T came home on Monday afternoon - ahhhh, lovely to have him back. We were all pleased. He really enjoyed himself & feltrelaxed & refreshed... until bamboozled by our busy home, that is I'm sure! LOL. Actually, the jetlag / time difference caught up with him this morning & he had to take himself back to bed to try & rebalance himself.
Monday: I so didn't get any of that cooking & baking done ;) but I did get the house kinda under control so I was happy with that. The boys were playing together when I arrived at preschool to collect them, which I thought was really lovely.
Tuesday: a busy day - dropping Hug to BK and then making it to playgroup - which was lovely - I'm really enjoying it. I feel so relaxed there... everything slows down. It's nice. And I like E's energy & the respect she shows the children... even the little things like drying each of their fingers separately.
I continued on my embroidery (Lovely's bag) and have brought it home to finish so that I can start one for Hug. I have tried to stitch a bee, which is quiet funny.
After an hour at home to catch up with T, L and I were off again - this time to our 3rd Montessori group meeting.
Montessori: I had gone feeling a bit unsure of my intentions... did I really want to do it? Was it right for us? Hug? Me? T & I talked briefly before I left & he was frustrated by my uncertainty - "what?! after all this time you're thinking about Steiner & other options again?!" - but moments after I arrived at D's he called on the mobile & told me that he believed in me & that I should believe in me too & that I was doing the right thing. Wow! What a kind thing... I really appreciated his enthusiasm & support (When I got home there was a note too; " You're TOTALLY starting a school. We'll travel around that plan". ) Thank you sweet T.
And then the meeting... I went over some of the things I had been looking at: Parent information / email from Montessori Australia / etc.+ We clarified that the school would have to start purely with 6 year olds who had preferably had Montessori exposure (or possibly an older child who had already had some Montessori school education)
+ We thought that the offer from MA to come to BB might be a fabulous way to kick off our public information... A well publicised event at the Community Centre for example... maybe if she was headlining we could also get some people from Brisbane... Press (newspapers / tv)... Launching the inaugural BB Montessori Art Prize (& auction)! Now, I'm adding my own brainstorming ;)
+ We decided that we should look into the possibilities for starting a Montessori stream within one of the local public schools.+ That we should begin to advertise for a teacher (definitely a 6-9, but maybe a 3-6 also?). Putting an add on the MA site & some international sites too even.
Later that night the other D called & said that she still wants to be involved. Good! She also threw some interesting ideas into the mix that would be great to discuss further... starting small; homeschool co-op style. Rent a room somewhere; do some training (maybe have someone come to BB for a long weekend? Although insanely minimal, it's been done with less ;) set up the space with the 3-6 equipment ; & next year run a 5 morning program with a parent acting as directress/ director each day... The thought was that maybe we could get M+M involved which would give us 2 professionally trained teachers actually! Maybe this would work for next year?! We wouldn't actually need to be registered as a school etc. (which we have now officially missed the deadline for) but it would create a frame work for the creation of the 6-9 room the year after.
At the end of the day my enthusiasm was renewed!
Wednesday: Hug at school & T working out of the house. Our first official week like this & think it was good. Lovely and I had a really nice day. The house got properly blessed (dust + vac + mop) & the playroom & shelves got more organised. We had some real fun playing with the little wooden people that I had salvaged from a large basket of mixed up animals etc. & then B rang in the afternoon. I took some photos of my work while I was on the phone to email her.Thursday: T was up & into his work at 7am, & then back to bed by 8 because he couldn't even think straight, poor darling. We all went out to do the shopping & he called at 10.30 as we were loading up the car to say that he'd just woken up!
Hug: was a great help at the Supermarket, keeping himself calm & helping Lovely. L was obviously tired & a bit ratty at first but once he smooched up he was quiet as a mouse & I thought he was about to fall asleep in the trolley again! Once home & after rest-time Hug got set up on the computer in Text Edit & started to write words... Wow. He wrote his name & then I helped him phonetically spell out his full name & then all on his own he spelt 'cat'! Later, he spelt 'bag' and then 'zac' and said that was one of his friends at school (which it is! of 'zac and ellie' fame) & he decided to print out: "zac cat kangaroo". With my assistance in helping to sound out each sound he typed it all up himself. He also chose to write 'dogs' and 'snake'.
We printed out his words & he practised tracing the letters (I placed dots on the starting points as he is prone to start letters from the bottom at the moment) and then wrote the words out himself & also illustrated a few of them too. Too cute. I showed his what the moveable alphabet looked like & explained that this work was similar. After a great session, we packed up & he got really involved in cooking lasagna! What a chef.
Lovely: He decided that the step he uses to climb up to the toilet was grubby so I showed him how he could take it outside & wash it with a brush & bucket & towel. He did a great job, followed up with a quick go at a chair & then proceeded to pour bubbly water into Boston's water bowl. Oh well :) He played bat & ball in the yard for a while & then with his wooden people again in the playroom - I think they really captured his sweet imagination.
At 3, T finished to look after the boys & I headed out to buy supplied for J+J's wedding invitations. I think they'll look nice.
Home & we all watched 'Grand Designs' together & then sleep... well, not for me becauuse I straightened my hair & tidied up & now it's 10.36pm & here I am writing my blog. Eeeeek!
