Another walk

We had another nice walk today. We had our scooter with us (very helpful if springy gets tired because I can stick her on it and wheel her a little - and I can go on it as well if I get tired and she runs alongside). We found lots of different types of grasses in the hedgerows and the elderflowers are almost in bloom (some are already but not enough to make elderflower cordial from).

Mrs Duck seems to be ready to lay again (her suitors have disappeared).

Springy had a lovely time yesterday with a playdate she had. She and her friend are so similar in terms of what they like to play with and both have that very fine motor control aspect with toys (both seem to be very careful and gentle with "things"). They also both like running around together, playing on the swing, cartwheeling and so on. I hope it's a longlasting friendship.

It was much cooler today--cloudy with a dampness to the air. We could do with a little more rain as the garden needs it.

I can't wait for our Mayfair that we will be going to. There is supposed to be a Maypole -it's late in that Mayfairs are usually early in May but nevertheless I can't wait because I know Springy loves dancing.

We didn't have a good morning at first. i've been under loads of pressure from my mum to get Spring to read and write. She doesn't understand that Springy can read and enjoys it - the last thing I want to do is to force her or "teach" her reading because it would just put her off. Springy can write all her upper case letters but not the lower case ones and I ended up having a panic last night and decided that Springy should be able to write them. I tried to get Springy to write all her lower case letters this morning and we both had an awful time. C helped a lot and what he did was all right because it was more of a conversation about if she could write what would she be doing with it and this got her interested to write. Then he left and it was obvious that she didn't want to do any more. Instead I took her knitting fork (lucette) chain that she had made and made a sigmoid on the sitting room floor and I started jumping over it. Springy thought this was great and joined in and then we tried some other shapes - walking around, jumping over and so on. This was much more fun than a pencil and paper for her and by this afternoon I was doing my best to throw off the voice of "In school children can do this" and "She's behind on...."

I really hate those voices of doubt and negativity because I know that what we are doing works really well and is developmentally and cognitively more appropriate than anything Springy would get in school. It's really hard at times to be out on a limb; even amongst other home educators there seems to be a race for academics. I need to remind myself all the time to go with Springy's age, aptitude and ability and not some theoretical child in a school.

We got our gnomes out today and they stood near their felted garden with pond (Springy found a tiny piece of red wool on the carpet and put it in the pond as a goldfish) and had their wooden tree. Penny Plus found 18 stones and she needed help - a golden butterfly came along but said she could only carry equal amounts but over 2 journeys only. Daddy Divide came along and helped Springy share out how many stones needed to be in each pile for there to be equal ones.

We also covered 4 and 5 in terms of number qualities. Springy was hilarious with Eyes, nose, ears and mouth (all being on the head) and got fingers and toes for 5. We also did our Vitruvian Man shape as a star (using one of the Eugene Schwartz poems on Millennial Child). She loved doing that and that old lady has gone back to sleep again (thanks Marsha Johnson for your wonderful files!) with the question of what is 6...

Springy has been reading a Letterland book that we got at a jumble - it was one of those books I got and tucked away and then forgot and it was only when I was tidying our bookshelf that I rediscovered it and she straightaway latched on to it. She really likes it. She also enjoys reading Snow White and Rose Red.

It's very frustrating trying to find resources at the BBC website as they are all computer-based and cartoonlike. I wish there were more resources aimed at assisting parents and teachers in helping their own knowledge so that I can then filter before passing things on.

We've done some lovely paintings this week - wet-on-wet ones. I did one myself which looks like a butterfly (by accident).

I was also feeling a little overscheduled at the beginning of the week - we have 3 activities for Springy plus work commitments and so on. It was the work commitments that got to me and feeling overwhelmed by things and I just wanted to sit down, relax and do nothing at all but had to get Springy to these things. It was a good thing we did because we ended up with one of the social activities we go to going for a lovely 1.5 hour walk with the sun shining and a breeze, amongst hedgerows and with water, fields and so on. We had a picnic along the way and it was so pleasant to eat outside with simple food.

I'm starting to feel a little better from my "cold" (a mix between a cold and intolerance reactions to pollen etc). We need to get the violin going again. Springy can play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star all right on the piano now (and on her xylophone).