Teething

Zzzzz.
Encountered a bit of a hitch today - we were all knackered! Adjusting to the new routine will take a while I think, not for the kids, but for us. Need earlier bedtimes I think! Well, what with having a busy first day, another 5am start for Sam was the last thing we needed, as was Callum waking at 6.45am, and dragging the others down with him. Must have been keen to start the day, eh? Trouble is, lack of sleep makes Cal cranky, Issy wobbly and Alex whiney, so it's been a fairly testing day. We tried to get stuff done in the morning, and had a recap of what we went through yesterday, Cal remembered about half of his castle-y keywords and what they were.

We read the Grimm Bros. "King Grisly-Beard", then discussed the role and armour of knights. They did some of the 3R's, with Callum doing some verb work from his Manchester United Workbook lol, it's for age 8, and he didn't really need much help, so that was promising. He certainly grasped past and present tenses with ease. Issy did more reading, she seems to respond a little better to me than Rach - her aim just seems to be to make mummy laugh - so I think I may have to take responsibility for that. Her writing is good though, she knows her letters well, and writes pretty neatly for her age. Alex entertained himself by driving the Daisy Bus round on the Balamory game on CBeebies website.
By mid morning they were tired and cranky, so we sat them in front of the film 'A Knight's Tale'. To be honest, it didn't hold their attention too long, but we loved it! And it helped a little to demonstrate the hierarchy of Knight - Squire - Page. Cal wandered off after half an hour, but to be fair he sat and wrote more of his Dr Who story, which should be finished tomorrow. Helpfully there was a CBBC Schools program on over lunch about how to go about writing stories, so hopefully some of that sank in!
Ooh, in case we forget, we found out the Thomas the Tank Engine railway exhibition is on in York next month, so it looks like February's topic will be.... trains! Nice day trip at the end of it all, we went to one when Callum was 3, in Didcot, and he loved it. Alex is very big on trains and Thomas at the mo, so it should be great fun!

We took a long lunch, and decided to spend the afternoon on dragons! They were far more interested in that, I managed to find a load of dragon related worksheets for all ages here. Callum devoured them, doing colouring, describing, wordsearch and anagrams. Alex had a cracking time doing "MY homeschool" and learning his shapes (well, not learning, he already knows square, circle, triangle, rectangle, star, diamond, crescent) and really enjoyed himself trying to draw his own and being a big kid. He'll be going to nursery soon, for the simple reason that it is a fantastic nursery, but I think he's going to be well ahead of most other children there, he's picked up loads from the other two. To top it off, Isobel wrote a dragon poem - we helped her decided what verbs, nouns and adjectives she might use, and then she came up with rhymes to make the poem, then she wrote the chosen words at the end of each line, and here it is:

Dragons can fly
High in the sky
Dragons are hot
They burn things a lot
Their skin is quite strong
Their tails are so long
And yes they breathe fire
Don't call me a liar!

She'll make Poet Laureate yet!

Overall, another good day, and it was nice to see that our first real problems were overcome with relative ease. I'm sure there'll be more and worse to follow, but the longer we do this, the more confident we'll be, I think.
Rach says thanks for all the positive feedback on BW, it means a billion, and every 30 seconds, when she hits herself in the face, and goes "WHAT!?!?!?!", she comes back and reads the comments and is calm again. Thank you all! :-)
Right, off now to read through the very helpful Medieval links sent to us by the lovely Hazel - thank yooooooouuuuuuu! And then, with any luck, an early night! We're off to the library tomorrow morning, although if the weather continues as it is now, we'll have to build a boat and invest in scuba gear! It's apocalyptic out there!
Goodnight all!