Learning Around Here This Week...

This week we were without daddy for most of the week who went out to the house with Poppy to lay the chipboard yellow tongue and groove sheets along with cut out the archway and put up the lintel. Great job boys!

We had swimming lessons. Kids are LOVING their classes and teachers and especially love meeting with 15 other homeschooling kids each week!

Zip, Zeeki and I visited a new playgroup this week too.

{We read through more of our read a loud 'Henry and the Clubhouse'.

The boys made a cosy clubhouse of their own this week in the backyard.}

{Checked out Chapt 22 of our Story of the World; life in Ancient Sparta and Ancient Athens. Made knuckles to play out of the Ancient World book and some air dried clay and painted them up.}

{Stass' 3 new books - from the Little House on the Prairie series- The Rose Years- arrived. There are over 200 pages in one book and over 300 in the other two. Stass enjoyed reading through all 3 this week! I must say that it's one thing I lOVE about our learning-at-home journey; the time afforded to the kids to be able to read or do things that really interest them. She was so happy to have finished each one.}

{Liji had an assessment for visual dyslexia at the Alison Lawson clinic here. We are hopeful this may help him at some stage. Just trying to work out when to start.}

{The kids made some NO BAKE ENERGY BALLS as a gift for Sulley (Dannii my SIL) who returned to work this week after an extended break. The boys wrote out the recipe in their new recipe books.}

{Stass wrote out the recipe for the cheesy chicken slow cooker meal we all made together on Wednesday.}

{I sewed up some bunting for the girls' room out of handkerchiefs from a play tea set the girls were given. They never use these from the set and they just always get trodden on when they play so I thought I might put them to another use ;) I just tacked the ends of the triangles together and threaded them onto some twine. Totally dodgy hand sewing but the girls liked them!

Simple but cute with their pink and purple butterfly curtains.}

{Our memory verses book got a work out this week.}

We took a bus and train ride to a town an hour away where Jas, our friend, was organising her first baby wearing meet. I wanted to go along and support her. Unfortunately, a lot of mums couldn't make it and my kids were the only big ones there. This always makes me feel a bit self concious since they are an energetic lot! 

It was lovely to catch up with Jas and Sophie though.

{They did, however, enjoy the train ride there. Zippi got quite overwhelmed and kept asking to go home.I felt overwhelmed too. This was the day I wrote the post 'You are not alone'.}

{Zippi still has to have two dummies like this to self soothe.}

{Babywearing means that I can still hold Zippi's hand, whilst carrying Zeeki on and off public transport.}

The kids started getting excited about the Olympic Games in London.

{Front cover of the OLYMPIC GAMES LAPBOOK that we made. Thank you Homeschool Share!}

{Stass with Sulley's help, looked up the athletic history of two of her favourite athletes; Lauren Jackson and Sally Pearson.}

{Inside we talked about the food pyramid and we are keeping track of Australia's medals. That little flap bottom right flips up and there are three columns for gold, silver and bronze medals.}

{Zeeki began crawling properly about 2 weeks ago and is now going to a push up position and has begun to pull himself up a little on furniture. Man time is flying by! In a month and a week, he'll be one!!! He loves this lovely and warm jumper Aunty Sumi gave him. Since he has been crawling, he's less anxious which is really great - for him and us! He's a gorgeous little boy whom we all adore.}

Liji has been asking for alot of deep pressure lately. For those interested HERE IS A LINK TO A PAPER BY TEMPLE GRANDIN WHO HAS A PH.D AND DEVELOPED NOT ONLY SYSTEMS USED IN AMERICA'S ABBATOIR'S AND CATTLE YARDS BUT ALSO DEVELOPED A SQUEEZE MACHINE TO CALM HERSELF. Over the years, we've used different tools to help with deep pressure; brushes, joint compressions, crab walks and other gross motor style activities and heavy work. I remembered that I had bought some lyrca from my mate Kaz a couple of years ago and whipped that out again. While I got the dinner on in the slow cooker that morning, Liji went to designing a body sock for himself on paper. He drew pictures of the tools we'd need too.

We measured him up and then he helped me assemble it.

I took a video of Liji using the sewing machine for the first time but can't seem to upload it here.

{Liji cutting the material.}

{The boys in their body socks.}

{Liji's has to be resewn now after the feet got holes in them but they really like these!}

{The kids enjoyed a game of scrabble with Nan after dinner one night. Nan, Sull and my lovely next door neighbour once again all came and pitched in while Brett was away. I'm so thankful for all their help.}

An invitation to craft: making cards

{An invitation to craft: making cards using foam letters, paper embellishments and double sided tape for Zippi.}

{Happy for ten minutes or so choosing from the bowls and adding to her cards.}

{Great fine motor skills}

I had a lovely night out with my 'M' girls...except we were missing Michelle :( Next time mate.

{Mell, Mel and Me}

{My yummy steak}

All in all another busy week full of learning experiences and faith-stretching experiences too!

More another time,
Lus x

Our Dominant Story

So I suspect that my family is alot like yours and the majority of families in many ways...we are loving but we are incredibly flawed.
We get too angry.
We are too impatient with each other.
We say awful things that we don't mean.
We have this background current of Autism which currently colours our life and language more than we would like it too.
We take each other for granted and miss seeing the big picture because we are trying to control the silly, unimportant issues far too often.

And I lie awake wondering sometimes, if we are 'good' enough as parents.

I know that most of you in Blogland don't know me in real life.
You see our 'highlights' reel on here but you don't see the pain and trauma of the behind the scenes stuff that sometimes feels like it is taking over.

I was talking to a lovely friend of mine recently about these heart issues and she was saying that there is power in repeating our Dominant Story. What did she mean by that? Well, story telling about, showing photos of and reminding ourselves about the very things we want to be our dominant story when we look back on our lives 10, 20, 30 years from now.

I want the dominant story of our children's childhoods to be about indoor picnics when it rained, about snuggling under blankets reading rich, thought-provoking stories, about backyard cricket on warm summer evenings and baking choc chip cookies and licking the bowl clean. I want their dominant story to be one of feelings of belonging and traditions that made their hearts feel whole; remembering how we ate pumpkin soup from our special bowls that look like pumpkins, how we always have a special Shabbat meal together and of birthday dinners where loving words are shared around a communal table. I pray that our children will want to tell their children about the time that we went horseriding and the horse scratched its bum against the tree and we all laughed ourselves silly, about trips to Bonnyvale beach and playing Pani in the backyard. I hope their dominant story is filled with memories of planting and harvesting in our vegie garden, of prayers shared, of learning and exploring on bushwalks together, of dressing up, dancing + celebrating the Biblical Feasts and of many cuddles and 'i love you's' whispered into little ears before bedtime each night.

I guess I've realised that part of why I blog is so that I can remind myself of what I want our dominant story to be.
We are not perfect.
Life here is hard.
Often.
But it's also wonderful and fun, beautiful and comforting too.

{Thanks Michelle btw for sharing with me.}

So in light of that, I wanted to share about one day last week.
We'd done some maths bookwork in the morning, our afternoon rhythm and some reading together.
We'd had several days of rain {and hail!} and we wanted to make the most of a sun-shiny afternoon.
Liji asked if we could pleeeeeeeeeeeeease go catch some tadpoles!
So off we went.

{When we got to the first place, there was still hail left in HUGE chunks TWO days after it had fallen!!!!!! We couldn't get over it!}

{I love watching our kiddos go off on adventures like this!}

{The water at the first place we went was running a little too quickly so there were no tadpoles around so we decided to go somewhere else}

{Love my Ergo!}

{Zippi loved sloshing about in her boots in the 'muddy puddles' - which of course must be said in your best Peppa Pig voice! lol!}

{Enjoying a short trip to the second spot. By the time we got there the mozzies were out in full force}

{Eagerly they show Brett their 'catch'!}

{You can see the little guy Liji caught in the bottom corner of the bag!}

 

{Ethi asked that a photo of his be taken before being released back into the water}

Now please don't get me wrong.
I'm not sharing this to gain pity or a pat on the back or anything at all like that.
I'm not sharing these things for any other reason than to remind myself, when I look back in years to come, that this was a bit of a pivotal moment for me.
I know that just by talking about our Dominant Story that I am not excused for my poor attitudes or sinful nature.
I constantly ask that Yah would make us more like his son, Yeshua, whom through the Scriptures we see as a perfect example of our Father's nature.
I want to be pruned and become the best parent to our children that I can be.
And so does Brett.

But I guess that while we are working on that, it is a comforting thought that as I remind myself and my family about the positives in our life, I can be leaving us all with happy memories of a dominant story that was full of us being real, learning how to work through life's challenges and loving well.

With love,
Lusi x

Preschool Play

One of the trickiest things for me at the moment is that I have 3 older kids close together in age (9,8,7) and two littlies. I can often manage the three older ones doing an activity together like lego or something similiar while Ezekiel (our youngest) is asleep in the Ergo carrier but Zippi (who is 2.5 yrs and quite an intense personality) is often looking for something to do! So I thought that I would share some of the activities I have for her to play with that are easy for her or I to access and start at a moment's notice! These kinds of activities are good for when I am carrying Zeeki (therefore unable to get down comfortably on the floor to do things with her) or when I am cooking dinner or something like that. These are my 'go-to' kind of activities that buy me a little time without the whinging and at the same time really help her engage in play and encourage indepence and creative skills.

The first I am going to share is called a DOODLE MAT.

I purchased this a while back from K Mart for $10. It has been really great! The activity consists of a foam/waterproof mat and a 'pen' that you fill with a little water. I sit Zippi up at our bench and then she draws onto the mat's surface. It dries after about 5 minutes (depending on the weather!) and so she can start again and draw something new!

I keep it in one of the baskets in our learning room so that it is easy for her to grab and bring to me if she feels like using it (otherwise I'll just suggest it sometimes to her and she's up for it!)

The 'pen' stays on the sink ready to be filled when next needed (I keep it there too so it won't get lost).

Zippi finds a pencil a bit difficult to grasp still but this is nice and chunky so she is able to get a better hold. This means she doesn't get as frustrated with drawing. She's been asking me to draw things ("draw me mummy!" ) and then she tries to copy. It's a great little game and is helping her hand-eye coordination, her sense of creativity and her ability to communicate.

For $10, this was a really great purchase for us...well worth the money!

More soon,

Learning this week has looked a bit like this...

For Zippi...
Learning to do some threading with thin wire and dry pasta...



then painting it up...



...making tortillas together; mixing, kneading, rolling & flipping...

The older kids got out Stass' beading sets and had some fun of their own doing threading and creating. Ethi made me a beautiful necklace to wear and Liji made this...

The girls pretended to play mum's and babies.
Zippi is talking ALOT to baby E; she brings him things to see and 'play' with, she calls him by name all the time and kisses my tummy asking if he can come and sit with her. She pretends to take him out of my tummy and then rocks him in the rocking chair and says she is feeding him.
Can't wait to see all the kids together with him.
He is already SO SO SO loved!

I bought some large print find-a-word books for the kids since they've all shown interest in these activities and we have been doing some together. They are really into it!

I introduced Zippi to ONE OF OUR FAMILY'S MOST FAVE GAMES OF ALL TIME....ZINGO!
Reasons I love Zingo: It's easy (so easy our 2 year old can play it) but the older kids still love it, it doesn't take batteries or have any annoying loud sounds built in and did I mention it's easy?! lol
Anyway, I wasn't sure if she would understand how to play it but she got it almost immediately!
She has a really incredible memory too so she took to it like a duck to water.

It started out just her and I playing
(in the background Stass and Ethi are playing THE BOARD GAME 'SORRY!' WHICH WAS BRETT'S AS A KID. He introduced it to the older kids and they now love it too!)

By the end of the week, Zipster was playing right along side the bigger kids!

This week Liji ended up having two teeth pulled at the dentist. Long story short, he has extra teeth already growing there (full length) and we'd been waiting for the baby ones to drop out for over a year. Our dentist is great and doesn't believe in intervening unnecessarily (which we think is excellent!) but since they have been giving him pain now, don't look at all like they are going to budge without help and also his new adult tooth was starting to become mishapen due to it pushing to try and move itself forward, it was time to take action.
So he bravely went to the dentist with Daddy and had his two teeth pulled out.
Later in the week another was almost out and I helped it along. So he lost three baby teeth in a week!

We read from Childrcraft's 'Your Body' book this week all about teeth.
We learnt the names for the cutting teeth at the front (incisors), the tearing teeth at the sides are called canines and the back chewing teeth are our molars. We also read a great cartoon about 'captain plaque' which they requested to be read again!
This week I also had a go at making our own toothpaste for the first time.
More to come on this later...

Other stuff the kids enjoyed:

Computer Time:

Visiting STARFALL, POPTROPICA, ABC READING EGGS and THE WORLD OF BRIAN P CLEARY.

Reading:

Brett finished up our fictional family read a loud this week 'Dr Doolittle'.
The boys read aloud 'The Simple Prince' (Ethi) and Tarzan Goes Bananas (Liji) and are both trying very hard.
Stass has now finished all ten books in Enid Blyton's Secret 7 Series (thanks to Bridge for the lend of these!) and has moved onto reading Pollyanna of the Orange Blossoms which I found for $1 in an op shop a fortnight ago.

Maths:

The chapters in Pollyanna are in roman numerals so Stass was asking which ones were which. We went through them together and she got the hang of counting from 1 to 20 very quickly - we were chatting about it while I was cooking dinner and she was jotting down the numerals.
Did some Math U See bookworks this week and Ethi enjoyed using his blue book and was introduced to fractions for the first time.

Play:

It rained all week here.
All the kids enjoyed playing lego together and making new creations.
Also Zingo, 'Sorry!', marbles, 'last card' (a card game) and hide and seek too.

DVD's:
Thunderbirds and Story Keepers

A couple of other things that I got on top of:
* Reorganising our medicine cabinet.
The boxes went from this:

to this...

I finally laminated and labelled each box;
one for kids' medicines, one for adult medicines + natural oils etc and the other box for bandages etc.

And I realised that my birthing banner wasn't very clear in any of the baby celebration shots which was when I put it up, so I thought I'd show you a somewhat better shot (only somewhat better! lol!)
It says, 'Labour of Love'.

Well more to come another time,
Love