Okay, finally it is Wednesday May 24th!!! Why is that so exciting?? Well today is the first day of the no more running around portion of our year. Science Coop is finished for the year, the Science classes we did are also complete and breaking for the summer. So now all we have is three weeks of drama (which is so easy in the afternoons) and the rest of the time is just ours to be at home or to pick up and go on whimsical trips to the zoo or a museum or just play in the dirt in our yard all afternoon! I love it! I am SUCH a home body!!! I can stay home for weeks on end and be beyond happy. I do have a bit of a computer addiction, which ties me to the outside world. I have my ipod and netflix for entertainment and enough reading to catch up on to keep me held up here for at least two years (Im a slow reader). :-) I love days on end where shoes are not necessary and a lot of snuggling takes place. Although our walks have put a damper on the shoe thing, it is still minimal shoe wearing so Im okay with that. :-)
My children CRAVE home time. Home for us is the base of everything, it is where our hearts are and while we love adventures out, we always love returning home and having extended time where we can just be here, doing our own thing. I love having music playing and walking through the house spotting kids playing in their own imaginations. GM building LEGOS and making sound effects from his room, GD and ME using their "animal voices" and having grand adventures. I remember being a kid, an only child, and having the most incredible time all alone in my room playing with my Barbies. I would make up the most insane story lines that would play out like a movie. Often times it would take me hours and hours just to get everything set up to even begin the playing part. I loved it!!! I would be annoyed when I had to come out and actually eat something. I know it isnt good all the time, but I really dont think kids get enough time to just get lost inside themselves for extended periods of time anymore. Play has become a filler for taking up time between planned activities. Play, and even more so, extended playtime is really important to me and now that we dont have so much running to do each week.... Let the playing begin!!!!!!!!
Well soon I will interrupt their play and get them started on our day. LOL!! Well hey, there will be a lot of playtime around the bend.
Today's Plan:
Coffee/computer (now)
Tend the animals
Water the gardens
Make breakfast (waffles and honeydew melon with milk)
Clean up breakfast, and finish waking up the house
Morning Walk
Yoga
Movement (continue with horses and strange family with additional midline activities)
Music
Verse
Journal writing
Language Arts GM do some comprehension
GD begin again the letter story from Christopherus
Storytime (Jack and the Beanstalk)
Math games
Craft (finish the dragonflies for the front window)
Lunch
Free play/quiet time
If Maggie is feeling okay (she has a low fever and is grumpy) we will go to Grandma's for dinner.
I really want to start to pull our evening rhythm together. I am happy with the mornings and would love that same sense of flow in the evenings. Last night my husband was not home so I did the evening by myself and was able to feel it out more in my head. Here is what I would like it to be like....
About 7:30 or so (not a time thing really) get the kids to start to put their room to bed; pick up the days toys, pull the curtains, put the animals on the beanbag to sleep for the night, get their pjs on and brush their teeth. After that we can play a family game of some sort, likely it will be bingo because all five of us love it www.lucybingogames.com . Then after a bit of playing and being together get in bed for storytime (read by Dad). I can then head off to my reading and preparing myself for the next day's stuff. This is ideal for me. Of course it is in theory right now, so I will have to adjust it a bit. It probably wont be games every night, due to late Daddy or grumpy Mommy or whatever. But I would like it to be a goal that we do something together again at the end of the day. Maybe even just hanging out together coloring, or doing puzzles, who knows??
So tonight I am going to try to get this going. I did it last night and it was great. We didnt do the game though. We are now half way through with My Father's Dragon and will likely read the Seven Year Wonder Book or the Book of Fairy Princes after it. I will let the kids and Dad decide.
Okay, well Im off to feed the animals and water the gardens. :-)
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3 comments:
First, I don't know how you manage any chores before breakfast. My boys wake up ravenous and must be fed immediately. They can't even wait long enough for a fresh batch of muffins to bake. They do eat a nsack right before bed, but even so they sleep 11 hours and wake up hungry.
I love slower, lazy days (and warm summer days just feel slower). Not days that we don't do anything, but days where we don't have to go anywhere. This time last year we were out of the house 3 mornings a week for Campfire, story time, and park day, and it wasn't working for us. We're down to just park day, and the overscheduling is one reason I am thinking of holding the Roots and Shoots meeting(s) an hour before park day starts, at the same location. It might not work out, but I am trying to find a way to add it in without overwhelming my children.
Of course, BMX takes us out 2 evenings a week (I actually only go once). I made sure that happens on different days than park day. The other things we do, like the farmer's market, the library, etc. are not social and as such don't draw as much energy from us.
We are homebodies. I find that my children are so creative with their time because they don't have the distractions of television or video games. Like GM they are Lego fiends, and they also love building with wooden blocks, wooden railroad, wooden Lincoln Logs, and the Woodland Fantasies sets, often all combined, with Lego people, wooden people, and bendies all part of the action. They draw for hours, they play outside...life is really great for them.
I was just talking to DH about this last night. Not only do my children seem "younger" or more child-like than their peers, but they seem even "younger" than I did at their age, due to the situation I was living in (spousal abuse, child abuse, drugs and alcohol in the home, divorce, and then a year of extreme poverty in an area where we were awakened to some harsh realities about life). I am so glad to be giving my children a childhood, both by shielding them from things I think they are too young for (screen time, certain movies and toys, etc.) and by providing them with the most loving and stable environment I can.
Of course, I love to be home - I'm that kind of person and it has often clashed with DH's wanting to go-go-go. I love to curl up and read, or to crochet, or to cook and bake. I'm happy to sit on the deck and just feel the sun and the breeze and not do anything for awhile, other than listen to the happy sounds of my children playing.
I hope the family game before bed works for you. For us it creates too much energy and tension before bed unless it is a strictly cooperative game like Harvest. So when we play games at night it has to be right after dinner, before the winding down time.
Mine are the opposite. I have to make them eat in the morning. Not ME she wakes up very hungry, but the boys are more like me, if they eat right when they wake up it upsets their stomachs. :-) Even this early is a struggle to get them to eat. I just think it is good for them, so I try to make it happen before 9am.
We do our R&S after Science Coop about once or twice a month. We do it one meeting/one outing style. Although next tear it will be more like once a month on average. Most of the members are also in the coop so it works out well for everyone. Although there are times when it makes for a day that is too long for the little ones.
I think we will try for quiet games, like blokus, bingo or chess for a while. Im sure I will have to change it, it may be just too much right before bed.
I think the hard thing about games at bedtime for us is that J-Baby is already tired, and he doesn't take losing well even when he isn't tired, so being tired magnifies it.
Also, we learned that fast moving games like "Trouble" get everyone wound up. But sight word bingo, played until everyone has blackout, seems to be okay.
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