Monday

Today started so well and all of a sudden I had the Speechy on my doorstep – an appointment I had intended to cancel but in waiting till the hospital reception to open I forgot!  I was in the middle of about 4 different things – all going haywire – so she spent time with Daniel by herself. 

 

It was a big celebration for Daniel – he said “baby” by himself right the first time!!!  It sounds like such a small deal but it has been a word that he has been stuck on, just not getting and he got it!  Not only that but he knew he got it which was so cute, but more importantly, so good for his further speech development.  We were very excited and Daniel was pleased too.

 

We then headed into the library.  All of the children entered books in the Make a Story Book Competition run by the library each year.  Josh and Naomi both got a “Winner” for their book, and Daniel got a “Highly Commended”.  Jessica didn’t get any award for her book this year, she wrote a very simple book – beautiful words, beautiful presentation but probably not the style of book the judges were looking for.  It was great to see Daniel being concerned for Jessica that she wasn’t too sad that she didn’t “get” anything.  She was okay.

 

Later in the afternoon Josh worked on his Science and they all worked on their Math at some stage today.

 

 

Tuesday

Another day that started with so much promise but….. 

 

I had been invited to speak at the Babes in Arms group in town so the children were set to work through their projects independently, with Jessica working with Daniel.  

 

Before I left we sat down to our Math lessons.  Nomi has been struggling with adding numbers to 8.  We worked on the table with this with the Math U See blocks and she got it so quick.  It was a matter of visualising 8 being built up to 10.  Daniel spent time on Rainforest Math working with addition.  Josh and Jess are working independently and scoring/marking each other’s work so I am seeing them very little nowadays when it comes to math.

 

Yes, it seems like a good day in the making…. Then the power went off.  I was so glad I had already printed my notes!  A dragline was cleaning out the channel down from our place and had knocked down the power lines.  Pete went down to check that the driver was okay – he was saying in the tractor until the Power People could confirm there were no live wires around.  This was a great opportunity to discuss power and in particular safety concerns. 

 

With the power being off for a while Pete decided to take the family into town while I was in town.  So they dropped me off, and went out for morning tea.  They then took my shopping list and did the week’s grocery shop.  This was such a blessing for me and a great time for them.  Jessica really can do the shopping by herself except the trolley is sooooo full it is a very hard job for her to drive it.

 

The power was back on when we got back home though everyone just relaxed, read, and found things to do.

 

Peter helped Josh with his Science experiment and after working on it the first go Josh invited his siblings to come and have a look-see too.  He was working with chemical reactions – boiling cabbage leaves, cooling it down, adding vinegar, adding bi-carb and observing the different results.

 

Jigsaw puzzles have been resurrected!  Jess is doing a big one on her own and Nomi has been working on a few smaller ones.

Daniel is into Checkers and played at least one game with Peter today.

 

Joshua is writing a book on all he knows!  This is about the only writing he is doing at the moment – no creative writing.  I am wondering if I should start him again on Writing Strands.  It is just in my mind at the moment.

 

 

Wednesday

I started today with the intention… this seems to be the pattern for this week!  My goal was to be in the office to get some major tasks completed.  Of course I had computer problem after computer problem.

 

I took a break at 8.30 and we did our Math.  Nomi has got the adding 8 thing and I created 3 worksheets for her to work on which she completed with all correct!  Daniel is learning place value – units and tens, he is learning to say one-ty one, one-ty two etc as he counts into the teens.  Today we swapped around the activities so he was doing building, writing and saying at different times.  I then took him through a set of Subitising cards (1-6) which he enjoyed.  He can get 1-4 instantly though counts 5 and upwards.  His counting (0-10) is fairly fluent with only the occasional stumble which I believe is a speech stumble not a math stumble.

 

Josh is being diligent to work on ½ hour of science, ½ hour history, ½ hour economics most days. 

 

Peter spent a lot of time with the kids today – playing checkers with Daniel, and then playing against Josh and Jess (as one team) so that Daniel could learn some more.   Peter and Daniel both helped Jessica finish her 500-piece puzzle.  Daniel completed 2 smaller puzzles by himself.    Nomi’s toe needed extra care from the local vet – that was a lesson all in itself and a great one for chemical reactions as the peroxide bubbled on her sore.  Speaking of vets – Pete had a job where he removed some horse teeth, he brought them home unbeknown to anyone else and set Josh up to act as if he was pulling out teeth.  Then holding the tooth in his huge horse dentistry pliers he showed them to the kids – look what I pulled out of Joshua’s mouth.  Josh was laughing so hard, with his hand over his mouth,  it looked like he was in pain so that helped Peter’s story along!  Oh dear!  The fear – the anxiety – the laughter!!!