I have been using a curriculum guide to get an idea on what Shmoo should be learning and when. Of course, standards vary widely from state to state and country to country so I've just been using it as a general guide, not following it too strictly and we've been tailoring it to where Shmoo's at - giving him more advanced stuff to learn where he's obviously ahead and doing more work where he struggles. The problem is, this guide covers preschool, kinder and then grades 1-12. Not being a Tassie native I assumed that the kinder in the guide was the same as the kinder in the Tassie education system, and preschool was 'pre-kinder', ie the stage Shmoo is at now. Last night I finally managed to work out that in Tasmania kids do kinder, prep and then grades 1-12. So what I've been thinking of as 'kinder' would really be the guide for 'prep' LOL. According to the curriculum guide on where kids 'should' be at, Shmoo's now about a year ahead in 2/3 of the subject areas LOL. Oh well. The good thing about home schooling is that we are able to tailor our curriculum to suit the student!
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
23w5d
LOL In the space of about 30 minutes today I got told by one person how big I am for (nearly) 24 weeks and then later someone else told me how small I am. Can't win! But I am loving my pregnant tummy. I am so obviously pregnant now. It's nice to be at the stage where people don't have to wonder if I'm pregnant or just overweight! Will have to do another belly pic on Sunday.
Beanie somehow managed to give me quite a good kick in the ribs this morning. I'm not quite 24w! Imagine what it's going to be like in 10w time LOL. I am feeling movement all over my tummy now except for high up centre front and slightly to the right. I'm sure that's where the placenta is and it blocks the movement somewhat. I am curious as to how big he will be when he's born. Shmoo was about 6lb 10oz at 37w5d and Loo was 7lb 6oz at 39w5d.
In other news, Shmoo has been working on his writing. We've done 'a' for a while and now we've added in 'b'. He struggles with holding a pencil correctly and therefore he doesn't really have the control required to write as well as he could (he tends to wrap his entire hand around the pencil and tries to write like that). It's a bit frustrating for him. I'm going to try and hunt down some proper pencil grips to see if that helps him. Shmoo is also starting to get the hang of basic addition and the terminology (X + Y = Z). Not doing too badly.
Beanie somehow managed to give me quite a good kick in the ribs this morning. I'm not quite 24w! Imagine what it's going to be like in 10w time LOL. I am feeling movement all over my tummy now except for high up centre front and slightly to the right. I'm sure that's where the placenta is and it blocks the movement somewhat. I am curious as to how big he will be when he's born. Shmoo was about 6lb 10oz at 37w5d and Loo was 7lb 6oz at 39w5d.
In other news, Shmoo has been working on his writing. We've done 'a' for a while and now we've added in 'b'. He struggles with holding a pencil correctly and therefore he doesn't really have the control required to write as well as he could (he tends to wrap his entire hand around the pencil and tries to write like that). It's a bit frustrating for him. I'm going to try and hunt down some proper pencil grips to see if that helps him. Shmoo is also starting to get the hang of basic addition and the terminology (X + Y = Z). Not doing too badly.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
21w4d
Is it too early to be nesting? Maybe I've just been bitten by the spring cleaning bug. Either way, I have been a little preoccupied with cleaning lately - vacuuming, scrubbing, mopping; cleaning and reorgansing the pantry and kitchen cupboards etc etc. It's not doing my aching back and hips any good but oh well. And at least the OH knows enough now not to argue with the obsessed pregnant woman LOL.
Shmoo and Loo's snowpeas are coming up well with all the sun we've had lately. I think the parsley seeds are just sprouting too... there's a wonky line of little green shoots anyway, so I'll wait and see if they're weeds or parsely before pulling them out. We've forgotten to water them lately after not having to water them at all because we had so much rain (I'd actually worried that the seeds might have washed away!) so the soil's a bit compacted and dry. I snuck out when Loo was asleep to pull out the weeds but didn't have much luck because it was so dry. Will have to wait a couple of days until we've gotten it all moist again. (Didn't want Loo to see me pulling the weeds out as he's too young to understand the difference between weeds & plants - turn my back for a second and he'd be ripping up the snowpeas LOL).
Hoping to get back into playgroups and homeschooling groups soon, now that the pregnancy's going well and hopfully there's not so much swine flu about. There was a homeschooling meet-up today 2 mins up the road from us and we'd been looking forward to going but Loo woke up all croaky and coughing, snot everywhere. Typical LOL. He doesn't seem so bad now but we didn't want to pass it on to all the other kids.
Speaking of homeschooling, Shmoo's doing pretty well. We do need to focus on numeracy a little more though. His reading is coming along well. He does well with all his letter sounds (phonics stuff) and we've just started on some sight words. He can read short sentences when he wants to too (bit of a daydreamer and a short attention span so it's all done in short bursts). The other day he read: 'a frog on a log', 'a baby cat is a kitten', and 'a drink of milk'.
Loo has an appointment with the allergist in Launceston in just over a week (the 19th). He'll be restested and we need to get another prescription for epipens. The eczema around his mouth has been clearing up well with the reduction in salicylates. This has also made it obvious that he is still reacting to something in his diet. The common factor seems to be soy products so we'll try to cut those out and see how he goes. I know he did react to soy when he was a baby. I thought he'd outgrown the intolerance but perhaps his tolerance for it had just increased a little. Anyway, we'll cut it out and then re-introduce it slowly at a later date. It's going to be a PITA though as I can't stand the taste of rice milk. Anything that requires milk I'll have to cook separately, use rice milk for the kids and soy milk for us.
Shmoo and Loo's snowpeas are coming up well with all the sun we've had lately. I think the parsley seeds are just sprouting too... there's a wonky line of little green shoots anyway, so I'll wait and see if they're weeds or parsely before pulling them out. We've forgotten to water them lately after not having to water them at all because we had so much rain (I'd actually worried that the seeds might have washed away!) so the soil's a bit compacted and dry. I snuck out when Loo was asleep to pull out the weeds but didn't have much luck because it was so dry. Will have to wait a couple of days until we've gotten it all moist again. (Didn't want Loo to see me pulling the weeds out as he's too young to understand the difference between weeds & plants - turn my back for a second and he'd be ripping up the snowpeas LOL).
Hoping to get back into playgroups and homeschooling groups soon, now that the pregnancy's going well and hopfully there's not so much swine flu about. There was a homeschooling meet-up today 2 mins up the road from us and we'd been looking forward to going but Loo woke up all croaky and coughing, snot everywhere. Typical LOL. He doesn't seem so bad now but we didn't want to pass it on to all the other kids.
Speaking of homeschooling, Shmoo's doing pretty well. We do need to focus on numeracy a little more though. His reading is coming along well. He does well with all his letter sounds (phonics stuff) and we've just started on some sight words. He can read short sentences when he wants to too (bit of a daydreamer and a short attention span so it's all done in short bursts). The other day he read: 'a frog on a log', 'a baby cat is a kitten', and 'a drink of milk'.
Loo has an appointment with the allergist in Launceston in just over a week (the 19th). He'll be restested and we need to get another prescription for epipens. The eczema around his mouth has been clearing up well with the reduction in salicylates. This has also made it obvious that he is still reacting to something in his diet. The common factor seems to be soy products so we'll try to cut those out and see how he goes. I know he did react to soy when he was a baby. I thought he'd outgrown the intolerance but perhaps his tolerance for it had just increased a little. Anyway, we'll cut it out and then re-introduce it slowly at a later date. It's going to be a PITA though as I can't stand the taste of rice milk. Anything that requires milk I'll have to cook separately, use rice milk for the kids and soy milk for us.
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