Long lost

Hi,
Haven't posted for a while!
Been busy reorganising curriculum and touring Disneyland!
We took the girls down from Sunday to Thursday last week. The boys stayed at home with a babysitter as they really wouldn't have coped with the noise and stimuli.

It was soooooooooooooooooo easy managing just 2 kids! Anna was extremely well behaved. She had a book of 'social stories' written to remind her about waiting etc but she coped very very well. We had a minor hiccup where she lost her pass but all in all she did very well. We received a special pass because of her issues so we didn't have to wait in lines. We think it probably saved us a day of waiting over the length of our stay there and thanks to it behaviour was also kept under check.

The girls had a fantastic time as did we. It really was 'magical'. :)

Well................I asked for it!

I literally did with this one!
I asked the girls to write down a few topics each that they were interested in or wanted to know more about to see if we could incorporate them into our homeschool. Anna wants to know more about Autism so I'm going to see what I can teach them about it on a level they'll understand. They both had 'bees' on their lists which ties in nicely with the FIAR title; ' The bee tree' so we'll definitely do that. Eva had ' bats' which we'll cover in depth around Halloween, and the 'Redwoods' (feeling a 'fieldtrip' to Avenue of the Giants, coming on with this one)......................but, what I really hadn't reckoned on was this ' topic' from Miss Eva........(in her words), "How babies are made and how they get in Ladies tummies".! Oops.......................gulp..............I don't know if I'm ready for this one!

Monday........................Madeline

Monday we started "Madeline" and a study of Paris and the digestive system. It seems to be going well. Tomorrow we're going to a French bakery, " Bouchon" as a 'fieldtrip'!Mmmmm sounds like fun to me too :)
Over the weekend we had some new friends for dinner. It was a really nice evening even if we did have to spend it inside in the aircon due to the heat.
We seem to have a nice little routine developing here at the moment. I'll bore you with the details if you care to read on :)
Rik and I get up about 6 to 6:15, shower and get ourselves ready (which in my case involves drinking 2 cups of latte in quick succession) by then the boys are usually up and Rik gets them changed and dressed. I wake up the girls at 7 and have their breakfast ready to go (clothes laid out the night before saves many minutes, last minute decision changes and in the case of one girl (I'm sure you can guess which) a tantrum or two). They get dressed, eat their breaky and are generally sitting down at their desks by 7:45 or 7:50.
In the meantime Rik has given the boys their breakfasts, and Lucy has arrived at 7:30 to help out while Rik leaves for work.
The girls and I begin our school day while Lucy entertains the boys.
Just before 9am I leave to take Isaac to preschool, while the girls are given independent work to go on with. I get back by 9:30am when Lucy leaves again and Jude starts his therapy and then the girls and I go on together with school till 11am when their school finishes (except for reading) and Anna starts her therapy.
Eva usually has a bit of work to finish off as she's a bit slower than Anna with the writing tasks and she spends about 15-20 mins finishing off while I feed Jude, give him a bottle (yes, almost 2 and still a bottle, naughty I know) and put him down for his sleep.
Eva then does some reading or plays her DS and then we break for lunch.
After lunch, we wake up Jude and all go and pick up Isaac.
Still reading????? Boring I know, but they're our days up until 2ish through the week.

A few photos

Just a few photos from today with descriptions. The first is Eva, stretching out on the couch and relaxing after school. The other two are master Jude who doesn't really cook in his kitchen but likes to dump the china plates in the sink to make a loud noise whilst we read! Check out the 'innocent', "it wasn't me" face!

Better go now and make pizza dough foir dinner tonight. Yummmmmmm.

The Giraffe that walked to Paris

This week we kicked off MEP (Maths programme) and it has been a huge hit! Anna is actually looking forward tio her Maths lessons :)

We've also been learning about giraffes and a little about Egypt and France. The girls have been notebooking and are doing really well with it.

Yesterday they fashioned ' pyramids' from clay and painted them today after they'd hardened.

We also measured ourselves, the giraffe in the story, and the height of a fully grown male giraffe and marked them off with chalk on the cement out the back. This was a really good way to visualise just how tall these creatures can be. Only one more day with "La giraffe". It's a beautiful book and I think we'll all miss it, but back to the library it must go:(

Been a little while........

So Isaac's first day of preschool went very well

and so has the rest of the week. He is absolutely loving it! There were no tears, no drama, no nothing!

He has therapy after his class so it's a long and intensive day for a little guy. He finishes up about 2pm after a 9:15 start but is so far coping very, very well. The girls, Jude and I all miss him at home and we all look forward to picking him up together. He, though is thoroughly enjoying himself. His therapist today even said that she reckons he's on the cusp of being able to be potty trained! On the way home we stopped off at Target and bought some ' big boy undies'. Who knows? Fingers crossed!

Sunday....planning day

I've just got things planned and ready to go for the week. We're going to be working on the book, "The Giraffe that walked to Paris". It is so beautifully illustrated I can hardly wait till tomorrow to start it PLUS Giraffes are my all time favourite animal :)

The new Math MEP programme is all bound and ready to go and we have a basket of books to browse on Egypt, Paris and Giraffes so it looks like a fun week.

I've planned out all the meals for the week but had better get upstairs and cook dinner for tonight..........alsI'd better get Isaac's bag ready for tomorrow (lots of paperwork). He's starting pre school tomorrow and he's so excited and a little bit nervous (just like his Mum).

A day out.........and a night out.

Today we loaded up the car and the kids and headed down to Sausalito. The bay area discovery museum had an exhibition on China which tied in really nicely with our study of, "The story of Ping" and China. It was really worthwhile and all 4 kids enjoyed themselves in one way or another. Isaac loves bridges and seeing as this particular museum is right at the foot of the golden gate bridge, he was in his element!
Tonight Rik and I went out for dinner. It was lovely, just the two of us, we could actually TALK to each other.

Another good day.

The girls started school early and finished early again today and this seems to work well.

They had a great incentive; their little friend was coming for a play :) They've already had a fashion show.......................you really don't want to know what their room looks like right now.......and now they're upstairs with Isaac cuddling on the couch.

I, in the meantime have FINALLY finished out all of the information, worksheets and instructions for MEP Maths. It's a Math programme based on the Hungarian system and currently being trialed in some English schools. What makes this sytem different is that it actually trains the students to think in a mathematical way. It looks very interesting so I'm excited to try it with them, especially Anna who has convinced herself that she can't do Math. Eva, on the other hand is strong in Math so I've decided to combine the two to makes things easier for all of us (at least at this stage).

I'm going to go to the copy shop later this afternoon to get the sheets bound into a book to make it easier to work with. We'll be implementing it starting Monday so I'll post about how it's being received :)..........................Monday will be a big day for us with Isaac starting his pre school. He's very anxious and excited.........I'm sure he'll be fine once he gets there and we're allowed to stay with him the first day so I've already booked the babysitter for a couple of hours :)

I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE the Library!

The girls were great today. They settled down to their desks at 8am and worked steadily. They worked so well that aside from their assigned reading they were done by 10:45! Excellent :) It seems our new behaviour system is paying off. I told them I am looking for good manners, good presentation, staying on task and in Anna's case, no emotional outburts or rages. For every day that they stick to these rules they get a star. They can also earn extra stars for exceptional work or presentation. When they have 20 stars they can choose a prize from a prize draw, (thank you Target dollar bins). This seems to really motivate them so finger crossed.

We are studying Ping this week and I just picked up 26 books on China (also some on giraffes, Egypt and Paris) for next week's book, "The Giraffe that walked to Paris", (he left from Egypt). The girls have had a blast browsing the extra material on China and are very interested in the Great Wall. We also managed to pick up a child oriented teach yourself Mandarin book and CD. I love the library! We'll look at it tomorrow (Thursday) and hopefully learn a few Chinese phrases.

After the library, I had some much needed time to myself. A baby sitter came for the four kids and I went shopping sans enfants. It was great to actually browse and remember what I had come in there for! I bought a new Winter coat for Isaac, every child a matching Halloween long sleeved shirt (for later at the pumpkin patch) a few Tees for Eva and some Jammies for myself.

Now back to the adventures of a 3 year old who just came in proudly displaying his bare belly and asking me if ," you like my circle Mummy?".......................um, ...........well no, not really,............ not when it's with permanent marker all over your tummy! Better go.

What works

We found out something today! Starting school at 11am does NOT work for our Family. We left in the morning to go to the park and feed the ducks (there were also 6 new ducklings!) and by the time we got back and Isaac started his therapy and Jude had his lunch it was nearing noon.

With Jude in bed and the girls fed it was about 1pm before we settled into the meatier work for the day. We all agreed that today was a one off and that tomorrow we'd start at 8am again. Never mind. They still did what they needed to do and even commented that it was ' fun'.

In the later afternoon we did a lesson on buoyancy and did a sink/float chart with various objects. Isaac joined in for this and loved it and to my suprise his predictions were pretty accurate. He assured us all he was a ' good sciensist' LOL

First day back.

Today we started with Ping!

All went well except the attitude of Eva at the very end. I'm thinking that despite sleeping in she's still tired from Summer camp. I have to remind myself that she has only just turned 7 and to have a little more patience with her. In the end, she finished up what was required, gave me a hug and went for a rest on her bed with her Nintendo DS.

Earlier in the morning while I popped out to introduce Isaac to his Teacher at his new pre school, Anna had gotten on the internet and looked up information about China :) The babysitter thought I'd asked her to (I hadn't) and when I got back she rattled off many facts which she's already memorised, including that ice-cream was first made in China about 2000 BC. I think they're really going to LOVE FIAR.

The girls only came back from girl scout camp yesterday. They went to Skylark Ranch which is in California at the foot of the mountains near Santa Cruz. They were only gone 3 nights/4 days and they came home grubby, dirty, smelly, tired BUT with huge smiles!

Isaac starts at his new school, next Monday 24th August. He is going to love it. I had to literally drag him out of there this morning and on the way home we stopped at Target and bought a ' big boy' lunch box and drink bottle to take to school with his 'big boy' backpack next week. There are only 15 in his class with one Teacher and 2 aides. There is a 50/50 mix of neurotypical children and children with differing disabilities, including another 2 with autism. We really feel it's the right place for him at the moment and he has individual therapy after class finishes on site so that is fantastic for me. I'm going to miss having him around me all day but I think he will thrive in that environment and I still get to have him most of the afternoon :) He is so funny. Today on the way to his school he told me, out of the blue, "Mum, my cheeks are blind, but my eyes can see"! LOL

Jude and Anna with both start their home based ABA/play therapies around the same time so we will have to wait and see how our days look. At the moment it looks like Jude will have therapy every day from 9:30-11am and Anna will have therapy 11-1pm every day. That should give us enough time to get the fundamentals of school done (at least all the interactive parts) whilst Isaac is at school and Jude is occupied with therapy and before Anna needs to start her therapy. Then we'll (A,E,J and I) have lunch, pick up Isaac (1:30 or 2pm depending on the day) and we'll have about three hours left to fit in playing, resting, baths, dance, cooking and dinner. Phew! It makes me tired just thinking about it. I know once we have a routine down pat it will be a lot easier and things will just flow so I'm looking forward to getting to that point.

Now time to pack the girls workboxes and plan things out for tomorrow so that I can actually talk to Rik tonight.

A start for a technophobe

Well I finally succumbed to what everyone else has been doing for a while now and have mustered up the courage (and the time) to try and construct a blog. It will be a place to talk about our Family, our School and our feelings.
I have been homeschooling Anna and Eva since May this year after ps just became too much for Anna to deal with (High functioning Autism and ADHD). It's been wonderful to begin discovering both girls strengths and weaknesses, many of which have been overlooked in a regular classroom.
We started off using the Ambleside online (AO) curriculum which I loved but the girls didn't. After discussing Anna's deficits with some Autism experts we decided to switch curriculum and we're about to start FIAR tomorrow. We're starting off with "The Story of Ping", which will lead us into an exploration of China (Ancient Asia is an interest of Anna's). Anna's enthusiastic, Eva's enthusiastic and I'm excited to get back into things again!