Friday 19 September 2014

Day twelve - not a good day, if I'm honest

Today has been less than perfect.  To be truthful it has been rather hard and a little upsetting.

This morning M, J, A and I headed off to our "forest school."  No-one woke up naturally, no-one wanted to get ready, no-one wanted to rush.

We got out of the door at the desired time, and a lacklustre bunch of offspring were loaded into the car.

We got to the site earlier than normal (!) and the kids perked up fairly quickly, but with some children having left and others joining the dynamic of the group was very different.

M wasn't coping well, the first session after a break is usually harder on him anyway, but the changes made him uneasy and he was hunting for the familiar interactions just and not finding them.

The session itself went well - once I managed to get M to focus and calm himself a bit - the children built a hibernaculum / hibernarium / bug hotel.  They all worked well together, and a nice structure was built.  There was a reminder of rules and boundaries and some catching up too :)

We stayed for a picnic afterwards, and the change in dynamic made things interesting there too - on the whole that was fairly quickly resolved, but the situation required more vigilance and talking than normal, and I felt rather drained by the time we got home.  The children, on the other hand, say they had a great time.  I guess it's all a matter of perspective.

Hopefully the next session will be easier, there is every reason to believe it will be, and our Fridays can be happy relaxing days again :)

When we got home L had had a nice quiet morning, and was both ready and willing to hit the books.  He looked at percentages in Maths - we were both relieved to find he remembered all the rules / methods, and the exercises were done in about 30 minutes, which isn't bad for 4 sides of A4 :)  In English we looked again at the poems from the other day, discussed and dissected them, looked logically at why they work and how, and all went well.  ICT is still in the very early "This is an input device . . ." stages.

A and I played a lovely game called Dobble, which always leaves us smiling, and was a good redirect for her.

J has gone to a church youth group, M skipped chess because he is still wound up from earlier events, A is in the bath and L is chatting to friends on Skype whilst they play online.

Last night we read about the Crimean war, the Great Exhibition and The Crystal Palace.  Tonight we have more from Queen Victoria's reign. 

All in all, today could have been worse, we got through it fairly well, but it has taken a toll on everyone's energy levels and mood.

2 comments:

  1. It sounds as though you have achieved a great deal. I think tiredness often makes us forget the good things-I'm speaking to myself as much as anyone. I don't think that I could have managed to get my children to do so much work after a morning out.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was waiting for the part where it doesnt sound like a good day??? I think you had a great day!! We all have those moments but helps us to see the positives.
    Myself had a huge set back today m woke up late, m wanted to watch a movie whilst eating breakfast but we had swimming! So like yourself we had resistance!
    I didnt respond to his wishes and we had a tantrum but talked about it on the way to swimming - all was ok then tantrum again when we got there, had to be called back to remove him from swimming, woildnt get dressed, run away in car park! I had a major melt down shouting and i actually smacked him as he laughed at me!!!!!!!!
    Got in the car - calmed down and i felt very guilty but he appologised and said he would listern to me and that he thought about his behaviour (unprompted!) i guess i was more shocked as we havent had a meltdown like this since leaving school but we can only reflect and re adjust our responses in future?
    At least he was able to see his behaviour and me too (hes 4)

    ReplyDelete