Easing our way back in

The first week in January has been pretty laid back for us, using the time to recover from the hectic time of Christmas. We still had Daddy at home at the start of the week, then we headed up to the caravan for New Year and spent a couple of hours at the beach over midnight!

Since getting back home, we have concentrated on finding a bit of a rhythm again, getting sleep back on track after all the excitement, late nights and less rules, and spending time together, reading, playing games and watching movies while snuggled on the sofa in our jammies.

I did a bit of a review with Bear on his phonics, and caught him playing with one of The Cub's new toys, ordering numbers, so I could see he'd held onto that too. He remembered 23 out of 26 sounds, two of those three he remembered the name for but just not the sound, and Ii had just disappeared into the ether - it was always one he seemed to get stuck on even as we were learning them and using them daily.

Introducing the idea of time and dates with Bear, I dug out his wooden clock and calendar that he's had for some time, just not really used much as he was a bit young for understanding it. He loved checking out the clock, and I went through and gave him all the basic information as a bit of an info dump. He takes in facts really easily, so it's an easy place to start and see what he picks up. We went through minutes in an hour, hours in a day, two of each hour, one day time, one night time. O'clock, quarter past, half past and quarter to, and I even touched on the 5 minutes per number for the hour. The following day he came and told me the time - I'd say he held onto some of that info dump, and we will go into more detail over the coming weeks. 

I plan to use the wall calendar and some other resources to teach him about weeks and months too, and get him a calendar that we can fill out with important dates to him each month so he can see time as more of a concrete idea.

We've gotten outside most days, including our midnight beach adventure, a trip to the skate park with friends, a frosty walk around the lake at Rother Valley where we fed the ducks and checked out the ice on the puddles, used a compass to check our direction, and looked at the frost and ice with our magnifying glasses. Both boys love checking stuff out when we're out and about, and the excitement when I asked if they wanted to pack their explorer bags was unreal!

We've read lots of books, played games, done some colouring, and the boys have spent hours upon hours playing with their new toys. Next week, I have plans to get back to our 'sit-down' learning time again and see how it goes with The Cub involved more. He wants to be doing whatever his brother is doing, or be wherever I am, so he will be involved, and we will see what he picks up as well as getting involved with some little activities I have planned for him.

How was your first week in?

Mama Bear x