31st Dec 2013 in kathmandu

Henry wanted to go to bouddhanath, and must have s ask due budnath about 100times before we left. We went to Vinods factory this morning. We had a small problem with changing rooms, but it was fixed in about 10 minutes. On the way there, the taxi driver taught u Winston some Nepali words... Kara for banana, siau for Apple. Winston wanted to play the racing game on the tablet, but we managed to persuade him to help mamma go around the factory taking videos.

At lunch Winston explained very clearly to Vinod and rabindra that one water jug was empty and another was full. Henry reminded us from time to time about bouddhanath.

At 4 we went to bouddhanath. Henry was satisfied. It was busy. Lots of interestingly dressed people and lots of candles. W and H both spun around on the big prayer wheels.

We had dinner at some low tables in a Japanese restaurant. Winston ordered and ate all his tempura. Henry wanted to climb on the table. Winston paid and was telling the shopkeeper the difference between his calculator and our one at home. He also asked what he was doing.

At the hotel, Winston had a good attempt to order ice cream using the phone. He was very clear.

We had some food delivered to the room, half watched avatar. W and H played in the bath. Winston had a good shower after the bath and let the water go all over his head and face.

Hyatt at breakfast

Lots of space for the kids to play around on the floor while we have an 18 course breakfast....

Kathmandu 29th December 2013

We went to pushputinath to see where the bodies are burnt.

Winston and he really played café in in of the little temples. We saw some sadhus, loads of monkeys.

We took a taxi to bouddhanath for lunch. Winston hurt himself a little on one of the big prayer wheels.

Winston sat on my shoulders and steered me on the way back to the hotel. Henry fell asleep on linkas back.

Kathmandu

We are in kathmandu now.

On the way we stopped in Singapore and Malaysia where we met some homescoolers.

In Singapore Winston loved the cable cars. Both loved the sushi. Everyone wants to touch Henry.

We are staying in the Hyatt.

Winston and Henry enjoyed the bouncy taxi rides on the terrible roads.

They enjoyed the bath tub with a huge mirror next to it.

I am reading "unschooled rules" which is full of good tips and inspiration. I am sick today.. Which is expected in Nepal.

On Wednesday night Adina, Milo (3.8) and Ayla(1.4) came to stay.

yesterday, Shadi and Adrian (2.5) came to stay.

Henry played nicely with Adrian

Winston had the idea of making bread in the bread machine.  We made some bread and it turned out really nice.  He carefully counted out teaspoons of sugar,yeast, salt.

Today, Linka went with Henry and Winston, Shadi and Adrian to the lake. Winston went on his balance bike all the way their and back approx 3km total.

Winston looked on Amazon.co.uk and he printed out pictures of book covers, trimmed them, and laminated them, all carefully and accurately without any help at all.

Update on the boys - Winston 24m, Henry 3m

Talking
Winston has started talking in short sentences. His grammar is nice in English - " I did a wee wee".  He speaks swedish when he is surrounded by only Swedes..i.e. when I am not there  . He is repeating a lot of phrases that I say.  He is always singing ABCD ... and Sunday Monday Tuesday etc...

Reading
Winston can read. I don't know if he sounds out any words .... i.e. if he can decode a new word ... and I am not sure that which sentences he understands. Maybe I should test him out with things like "the cake is on the table"...

Writing
He is really in to writing at the moment. He writes his name on everything (even the wall) .  He wants me to print out dotted fonts all the time so that he can write over them.  We have been working through the My First Book of Lowercase Letters (Kumon Workbooks) which he enjoys. I try to stop before he wants to stop.

He also loves the book C of the Peter & Jane series ... the one that requires the reader to fill in some gaps or answer some questions. He has done books 1c, 2c and 3c .  Book 4c is too much of a step up, so it would be good to find similar stuff around the book 3c level. It's amazing how long he wants to do this activity for.

W goes to daycare for 3 hours per day Monday to Friday. Today they said that they hadn't seen such a young child writing before.

W is struggling with some letters. X seems to be difficult. Other letters have been difficult, but he is keen to be shown the correct way and then does it the correct way. He hurries with some. i spend a lot of time telling him to go slowly, but if I push this too much, he wants me to do it.

Typing
W likes typing words on the computer. Without help , he can type  Winston, Henry, monkey, mummy, Daddy, Mamma. lots of the time he says a word and wants me to spell it for him so he can type it out.

Math 
He knows all the numbers to 100 quite happily, but wouldn't count that far in one go. generally if i say a number , he will say a number higher. He knows 1 + 1 is 2, but thats about it for sums. He can match the words to the dot cards up to about 4 or 5.  It would be quite easy to memorise all the combinations of adding single digits and multiplying up to 10x10.  Once that is memorised then doing maths later on will be easy.

Geography
His most mentioned country is still Palau.  He also like Madagascar. he has home made books about France , Palau, Madagascar and Taiwan.  We have some of the national geographic books on the way.

Askö Camp

We went camping at Askö .. which is a camp for homeschoolers in Sweden.
http://askofamilycamp.info/

There are not many home-schoolers in Sweden because the State thinks it is responsible for your children and school is forced with the threat of theft and violence... but then that's how governments achieve everything they want to do.

It was a lovely bunch of people. Those that had been homeschooled were very impressive young adults.

One of the most interesting points made was by one of the homeschooled who is now 25.  She said she went to STUDENTEN .. which is the Swedish celebration of the end of school.. and realised that she really felt sorry for those that had been through school because they had essentially done nothing new in the last 10 years... All they had done was go to the same place with the same people every day. What a waste!

Now I am more determined than ever that our kids will not go to school, but we like living in Sweden, so it means that we could only live here for 182days per year .. and that is fine with me. 183 days in the UK or travelling is good.

universeum today

Winston and henry have gone to Universeum in Göteborg today .. to see some sharks

Henry started saying "Haj" yesterday  (shark)

Both are going to bed late and waking up late .. nice that this is possible with being self-employed.