Living it large!

I remember feeling so very overwhelmed when I began to teach Ethan to read and count! I had a few ideas in my head, but really didn’t know exactly how to start or what to do! I ended up focusing more on the numbers and taking the writing/reading much slower and took it ‘one number at a time’ – literally! He’s a lot more mature 2 years on and is ‘catching’ concepts so quickly, its amazing! About 6 weeks ago we moved from counting to 10 to counting up to 30. It didn’t seem very long after that that he was faced with numbers to 100! And in the last 10 days he’s learned to count in 10’s and 5’s! Tomorrow he starts counting in 2’s! I thought it would be very overwhelming, but the way Singapore Math works with numbers and concepts is amazing and he’s loving it!

I remember feeling really overwhelmed when I was introduced to geometry in my early high school years (Gr8). I’ve grown to love geometry and its one of my favourite sections of math! I now look at Ryan and Jed measuring angles and learning the math rules relating to triangles in the 5B Singapore Math book and am amazed at how easily they’re catching onto it! We’re having great fun proving our answers using the various rules! Today we had great fun drawing our own triangles with the help of rulers and protractors. Tomorrow’s lesson introduces parallelograms and I’m awestruck! I know they’ll understand it easily and be able to work out the challenges presented …. And I’m loving Singapore Math all over again!

Ethan asked me to tell him our phone number today, to write down on a poster he designed. I could ‘feel’ Ryan and Jed peering over my shoulder watching in great anticipation, waiting to see if Ethan could actually write down the number I was going to rattle off. And he did! He did write down the whole number perfectly and with well-shaped numbers …. And for a brief moment I felt really proud of what we have achieved till now! All of this might have been considered ‘homework’ because it happened outside of ‘school hours’ …… how I LOVE the spontaneity we enjoy with homeschooling!

Ryan, Jed and I are really enjoying Richard Maybury’s book, ‘Whatever happened to Penny Candy’! I was excited when I saw what we were reading, especially because we’ve just started our own family business and they already understand and are interested in entrepreneurial ventures. But the book covers some difficult concepts like inflation, recession, investments and others! I briefly wondered if this would be a little over their heads, but have been very pleasantly surprised! We don’t want to put it down! If we could we’d read another chapter and another …. And just one more! And I’m so glad I’m reading it with them, because I’m learning soooo much in the process! What a great book!

Today I’ve baked a fresh batch of fruit ‘n nut crunchies, done a few activities with the children and also made a short trip into town. We finalised our contravision for the back window of our car and commissioned the final printing piece for our marketing project. It is a DL-size Gift Voucher that folk can use as a gift for baby showers, baptisms, birthdays, etc and looks really nice.

Things have been quiet on our side business wise – but we did have a rather large order through Farmfreshdirect.co.za yesterday, which was very encouraging.

 In their latest newsletter they introduced us to their customer base:

‘The most awesome combinations we’ve ever seen and a well thought through new local product on offer for households! Forget the boring store mass produced range!’

Spring seems to have been interrupted by a short cold-front and we’re expecting some good rainfall in the next day or so, but the weekend promises to be sunny with temperatures reaching 30degrees C.

We're all well and life is great ..... living it large!