Thursday, June 07, 2007

Spelling, socks and some other stuff inbetween

Here's some things that have been going on over the last few weeks that I've finally got round to posting: S has done some 'surgery' on some of the smaller cloth animals, basically cutting parts of their 'skin' off and resewing it back on, one got a skin graft (piece of old cloth coloured to match the original skin). He's always been interested in sewing and decided to take it in to his own hands as I'm always fairly reluctant having needles and pins around young babes, but we survived. Anyhow I think I should let him get some more practice so future patients inshaAllah don't have big scars.
He's also shown a rare bookworm impression when his Exo-force chapter books arrived and were devoured in 2 days, not even wanting to play on the resurrected X box. It is a question of finding the right material to get them interested. Today did a spelling session on the 'ay' sound and I got some words from one of the aforementioned books and he did quite well. 'Dangerous' was a bit tricky as he spelt it as he said it 'dandrous' however he got 'devastator' right which I have to think about!! (yes typical 9 year old boy stuff, can't interest him in Noddy or stuff I used to read!)
Hafsah who is now to be known in this blog as Biryani (nickname since she was little (rhymes with Punjabi for 'wise and 'queen' and the Pakistani culinary influence stuck) has a new interest in putting things together; Lego men heads on bodies, Lego helmets on heads, felt tip pen lids on pen, spoons in cups etc etc Still she thinks marbles plus mouth also make a fine match but equals Mum's heart rate increase due to potential choking.
She's begun to stand quite confidently now, and likes to practice, pulling up on the side of the cot and then falling down and then trying all over again. When I encourage her to take some steps she just laughs and throws herself forward assuming I will catch her, hope I don't get distracted by one of the other kids one day and she just falls on her face.
Had a very bad night a few days back with her sleeping. She slept from 8 till 1130 pm and just as I was going to lie down she woke. I was so tired I just caved in and fed her, twice, but she still wouldn't sleep and after a little play with somLego men and a potter round the living room it was around 1.30 am she slept, and the audacity of it, woke at 6 am. We're talking zombie-like mum here.
Jargon type language appearing now, sounds like she's saying something but I'm not quite sure what, ' bumbleblblblb'plus other less polite sounding syllables, don't know where she go that from !!
H continuing to ask interesting questions:
'why don't children in nursery listen to Quran?'
'We pray properly.' Now where did he get this from?? All I can think is that he overheard me talking to S about a potential church visit he would have.
Speaking of places of worship, had a huff and calmed myself down to complain to the office in the mosque today as they had Swedish flags up all over the place due to the National day holiday yesterday for which they'd organised a celebration, can you believe it, this is integration gone tooo far. I had actually joked that maybe there'd be a flag flying from the minaret (yesterday was a holiday apparently mostly celebrated by construction of IKEA furniture, no raw fish as far as I know) but could hardly believe my eyes seeing the yellow cross all over the place.

Have my quarterly I really wish I could home ed feeling as received IHSAN newsletter. Also when dropping M off for English class at the local school some boys not much older than S ( 8 or 9 maybe) were sneaking around the playground with what looked like pornographic material. In fact it was some underwear magazine but wasn't much different. Along with the junior 'disco dancing' they have I realise they are missing learning to speak Danish (they have classes as so many Danes live here due to tax system) and advanced English swear words. So maybe their school at the mosque is not so bad, (hmm well they learn swear words in Arabic instead, but still there is slightly more innocence left.)
But also found this site recently and felt more depressed about the whole home ed possibility. It seems after the first 3 years it is even more difficult to get permission and very hard if you don't speak Swedish, and they'd have to attend Swedish lessons, which I can kinda understand if we're here for the long-haul. Let's hope we can move, preferably somewhere English-speaking.
Have done a bit of the Flylady thing and threw out kids odd socks. I managed to get the washing pile under control (a load a day she says, although surprisingly don't always have enough to make it worthwhile, maybe 'cos DH away) so knew there'd be no spare ones in there. But then she doesn't tell you to check under beds as I found the other halves of 2 pairs, admittedly one pair on its last legs, so now minus 2 pairs of socks which are always precious in our house. So before you throw out those odd socks, do all washing and check under beds, or any other crevices your socks tend to hide. Don't your days feel relatively interesting now you've heard about mine?

1 comment:

ummrashid said...

asak,It is all interesting! In some ways by reading blogs you get to know a person better than some people you see often in "the real"! Unless the blogger is effecting a persona of course, but I don't suspect you of that! A lot of home education is being conscious of education in the home, (not in the grades/marks sense), implementing learning as integral to life. You do home ed, but just in shorter hours, and without a maths file!