This morning.

This morning took an unexpected turn. I had thought I would be dismantling my bed in readiness for the new one. Except I received a call that the bed would be with me at 10am not 3pm as expected. Hands slapping to cheeks and screaming in horror, frantic whirlwind through the house trying to find the bloody receipt for the order number to cancel delivery. Heart palpitations, the air turning blue, and eventually speaking to a lovely calm lady who will call me back tomorrow to re arrange delivery. Receipt, naturally, not found.

Phew.

After a calming and restorative cuppa, I heard the first sounds of Rye emerging from his pit. Kinda goes, stomp, stomp, thump, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, whoosh bang, "why you on the sofa mum?"

Seems me being up before him is confusing, it's not like its that rare! In fact I'm often awake before him. Humph.

Anyway, morning lay before us and I decided that Rye sitting on the floor watching Sonic the Hedgehog was not a good use of said morning. Besides, the sonic cartoons are dire, and it is beholden of me as matriarch of my wee family to save Rye from shite!.

So instead we had a reading lesson. Rye read the entire first Bob book. He also played the Bob game on the iPad, spelling simple phonetic words; mat, cat, dot, etc.









Lovely simple books that are repetitive with only a few sight words, and fabulous for building reading confidence. Rye was proud as punch that he'd read a whole book himself!

After breakfast



we revisited the first lesson in "The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading" by Jessie Wise and Sarah Buffington. So we looked at "Aa" and learned the first two stanzas of a vowel poem:

a is the first vowel we will say.
a is the vowel-sound of A

Took us a little while to remember this, and, besides, recording ourselves saying it was so much fun!


Well we were on a roll, so what the heck, let's break out the maths book. 7pages later I was gently suggesting Rye stops for lunch, and he can do more tomorrow.





Struggles with writing 3, yet to my utter surprise he writes 8 beautifully:


He's learned that himself; a wonderful duality of self learning and instruction.

This maths book is too easy for him, but it's good for reinforcing learning, building his confidence, and working on his pen craft.

I might inwardly snarl at the cost, and exorbitant postage costs, this lefty writing aid cost;



It does work. Luckily, I might have been tempted to hex the shop owner had it been rubbish!

It encourages correct pen holding position, and as a result Rye's pen manipulation is much better. He used it while colouring in too, and was much more controlled. Made this mama's heart sing!



Gosh, he looks so grown up there.

We are about to have story time, then later decorate some peg people; I'm thinking in a mock Waldorf style and using them for maths.

The frantic panic of this morning has been replaced with zen mama with a hint of smug. This home ed marlarkey is flipping fab!


And to cap it off, this came in the post:




Like I said hint of smug ;-)