Another week, another Sunday.  How time flies.  This past week has passed in the blink of an eye, mainly because my husband (a teacher) has been on half-term holiday, and so it’s been a little break from our normal life.  I didn’t bother to plan like usual; instead I classify all of this time as family time and we just enjoy it as we please.  For us, that meant trips to the sandpark, gymnastics and pony riding, amongst other things.

Of course, now it’s back to reality – although thankfully, reality isn’t really that different.  The main difference is that it’s me on my own again. One thing that I really enjoyed about having my husband around this week was how his play with Bella was so different than mine.  He showed me that she was really interested in throwing (and in fact has a great underarm throw!), and while she often seems to mix up blue and red (which made me think that she wasn’t quite into colours yet), she adored running around trying to find objects that matched in colour.

So what’s the plan for this week?

The main aim is to get back in the routine of just being the two of us, and one of the main things that defines it for me is Bengali.  We’re going to go back to the mornings of late: lazing about in bed reading books in Bengali, and I’m going to really make a point of noting down when I slip back into English and which phrases I’m lacking.  Bella doesn’t get frustrated at all when I speak it now, which is great, and she understands an awful lot of what I say.  It’s clear to me that the limiting factor is me, so I need to step things up.  Thankfully my mum will be visiting us every week in March, so I plan to ask her to only speak Bengali too.

Other than that, my foci for this week are music and art.  I’m going to remember to put music on regularly (we’re loving the Maestro Classics series), play the bells at least once a day, and think about how to integrate our playsilks into music.  We’re also going to draw using a different medium every day (watercolours, tempura paint, crayons, colouring pencils, markers).  For some reason, we didn’t do any art this week and it makes me a bit sad.  Obviously, if Bella asks to use a certain tool then we’ll use that – but I kind of want to remind her of all the different options that exist.  She does use the chalkboard on her easel most days, though!

In addition, I’m going to be thinking about Sensorial a bit this week.  We have a set of mini knobbed cylinders arriving, and I’m keen to make up a couple more mystery bags.  Bella’s also clearly in a sensitive phase for matching (a blog post with more info to come soon), so I’d like to keep a matching activity available to her at all times, as well as playing matching games with her.

Time for a new ritual: on Sundays, I’m going to spend some time reflecting on the week just gone, and the week to come.  I want to be a touch more thoughtful, more deliberate, more aware before the week is upon us.  I want to be clear in my own objectives and priorities.

Our weekly routine

What does this week hold for us?  

I think my main priority is routine and rhythm.  Last week wasn’t a good one for Bella in many ways.  We were only just settling in back at home after two months of caring for my mother-in-law, and we didn’t quite get things right.  I prioritised going out and seeing people because she was so lacking in peer interaction and outdoor time, and instead naps and our daily rhythm suffered.  I’m going to try to find the right balance this week.

That means that every day, we’ll be home by 12.45pm and heading for a nap by 1.30pm at the latest.  We’ve also had a bad few days in terms of the night time toilet learning, so I’m hoping that getting to bed at the right time will help her wake up refreshed and of sound enough mind to hold her wee until we get to a potty.

I’m also keen to make post-nap time more pleasant as I often struggle to fill the time left in the afternoon.  I have great plans to introduce afternoon tea, where we drink actual tea (and have all the fun of pouring!), eat some nice treats or light sandwiches, and chat about art.  I just got a set of the Usborne 50 famous paintings cards, and hope to be able to use them at that time.

And finally, I want to observe Bella more.  I did some of this last week, and there were some beautiful moments as a result, but I need to do more.  I’m setting the hopefully achievable goal of observing Bella for 30 minutes every day, ideally each time at a different time of day.  You can only follow the child if you know where the child is going!

Is anything special happening this week?

My homeschooling course is starting this week!  I’m really excited to be doing an 8 week Montessori homeschooling course.  The first week is about Routine & Rhythm so it’s even more important to me to focus on that myself this week.

Also, the Winter Olympics starts on Thursday!  My husband is a big sports fan, and I’m a big travel fan, so when you put us together, you get a crazy couple that plans to take their daughter to every Summer Olympics.  (The Winter ones don’t time well with school.)  That doesn’t mean we’ll ignore them – no, I plan to use it as a way to learn about sports, cultures, competitive activity, etc.  But I haven’t prepared anything yet, so let’s see what I can come up with!