Eli was inspired by the book they’re reading to start carving. He got out his pocket knife and some of the few blocks of wood we have and began on his mission to make everyone a carved Christmas gift.

This also included a good cleaning of his work bench and a phone call to Gogo to ask her all about the wood carving she used to do

At the end of the day Adam says, sadly, “It was a bad day, Eli didn’t play with me enough today.” So Eli says,”Don’t worry Adam, tomorrow I’ll pay with you whenever you want to.”

Jumping has been big this lockdown, and lately the morning stoutness exercises involved jumping in three different ways to all the cards in a deck

We did a lesson on adding up consecutive numbers today, which Grace quite quickly seemed to get (or at least she memorised the formula quickly). Here is the lesson:

Grace, Eli and Adam were up early and playing a jumping game. Someone would draw a card and then the would do that many jumps, knee drops and bum drops – 3 jumps per card in the playing deck (sans jokers).

Afterwards Grace and Eli went off to figure out how many jumps they had done from the cards.

They got to the right number – 1092!

Later in the day while I was mopping the playroom I looked and this and started thinking about how to get to the answer without counting. 3 x each of the cards in a suite is the same as 3 x the sum of the cards in the suite. 4 x that (for each suite) and the answer should be there. So, how do you calculate the sum of consecutive answers? I see a maths lesson in the future…

Grace made us pizzas and we had an outdoor pizza “picnic”

This was followed by a tour around the he garden, with Grace, Adam and Eli being the tour guides. I can’t remember exactly what they called the different paths, but it came down to something like the beautiful path, the good path and the terrible path.

This did include some activities which we all know are going too lead to itching

And itch they did. Luckily we managed to get them into a bath just as the itch was beginning.

Today we had a relaxed day. Grace and Eli gave their respective classes feedback on work they had been working on. Grace presented information on the Amazon and Eli showed his class his little phases of the moon booklet.

I had 2 happy mommy, teacher moments with Adam. The first one was he was desperate to stamp, I was keen to do some basic addition, he wasn’t. So I combined the two activities and we were both happy.

The second moment was when he was writing his numbers and I asked him if he wanted me to show him how to write an 8 and he turned to me and said ” I can do it on my own” and he did!

This morning the boys decided it was smart shirt Friday, which meant Duncan also joined in.

Obviously the thing that goes with smart shirts are bubbles….Well according to Adam anyway

One week into schooling and I am definitely feeling tired. I am not very teaching fit, that is a given and the logistics of trying to give everyone what they need has me feeling like a plate spinner at times. I know I need to be kind to myself and my 3 but let’s just say I don’t always get it right.

One thing I am loving is making material for our class. I just love it, I find it therapeutic and fulfilling.

Today we did the phases of the moon and had fun using oreos to represent the various phases. Of course the photo was taken and then the 3 of them did a magic trick making the oreos disappear!

I gave Grace and Eli some follow up work to do on the moon while I helped Adam prepare snack. I love the work ethic that the Montessori classroom has instilled in them. When I came back 20 minutes later they were both completing their phases of the moon booklets.

Adam enjoyed working on some fine motor activities today and was keen to join the other two with the lesson of the moon.

I do love their love for learning. I just need to make sure I can keep up.

When the delivery of laminating pouches and cardboard is one of the most exciting and memorable things of the day, then you know that your life is being consumed making schooling materials.

Donné has been working like a machine finding materials online, printing, laminating, cutting, and thinking about what else she needs, how to run this “school” thing and organising life around online class meetings, snacks, learning and lunch.

We are very lucky to have her pouring herself into managing the school situation we currently find ourselves in.

Donné has been making dinosaur theme material for the week ahead