Academic update and Frosty Mornings

Here is Caden helping me (under forced labour conditions) to sweep the boat, while I did some cleaning. 

One morning we woke up and everything was frosty, the boys wanted to know when it would snow. We have the sledge ready for the first snow after last year's dissappointingly snow-free, Winter. 

I am waiting for a new password for Caden's maths program but his reading continues to come along in leaps and bounds. His spelling is continuing to happen naturally, he writes words daily on his computer games and shows them to me, often with the odd misspelling, which I correct and he retypes. He recites spellings to me in the car, the latest is Fire which gives rise to us talking about how the e after a vowel changes the sound in the word. We have gone over metaphors and similes and assonance/alliteration many times, he is getting the hang of it. He is learning grammar too, he asks lots of questions all the time, what is an exclamation mark and so on. The learning happens naturally in a way that makes sense to him in the context of his life. I can see lots of progress every day, I feel relaxed that he is learning enough and it gives me confidence. 

I have worried that Miles isn't interested in learning to read much, I have to keep reminding myself to give him a break, he is only three. Caden was reading almost fluently at four but Miles can't even read his name, he can do lots of other things that Caden couldn't, of course they are different children. I have to remind myself often that he is developing as he should. He is so good in other areas. We went back to his reading eggs programme again today to start from the very beginning again, he is showing a little progress today. He did seem to get it, with the letters M and S. I am telling myself today that he will take it slowly, at his own pace and that I need to consistently present the information to him and not rush him when he seems like he has had enough. I have had him in front of the 'your baby can read' DVD series and while he has shown slightly more interest, it is a while coming. This is not a complaint, just a record of the way things are, progress-wise. I have complete trust that there are plenty of other things going on that I cannot see, which will come out in the future. He is doing just fine and I know I am doing enough. I will feel easier when he can read too. He does seem to really be doing well with his numbers and maths though, maybe he has a head for that instead. As ever he is practical and sociable and loves to help. 

I am hoping to take us all to France for them to live with some French children for a few weeks, they can practise their French, which seems to be coming along really well for both of them.

Finally, I have been introducing the boys to poetry. Firstly funny stuff which is in the link as follows:

http://www.poetry4kids.com/poem-687.html#.VIjGJDGsWSo

Then I sang them a little song, they loved this because they see the ducks wiggle their bottoms (tails up) every day now on the canal, when I sang 'up tails all' they turned around and waved their bottoms about, laughing.

Then Milesy went off to play and I went through a basic analysis of Ted Hughes', Wind, with Caden. A superb piece of poetry. Once I had explained what it meant, it was wonderful to read it back and watch his comprehension of the poem. He made his eyes flash when I read 'flexing like the lens of a mad eye' and pushed his eyes in when I read about the wind denting the balls of his eyes. It was a really good mothering moment, I am going to read more with him now I can see how he enjoyed it. Here is the poem

Wind

This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet

Till day rose; then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.

At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as
The coal-house door. Once I looked up -
Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes
The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,

The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,
At any second to bang and vanish with a flap;
The wind flung a magpie away and a black-
Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house

Rang like some fine green goblet in the note
That any second would shatter it. Now deep
In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip
Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,

Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,
And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,
Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.

(C) Ted Hughes 

http://www.poetseers.org/poets/ted-hughes-poetry/wind/