Finn's Chickens - 15/06/2016

Simon's Cat inspires 'Finn's Chickens'

Conor recently introduced these little clips called "Simon's Cat" to the kids, and Finn LOVES them, so much that he started his own little series.

This was our first introduction to "Finn's Chickens"

My favorite one is the two chickens near the middle page, but a little down and to the left.
The chicken on the right is confused because the chicken on the left has a troll mask on hahahaha

Random stuff for the day

I think I want to get this blog going a bit more, so let's see how I go!  

Here are some randoms:

1. Finn is coming along so well now with reading!  He's "behind" where he would be if he were in school, I'm sure, but I don't care. We're going at his pace, he's loving it, and I'm loving getting to be the one to watch it all unfold!  We got some new readers from Costco this week and one book particularly he was laughing hysterically through, partly because it was a funny story, and partly because he was just so chuffed with himself. Makes my heart happy. He's also loving writing stories. For awhile I've let the kids dictate stories to me and I'll type it up for them and print it out like a book and they add their own illustrations, but this past week Finn has been enjoying writing his own stories by hand, with a little help by me

One of the first times he ever just sat down and tried to write something!

If you can't guess, they've been reading the Chronicles of Narnia.  Currently they are reading the Last Battle

2. Along with that, Elle has been doing a bit of reading eggs, but also just listening to Finn and I do his work she's picked up a lot. Today Conor took the girls to the shops and when they walked past the butcher Elle tried reading some of the labels. She got "beef" and "pork" all by herself!

3. I've been having issues with my back the last few months. I think it's just that my core isn't very strong, so when I bend and lift I'm straining my back. Lately it seems like one tweak will finally feel better, I'll have a few days of no back pain, and then I'll go and tweak it again!  Today it's resulted in spasms, which I've thankfully not had up to this point yet. But it's 6:30pm, and my back has been spasming since before 9am!!  It's so awful, and I feel terrible that Conor's having to do everything (and the kids are extra feral because for two days they've been up around 5am!). I feel like one of those "real housewives of Orange County" or something because I'll be popping a Valium tonight when Oliver goes to bed. 😂

Homeschooling

One of the things I love about homeschooling is the flexibility to do whatever you want with your kids to help them learn.  We aren't tied down by anything.  We don't have to do math at 10 o'clock and science at 11 o'clock and  history at 11:30.

We don't have to stop an activity because of a bell ringing (obviously if we need to get out of the house to be somewhere or if it's bedtime or something the activity DOES need to end, but you know what I mean!)...if that bell were a fire alarm, that might be a different story ;)

Anyways, I should really organize my thoughts on homeschooling one day and write a blog post series on our approach, but at the moment we're doing a "better late than early" approach, which is what Conor's family did.  We're letting them learn at their own pace, when they're ready.  We're not pushing anything on them right now.  BUT I like to strike when the moment is hot.  Taking reading for example.  There are TONS of resources for teaching reading to your children... and I would love to have a calm child that just sat down and did lessons with me... but Finn's not that child! (and I'm not complaining... he is who he is and I love seeing how HE learns things).

I had bought a book, something about "learning how to read in 100 easy lessons".  No pressure, but I thought I might as well have a few resources on hand in case one of the kids like it... Finn sat down nicely for about 30 seconds of the first lesson.  So onto the shelf it went - haha.

I really think Finn is going to learn how to read from a desire to write.  We read to the kids a lot, but when I try to point out words and sounds in the books he couldn't care less (actually he may very well be absorbing everything I'm pointing out and I just don't know it yet).  I do it anyways though... and when we're out shopping or driving I ask him to find certain letters, and we go over some of the sounds.  I might as well just keep doing it, he might pick it up.

But right now he loves making cards, and drawing pictures, and well, anything crafty.  And every so often he wants to make a sign or write someone's name.  So that's when I take the opportunity to really go through sounds with him, and he loves to write out the alphabet.

Well I bought a laminator awhile ago and haven't really used it, but thought I would make up my own sort of worksheets for him.  He likes being part of the process.  So we got on the computer and I typed up sheets with a few key letters/sounds with lines beside them and I told him we could play a game where he copies the letters and says the sounds as he does it.

I printed one sheet out per letter (with lines to practice the upper case and the lower case), and then we laminated them, and then I got out the dry erase pens that I had bought at ikea for just this task.  My intention was then that anytime he wanted to, he could sit down and practice these letters and sounds and we could eventually build on it with more sounds.  He was so excited!  He got right into it doing the letter "A" and making the "ah" sound as he went.

Finn working hard on the letter A... Elle just scribbling everywhere :)

Finn did the "activity" as I had intended it to be for that one letter.  Then he wanted to write out the whole alphabet... then he started drawing people and house.

Elle might be the polar opposite, but Finn really marches to the beat of his own drum. Pretty much NOTHING is used as it's intended to be used.  His mind is almost always thinking outside of the box.

I am NOT like that, so it frustrates me sometimes and if I try to make him do things my way we almost always both end up pretty grumpy.  This is exactly why I love homeschooling - because he can do things in a way that works for him... I just need to remind myself of this sometimes.  And honestly, he's so creative and WAY smarter than me when it comes to creating things... like the lego word spelling his name in yesterdays post.