Well, we have been doing stuff this week, the challenge is to see whether I can remember it!

Monday

We met up at crash bang wallop with another HE family R and T,A and K.  THe boys had a lovely time and I also enjoyed having a chat with R.  I think I managed my record at a soft play (I tend to get twitchy after about 30-40 in) and we were there from a bit before 10 to after 12.  Ot was his usual independent self, returning every 10-15 minutes or so, he did run out of get up and go and asked to go back to the car around 11:20 and we sat making up stories whilst he got his energy back.  I must make myself goto soft play more as in this horrible wet weather, the boys love to have somewhere to run around and if nothing else I do get to sit still for most of the time they’re there!  After that we came back, had the spag bol I cooked in the morning for dinner, did some DVD watching and headed out for trampolining.  T ran out of energy 1/2 way through and his coach James said he was “too tired to bounce”…..future note maybe racing around at soft play on Monday before Tramp club is not such a good plan :0)  Ot and I bought some crisps and a choc bar form the machine then headed up into the gallery to watch and Ot played on the DS, after about 20 min Ot wanted to walk some more so we went back down and back into the buggy.  At the end of tramp club, we headed back, had toast, bath time and bed.

Tuesday

We did some fishing for letters, making or words using -aw for T and Ot was fishing out the in initial sounds we have yet to check….I can’t remember why but this was cut short?  T did some measuring to the nearest cm of various bits of his, Ots and my bady, recorded this then we created a bar chart.  He made some good observations about his findings about who had the longest bones, and why this might be. I think there was more than likely some DSing and Ed citying.  Almost certainly there was some loading of blocks using tractor tom by Ot.  Ot did some drawing and was having a good try at drawing a helicopter whilst we were doing graphs…..Ah yes I remember why letters were cut short, I had to goto the docs, am now on antibiotics until Sunday which I hope will start to work soon (Friday and although the probs not worse it’s not better either…)Mom was going to try and meet us at the docs so the boys could goto the park, but  buses didn’t cooperate.  The boys were fab about the 30+ min wait.  Mom made it later and we had planned to got Ikea but I was knackered and fell asleep on the settee for half an hour, we tried to go on the way home (Me driving mum home) but there were roadworks and a diversion which meant I was going in the worng direction so we gave up!  A late night for me :0(  I did manage to rustle up lasagne for tea and some jambalaya for tea tomorrow though.

Wednesday

Playdoh started the day as far as I remember, mom came over and we did a bit of playing, a bit of knitting, a bit of snacking.  I had a midwife appointment at 10:45 which I didn’t get into until about 11:20/11:30 so that ate up well over an hour.  The boys sat watching DVD’s in the car-for what I thought would be about 20 minutes and turned into over an hour!

Swimming in the pm for T which I went in with him rather than getting E (my sis) to change him and stay as it was his first time with a different teacher-aside: only because I currently can’t stand the heat of the pool for 30 mins.  He really enjoyed the session and did pretty well, legs have really improved and so has swimming on his back.  He was working on beginning to use his arms on his back which was fairly comical!

We went to Ikea after swimming, had a look round and had tea (with mom), dropped mom off home and went home and pretty much straight to bed-still a late night though.

Thursday

We made models of bones, showing 3 main layers, compact bone, spongy bone and the marrow.  Both enjoyed this, especially the poking in of tissue paper balls and modroc.  We talked a bit about bones, did some playing and Ed citying, a bit to much DVDing.  I felt yuk yesterday and tired too.

Oh yes I nearly killed myself yesterday when I ventured out into the garden to create some space for some of the stuff the builders were leaving…..cat poo…..mess…..cat tray…full of poo and water…….rubbish…….saw blades from shed putting up….sandpit with lid off and yes you guessed it full of cat poo…….and my dh thought it somewhat unreasonable of me to have a ‘face on’ and be a bit pissed off when he got home…..lets think…….he put up the shed, the garden was not that bad, he’s gone out there with the boys and let them strew toys absoluelty everywhere and not chuck them back in the box…..he left the window open to the play house so it’s sodden-thank god for marine plywood-and he’s the one who’s said he’s emptied the cat tray-apperently he meant the one in the house!   Grrrrrr.  I will not go on it has now been disinfected and cleared but the rubbish bags will have to be hauled to the tip!

Friday

Today we’ve done some Ed citying-T did some HTu and Tu 100%, Ot did some S sounds which he knew and some counting to 5 100%.  T did some writing, using line guides, which was a first and he tried really hard.  We need to have some daily practice I think to show progress and he needs to work on posture and pencil grip.  He created a short paragraph with help but was not as focused as I would have liked, however the sentences he wrote were fab.  We’ve decided to do 1 a day as there were quite a few!  There has been plenty of reading, going on too.  Ot asked to play hopscotch and was able to bring 1,2,3,4 to me and 5 with a bit of help so he’s beginning to recognise digits.  The chap came to measure up for the new parking space and the builders have put in some wood and stuff so the loft should be starting in the next week or so.

Bits that I’ve missed:

There has been lots of playing with walkie talkies

There has been lots of playing with remote control toys like the roboraptor and backhoe.

We’ve had our books form the book people and T really likes them and has started dipping into them.  He particularly likes a DK book called Alive-mainly as it’s pop up with flaps and a heartbeat on the heart page plus the front has a button to press so the brain lights up with little lights.

The external drive, if fixable, is likely to cost nearly £1000 to fix, so no 7 seater car for a bit longer than we’d planned!

The Weekend….

Hmm, well it’s Sunday afternoon and really it’s a bit of a blur.  We’ve been setting up new computers, printers, transfering and backing up files which takes longer than you expect it to!

Friday was a bit of a lazy day with playing, track, bits of chat, reading and computing.

Saturday was a bit more of the same but we went over to RKand O’s for tea and play which was lovely.  The boys had a great time and we got back about twenty past seven and went straight to bed so still made a fairly OK bedtime.

Sunday we did a bit more computer sorting, a lie in for me, downloading and having a play with vista and the sidebar.  we went to soft play for an hour and a bit to give the boys chance to let of some steam as the weather is foul and they’ve been pretty much stuck in this week for one reason or another.  We’re now settled after some dinner, roast for tea, and watching some DVD’s.  I’m going to format my old computer and reinstall XP,windows etc as it’s going very slowly plus install Ots graphics tablet and softwar onto the boys laptops and mine.

Ot smells so I’m off to change his bum, unlesss I con RIch into doing it :0)

Errrm…What HAVE we been up to?

If only I had a memory……Well……

I know that Tiger and I’ve been working on base 10, Th H T u, using a montessori ish approach and he’s really seeming to grasp the ’10’ concept and how numbers are made up, for Tu so far. 

 He’s able to take a number,collect the corresponding base 10 blocks, put the number together and say how many T, u and the number eg 56 5 tens and 6 units, makes fifty six.  There seems to be something be something really beginning to click with this, whereas a few months ago, this was a real challenge he now asks to do it when he sees  the tray.Hopefully we’ll move onto HTu towards the end of the week.

Interestingly whilst we were doing this a couple of things stick out, 1 is that his favourite is the thousand and another was that somehow I called it ‘work’ which I try hard not to do and then had to back track and expand on everything is work and fun….and he said he didn’t want to do work……not sure where that came from.

Number wise with Ot T did a 3 part lesson but the number cards Montessori style thing don’t seem to be clicking with Ot.  he can count by rote to 20, just picked up and is beginning to get 1-1 correspondence.  He’s really into counting things hence the idea of introducing the digits but I think we need a different approach.  I may try getting out inset puzzles, jigsaws or stick big numbers to run to up in the living room ( a game called corners I used to use).

Literacy wise we’ve fished for initial letters (Ot) and have a small heap we didn’t;t get round to and fished to make ‘or’ sounds (Tiger) which he was able to do. 

They both loved it, mainly I think because we had plastic fishing  rods and water (although the magnets  needed a bit more oomph.)  I think we’ll prob do this again tomorrow as they really liked it.

We’ve done q bit of reading, T read to O which was sweet.

We’ve read on the settee and T has started his first chapter book-a Dick King Smith Dino story.  He commented on there being too many words, he really wants to know what happens and is used to a quicker fix so it may take some getting used to be he read 4 pages of text b4 he flagged which was pretty good then I read 2 to him.

There has been lots of DSing and Ed citying.  We’ve made a huge rail and road track,

 practiced ball throwing with Ot, some more bubble busting (one of the wands seems to be broken).  There has been a huge amount of playing with tractor Tom, a digger arm and blocks on a tray loading, tipping and all sorts.

Bone wise T is really inspired, finishing his skeleton,

building his model and labeling the different bones.  we’ve found them on each other and found a good site via woodlands junior http://www.bonesandharry.co.uk/main/main.html  which he really enjoyed.  We found out lots about the main function of the skeleton which is what he’d set as his aim and then today we made some mini books to record what he’d found out about the functions, some facts and ID’ing vertebrate and invertebrate.  He was not to keen on writing but dictated sentences complete with full stops and wrote the v’s and i’s for vertebrate and invertebrate.

Ot has done some starfall on some of the letters that need reinforcing which he enjoyed.  He did some lovely drawing of helicopters and coloured the snowman he designed on ed city. This is Ot’s Body

He can Id lots of differnet parts like the wrist, elbow, etc but wasn’t all that keen on labeling so we didn’t.

Tigers swimming went well yesterday and he was working on his arms.  Sarah, aunty and teacher, has decided to move him into the parallel group with a different teacher as she thinks he’ll make more progress as he’s just too used to her being his aunty and playing so next week we are in at 5.

There’s probably more but the battery is going so that’ll do for now….this gets us to today (Thursday) ish.

The Weekend

Just a quick post before its light and I forget the weekend.  We didn’t get to visit K,O and R at the weekend as they’d had a bad night and were still not to fab :0(  Tiger was a bit discounted.  We did some playing and tidying on Sat, went to the butchers and the arboretum.  I fell asleep in the car so the boys went in with Rich  and had a great if muddy time.

On Sunday A came round with B and C which was fun, a bit manic at times as they were all wanting to do everything at once and setting up Hornby Thomas was a bit of a challenge-3 degrees and we were struggling ;0)  After that we went for a drive so Rich knew where he was going today.

Tiger and Ot did some dino painting and playing late afternoon.  There was dsing, computing, reading, talking and making jelly in there somewhere.

Ot is still being very clingy and grumbly so I’m off to play before he completely melts down as he just wants milk and cuddles 24 7 at the mo. 

Flat Friday

We’ve done some playing on the computer on Starfall with Ot and Ed City.  A bit of DSing .  The boys chose out of the literacy box and we did some stenciling (fine motor skills)  and initial letter sounds with Ot.  Tried to do some work on ‘or’sounds with T but there were too many at once and he was just frustrated and therefore uncooperative.

We had lunch-well I did the boys didn’t eat and Ot fell asleep in his!  Woke him up after 10 minutes or so (otherwise there’ll be no sleep in our house tonight) with the call to build a huge wooden train track-which we did and played with.

The boys did some more bubble busting

and I managed to get the order for the book people and also for some reason was getting a £10.50 discount so added a couple of extras :0)  I also had a look on Play and ordered a  DKing-Smith book with a dino theme for T to have a look at.

Rich did an NFER reading age test with T last night which gave him a reading age of about 8-8 1/2, which Tiger really enjoyed!

It has been an odd day, not really done all that much and my get up and go has got up and gone-I just want to sleep…..

The boys are having Tea and then we’re having an early bath time, hopefully after that we’ll get to bed for 7 and Rich and i will be able to order the new hardrives, look at multifunction wireless printers and play the new PC game Rich has ordered (NightHawk?).  Also \might get time to do some brain training and a brain age-my best was a couple of days ago and I got a brain age of 25yrs.

Sick!!!

After a good start to our week we’ve been stopped in our tracks by sick and poo!  T wasn’t too fab on Monday and Yesterday Ot was very off colour.  In the middle of the night Ot was sick and T has horrid diarrhoea.  Hence today has been spent watching DVDs, cuddling and generally doing not a lot.

Ot is starting to perk  up and has kept down some bread and butter and water and asked to make jelly for tea.  I’ve got dk’s body explorer working and am off to order from the book people-I’m aiming for restraint!

We did a bit of playing with bubble buster which the boys really liked.  Tiger did a quick 5 mins working on place value with me and seems to be really grasping the concept of u, T, H, Th and making 10’s.

Ot fell asleep at 5:30 and slept through, he’s had loads of milk today and had some more at 10pm.

Back after a Blogging Break…

We’ve had quite a break from blogging but I think we may give it another go.  Major news is that baby number 3 is due at the start of April and our loft conversion is starting on Monday (as long as the steel is ready.)

HE wise Tiger has completed his space project and we had fun doing christmasy stuff together.  We are embarking on a project about bones, skeletons and dinosaurs with a bit of my body for Ot.

 I can’t put in any piccys as our external hard drive fell off a chair yesterday and is now not working so has been sent away for data recovery-fingers crossed it gets fixed as it has all the digital camera piccies on it.

Tiger is also thinking about doing a blog which could be fun!!!