Plodding along...

Quite chirpily as it goes, not exactly plodding with a hop, skip and a jump...but the feet aren't dragging either!

I decided to roll the walking week onto this week as well, although today may well be the last day that I do the grocery shopping without a car.  Fonzy has now decided quite firmly that he is NOT going to walk the poo alley anymore, if I wanted to I could make a fuss over it and we would walk it but it really is quite vile so Im happy to skip it as often as we can.  

This does mean however that we have to tackle the Mt Everest training hill.  Today we tackled it with the granny trolley full to overflowing with heavy shopping; after already lugging it down one hill to get to the foot of Mt Everest Jnr I knew I had made a mistake but onwards and upwards we went.  We made it home but boy o boy I am SO unfit!
I used to breeze it but 10years and 3 kiddos later it's definately not a breeze.

Well we have been keeping busy at home, I've had the paint pots out and have touched up the walls in the front room {pale walls and sticky fingers don't mix that well}, been up in the loft {loft monkey} and found an old shelf {well not old old but an old Ikea shelf put up there a couple of years back} which miraculously I managed to tie up with its bag of fixings to make a completed unit which is now holding fabric stashes behind the sofa.

Fonzy has had a bit of time at the table, he loves to 'work' like the older ones and Im going to embrace it while he's enjoying it.  I plan to use the letter cards that Loopy used and he already knows around 10 of them.  I'll start the sound game next week which involves deciding what letters to learn/use that week and finding objects around the house that start with those sounds.  He already enjoys practising his writing by going over the laminated cards with crayons and will most days listen to how the letters are formed.  

He's left handed and a boy {obviously} which by all accounts will make things like this a little harder to master.  This is where the home schooling resources I have accrued to date are proving very handy, lots of tips on how to encourage him to learn a way that fits him and can work in a class room enviroment, simple things.

If that all sounds like real work its not honestly, he enjoys it and I enjoy doing it with him...and once either one of us stops enjoying it we walk away from it.

We do puzzles together, well we do them together once and he steams on ahead doing them by himself after, we play counting games, sing songs, make train tracks, play monster trucks and generally chuck along.  He is very happy to make his own entertainment, this week he has been playing with the mini skateboards we have making skate parks to his hearts content.

I had an appointment with Loopy's teacher this week as she is not where they would expect her to be on her phonics.  No surprise there in all honesty and Im not going to sweat it, hopefully her teacher will offer advice on how we can support her to catch up with her peers, give us a few pointers and games to play over the holidays.  Looking at the list the teacher had on her 2nd day of speaking to parents Loopy definately isnt the only one not where they expected to be.  
I do know that she is ahead of her peers in numeracy despite my lacking of sitting at the table to do maths work!!  Trips to the supermarket playing real shop and handling real money at home may have paid off.  
I hate the thought of having to 'test' her though at her age, it's the part of the school system I don't like, the constant molding them into the perfect sausage to fit the pack.  Im lucky though, the school they go to is lovely, the staff all approachable and Im even more lucky in that Loopy is a bright one who is keen to learn.

Loopy is enjoying a liberal dose of Fairy Dust at the moment.
I love, love, love the fact that I can give them a 'childhood'...sound a bit weird and over the top? Well I don't care, I like to let them be kiddos for just as long as I can.  Whilst other little girls her age are talking boyfriends *goggle eyes* she is happy to to talk Queen Faeries and magic.

Last week the Faeries left her a gift, a thank you for all the gifts she has left for them, Lolly wrote the tiniest little letter, with ant like writing, all tied together with a bit of bakers twine!
Loopy almost went POP when she spotted it.  I'll try to remember to get a photo of the little dress...it was originally a Mollie Makes princess and the pea dolly dress, but I didn't read instructions before snipping fabric and it came out miniscule.
I could fib and say I knew all along I was making a Fairy dress but I didn't and I wont!

Happy Weekending
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