As he approaches 5, the 4yo has been much less...well...4. While still prone to bouts of 4 year old raging tantrums, he is much easier to reason with and manage because he listens sometimes.
The attitudes of the bigs hae shifted dramatically from towards the end of last year where I have no idea what was going on (but the stress I was feeling at the time wouldn't have helped) but I was fully prepared to pick up enrolment forms from the primary school down the road.
So far this year I've managed to order a whole pile of new workbooks (I made a booklist for a reason, and Pascall Press sent a packet of O'Bon 2B pencils with the order so that took care of having to buy a packet of new pencils, they're so pretty I think I'll get stationary from there next time as well), renewed Reading Eggs and Maths Seeds subscriptions, renewed CSIRO science magazine subscription and just need to top up the art supplies (Riot I shall be heading your way at some stage). I'm in the process of organising gymnastics for Ru this year and the boys are playing Auskick and Junior AFL. Every time I've done the bookwork call they've come, sometimes fine and sometimes grumblingly. There have been a few occasions where Tao refuses (usually by continuing to stare at the tv or refuse to leave his computer or come inside) and then accepts the fact that he gets less pocket money at the end ofthe week as he hasn't done the required amount of work.
We went to the zoo earlier in the week and the night before Ru suggested they could bring their notebooks to write about animals in them. We brought the notebooks. Ru wanted to write about the penguins but trying to write not on a desk proved a bit challenging for her so I scribed three dot points of her observations and she ran to the signs to read some information she was looking for, and told her to copy them when we got home, and maybe draw a picture of a penguin. I also gave her my phone to take a few pictures.
She also took some photos in the bird aviary but most of them were back focused or blurry. This one didn't turn out too bad:
We even managed to stop to observe some of the flowers which were growing around the zoo. Tao identified it as an orchid and claimed it looked kind of like like a Nydus worm.
Tao wanted to investigate lizards but the reptile house was closed, so I told them we'd have to investigate another time (after going through the nocturnal house to look at spiders, as Cub missed out on that due to the smalls wanting to hit up the playground before we left and we ran out of time after doing the Australian Bushwalk where the bigs had the opportuity to do a "spotter's map" on the back of a Zoo passport thing they got given). I suggested he could do something else this time round but apparently he had his heart set on lizards and instead just focused on finishing the spotter's map. Both of them were uite eager to be reading signs and findng out more about the animals and were generally very patient with Cub. It made the homeschooling gig seem feasible again and me quite glad that we were continuing down that route (whatever "that route" ends up being, it's like hiking through thick jungle, you know you need to go THAT way but these random obstacles aren't on the map! Ooh shiny...)
Once we get chores and bath and bedtimes down we'll be sweet (there is still much grumbing and resistance surrounding chores and bathtime and bedtime can be a right hassle).