So much to sort out.

Tonight I thought I would go back into my bookcase and pull out all the textbooks, books, picture books etc to try to work out some more "school" stuff for the girls to work on tomorrow. Today when the kids were all in daycare, hubby and I went out to town, bought some play swords for our little boy, who thinks he is a muskateer and I found some disney princess books, that were actually pretty educational. The girls were overjoyed to be doing "schoolwork" along with their favourite princesses.

I know that the whole commercialism aspect of disney is really not a great thing, but then the girls enjoy being princesses and dressing up and quite frankly, I would rather them act like little girls doing girly things, than being tomboyish and feministic. I don't think that girls and women for that matter should act more manly than men, its a complete turnoff to me personally. You can be assertive if you need to, whilst still being feminine. I know its the in thing to be a strong, independant woman, who is non-reliant on any man, but its just not me nor is it how I want my girls to grow up. Call me old-fashioned, but women should be women and men should men and there should be no mixing up the two. I like a strong, independent man, who is not afraid to stand up for something, nor afraid to fight, and will protect his family until the end. I can't stand a man who is wimpy or girlier than a girl which so many men of today seem to be. Yes, it is nice that these sorts of guys can say all the right stuff, but seriously, would I feel comforted if he were protecting me in a dangerous situation? I doubt it. Suffice to say, my boy is a rough and ready type, and we encourage him in his swordplay, and Daddy is a ready opponent and yes, we do let him play with guns also. ;-)

So back to the books etc. I now have a pile of things appropriate for each of my girls and will aim to do a little each day of the basic drills. My 6 year old whilst a prolific reader is an atrocious speller, just like her father, so I really need to address that. I have been buying quite a few things from the classified sections of the the homeschooling forums I frequent, mostly aussiehomeschool and rockpoolaustralia. Amongst those, I bought a spelling journal, which has spaces for new words, and testing areas and complete sections on spelling rules (some of which I didn't even know), plural rules, and a whole bunch of other useful stuff which will be a great starting point for her. I also have a whole lot of flash cards and some spelling workbooks/teachers texts that I hope will help us both get her spelling on track. My 4 year old has only recently in the last few weeks shown a real interest in learning to read so we are mainly focusing on phonics at this stage. She has picked up quite a bit just from listening to her sister learning which is great. I also need to renew my Reading Eggs subsciption for them. This website program has really helped them by providing a fun, entertaining aspect to the phonics journey they are on.

Well, I am off to bed. Fingers crossed that our family members and friends within the cyclone's path keep themselves and their families safe tomorrow and in the following days.