Sorry Alix!

Updating as ordered,lol!! How lazy am I? The thing is you never assume that anyone reads your waffle, or at least I don't, as that would be presumptuous!

Anyhow - Monday went ok - I went to work and Rach was on her own and she coped! Callum decided as children do that he would be a bit testing - just pushing the buttons to see how he'd get on as she was on her own, but he soon saw that she wasn't going to take any bother and he was ok again today. They started the day with half an hour of very loud music (namely Girls Aloud, the Killers and Arcade Fire) and singing and dancing, weather was appalling so she didn't take them out in it. Then did some looking at Haunted castles on the internet and read ghost stories, which lead onto Anne Boleyn (Rach's hero) and thus onto Henry VIII, so lots of room for discussion there. An hour on the 3R's in their workbooks before lunch, Alex did some colouring and played dinosaurs as usual. After lunch, they did some more dancing,lol, and then Cal did some online literacy quizzes on the BBC Learning sites while Rach did some phonics reading and worksheets with Issy, Sam thoughtfuly had a nap and Alex watched Cbeebies while playing cars. Then they swapped and Cal did some reading while Issy and Rach went on the Barnaby Bear website together. All in all not bad for a solo effort :-)

Today has been a bit harder even though I have been here - Rach has been really tired and I think we are all a bit down with the awful weather - we would really like to be getting out and about and enjoying the outdoors a bit more, but the relentless rain makes it impossible at the moment, and as we don't drive we are a bit more limited as to where we go in bad weather. Still quite productive learning wise. This morning we looked at the story of King Arthur on the internet and tied that in with castles, discussed what is meant by myth and legend, oh, and decided that we want to travel round England and find Camelot,LOL! We also looked at how England became so named. Then again some workbook work, and after lunch we tried a different tack as we were all a bit restless. We got the chalkboard, and the flashcards we cut out the other day, and took it in turns to give one sentence for a story, using the named character on the cards. Well, it ended up being a tale about a Castle siege with lots of murders, and the hero of the hour was the mortally wounded Sir Pig, his mate Sir Percy (a knight) and Lord Idontno. Apparantly.

We have decided to sit down and work out plans for the next few weeks day by day as it is a bit tricky trying to keep things fresh and interesting every day, but again, the bloody weather isn't helping and is limiting us somewhat. Also am waiting to hear back from the Scout leader about Cal starting. It seems that they can start swimming and gym in March, but only if we can get the cash together before then, (as they want paying for the full courses in advance) which looks doubtful at the moment - it's Alex's birthday in 2 weeks and Issys in 3, and Rach's Mum turns 50 on March 1st so spare cash is very limited at the moment. If we can't make March then it will have to be May instead, but no matter - we'll just have to start going to some home ed group meets until then to meet the social needs.

So - we are doing ok..we think....lol.

Just end this by saying Happy Birthday Alix!! Have a wonderful 28th! :-)