Tuesday 21 February 2012

Gymnastics.

Yesterday was the first session of Gymnastics.
As expected Rye did refuse to join in properly.  Initially I went in with him, and ooh, I could actually jump because the floor is so sprung, I can't tell you how long it's been since I last jumped!
It was fairly obvious that Rye was going to hide behind my skirts, so to speak, so I told him I was going to go and watch him from behind the window and walked out.  I expected him to follow me.

He didn't.  That immediately was fantastic and a step forward.
For a while he sat in the corner, jiggered, sat on the mats, rolled back, kicked is feet in the air.  He couldn't help himself though, the coach working with the other little boy in the session, was just too interesting not to creep closer and watch.  Soon I noticed he was copying what the coach was showing the other little boy to do.  The coach kept asking Rye if he wanted a go, he refused.  Yet he wasn't completely defiant,   He did sit when she asked him to  And importantly when the session ended, he walked alongside her and spoke with her.  She asked him if he'd enjoyed himself, and he said he had.

I'm very hopeful he will begin to participate at future sessions.
And I'm really proud of him.  When we first started Forest School he stood next to me, cuddling me and refusing to join in, and it tooks weeks and weeks, if not months for him to settle.  So while on the surface it looks like he's doing refusal again, it's a massive step forward.

I had taken a lot of story books, a simple craft and Rye's handwriting book and reading book to Gymnastics because I was taking a friend's children with me too, and F is in the older group.  I also had my minded child with me.  Anyway, after the sessions we went to our friend's house, I only planned to stay for a bit, but of course we got chatting and stayed much longer.  Rye asked if he could do some of his workbook.  So I gave it to him.  Up to now I've been saying it's something we need to do together, and haven't got around to it.  Just giving it to him was a relevation.  He sat there and worked through several pages; his penmanship and control has improved phenomenally.  I was so excited.  And it taught me a valuable lesson of not being so blinkered by "doing it right"   I suppose I'd got it into my head that the work books were something we needed to sit and do together and work through them sequentially.  Rye has shown me that actually he's much more productive just leaving him be.  After that he wanted a story, so we read his reading book together.

This morning in bed Rye counted up to 20 too.  I wasn't sure he could, and sure he missed 15 out, still, all good stuff.  So we counted up to 50 together, and then we talked about how many sleeps it was to is birthday (haha not something I can work out in my head), so instead I told him the order of the months.  He just chatted and chatted revealing a knowledge of so many things I didn't realise he had.


Oooh and for the outdoor challenge, I'm afraid such a busy day there wasn't a great deal of outdoor play, maybe half hour in the garden in the morning while I hung washing out and the kids played with the scooters and the sandpit.


2 comments:

rae-ann said...

Sounds like a lovely day; counting how many sleeps still happens here and DD will be 11 next weekend (7 sleeps!) Love how Rye just took his workbook and got on with things; kudos to you mama - look how much he has been absorbing, probably without you even realising. xx

Megan said...

my girls are LOVING gymnastics. Its turned into our life sort of. We talk in sleeps too. Mainly how many sleeps until gymnastics :-)