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2008-06-10 - 2:20 p.m. previous entry next entry
Sleeping children!
Just had to write a super quick entry to say that
ALL THREE OF MY CHILDREN ARE SLEEPING RIGHT NOW AND IT'S MID-AFTERNOON!
Wheee, what an amazing experience! ;) I know somebody will wake before I post this entry properly, but I have just had about 40 minutes of quiet stillness in the house in the middle of the day! Neil is at the library finishing a job application. Matthew went down for his regular nap, and Nathan was ready for a nap not long after. Arthur gets to nurse for a short bit once Matthew is down, and we snuggle on the armchair together. He went right off to sleep nursing, which he has done twice this week with his cold (which is much better, just leaving him tired out). So we moved him to the sofa and he's still sleeping.
Of course, the down side is that we'll likely be trying to wrangle wide awake boys into bed for like 2 hours after bedtime tonight, but oh well.
The weather is beautiful today! Very warm and sunny, and a lovely breeze. Somebody nearby had a woodfire going outside earlier, and my coldy nose still managed to smell it - I love that smell!! It was lovely.
What other random things can I write about while I have a few more minutes?
I need to somehow figure out how to give Arthur some more focused time. I think the home schooling will help this, but I want to try and "schedule" some one-on-one time for each of the boys, on a regular basis. If we have lots of children, I want to make sure nobody misses out on quality one-on-one time with Mummy and Daddy. I'm going to ask other large families (any comments/suggestions from mothers of lots of kids who are reading would be much appreciated!) and see what advice and tips they give.
Arthur had his first big home-schooling moment last week! Well, it isn't SUCH a big deal, but I was excited! I plan to do a combination of structured schooling and child-led schooling. I don't want to do it totally structured and like a classroom, but on the other hand, I'm nervous about letting it be 100% child-led. So, a combination sounds good! Last week, Arthur had his first child-led lesson! He was sitting at the window watching the rain, and suddenly asked me, "Mummy, how does the water get into the tap?" I leapt up in excitement, hehe! We got the laptop out straight away and Googled "how does water get into the tap kids" and voila! We found this PDF file on the first page of results, and spent a while learning about the water cycle. That evening I gathered links and ideas for experiments we can do about the water cycle, for little ones. So much fun!
I have prepared a bag of things to teach Arthur about matter (solids, liquids and gas), which was an idea I picked up from another online homeschooling mama (I can't remember which one though! I read SO many homeschooling and large family blogs now - I've had to subcategorise in my "diaries" folder in my favourites!!). I have told him it's there and that I'm excited to teach him about matter, but I'm waiting till he says he wants to learn about it. Check out this absolutely AWESOME Montessori physics lesson for little kids on "The Beginning" (universe, Earth, etc): http://www.missbarbara.net/thebeginning.html. It's written for a classroom setting, but that will soooo not stop me doing this with my children! I plan to do this lesson exactly as she describes it, when the boys are 5 and 4 maybe. And then Nathan will be nearly 3 so he can join in too. How exciting! I do want to teach the boys about Creation from a Biblical perspective, but I will also teach the stuff the rest of the world believes too ;) I don't want them to learn only about the Creation, and then get older, look for themselves at the Natural History Museum and wonder why I kept that from them. I will teach the whole lot, and tell them what I believe.
Okay, Matthew is awake and I have resettled Nathan now, so I have to go. Better wake Arthur now too!
Thank you for the comments (so many already!! :) ) on the photos from last night's entry! I'll be back soon with something more long-winded, haha! ;)
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