Seriously sticky scrapping

Yes, we did follow Joyce’s suggestion to make a Jolly phonics sound scrapbook. Big was thrilled with it all, and from being nowhere with indentifying sounds in words found several for herself. The fact that she got to shred lots of our recycling bag improved the situation no end, and Small enjoyed contributing to the mess too. When she sat down to do the sticking he sat in his chair and poured water from cup to cup, which must be good for some kind of development as well.

I’m feeling quite good about today. We did end it with Big being sent to her room without her bath, which was a shame, but I feel like I made huge amounts of progress even if she didn’t. I played duplo with them this morning (until she stropped and threw bricks about, and then lost it entirely and had to be carried out kicking and screaming, ok, so that wasn’t so good), then did research on Jolly Phonics, restructured my blog categories, planned a reading activity *and* carried it out! and took them both out for a walk to the postbox as well. It isn’t very far to the postbox (probably about 5 – 10 minutes there and back), but it takes nearly half an hour with Small walking. So we played I Spy on the way there, and Big played some odd game which involved me trying to guess what transport she was using on the way back. ? – no I hadn’t come across it before either.

I also got a phone call from one of the mums at the home ed meet wanting to organise a playdate for Big and her son D, which was lovely, although unfortunately we can’t make it this time. Still, we had a nice chat, and we’ll sort something out soon I hope.

Home cooked pasta bake for tea again tonight, so I can feel good about that too…days like today, even with the dodgy tantrums make me think maybe I can make it after all. It’s tough atm, with circumstances beyond my control, and Small is just getting to the stage where anything Big is touching he wants, plus he is getting a bit aggressive (has started hair pulling and head butting, which is nice, not) but today I concentrated on the children rather than worrying about the work I haven’t done, even though I meant to do a load this morning, and it made me remember that, after all, that is why I am here with them. And Big so much enjoyed our activity this afternoon with the scrapbook – she wanted to do another sound, but I would rather that we really cemented each one instead of rushing through. Hopefully she will be as enthusiastic about it all on Wednesday (she doesn’t know it, but we are out for the day tomorrow) and we might start to make some headway.