buttons up is still a bit hit and miss she is a dab hand at undoing them, usually on my clothes.