Many days this week we’ve spent sleeping in, all snuggled in the cuddle bed. What a nice way to start the year!
I’ve been thinking about how I want to use this blog again. I don’t want it to be boring! I think I’m going to group activities, rather than write about days and report week by week. it’s worth noting I’m already 4 weeks behind!
Home
We put the kids bunk beds together (again) and moved the couch into the room so that we could read in there. We plan to put in a bookshelf and move in all the fiction books. At night though Alex didn’t want to sleep up there and so climbed in with Daniel, who was already asleep. It didn’t last long though and it took Alex ages to fall asleep. I can’t lie with him on the bunks – too heavy! Ever since though, Alex has slept on the couch. He asks for a massage every night now. When we’ve had people over, Alex has calculated the weights of people allowed onto the bunks and what the differences were.
Alex has discovered Roblox and playing on his iPad. He first saw it in videos of gamers he watches. So we’ve tried out a few different games. It’s online gaming so i’m a bit anxious about it. Alex isn’t reading and writing yet so at least there’s no messaging and communication to worry about. I’ve sat and watched him play a little too, and we’ve shared a few games of speed run together. Alex has played a lot of his flight sim game, especially when we’re in the car on our way out. he’s been earning money in challenges to buy new planes and has progressed through the pilot program. He really wants to buy a few of the planes, but would you believe they are bought only with real money – $63 in one case! The money he earns is in thousands and he’s been asking questions about the ‘k’ representation and getting to grips with large numbers. He works out which challenges and how many of them he needs to do to buy the next plane and move up levels. Both kids have found a Paw patrol app to be fun, where they pick a character and fly around.
Daniel has been playing with my containers a lot. Often I go to the cupboard and they are all missing – he fills them with his things and stores them in his kitchen. This may seem insignificant but there is learning here – he’s aware of space, shape and capacity to name only maths concepts. Learning happens everywhere, at any time! It doesn’t need to look like school.
Daniel has been playing with the circuits and insists on building them himself – he almost succeeded! He loves the lights, the switches and the fan. I helped him complete it and he played away. He’s also been playing pretend – rescues and camping have been favourites recently.
Alex and I have played the minecraft card game a few time times – he always picks the diamond crafting and it bothers him that it’s not identical to the game. We have extended the game to include the tools function now that we know what we’re doing a little better!
I’ve read to the kids a little, though Alex prefers to play a game together. We’re still getting through some christmas books.
Alex has been asking to play lego ninjago. Now whilst I love building lego, and often do it for him I find it challenging to do the pretend play. Daniel has been enjoying building with his duplo, and they have been enjoying each others presence as they’ve been building.
Friends
We met up with some friends at a local playground where they played on their scooters, timing their laps. Also making obstacle courses and just playing.
We’ve had the neighbours over a few times. Their preference when they come is to play Roblox (they aren’t allowed at their house). We’ve had to set some limits as I didn’t like them going in the bedroom to play away from us (I found out they were sending messages). They also play lego, occasionally board games, trampolining, basketball, softball and football together. The boys fight often, and Alex is navigating it carefully so far saying things like ‘I’m going to play with Nick now as it’s his turn with me’. Occasionally Alex goes next door. The eldest of the boys tells us he’s not allowed quite often, but I suspect he prefers to come to our house and i actually prefer it that way in any case.
We’ve looked after the kids’ cousins – always a hard day! Alex doesn’t seem to like it much but Daniel seems fine with it. We went to the park, watched some TV, played rat-a-tat cat lots, made a hideous mess with playdough and played on the slip-n-slide outside as it was such a warm day.
We’ve visited at the kids’ cousins too, it’s especially good on a hot day when we can all go for a swim! Alex spends most of his time diving for toys and chasing or racing after toys. Daniel used some arm bands and swam a little too 🙂
Out and About
We visited Gisborne market with Vio’s dad. The kids stopped at a stand selling precious stones, and decided they wanted to buy one each. Alex chose a blue one that he says looked like Earth. We were told it contains aluminium, hence the blue colour. I forget it’s name. Daniel wanted a yellow one – his favourite colour. After some lunch, all the boys played football on the oval.
We went to the movies to watch Sing! I think it was our first time as a family. Alex was dying to watch, having seen lots of ads over the past few weeks. We enjoyed burgers at Grill’d whilst we were at it! The movie was long, and a little disappointing. We definitely preferred Trolls and Daniel became quite fidgety about half way through and so we moved to a spot where he wouldn’t bother anyone with his need to move around. As we walked out of the cinema, both kids ran like they’d been locked up forever!
We drove to Barwon Heads for a rockpool ramble. We met the ranger, who was lovely! She gave the kids a brief talk about the location, safety and how to manage the wildlife we’d encounter. We were shown a lot of snails – including an elephant snail. Also limpets, tube worms, crabs, seaweed, sea stars and an anemone. We learnt some really cool things, like how to identify the gender of a crab (shape on the abdomen), and what was in the seaweed that looked like grapes (air to make it float!) We had a picnic lunch and got changed to play at the beach. We spent a few hours in the shallows at the marine park instead of heading to the rougher looking waters at Ocean Grove (we could see the beach on the other side of the Barwon River from the lookout). I showed Alex what to look for when identifying a rip, and what to do if you get caught in one! In the ocean we found fish and followed them Alex said they touched his feet. We played in the waves, peed in the ocean (the kids thought this was a hilarious idea!), and collected seaweed. Alex saw some snorkellers and said he wanted to try it one day. We headed home via the Aboriginal Heritage Centre with a plan to replace Alex’s lost boomerang – but it was still closed for the holidays! Alex told me about his aircraft design as Daniel slept – I asked him to draw it at home and I’d label it for him. 
I had planned to stop at Geelong waterfront but the kids were both asleep so just pushed on home. At home Alex wanted me to draw for him, but I refused and so he did it reluctantly. I found a similar style of plane to what he was after (old style open cockpit). He drew an airbrake, though he didn’t know that’s what he was. He said that this was his invention – ‘when the air hits it, it will get pushed back and the plane will slow down’.
Another junior rangers activity saw us at Werribee river. We did a minibeasts discovery which we have done a few times at Brimbank, and then fishing! the kids had a talk from a representative of the fisheries and then got to fish for a short time. They didn’t like the bait much and I helped them with casting. Alex id his last bait and cast all by himself. He really wanted to catch something, but of course the chances were slim at that time of day anyway and all he got was seaweed. We played at the playground with some homeschool friends that had happened to go along too. One of the boys (Alex doesn’t usually play with him) was being a bit of a jerk, and so Alex helped the other one stand up for himself and find a fair solution.
Daniel really wanted to go to ‘the zoo with the buses’ as we were close by, so we did. We had a great safari tour, with the giraffes circling our bus at feeding time (Daniel’s favourite). We sat up front and the driver was so nice to the boys – she asked their names and asked her to point out the animals. Alex was very keen and proud to do this and named most of the animals (we forget the antelope species names mostly).
We’ve all been down to the football oval to have a run around – we play football, softball, run, throw boomerangs. Alex liked being goalkeeper. It’s especially nice to head down there when we’ve been so static, and it was a very lazy Sunday. Daniel took along some of his containers and kitchen things and made us tea.