Summer ends

Summer time is drawing to a close. This is Lady's last day at summer scheme and the evenings are fast getting shorter. Like many others, I've been thinking about our learning plans for the next few months for each of the children. There's room here for a lot more organisation and optimisation.

I was a bit low for a few days there, which can be difficult as Duncan is so sensitive to my moods and he was consequently more demanding and clingy. But, spending time with these little people lifts me so I can't stay down for long. They can be hard work, but they are so funny too.

Today, Duncan and me have been composing comic-strip type stories. I wrote out a few sentences and illustrated them with stick figures. Duncan helped to improve the story with a few well placed details, and he came up with the last sentence himself, so we ended up with;

Duncan has a train.
Duncan has a noisy small Thomas train.
Duncan is playing.
Duncan is happy.
Mummy can draw a small Brio Thomas.

He can now read all that. So for now, home-made reading books are the way for him to improve his reading ability.

Earlier though, I was sitting on the floor in my bedroom reading some blogs (so time well spent then ;-) ) while Duncan played on my bed with, well I thought it was, a toy train. He came over to me saying 'fix it' and dropped something into my hand. I expected it to be a train with a loose wheel or something, not a snail with half its shell pulled off. Oh yuk! I chucked it out the window and lead Duncan to the bathroom to wash our hands, while trying to calmly tell him that he must not hurt snails. I had to wash my duvet cover too, there was some horrid looking yellow goo on it. I blame Abfh though, if her last post wasn't so funny and sharp, I might have been paying more attention to what my child was doing!

Also today I cleaned lots and baked raisin and oatmeal cookies with Thomas. He always wears a little stripped blue and white apron when we cook so he really looks the part.

I hope Lady enjoys her last day. She has loved hanging out with other children and may well miss that interaction. Hopefully she'll be able to meet up with some of the children after summer scheme as well.