Name Change!!

My little Chicken is Chicken no more.  He has informed me that he is, “Mummy’s Little Bandicoot”.

We have had a wild bandicoot visiting our yard in the evenings, and he is enraptured by it.  We find lots of evidence on different days, including holes in the grass and ‘coot poo.  Some nights we even get to watch it play and forage if we are outside (my camera is not good enough to get photos, but Oh! how I have tried.)

Anyway, I am happy to have too little indigenous animals to represent my boys, especially as both species are visitors to our yard.  Not sure what we will call our new bubby when she arrives, ‘though – Magpie?  Sulphur Crested Cockie? Flying Fox? Butcher Bird?  Don’t have the same ring, do they?

Parts of a Plant

Possum is 4 years 4 months

Chicken is 2 years 2 months

 

Here is a Montessori style concept book that I made with the boys.  It goes through the various parts of the plant.

(Mine is on the left, Chicken’s in the middle, and Possum’s on the right).

Possum particularly loved doing this.  Chicken loved it because he felt very grown up and was having Daddy cuddles at the same time.  (This was another waiting activity in a cafe).

The plan is to tie it in to discussions about veges and what parts of plants we eat.

I am learning this is all a much more organic process and formalising it doesn’t work unless that is what the kids want – at least at this stage.  (I always knew that, but sometimes it takes me a while to listen to myself!)

Learning Men’s Business

Possum is 4 years 4 months

Chicken is 2 years 2 months

There are certain things in life that seem to require an amount of testosterone.  Washing cars requires more than I possess!

Here are a few pics of the boys learning the joys of polishing the car with their Daddy.  They really enjoyed the afternoon.

Chicken spent a lot of the next day checking out his reflection in the duco, and then holding up various toys to check their reflections, too.

Week 2

Possum is 4 years 3 months

Chicken is 2 years 1 month

This week was week 2 of our Homeschool. I have to admit, it did not inspire as much as week 1, but that might have also had something to do with the unseasonably warm weather which meant the boys had More Important Things To Do than read books with Mummy.

Our “text book” this week was “10 Juicy Vegetables” by Julie Radford.

Possum loved the rhyme and the numbers, but actually trying to remember the veges and animals was a bit dull for him. Chicken was just fixated on Rabbit and Crow – my poor little felt crow had a rather large explore of our front yard!

We also played this game. The boys needed to match the number of worms to the number of holes in the apples. I naively thought that using lolly worms would make the game for appealing, so I bought these little fellows. More appealing, yes. Possible to play the game more than once, no. Let’s just say, I now know why these are one of Chicken’s favourite treats!

Possum recently told me all the things he likes about preschool. (“I love going to school, Mummy!” initiated this conversation. Much prompting on my behalf resulted in the following list.)

colouring

painting

drawing

colouring

crayons

Hmmm. Seems he really is pretty passionate about craft, huh? We had cut back on it a lot here since Chicken began to move – he is not quite the perfectionist his brother is, and Possum goes into palpitations when the paints get mixed etc.

However, we made some caterpillars/bugs/critters this week.

I was going to adorn them with pipecleaner legs and antennae when the paint dried, but given the amount of mess we had already made, I thought they were cute enough. The boys were lifted straight from the backyard into the bath-tub (for more fun)!

I had more ideas for this week, but the interest level wasn’t quite there for them. I love that there is no pressure with this, that I can follow the boys lead and see where we end up. Another week we may cover more stuff than planned, but this week it was about enjoying that nearly-Spring sunshine.

Kitchenhand

I find it difficult to spend as much time as I would like doing things with my 18mo like working in the kitchen as my 3.5 Possum loves to join in- and pretty much takes over.  So tonight I was delighted when Chicken found me in the kitchen during his big brother’s bath. 

He has a real fascination with the dishwasher – he points at it and says, “no” as I am forever trying to keep him from unpacking icky plates.  However, tonight, I needed to unpack the cutlery basket, so, having removed all the knives, I stood him on a chair and the cutlery drawer and explained what to do.

Well wasn’t he chuffed with himself!  And wasn’t that just so much fun?  In fact, it was so much fun that once he had finished the job and the cutlery basket was returned to the dishwasher, it was then necessary to unpack the cutlery drawer into it.

We then moved on to washing up.  I went with our tried and true method.  Mummy washes in the hot water, my assistant rinses in cold (I fill the second sink) and pops things in the draining rack.  Hmm.  Seems I forgot about the mess involved in teaching this task to an 18mo!  So much water everywhere!  Ah well, it was an opportunity to mop the floor.

(I had also forgotten why I only ever did this with my elder son when Daddy was at work, too.  DH finds the mess a little harder to cope with than me )

Hello world!

I am a slightly crunchy, Christian, career Mummy to two little boys (Possum born 2006 and Chicken born 2008), who babywears, and tries to practise grace-based discipline (although I don’t always succeed!)

I also have a fantastic Hubby.

I love to cook and paint.  I love the sky and bubbles.  I am not very good at housework and I really hate driving.

I live in Australia.