A Day at Home

Today we never left the house. Not for even one thing. This is rather unlike us, but the kids had kind of scratchy throats, and weren't interested in any outings, so we stuck close to home. We did all kinds of fun things, though.

According to our schedule, it was supposed to be super hero day, but we all sort of forfeitted that for some reason. It ended up being more of a building and learning day.



This morning, I snuck about the house collecting bits and bobs from junk draws, craft boxes, the garage, the recycling bin, anywhere I could think. Then we spent the morning, and into the afternoon creating robots. We all had fun doing it. I even made one. The idea originally came from my friend, Nat, and it rose back from the depths of my brain when I saw the article below in a Usborne Activity book I found at the library last week.



We spent hours working on them. It was a truly marvelous time.



Winnie, meticulously threading some beads.



Zhara made an entire family of robots. This is her working on the dad. Then she photographed and posted her creations on Facebook for her friends to see.



We used a lot of stuff.

When we were done, Zhara spent a lot of time photographing her robots with my phone. I showed her how to e-mail them to herself, save them to the computer, and put them up on facebook. She spent time on facebook chatting with her good friend, Layla. The facebook chatting is improving her spelling, I think. She still has to ask for the spellings of many words, but it doesn't seem like as many as before.

Angus and Winnie spent time working in their workbooks. This requires some explanation -- A few months ago we were in Costco and they saw a kindergarten readiness workbook, which they both asked for. So sometimes they get them out and work through some pages. Today they decided to do some matching games, dot-to-dot, money, and basic addition and writing numbers.

Angus, I think is feeling a little self-conscious because his best friend, Owen, is able to read and write quite well, and Angus isn't. I have assurred him that everyone gets those things at their own pace, but that if he wants help, we can work on it. I think that's what prompted the workbook work today. Angus spent so much of his very young years in intensive therapies. He was so far "behind" for so long. Of course, he's going to be slower at the traditional academic stuff, but I know he'll get there eventually. Sometimes it causes a mama to worry some, but I'm working hard to let that go.



Can't fail to mention the cup stacking. The kids got out all the Dixie cups from a box yesterday and started stacking. There have been many building variations since then, and they seem to be enjoying it, as is the puppy who is very much enjoying eating the stray Dixie cups.



Note the dog lurking under the table, waiting for wayward cups.