One week with all the kids done

The first week with 6 kids in the house went off well. As the week wore on, I could tell the needing to be directed was setting in. With the girls, I would try a different activity, or I would simply sit myself down between them and tell them I was going to read (they LOVE to be read to). I've been reading Little House in the Big Woods. I find the 3yo fascinating--not sure how much she understands the story, but she does something she's done since she was a baby: watch my lips while I share the story. She's always done that: watch people's lips while they're talking, while singing, etc. She's such a sound-oriented girl! Very musical, too. I've never seen a 3yo dance with such musicality!

The 6yo is loving the story. I decided to ignore the Charlotte Mason suggestion of reading only a little bit and read a whole bunch to her on Friday. She would have had me continue, but I told her we needed to stop. I already have the French copy of the next one out from the library and hope we'll be able to work through that before August is through and she's back in school.

My plan, therefore, with the girls is to continue with this. I think it would be good to work on some practical life, sensorial, language and all that, but it's hard to change modes while on what is essentially summer vacation. We'll see. If I can just find my sandpaper letters and pull them out, that might be enough to get language going. (Oh, that reminds me, I did do a brief I Spy with her!)

The boys... Well, the boys have spent far too much time playing PS3 or watching someone play PS3 this past week. That will be cut back this week. They've found themselves kind of bored, so I've already talked to ds about doing some of his chemistry kit with his cousin this week; he liked the idea. 

We do have plans to be out tomorrow afternoon and part of Tuesday afternoon, so that will help.

The 21mo has been very cute: mostly following the girls wherever they are, sometimes playing with the same things they are playing with, sometimes playing with something nearby. He loves being with them!

You know you've done at least some Montessori correctly when...

...your 13yo notices her 6yo cousin struggling with how to open a little toy door, asks her if she wants help with it, the 6yo says yes, so the 13yo says, "I will show you how to do it, then you can practise it yourself."

:D

Latin!

I forgot to add in my last post that it has "come to my attention" that I ought to present Latin to my son. He is so very much into dinosaurs, bugs, animals, knows their names, has even brought up about part of a Latin name and how two creatures shared part of the same name... I would ideally like to have a French resource that teaches Latin, but I guess we'll see. I know nothing about Latin!

So much for plans!

Yet again, my plans have been foiled!

I don't know if I make unrealistic plans or if I'm just not able to force myself through a plan when other things come up that get in the way or what it is. I'll have to think about this.

So far this week, it's been a little rough. I thought we would be back from camping on Sunday, allowing me to take care of household stuff on Monday and attend a local festival. Instead, we didn't get home until 1:30, and my daughter and I absolutely wanted to go to the festival, so we left for that and hubby went on a motorcycle ride. Dd and I didn't get home until close to 6:30pm! We ate supper and were simply exhausted from the previous 3 days of not enough sleep followed by the afternoon walking around in the sun.

I ended up going to bed late Monday night and was awake at about 5:30. That gave me a little less than 6 hours of sleep. Already running on fumes (I had only had about 6 hours the night before, too), this did not leave me in good shape for all the kids yesterday. There was also still a bunch of camping stuff to take care of and put away, a kitchen to clean, some laundry to get going... I was in no frame of mind to focus on my plans! (It didn't help that I didn't even have the chance to sit down and have a look at what I had planned!)

Yesterday still went well enough. The girls played very well together all day and we ended up going to the library. My nephew wasn't with us yesterday, so that changed things, too.

I went to bed early last night, but had trouble falling asleep--I was beyond tired, but adrenaline seemed to be kicking in. Fell asleep shortly before 10...and woke up at 3am. I thought I would just fall right back asleep, but dd went to the bathroom twice in a short period, then I was too hot and uncomfortable and the traffic was intermittently starting on the road behind our house... I finally went downstairs, tried to sleep there and gave up at 4am, clearly not at a point of falling asleep. Watched Sense and Sensibility until I fell asleep around 5, slept in and out between than and 7, which left me with pretty much no time to do anything!

So, today has been a do-what-you-want day again. I guess I'm okay with it for now--everything is working well. I want to have activities planned out that I can simply start doing if things get out of hand. The girls did help me fold sheets and pillow cases, so that's at least some Practical Life for today! lol