We woke up today and it was cold and foggy outside. By now it’s snowing and tonight it’s supposed to drop to about 6 degrees. Quite honestly, we all rather love these weather changes when we feel a bit like a frontier family in our log house, with our wood stove. Since the water heater has been broken for over a week now that makes it seem a bit more real. We have to boil water on the stove to wash dishes and get clean. But we still have a washing machine and a dishwasher so the pioneer thing is not that real.
Today we spent part of the day “battening down the hatches”. Sean did most of it because this is his week as “Mom’s helper”. I made some covers for the outside faucets and he put them on; also dumped out ashes from the woodstove and chipped at the ice on the deck to try to get rid of it before the hard freeze.
He also did math — he is up to adding rational expressions. I am tentatively thinking that since Clare is still using Jacob’s, that after he finishes the last couple of Key to booklets, that we will do some “easy” general math so he can consolidate a bit and build his confidence. He’s doing well but is working hard and like my others, underestimates his ability.
Aidan’s occupational therapist came and they did a matching game with these wooden squares with faces of children from different lands on them. He also laced wooden Doug and Melissa shapes. He did well at this and took pride in his efforts. Paddy on the other hand was sort of puzzled as to WHY we would want to lace wooden shapes. What was the point? He did it out of social desire to be one of the group and imitate us, but it wasn’t intrinsically fulfilling to him. I can remember when Aidan was at that developmental stage. It seems they must transition from goal-oriented projects to a slightly more abstract delight in their skills per se. And Aidan must be entering that stage, while Paddy is not quite there yet.
Both loved the matching game though. It reminded them of how we play with Parent/Child masterpieces. We will have to think of other ways to match things around here.
I made a visual bedtime routine board for Aidan. It is a bit like this one (HT Kim at Starry Sky Ranch who mentioned it on a Real Learning thread about Early Childhood). I took pictures of all the customary objects associated with his bedtime: toothbrush, water glass, brace (he wears it at night), lotion, nighttime pull-up, etc. Then I velcroed them to a poster board. The idea is to provide a visual that he can manipulate in different ways.
We spent a long time in front of the fire today solving mysteries from one of those thinking puzzle type books. Clare thought we should start a tradition of doing these whenever we are expecting a cold spell. It was fun and very comfortable. The puzzles require “lateral thinking” and also usually knowledge of some factoid. I was surprised, in stereotypical unschooling style, how much my boys knew of obscure cultural-literacy things that I hadn’t ever taught them — for example, Sean guessed one that involved ice-hole fishing and Kieron guessed one that involved sinking boats to make them watertight.
Kevin bought some protein powder for the two teenage boys and so they have been having protein shakes for breakfast and afternoon snack. Funny! I guess it’s a kind of strewing come to think of it. Sean and Kevin walked to the post office and report that it’s cold and slippery and in general miserable out there. The sleet we were having is now turning to snow, and I think we will be homebound tomorrow considering the ice and the precipitation and the bitter cold as well.
A couple of other very quick notes:
The boys did math, read their religion, and did Latin yesterday. We are still trying to get back on track.
I started a notebook for Paddy’s stories. This is another thing we have done sporadically in the past with the little ones — either I or an older siblings writes down journal entries or made up stories for the child that can’t yet write for himself. We would do it off and on, not consistently, and being the negative person I am I would focus more on what we DIDn’T do, not what we did. But now I am thinking this was probably more valuable than I thought at the time. Even once in a while, not regularly, it probably helped the young ones think of themselves as writers and worthwhile to listen to. Besides it was fun — why do I take fun things and end up making them NOT-fun by not respecting the way children do things in bits and pieces that add up over time??? So anyway, I’ve started a Paddy-journal and won’t hold myself or him to some daily standard, but just pick it up once in a while.
