I have also made a few charts, one is about her body and how she has looked after her body that week. The other is a weather and clothes chart so she can learn what different clothing is appropriate for different weather.
Friday, 30 December 2011
Starting the planning for Term One!
Over the last few days I've been using the templates from Annette Louwen's book "Parent and Planner Records" from her homeschooling website to plan the first few weeks of term one with Emilie. So far it's very basic toddler stuff that I have planned and not much structure at all. I do have a handwriting book that I will help her to do. It's less about letters and more about learning how to make controlled squiggles, pencil grip and control etc.
I have also made a few charts, one is about her body and how she has looked after her body that week. The other is a weather and clothes chart so she can learn what different clothing is appropriate for different weather.
I have also made a few charts, one is about her body and how she has looked after her body that week. The other is a weather and clothes chart so she can learn what different clothing is appropriate for different weather.
Monday, 12 December 2011
Haven't posted for a while!
Wow, so much has happened since I last posted!
Paul and I began extensions and renovations to our home in July, then in August we discovered we will be extending our FAMILY as well (a beautiful little girl due on the 1st of May 2012)!
We have been busy renovating the house and just under two weeks before Christmas the construction is nearly finished. Then next year we will concentrate on making the inside and outside look beautiful!
Paul and I decided we will start homeschooling Emilie in 2012, and I am just researching some topics for term ONE!
Term One runs from the 1st of February 2012 until 5th of April 2012. Because we will be expecting a baby in late April/early May, I will concentrate on the theme of ALL ABOUT ME
So far, in the 10-12 weeks of the term, we will do a sub-theme per fortnight. I will adjust this as I get a feel for her pace and her interests. I have thought a bit about sub-topics and I would like to include:
-My Body
-My Family/Home
-My Feelings
-Babies
-Easter
As I come up with more ideas I will post them :-)
Paul and I began extensions and renovations to our home in July, then in August we discovered we will be extending our FAMILY as well (a beautiful little girl due on the 1st of May 2012)!
We have been busy renovating the house and just under two weeks before Christmas the construction is nearly finished. Then next year we will concentrate on making the inside and outside look beautiful!
Paul and I decided we will start homeschooling Emilie in 2012, and I am just researching some topics for term ONE!
Term One runs from the 1st of February 2012 until 5th of April 2012. Because we will be expecting a baby in late April/early May, I will concentrate on the theme of ALL ABOUT ME
So far, in the 10-12 weeks of the term, we will do a sub-theme per fortnight. I will adjust this as I get a feel for her pace and her interests. I have thought a bit about sub-topics and I would like to include:
-My Body
-My Family/Home
-My Feelings
-Babies
-Easter
As I come up with more ideas I will post them :-)
Saturday, 30 July 2011
Madison's Smile
When I was a girl, I would get so frustrated that adults never seemed to understand what it was like to be a kid. I wondered how come, if adults had been children also at one time, did they not remember how it feels to be a child? I promised myself that when I had children I would be different that I would remember how hard it was to be a kid and treat my own kids the way I would want to have been treated.
Well what happened??? Please someone tell me where I left my memory because I have lost it somewhere along the way...
I find myself with the desire to see things from Madison's perspective but I can't fathom dropping my parenting standards in order for her to always get what she wants. As a (step)mother of course you want your child to have what they wish for and to be happy, but somewhere along the line from being a child yourself to becoming an adult you realise just how unrealistic your childhood wishes were! You realise that for your child to be truly happy you have to sacrifice their immediate happiness for long term happiness. You can't just give your child whatever they want because after all it will never truly satisfy their desire for more and more and more, and ultimately they will end up unhappy when they realise life isn't going to always be served to you on a silver platter. My desire is for Madison to grow up to be self sufficient, confident and satisfied with her life. I would be terribly sad if she grew up to be the opposite, because the opposite of those things is unhappiness.
I realised again on Friday (very firm believer that you can fall in love with your kids over and over every day!), when I picked Madison up from school, as she approached the car and our eyes met, she gave me the warmest smile and my heart melted. As hard as being a step mum is (loving someone else's child who will never truly appreciate the sacrifices you make for them and still only be second best in their eyes) its moments like that that really reaffirm that you are doing the right thing, you are heading in the right direction, that she loves me even if she doesn't (if that makes sense - to any stepmum it would).
I didn't have to give her anything material or do anything for her to get that smile. It was a genuine "happy to see you" smile. It was worth the investment.
Well what happened??? Please someone tell me where I left my memory because I have lost it somewhere along the way...
I find myself with the desire to see things from Madison's perspective but I can't fathom dropping my parenting standards in order for her to always get what she wants. As a (step)mother of course you want your child to have what they wish for and to be happy, but somewhere along the line from being a child yourself to becoming an adult you realise just how unrealistic your childhood wishes were! You realise that for your child to be truly happy you have to sacrifice their immediate happiness for long term happiness. You can't just give your child whatever they want because after all it will never truly satisfy their desire for more and more and more, and ultimately they will end up unhappy when they realise life isn't going to always be served to you on a silver platter. My desire is for Madison to grow up to be self sufficient, confident and satisfied with her life. I would be terribly sad if she grew up to be the opposite, because the opposite of those things is unhappiness.
I realised again on Friday (very firm believer that you can fall in love with your kids over and over every day!), when I picked Madison up from school, as she approached the car and our eyes met, she gave me the warmest smile and my heart melted. As hard as being a step mum is (loving someone else's child who will never truly appreciate the sacrifices you make for them and still only be second best in their eyes) its moments like that that really reaffirm that you are doing the right thing, you are heading in the right direction, that she loves me even if she doesn't (if that makes sense - to any stepmum it would).
I didn't have to give her anything material or do anything for her to get that smile. It was a genuine "happy to see you" smile. It was worth the investment.
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
Emilie's drawing/writing abilities at 18 months
Emilie and I have read books together since she came home from the hospital. She absolutely loves me reading to her and I love it too. She sits on my lap while I read and my cheek against hers as we look at the book together and point out different things happening in the pictures.
Her favourite books at the moment are Cars, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Dear Zoo and My First Prayer. She will sit for ages looking and "reading" a book. We go to the library every Wednesday morning for Story Time (a librarian reads a story book, then the kids do a craft activity relating to the story). Emilie is the youngest there but she LOVES it!
Emilie has enjoyed "drawing" since she was able to hold the pencil to the paper. At first she would scribble back and forth unintelligibly. Then a few months ago she started "writing" where she would draw little tiny scribbles that look like W or M (letters) and she would recite "A, E, A, A, E, E" as she wrote them (like she was spelling out her words as she went along).
Emilie and I practise writing her name - I hold the pencil over the top of her hand and write each letter and spell it out as we go. E, m, i, l, i, e - EMILIE! "Emilie!" we exclaim when her name is written! She can spell out her name as we go along (but only if I am spelling it out with her, otherwise she says something like, E, M, I, M, E, M etc).
She can recognise a capital E and if she sees an E on a sign she will point it out to me and say "EEEEE!"
She has recently learnt to say her own name and she uses it a lot to describe something that is hers, or to indicate something about herself
"Emmie ouch", "Emmie car" or just pointing at any word and proclaiming that it says "Emmie" LOL
Just the other day, as I was watching her draw, it struck me that Emilie can draw faces! We have been drawing faces together for a while now (my hand ontop of hers and saying the facial features as we go - for example, "A biiiiiig round circle for a head, one eye, two eyes, a nose, a mouth, one ear, two ears and some spiky hair!"
Of course the faces that she draws on her own are very abstract at this stage, but each face has a big circle for a head, facial features and sometimes they have hair or ears (or both!) Sometimes when she is drawing her faces, she will say what she is drawing at the time - "Eyes, Ears, mouth, hair, nose" which is so cute to watch and surprising at how much she knows where features of the face belong from her own recall - for example when she draws ears she always draws one on each side of the head, right where they belong. Other features can be a bit of hit and miss though, sometimes the mouth is above the eyes, or there can be three eyes etc.
Here are a few of her masterpieces:
Here is today's video of her drawing faces (she is not narrating this one - I'm yet to video her doing this but everytime I turn the camera on she stops!!!)
Hope you enjoyed watching!
Her favourite books at the moment are Cars, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Dear Zoo and My First Prayer. She will sit for ages looking and "reading" a book. We go to the library every Wednesday morning for Story Time (a librarian reads a story book, then the kids do a craft activity relating to the story). Emilie is the youngest there but she LOVES it!
Emilie has enjoyed "drawing" since she was able to hold the pencil to the paper. At first she would scribble back and forth unintelligibly. Then a few months ago she started "writing" where she would draw little tiny scribbles that look like W or M (letters) and she would recite "A, E, A, A, E, E" as she wrote them (like she was spelling out her words as she went along).
Emilie and I practise writing her name - I hold the pencil over the top of her hand and write each letter and spell it out as we go. E, m, i, l, i, e - EMILIE! "Emilie!" we exclaim when her name is written! She can spell out her name as we go along (but only if I am spelling it out with her, otherwise she says something like, E, M, I, M, E, M etc).
She can recognise a capital E and if she sees an E on a sign she will point it out to me and say "EEEEE!"
She has recently learnt to say her own name and she uses it a lot to describe something that is hers, or to indicate something about herself
"Emmie ouch", "Emmie car" or just pointing at any word and proclaiming that it says "Emmie" LOL
Just the other day, as I was watching her draw, it struck me that Emilie can draw faces! We have been drawing faces together for a while now (my hand ontop of hers and saying the facial features as we go - for example, "A biiiiiig round circle for a head, one eye, two eyes, a nose, a mouth, one ear, two ears and some spiky hair!"
Of course the faces that she draws on her own are very abstract at this stage, but each face has a big circle for a head, facial features and sometimes they have hair or ears (or both!) Sometimes when she is drawing her faces, she will say what she is drawing at the time - "Eyes, Ears, mouth, hair, nose" which is so cute to watch and surprising at how much she knows where features of the face belong from her own recall - for example when she draws ears she always draws one on each side of the head, right where they belong. Other features can be a bit of hit and miss though, sometimes the mouth is above the eyes, or there can be three eyes etc.
Here are a few of her masterpieces:
Here is today's video of her drawing faces (she is not narrating this one - I'm yet to video her doing this but everytime I turn the camera on she stops!!!)
Hope you enjoyed watching!
Monday, 20 June 2011
Egg Cartons and Pipe Cleaners
Last Friday, Emilie and I made some craft out of an old egg carton. Egg cartons are, I believe, one of the most essential “junk” items in a craft box!! There are so many things you can create from one egg carton if you have a little imagination! Just as well eggs are so yummy (also something you can create many things from and edible things too – even better!)
Although I did most of the imagining with our craft session! Em is a little bit too young to come up with her own creations just yet, but she still had plenty of fun! She LOVES playing with pipe cleaners (another essential in craft boxes!) and she loved playing with our creations once we were finished making.
What we used:
6pack egg carton
Pipe cleaners
Sticky tape
Blue texta
Red texta
Imagination!
What we created:
GOOGLY GLASSES
I cut out the deep round egg cup parts of the carton, 4 in total. Using a cake skewer I poked a hole in the central part of the cup, then cut a medium sized circle in each one. Then I poked two holes on opposite sides of the cup in each. We threaded a pipe cleaner through one of each hole and made the arms of the glasses. Then I connected two cups together with a pipe cleaner through the remaining holes:
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FINGER PUPPETS
Using the triangular pointy parts of the egg carton (the parts that separate the eggs), I taped pipe cleaners to the top point (I cut the pipe cleaners into shorter sections). This was the finger puppets’ hair. We had a blonde puppet and a red-head puppet! Then all that was left to do was to draw two blue eyes and a red lipstick mouth onto each puppet. Emilie had HEAPS of fun with the little people. She made them kiss each other, she kissed them and made me and Paul kiss them too LOL:
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When we were done she played with a few other pipe cleaner people that we had made on another day. Here she is making them kiss each other!
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Although I did most of the imagining with our craft session! Em is a little bit too young to come up with her own creations just yet, but she still had plenty of fun! She LOVES playing with pipe cleaners (another essential in craft boxes!) and she loved playing with our creations once we were finished making.
What we used:
6pack egg carton
Pipe cleaners
Sticky tape
Blue texta
Red texta
Imagination!
What we created:
GOOGLY GLASSES
I cut out the deep round egg cup parts of the carton, 4 in total. Using a cake skewer I poked a hole in the central part of the cup, then cut a medium sized circle in each one. Then I poked two holes on opposite sides of the cup in each. We threaded a pipe cleaner through one of each hole and made the arms of the glasses. Then I connected two cups together with a pipe cleaner through the remaining holes:
Emilie had fun putting on and taking off her googly glasses and enjoyed looking at herself in front of the mirror!
What do I think this activity provoked in Emilie’s development?
- Even though she is too little to use scissors, she was watching intently as I cut out the egg carton components. I made sure to tell her very seriously that scissors were very sharp and make an ouchie if you touch them.
- Threading the pipe cleaner through the little holes refines her dexterity skills and her understanding of making something go through a hole to the other side.
- Putting on and taking of the glasses helps train her awareness of her own body, in particular her face and eyes. She can see that my googly glasses cover my eyes and make my face look different, and her googly glasses cover her eyes, and makes what she sees around her different!
What do I think this activity provoked in Emilie’s development?
- Even though she is too little to use scissors, she was watching intently as I cut out the egg carton components. I made sure to tell her very seriously that scissors were very sharp and make an ouchie if you touch them.
- Threading the pipe cleaner through the little holes refines her dexterity skills and her understanding of making something go through a hole to the other side.
- Putting on and taking of the glasses helps train her awareness of her own body, in particular her face and eyes. She can see that my googly glasses cover my eyes and make my face look different, and her googly glasses cover her eyes, and makes what she sees around her different!
FINGER PUPPETS
Using the triangular pointy parts of the egg carton (the parts that separate the eggs), I taped pipe cleaners to the top point (I cut the pipe cleaners into shorter sections). This was the finger puppets’ hair. We had a blonde puppet and a red-head puppet! Then all that was left to do was to draw two blue eyes and a red lipstick mouth onto each puppet. Emilie had HEAPS of fun with the little people. She made them kiss each other, she kissed them and made me and Paul kiss them too LOL:
When we were done she played with a few other pipe cleaner people that we had made on another day. Here she is making them kiss each other!
What do I think this activity provokes in Emilie’s development?
- Emilie is starting to enjoy games that involve role play. Once she could recognise the puppets as “little people” she was free to explore a role play in what she believes people can do and what people like to do. The fact that she was making the puppets kiss indicates to me that she is in touch with her emotional side, in particular love (hence the kissing LOL).
- This also refines her dexterity skills, learning how to use certain digits for different things, making a fist with two fingers raised, inserting her fingers into the puppets etc.
- Emilie is starting to enjoy games that involve role play. Once she could recognise the puppets as “little people” she was free to explore a role play in what she believes people can do and what people like to do. The fact that she was making the puppets kiss indicates to me that she is in touch with her emotional side, in particular love (hence the kissing LOL).
- This also refines her dexterity skills, learning how to use certain digits for different things, making a fist with two fingers raised, inserting her fingers into the puppets etc.
PHOTO POST June 2011
Soaking up the sunshine!
At a local play centre
Madison and her friend eating fruit salad sticks
Vegin' with her teddies
Make-shift car / perfect tv watching lounge
Vroom, vroom! Playing with the truck uncle Russ gave her
She was too excited to sit still for a photo... she's a care bear...
Helping daddy in the garden
Monday, 6 June 2011
Madison 10 years
My step daughter, Madison, is 10 years old, she will turn 11 in September. She is in grade 5 this year. I’ve known her since she was 2, been with her dad since she was 5 and her step-mum since she was 9. Normally we are really close, but she is a troubled kid. She has experienced a few traumatising events in recent years, and she is behind in her education.
Before she started year one, she used to play “schools” with me, where we would sit and learn the basics of literacy and numeracy. She used to love learning, she has always been a very active girl, she loves dancing and wins all of her running races at school. The sad thing is that she doesn’t like herself, she thinks she is ugly (she is so beautiful). She still laughs and plays and there are many moments that she enjoys, but her overall attitude is that everything is boring and she prefers to close herself off from the world with her earphones in.
Even though Madison has noticeable strengths, she doesn’t seem to immerse herself in them. For example, she is very musical, she was chosen from her year group to learn the clarinet, however she doesn’t enjoy practising or applying what she has learnt from her music lessons to her life in the form of enjoyment.
In another example, she excels in sport at school, she is a fast runner and always does well in races. However she doesn’t play any sport. She doesn’t want to.
It’s difficult for me to understand why she doesn’t want to enjoy the things she is good at, because I know that my most enjoyable subjects/activities when I was at school were the things that I was good at. What I have put it down to is low self-esteem, low self-worth, self-hatred and low confidence levels.
Madison stays with Paul and me for one week when Paul is offsite, and for a weekend (2 nights) while he is away. The weekend just gone was a long weekend and I had Madison for 3 nights.
My mum has given me some home-schooling material which I have sat down with Madison’s mum this afternoon and showed her. I suggested that Madison be temporarily home-schooled so she has the chance to get her self-confidence back and get back on track academically. (Madison’s literacy and numeracy are very poor and she is very behind in her school work).
Madison’s mum seemed to take it in and she thought of it as a good idea. So when Paul gets back from site, we will have a family meeting, the four of us and discuss what the best option is for Madison.
Here are some photos of the girls from the weekend:
Before she started year one, she used to play “schools” with me, where we would sit and learn the basics of literacy and numeracy. She used to love learning, she has always been a very active girl, she loves dancing and wins all of her running races at school. The sad thing is that she doesn’t like herself, she thinks she is ugly (she is so beautiful). She still laughs and plays and there are many moments that she enjoys, but her overall attitude is that everything is boring and she prefers to close herself off from the world with her earphones in.
Even though Madison has noticeable strengths, she doesn’t seem to immerse herself in them. For example, she is very musical, she was chosen from her year group to learn the clarinet, however she doesn’t enjoy practising or applying what she has learnt from her music lessons to her life in the form of enjoyment.
In another example, she excels in sport at school, she is a fast runner and always does well in races. However she doesn’t play any sport. She doesn’t want to.
It’s difficult for me to understand why she doesn’t want to enjoy the things she is good at, because I know that my most enjoyable subjects/activities when I was at school were the things that I was good at. What I have put it down to is low self-esteem, low self-worth, self-hatred and low confidence levels.
Madison stays with Paul and me for one week when Paul is offsite, and for a weekend (2 nights) while he is away. The weekend just gone was a long weekend and I had Madison for 3 nights.
My mum has given me some home-schooling material which I have sat down with Madison’s mum this afternoon and showed her. I suggested that Madison be temporarily home-schooled so she has the chance to get her self-confidence back and get back on track academically. (Madison’s literacy and numeracy are very poor and she is very behind in her school work).
Madison’s mum seemed to take it in and she thought of it as a good idea. So when Paul gets back from site, we will have a family meeting, the four of us and discuss what the best option is for Madison.
Here are some photos of the girls from the weekend:
This is Emilie playing with the left overs after cutting out Madison's flowers!!!
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