don’t disturb him! He’s only sitting quietly doing a jigsaw all by himself for the very first time (one of those peg board ones, think I got it for £1 at Hesfes last year!) Of course, the flash of the camera disturbed him, and there seem to be some pieces missing, so I don’t think he’s going to finish it 🙁
Up and down sort of day. In response to comments, for those not utterly familiar with the history, I am only employing a more proactive (yeuch, horrid word) approach to learning to read because Big is pretty much demanding it. We’ve had wanting to read performances for over a year now, and I’m a little surprised that nothing is sticking – we’ve got Jolly Phonics books, tried out 100EL, phonics games, we’ve got starter readers by the set, Dr Seuss, some ladybirds, magnetic letters, and so on and so forth. We don’t currently have a working video player, so can’t make use of your kind offer Kath, although I’ll keep an eye out for school programs. Katya, so kind that you don’t see me as a conformist – in this case though, I think it’s Big that is desperate to conform. Maybe I need to find more home educated children who *don’t* read so that she doesn’t feel so bad about it all.
Anyway, we did a fair bit of pottering about – Big did some knitting and I did some crochet, then our Saturday science 😉 took the form of finishing off the Meccano ferris wheel. 
Small then got rather destructive towards it, so I took him out to Tescos to shop for a few bits, and left Big to play with it in peace. Was rather annoyed when I got back to discover that she’d abandoned it and stuck the tv on, against my express instructions. 🙁
More pasta for tea (that’s four times this week! anyone for a balanced diet? No?) and then a page of maths afterwards. And that meant we’d done everything I mentioned this morning, so we got to do the fun bit – putting the eggs into the sea monkey kit. She was thrilled 😉
And finally…
Comments
7 responses to “Shh….”
Cute, very cute.
I’m sure that if Big wants to read then you’ll be right on the edge of a break through. Confidence is half the battle with reading and I found it helpful with Pip(although she did R&1 at school, she went reading so I taught her)to let her read me a few very simple books that she knew by heart from me reading them to her over and over. In our case it was a load of ‘village with three corners’ and she got sooo much out of sitting me down and reading to me. No matter she knew the story word for word- to her mind she was reading and I now understand that not to have been a trick on my part but a useful step/tool on the road. remember with reading it’s a journey that you never really complete. Pip is seven and she’s not ‘there’. Neither am I. Love the ferris wheel.
Have you had a look at the Bob books. I think Babs has a set. ADJ has been a nightmare to start reading, but in just a few days of having them he’s picked up so much. Also http://www.headsprout.com has worked quite well, although we haven’t subscribed (money issues) but ADJ loved the free trial.
In consolation to big, they’re aren’t many 5yo who can knit!!!!
Finally Small is soooooo cute.
Karen O xx
Very cute photos! And check that out – even a shot with you in it 🙂 And yes, I do have the Bob books, you know you’re welcome to them.
Lovely pictures 🙂 Glad you had a good day!
Yes, we gave up on swimming for the time being, and I feel rather liberated by it.
Snap! We’ve got that puzzle. Lovely photos :0)
Very cute!
just to add to your abundance of remarks about reading, it must be frustrating for you- Just one thought, in Waldorf Ed writiing comes before reading and this makes the reading that much more interesting, reading what you have written. And there are so many early writing fun things that you can do (making your own books? writing/reading for a real purpose, shopping list, cards, etc). Maybe she can do these already? But I still find this really useful with Jem. Having said that, Jem learned at school with the Oxford reading tree (Biff and Chip and the magic key, etc), and it took a few months, starting from age 5 1/4, with the picture books. They were allowed to look at the stories on the computer, which reads it to you, and learn it by heart. I thought this was cheating, but then realised it gave them confidence and did actually help them to learn to read. By the time she left, some of her classmates were nearly 7 and still not remotely interested, so it obviously didnt work on all of them. There is a lot of peer pressure on them to read. Fugs does not seem too bothered, and still only recognises an ‘F’ and can write it, at 4 1/2, but then he doesnt have any friends his age that can read or write.
O sorry to go on, bla bla, hope there is something useful in there.