An Update...

It's been such a long time since I blogged on here for Ethan. So much has happened since Christmas that I've no idea where the first six months of this year have gone. Sadly Ethan's Grampy died on the 15th April after a short but very aggressive battle with lung cancer. It's kind of knocked the stuffing out of us as you can imagine. It was Ethan's first experience of death and he knows that Grampy Jim has gone to be with God and Jesus or 'those Big Dudes' as he calls them lol. Ethan plays on World of Warcraft sometimes and when we told him that Grampy had died he said "When will he be resurrected then", which is what happens [conveniently] when you 'die' in WoW. Hmmmm!!!??? I told him that Grampy had already been resurrected but by God and now he could see us but we couldn't see him. Bless!!
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So, more positive news is that Ethan has been asking about going to school so he's got a place to start in mid-September in a lovely school on the other side of the city. We always said we'd only home educate him until he expressed a desire to go to school and he's been asking alot of questions about school, making friends, where does Millie go each day etc. so we think the time is right to give it a go. I hope that he settles in well there and that his separation anxiety doesn't rear it's ugly head again. I've a feeling that he's about ready for this now, especially as he's done over a year of home schooling rather than pre~school. I'm thinking positive as don't want any negativity to rub off on him.
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We've put in an offer on a house that side of the city too but as we've sold our house twice and then subsequently lost two previous buyers we'll not get too excited this side of Pickfords pulling up outside the house. It's one of the reasons we looked at schools over there though so I'm praying that it goes through this time. However, even if it doesn't the school is just lovely and exactly what we want for Ethan so even if I have to commute it'll be worth it.
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Ethan's due to be baptised into the Catholic church over the summer. I myself was confirmed a Catholic during the Easter Sunday Mass this year so it makes perfect sense to now have Ethan follow me into that faith.
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Ethan's still doing football weekly and has come on in leaps and bounds. We're hoping that he'll be able to change to the after school or weekend sessions in September so that he won't have to leave as he enjoys it so much. There's a football summer camp being run for two hours a day for four days and we've signed him up for that too. It's in the mornings so hopefully he'll stay the distance and his big sister Millie is one of the coaches so he'll have a ball [pardon the pun ~ groan]. He's also down to do a crash course in swimming over the summer break with Simon. Ethan just loves the water so this'll be a good thing to do when all the other things we usually do have stopped for the summer.

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Not sure if we'll get a holiday this year due to the potential move in the summer but we're going to have some days away by the beach I think. Certainly a few family days out where Ethan can enjoy visiting places of interest to small boys of nearly four. We're tempted to start camping as it's something both Si and I love and Ethan would be just in raptures I think ~ outside 24/7, what more could he wish for.

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The photo above is of Ethan feeding some puppies at Grandma's house or rather out in her barn. They're labrador puppies and just a few weeks old and he always looks forward to going and feeding them on a Saturday.

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I think that's about it. Apologies for the long gap in updates but life has been tough so I hope you'll understand. Will post photo's of any days out, first days at school and baptisms as and when they happen.

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Every blessing

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Sharon and Ethan xx

Soccer for Tots - Autumn term '08

Here are some photographs of Ethan taken at Soccer for Tots in the Autum term [2nd October'08]. That is Glen with him who does a fantastic job of teaching these little ones all about the game in a very child friendly way. I've no idea how he manages to keep their attention but he does. Ethan loves it and we've never missed a session yet.

Autumn....

Finally we've decided that for the next few weeks we're going to be looking at Autumn as a season - what happens and why. This will involve a trip to the library for resources, a few nature walks to look at the trees as their leaves change colour and drop. Also at things like conkers [seeds], and any other bushes, plants etc. that change significantly for the Autumn. We're due to attend a Autumn Fungi walk with the MKhen in October so that should add something of value as well. We'll make a lapbook to record our findings with a few words, lots of pictures/photo's and some drawing/colouring and the odd souvenier of our walks. This will hopefully lead to us looking at the other three seasons in a similar fashion as they roll around.

We're also going to look at farming from a very pre-school perspective as Ethan has been asking things like 'Where does milk/do eggs come from?". So to start with we'll just look at farm animals that he knows and talk about what produce they give us. Not venturing into crops yet as far too advanced for this year I think. With any luck the Seasons and Farming topics will eventually tie in together as Ethan realises that the seasons also dictate what happens on the farm at certain times of the year ie lambs in the spring, hay in the summer. We intend to make a lapbook to record the Farming topic too.

The usual things like phonics, stories, early numeracy, music, IT, and endless play of all kinds continues on daily in any event.

This week we've made cakes, been to buy stamps and post a letter [he's going to send himself a letter next week so he can see that what we post eventually arrives at the destination of our choice]. We've also already looked at conkers and picked an unripe one off the tree and bought it home to dissect it and see the new conkers nestled inside. He was absolutely fascinated.

Tomorrow we're back to Soccer for Tots and Musical Mini's on friday.

Watch out for the next update guys - love to all who read.

Sharon and Ethan xx

Soccer for Tots.....

As part of Milton Keynes Home Education Network [MKhen] we've been lucky enough to be able to get places for our under 5's on the Soccer for Tots scheme. It's highly subscribed to as there aren't many football teams that cater for children under 4. In all honesty it's quite expensive for what it is. However, being home edders means that we get a group discount so this summer we got Ethan signed up and Simon took him every wednesday morning. Now, I don't need to tell you all how much he loved it. Once again we had to do a weekly countdown of 'how many sleeps until we see Glen [the guy who runs Ethan's class] again!! We've managed to afford to sign up for another set of six clasees as Dave and I went halves for the next course but it's so worth it especially now the summer is nearly over as it's much harder to find outdoor activities in the winter time.

Sarah took both of these for me as she takes her little ones as well!!