artwork and changing rhythms

I figured I'd save time and blog space by addressing two things at once -- putting up some of the kids' artwork while discussing our current shift in daily and weekly rhythms.

So here's J's rendition of Pig in her house, which he notes is also the Chinese description of "family". (The Chinese characters for family are the character for pig under a character depicting a roof -- hence, there is food in the house, so family.)

Any 7 year old boy will recognize this -- Pikachu, J's favorite Pokemon.

With the change of the clocks, I decided that it was an opportune time to shift our rhythms around a little. The kids naturally are getting up an hour earlier and are ready to sleep an hour earlier, so our day now starts and ends earlier. It's too cold now in the mornings for our daily bike rides/walk -- we've swapped that time out for an outdoor time around mid-day. And it's too dark now in the evening to do our barn chores then, so we combined that with our outdoor time. We'll be spending less outdoor time in general now that it's getting colder, so we'll be incorporating more art and craft type activities, baking, etc, in to our days.

Another depiction of Pikachu, this time drawn and cut out of paper.

I've also discovered that Zoo Boy is more apt to participate in our Movement Circle if I do it as soon after breakfast as possible, when he's fed and still energetic. I've shortened it a bit, as I seemed to be losing him, and I made sure that it includes a lot of songs, as he likes those better than the verses. So when we do a verse, I make sure it's followed up by one or two songs before doing another verse. I also switched to doing our fingerplays (several activities towards the end of our circle) from a seated position rather than standing, as he was wearing out by then and was sitting out the fingerplays. He's more apt to hang in there if he can sit and participate. Incidentally, I'm not particular worried about whether or not Zoo Boy participates in our circles or other activities, since he'll get another full year of Kindergarten next year. But it serves our family rhythms better if he IS involved, so I try to make accommodations for him. Even so, some days there's just no way to engage him in what we're doing, so J and I just go along with our rhythms and let Zoo Boy join in where he's comfortable.

Here's a photo of Zoo Boy taking pride in a picture HE drew. He hasn't shown any real interest in art or learning to write yet, but I'm guessing as I get more organized with our art activities, it will spark his interest a bit more.

Here's what our daily rhythms are looking like now (times are approximate):

7:00ish -- rise and shine, kids do free play while Mom finishes up the animal care chores (which she started at 5:45 -- there is a LOT of animal care!).

8:00ish -- breakfast, followed by clean-up, tooth brushing, a short calendar activity, and dressing.

9:00ish -- Oral Motor therapy exercises for Zoo Boy, and Sensory Integration Therapy activities for both boys. The SI work also doubles as our morning exercise, so it's mostly gross-motor and vestibular activities.

9:30ish -- Movement Circle, followed immediately by Curriculum Story

10:00ish -- an hour's worth of creative play on their own

11:00ish -- lunch

11:30ish -- outside time -- barn chores and playtime

12:30ish -- rest

1:30ish -- Afternoon Adventures (following our weekly rhythms, below)

5:00ish -- dinner

5:30ish -- play

6:30ish -- bed prep

7:00ish -- Family Story Time (except on Fridays, when we'll have a Special Nature Story in front of the fire, and Sundays when we watch football together as a family)

8:00ish -- bedtime, adult time

J continues to show a self-motivated interest in foreign languages, here practicing writing Hindi (he found a list of Hindi vocabulary words at the back of one of our books). This is the Hindi word for "bear", or so he tells me. (And I have no reason not to believe him!)

Our weekly rhythms for our Afternoon Adventures is like this:

Monday -- Homeschool classes with a local group for J, museum play for Zoo Boy, then grocery shopping on the way home for all of us
Tuesday -- seasonal craft, then museum class for J/play in the museum for Zoo Boy
Wednesday -- Babysitter plays with them while Mom works
Thursday -- painting (eventually, we haven't started that yet, but will in the next few weeks), then baking/cooking
Friday -- Excursions with homeschooling friends

Most importantly, any day that is really nice out, we'll ditch (or partially ditch) our "scheduled" activity in favor of just spending the time outdoors somewhere. Nature walks, bike rides, playground time, etc, are all better uses of our time when we have weather that is agreeable. There's going to be plenty of winter to spend indoors doing art, crafts, and cooking!