Wednesday - Fitting it all in!

Wednesdays are beginning to feel a tad frantic!

I run an Arts and Crafts Club, which takes  prepping and setting up for each session; with limited mobility I find it very challenging; I love to share arts and crafts with kids though, and I know Rye thoroughly enjoys it too.  I was a bit sad that only the house kids did Art Club today and no one from our wider home ed community came.   I may drop running the club as an home ed activity, and just do it as and when with Rye and the other RH kids - less stressful and less prep and setting up.  That aside, the leaf prints were great fun!

Wednesdays are also Cubs night; we did have a wee blip last week with Rye being unhappy - further investigation revealed he's also being told off for messing around and that combined with his feelings of being left out of the games resulted in his desire to drop cubs.  We chatted and I told him I'd have a word with his Cub Leader and the advantages of cubs, and how there will always be something that we find difficult and may make us unhappy - the trick is not to let those things ruin the over all experience.  So he's agreed to continue with Cubs for the term and we'll re-evaluate then.

Rye has also asked to do sports; he really wants to do football and the like, despite team games being very difficult for him.  I would love to get him into athletics, because he is a surprisingly fast runner!  Anyway, I decided to see if there was a sports club for children with difficulties and autism, happily there is and it's only a mile away - not so happily, its also on a Wednesday 4-5pm!   

Also fitting in daily reading, writing and maths can be challenging.  Though I do want to shout Rye's praise; he read the Rosie book to me again, while I cut up an old sheet for art club; so he was sat opposite me, and while I had to keep reminding him to "sound out the letters", he did manage to read the book, and figured out a few words completely on his own!

Afterwards I asked him to choose a sentence to copy out in his handwriting book.  Hmm, the muscle memory for letters just isn't there anymore; he's really struggling with copying the words from the book while also trying to remember how to draw the letters, write on the line and keep his letters between the line guides....its all scrambling his brain a bit.

It was a bit of a slog, and I had to keep stopping and chivvy him up, and knock him out of "I can't do it" mode.  I had him telling himself affirmations in the mirror, which he found highly embarrassing and funny - but at least it made him laugh!  I think word formation/copy work  can wait a week or two, a couple of weeks really hammering home and helping to develop that muscle memory of how the letters are formed, will bring on his writing more than making him write out sentences, with letters that are formed incorrectly and not readable.  I'm surprised he's regressed with this, his writing was coming along lovely.  Still, no worries, it happens, we'll just go over it again - I suspect he's on a verge of an "eureka" moment with reading - so I suppose a bit of a regression with the writing isn't totally surprising - this one step forward, one step back thing, is a familiar pattern with him.  

Mind, the sentence he wrote out was terrible, letters all over the page, no clear spaces between words; the words not copied correctly...so I wrote the sentence out for him, so he could see exactly what I required.  He struggled so much with writing an "a" though, that we stopped and for ten minutes I took him through, curve, line and tail, bit by bit, break the a down to "c" shape, then having him draw the line from the bottom of the c to the top, then back down and a little tail... it was a tad excruciating; but it worked, he is forming "a's" correctly, just need to break the habit he has of making the tail so exaggerated it looks like a joined up "au".  Still, we went from chaotic writing all over the page, to fairly neat, within the lines writing!  I think Rye was rather surprised when I pointed out his progress, just how much he'd made - mind, he was probably still recovering, bless him.

I confess I did dig out his mecano, expressly because it requires good fine motor skills and hand to eye coordination and concentration.  I need to try and sort out an area in the flat where we can sit and build models together, floor is not a good option for me.  

Rye independently worked on his space project.  He has a model of the solar system; and he built it all by himself and painted it.  He is very pleased with himself.

And yesterday the boys found the biggest sticks EVER!

This week home education looks like...

Sarah, over at Carried Family has written a fantastic post on what a week of unschooling looks like for her family.  Lovely to read as a home educator myself, who is often plague with worries of "am I doing enough, is Rye getting an education, should I "do" more with him?".
The obvious step is to record my own week with Rye, and I unashamedly admit I'm including Thursday and Friday because they were days that included very obvious learning, and were just such brilliant days, that I want to record them now.  So, our week will run from Thursday to Thursday.

Thursday:
Rye was up early.
Crashing cars and making up songs about it.
Helped pack for our afternoon at the beach with friends from the Home Ed group.
Asking what plants are as we walk along the side of the cliff to the beach.
Making huge sand mountains.
Playing in the sea, testing nerves and going deeper than ever before.
Looking at a Jelly fish that a friend found.  And shell hunting.

Initial upset and sulks that I allowed one of the boys to pull my trolley.  Rye felt it was his job; warned him not to snatch the trolley back - and suddenly fantastic cooperation happened.  The boys agreed Rye could pull the trolley once at the top of the cliff steps - and they cooperated brilliantly to carry the trolley up the cliff steps.  Very impressed.
Rye went to Street Dance class.
Once home tidied through the downstairs.
Went to bed and listened to a story cd.








Friday
Childminding day.  Mindee arrived at 8:30am.
Free silly, giggly play in the lounge.
Dancing to music on the radio.
Water play in the paddling pool, and lots of the float or sink experiments.
Running and jumping in to make big splashes.
Bubble machine on, discovered the bubbles "stick" to them when they are wet.

Friends arrive and I refill a now rather empty pool.
Rye is a little bossy - seeing where he can exert himself.
Lots of sand/trampoline and pool play - Rye mostly in pool playing with cars and planes.
Clay modelling - Rye makes a realistic looking racing car.
Kids gravitate indoors, and play boardgames:  sum swamp, trianomoes, snakes and ladders, quirkle.  All the kids have a go at sum swamp, working out the sums, working out even and odd numbers etc.  Friends leave at tea time.
Rye goes back outside and makes more clay models.
Listens to a story cd.

Saturday
Enjoyed morning cuddles.
Another childminding day, well morning, this time.
Swamp Sum with mindee - helps her with working out the sums etc.
Rye exhibits good humour when he looses the game, or when mindee gets snarky at him trying to help her.
Football club.
Visit friends, and plays with his best friend.
Pop into town for pimsoles for Rye's dance show.
Rye tries samples from the Italian Olive cart (just the biscuits and Italian quiche).
Plays swamp sum on his own.
Watches car racing on You Tube, and kiddy programmes on Netflix.
Plays Top Gear stunt game.
 
Sunday:

Rehearsals - Rye really enjoys it.
Show in the later afternoon - Rye performs in the show with the rest of the kids from his classes.  Sooooo proud of him!

Monday

Morning snuggles in bed, with the fan on.
Talked about why we sweat and the purpose of perspiration.
Dentist for me, so Rye stayed with a friend, playing and helping to put together jigsaw puzzles.
 Later when the kids were back, played with his best friend and watched some Dr Who.
Helped tidy up in prep for my crochet course this evening.
Watched Top Gear.
Play Top Gear stunt game.
1/2 hr of Reading Eggs.


Tuesday
Imaginative play with zoobs and cars.
Sum Swamp board game
building with quirkle tiles and knocking them down with the car.
Bouncing on trampoline.
Lots of talk about the weather, storms, looking at lightening bolts online.
Practicing letters on the blackboard.
Drawing.
Song and Dance Class.
Swimming Lesson - impressed his instructor with his new confidence in the water and swimming.  Just need him to be confident swimming on his back and he will go up another level.
Audio story.

Wednesday:
Sing and imaginative play with cars and zoobs on the tree house.
Sum Swamp board game.
Looking at books.
Playing in the sandpit with the cars.
Practising letters on the black board.
Taking photos and videos with his camera, and then editing the photos.
Horse riding lesson.
Working out cost of cars/buses he liked in the post office shop.
Making his own lunch (crackers with butter - I added cucumber, carrot and fruit)
Listening to audio story.





Water play at the fountain at the harbour for over 2 hours, including a water fight with me.

The lights looked so pretty when they finally came on at 9pm.















Thursday:
Cuddles
Imaginative play with zoobs, cars, big wooden jcb and play silks.
bouncing on the trampoline.
Writing numbers on the blackboard
Sum Swamp.
Junior Scrabble
Watching kiddy programmes on netflix.
Reading Eggs
Singing and dancing to the radio.
Experimenting with materials for boat making - tried paper, card and beeswax modelling clay.  Told me he really needed wood to make a boat that floated or simply didn't disintegrate once wet.

So there we have it.
The most glaring thing to me is how similar the days are, and how many resources are not being used.   There is a lot of learning through fun and games going on, yet I've noticed many of the resources available to Rye are not being utilised, and I've found myself feeling somewhat frustrated at the level of destructive play - lots of crashing things together and pounding them on the floor... watching him I honestly think it's because he needs more stimulus and plain old inspiration to fire the old imagination in new directions, and I need to think of some creative ways he can expend some of that destructive drive without ruining toys.

Domestic chores feature a lot in our day, small home means constant tidying to ensure space for us both, there's not a lot of fun chores though, cooking together has been fairly non existent.   Ok I'm juicing/raw eating again, no reason I can't help him to make his own meals.  Washing up, which he loves - again I've been doing it, or just letting pots build up enough to fill the dishwasher.

I think we both need a bit of a shake up... and potentially there's a huge one coming.  In 10 sleeps Rye and I visit Liverpool and seriously consider joining Rose Howey.  It's a big step, one we are both excited about, I could waffle on excitedly; there's really no point until we've been to visit and know one way or t'other.   And until then, we have 9 anticipation filled days to wait - good time to give us both a bit of a shake up and explore some of those unused resources on the shelves!

Trips Galore.

Yup another few trips this week; a windmill yesterday and Maidstone Museum today. 

The Windmill yesterday was really good, the kids had fun, it was interesting and they all had a go at making flour - including getting a little bit of what they made to take home :D  Pity about the weather, we had planned picnics and parks afterwards, instead a few of us decided on softplay, which for the kids, was a wonderful end to the day :D

 Rye was absolutely fascinated with these models, in the cafe they had more, and the guide allowed him to get up and turn the thingy at the back that moves the sweeps around... one very chuffed little boy :D

 Making flour using a grain mill.

 Cider press...... mmm cider...lol

 More making flour.

 Rye with his little bag of flour...oops getting a bit fed up of me snapping photos.

Anyone who is thinking of going to Willsborough Windmill, I thoroughly recommend it, the guides were lovely, it was really interesting and the kids did really enjoy themselves.  (Be aware it's laddes to the very top part of the mill.... have to say I didn't make it, I was feeling very jittery and nervous on the 2nd level..   daft me, somehow forgot about the height factor!

Maidstone Museum was excellent, if very hot; too hot in fact it began to make the kids rather fractious after a while. 

 The dressing up section was very popular with them all.  Rye did make me laugh running around in ladies shoes. 

 Ahhh, my gorgeous lad.  **melt**

 Enjoying the interactive section, listening to sounds and trying to work out what they are.

 "Jacqui, can we buy the buses?"  LOL

 Rye is fascinated with the Otter eating the fish.

 "It's a very nice boat, Jacqui, can I get in?"    Er no.  lol

 Ahh what a fabulous learning picture eh........  honestly, he just liked pressing the different photos lol.

 "Oooh can I have one?"

 "Read this to me, Jacqui"  it was about the celts, roots etc.  Rye quickly lost interest, but hey at least he asked lol.

The natural history bit probably engages Rye the most, he enthralled by the various cases of animals, birds and bugs.  Really must take this boy to the Natural History Museum, I think he will love it.

Funnily enough, the growling dinosaur frightened him a bit this time.

And then it was onto Nandos for lunch.  I am juicing, so I choose a salad, I confess I did have some chicken, and I tried the frozen yoghurt, but it was too sweet for me, so Rye finished it off for me.

Then back home to try out Street Dance.  Rye has been saying he doesn't want to do it; so I agreed with him he'd try it and if he didn't like it, he wouldn't have to go again.  Well he loved it.  He came racing up to me after the lesson, beaming and telling me how much fun he'd had.  

Indeed, beforehand, I'd asked another mum, whom I know, if we were allowed to stay, and she said we weren't suppose to, so I sauntered towards the door, wondering if Rye would panic or not..... 

"Bye mum"  he called out and waved to me.  I was flabberghast and proud all at once. 

He really has matured so much this year, last year he was very clingy, didn't like being left, uncooperative in groups etc.. and now he's in his element, it is so gratifying to see, and I'm so pleased I've been able to go at his pace and not force this development.

And tomorrow, well we were meeting a friend at the Coastal Park, but it sounds like she's coming down with a nasty flu, so I'll take Rye on my own with one of his friends, and they can race about for an hour or so and burn off some energy.  I think some free range play in the open air is definitely on the cards :D