So much going on....

Jake is doing great. He enjoys doing time4learning.com each day and continues to watch his dinosaur documentaries as well as Time Warp Trio. He voluntarily started a journal of his inventions which he has been busy with. We did a bit on Vikings, I should investigate to see if there is any type of Viking Museum around to visit. I think the boys would all enjoy that. He also took golf lessons this year for which I had signed him up for and he was very upset with me that I had not consulted with him about it. He is right, I made an assumption on his wanting to do it last Fall but it was full. So I went and signed him up for the Spring. He was very nervous about not knowing what it would be like. I promised him that if he did not like it he did not have to go back. He absolutely LOVED it. I was so glad and apologized profusely for not consulting him. Then I did it again! I signed him up for the play he does every summer and he cried again. I have got to learn. Well, I am not sure if he is going to do the play or not but I really hope I learned my lesson this time! I need to learn to ask and respect his opinion each time and learn to not make plans even though he may have done things before. He also enjoys baking now. He is doing it on his own and asks when he needs help. We are going to start bread making next. He has also been into Star Wars Empire at War computer game.

The school year for Ian is winding down,YEAH! He has had a good year, he was the teacher's pet again this year, so that makes life a bit easier. He had a lovely teacher who thinks I am really cool for homeschooling Jake and thinks I should homeschool Ian too. Go figure?! His writing is very reversed and lacking in any kind of size relationship. If I was homeschooling it would not bother me so much but I hope it does not pose problems for him next year. Particularly if he has the same teacher Jake had. I still have not convinced DH to let me homeschool him. I understand his point that Ian is doing well in school but I don't want school to ruin his love of learning. He is such a sponge of knowledge and I take such pleasure in his daily discoveries and obsession with topics. He loves geography and spent 2 weeks dragging around the 50 states book. He is also obsessed with our summer vacation for which he has 5 ideas. A:The Nick Hotel Florida B:Ayres Rock, Australia (if I call it Uluru he gets mad at me) C: The Eiffel Tower in Paris D: Stonehenge in England E: A volcano in Russia, (I am not sure of the name). I have been trying to engage him in conversation about his obsession with touching other people. It is sometimes malicious like hip-checking his brother as he passes by him.Sometimes he has an impulse or need to touch a stranger as they are walking by. I think he just finds it fun. It is frustrating...because occasionally he hurts or startles them. He is funny that he has no perception of personal space and is (as Seinfeld would say) a close talker. He IS only 5 (6 on July 23) and he is very tall for his age so it can be off putting to people but most are sweet and understanding. He is like the little girl in the Volvo commercial.....we just call him "stream of consciousness" for the way he rambles on and on. His teachers adored him last year but one day the assisatant just laughed and said very good naturedly "thank goodness your here, our ears are bleeding!"


Shaun is the child who is teaching me what it means to unschool. He is a wild thing ...and will not be tamed. I am learning that the more I try to contain him the more he explodes and should not be contained. So I am letting him explore his world and desperately trying to keep up and help him not hinder him. Guide him and catch him when he falls, literally, he is a monkey and can scale anything!:-). Good days and bad days. If he is not scaling something in the kitchen in search of sugar he may be knocking on a neighbors door to say hi, or he may be helping himself to juice or torturing the cat/dog/ fish/lizards/tadpoles/snails his brothers. He likes to turn on the hose or play in the sinks or he is into dumping toys again. There is lots of re direction. He loves to help me. He cooks with me, he comes up the ladder and fixes things with me. Do the laundry with me. I just have to work with him or he rages at me so. He is prone to hitting when aggravated so I have made a effort to not spank. He is definitely my most aggressive child yet he is just as loving as the others. He brings me bouquets of flowers/weeds now, too cute. He still needs me at night he sleeps most mights till about 5 or 6 in his bed then comes to find me.I only weened him in December so I will be there as long as he needs me. I would just sleep with him but my back can't take it. There is just not enough room for me him and DH. So it is musical beds. He has shown little interest in potty training. For a while he would go on the potty all the time then stopped. He even wore big boy pants one day by his choice, made it through school but when he got home he wet them and decided they were not quite as functional as the diaper so he switched back. He loves to ride his tricycle or Ian's bike as he can just make the pedals now. He decided for a while that he did not want to go to school. He loves it there but I think he was just have so much fun with me I was a better option. I saw no reason to force him as I don't work now and I only sent him to give Jake and I time to get work done. Since that Jakes schooling has relaxed it did not seem worth it if Shaun did not want to go and it is only 2 days a week. I decided to drop him to my SIL and he went to school with his cousins and he had no problem going. So I did that for the last week and it worked out great. He just does things on his terms and that is that.:-) I have signed him up for preschool next year but have been told that I can not request a teacher anymore. I want him to have the teachers that Ian and Jake had. So he will have to go to the Early Childhood Center and be on a different schedule from Ian. All this is sooo annoying. I may just not send him but I do like the Tools of the Mind Program. It is based on free play and imagination and Ian did really well with it. On the other hand all I am learning so much about homeschooling and unschooling. It is making me more comfortable with keeping him home too. Even though I am more eclectic in my approach, the yahoo unschoolingbasics board is giving me fresh perspectives on how to be a more mindful and respectful parent.