Some of what I'm reading & watching on-line this week

Reading:

"Why I Don't Worry About My Kids' Screen Time". Part 1 and Part 2.

The Parent's Project Journal

Cookie Baking Party (I know you wanna have one ;)

This broke my heart. Every single parent in the world should read it... There are no words.

The Classical Education. 

Counting Coconuts' New Routine. Love seeing how other people get organised!

Watching:

Blue Jay / 12 Year old Music Prodigy

The Elements of Art (for kids)

Wet-on-Wet Watercolour Painting


Image credit: A friend posted this great pic on FB. Wish I knew who to credit it to. Sharing the love. 

Press PLAY

Mr L is doing really well at "school". He's got a Logical-Mathamatical kinda mind (We're loving our Life of Fred books, thanks for the inspiration Hungry Heads! ;) but he's also really imaginative which I love. His reading is improving every day and his retention seems good too.

























Our days run quite smoothly *most of the time* Lol. But when I stumbled across this blog challenge I thought it sounded like the type of fun-injection we would enjoy!















Don't get me wrong - there's a lot of PLAY in this house. In fact, I type this one-fingered into my iphone at the kitchen table sipping my tea and listening to the mad ramblings of Mr.L ensconced in a world of suitcases, locks, keys and burgulars in his room. This is a tea-break from our morning of Chess and book reading on the trampoline.

But, sometimes I find they're/we're stuck in familiar play patterns.

























The Play challenge gives you 30 days of Play prompts and is aimed at the younger child. Which is where I think the fun will lie for us - revisiting some of the old-skool gems that we have "grown out of". Yesterday (our first day, but day 8 of the challenge) was Water Play and I made up bottles of coloured water for bath-time play.

Today it's Sensory Tubs! I'm actually not even sure we did Sensory Tubs at all when they were little even though they were all over the web. But I took the lead and have thrown this collection together.

Are you tempted to PLAY too...?

L takes a sneak peek. Immediate response ~ peg on nose. Boys!?

Lego inspired painting

I had both boys home with me today & they were having such a wonderful time playing Lego that I knew it would take something fun to get them into our daily routine.

So, we got painting Lego-stylee.

We used a ruler to block out a grid on our paper with pencil before we began. Mixed up the colors. And dived in.

i heart my Tricky Treaters

Yesterday i posted about Reverse Trick or Treat - our families Halloween tradition. Here are some pics from the road :)

I hope you all had a happy & safe Halloween! x

Reverse Trick or Treating : Our Family Halloween Tradition

Living in Australia Halloween is a slightly odd holiday. Mostly because we don't officially celebrate it! 

I, however, loved Halloween when I was a kid and I was keen to enjoy it with my own children too. But, there were a few problems... The first being #1 that seeing as it's not officially celebrated in Australia the chance of anyone expecting to be Trick-or-Treated is pretty low (ie. not many people with sweets ready to hand out), plus, #2 I didn't really want my children to be eating many sweets anyway!

So we came up with our own family tradition. One based on the concept of GIVING rather than receiving. It's sweet. It's fun. It strengthens our community spirit and it makes us all feel good. 

REVERSE TRiCK OR TREATiNG :)

We bake.

We make.

We dress up.

And we Treat!

We go door to door in our own neighbourhood giving out treats. Costumes can be any of our favourite dress-ups. Ghouls need not apply (but are becoming more popular as they get older ;)

This year it's cookies. We made 3 sorts (that's a batch of Walnut Golden Syrup cookies above).

But some years we make muffins too. You could make any easily handed-out baked good.

These Rainbow cookies (above) are a little extreme! But a concession to the occasion.

Chocolate chip and Nut-butter.

So we're ready to go. I'm just waiting for the boys to get back with T so we can head out soon... I'm sure they will end up with some of their own treats too :) They usually do. A lollipop from the corner house or some peaches from Fred down the road. They love that. But I like that it's not the only thing that we look forward to at Halloween. 

Kids who...

When your kids use a dysfunctional strategy to meet their needs, notice the deeper need they're trying to fill:

Kids who compete with siblings often need to feel more valued for who they are.

Kids who keep pushing for limits usually need to know the parent is in charge and will keep them safe.

Kids who "don't listen" often don't feel heard.

Kids who are always rebelling usually need to feel more powerful and competent.

Kids who are always cranky usually need more sleep. 

Kids who disrespect you are always showing you they don't feel connected enough to you.

I recently signed up to receive e*newsletters from Aha! Parenting and am appreciating the wisdom-fix. This is a post from their site that I particularly needed to read today. X