Blogging now ready for another busy evening.

I was quite curious to know what Fran and Moo would make of today after last week and a weekend of not being so “strict mummy-ish” – anyway, by 9am when i was up and about, the girls had turned off the telly and were playing a game together, which i left them to till it ran out of steam.

Then Fran sat down by her own request to do another wordsearch and a writing sheet i had made for her too. I spent quite a bit of this time reading through the first 4 Bob books with Moo; she did the first 3 fine (and i also asked her random words from pages which she could pick out too) and then i read her book 4 and let her do the words she could. That was really lovely and we enjoyed it a lot, curled up on the sofa together.

After she went out Fran and i played the number bonds game again and then to finish off that she did a random sheet of sums making 10, all of which she got right (if you excuse 5’s for 2’s and so on, but she clearly did know, just the odd figure went wrong.) Then we played a similar game with 2x table cards and spent nearly an hour on that, trying to get them so she could recall the answers out of order. She finished that off with the 2x matching game again. All that seems to be going pretty well at the moment, i’m keeping it deliberately easy so she can get lots of “that’s right”s while secretly practising the writing!!! its nice really just to see that her concentration span is expanding a bit.

Finished up with a recap of Bob Book 8 and 10 and then i read her Albion and Brutus from Our Island Story. Enjoyed that, lots of nice fantasy Neptune and mermaid-ing to get the juices flowing after a dry morning!!!!!

So – i think i have achieved penmanship, reading and maths today – plus history/literature and now they are all watching Fantasia 2000 which coupled with a very long stint at the Leap Pad “Hit it Maestro” book this morning probably covers music! That was really funny- Moo was doing a lovely rendition of the Hallelujah (hmmm… not convinced i have spelt that right!) Chorus while Fran managed to fit the words “Hello Lulah!” and “Harry Potter!” to it as well as a rather amusing “mix version” of one part of the 1812!

Also managed to fit in a head on rant at nursery which has been brewing all weekend. Moo was talking school last week, which is fair enough as its bound to come up among her friends, but when the newsletter came home on Thursday it said that they had been using the book “The Hungry Caterpillar” in class to explain to the kids how they were all going to have a big change too and go to big school. Moo had a monumental strop over the weekend about it all – “I want to go to school” “its NOT FAIR” etc but but when i explained to her that if she went to school, and she could, that she would not be able to go to camps, or see friends like Poppy and Matilda etc i got an identical reaction, so clearly she has no idea really what she is asking for. I explained she was going back to nursery and so were some other friends and that all seemed fine but it annoyed me that it was being made so much of. At playgroup of course it was less of an issue because not all the kids were leaving when Fran was staying on. TBH its not that i particularly expect them to accommodate our HEing but Moo is going back THERE, so they ought to be accommodating that.

So i arrived at pick up time and all the staff were sat around and i sat down with them and asked straight out how they were avoiding confusing Moo with all this? And got a load of blank looks, a load of excuses and eventually “I’m sure Maddy understands she is coming back here” – to which i bluntly replied “No, clearly she does NOT” – and i didn’t leave until they had acknowledged that they do in fact have rather a lot of children coming back next year and that those children need as positive a build up as those going on to school. I’m quite proud of myself really because it meant facing up to the staff member (who is one of her keyworkers) who i find a little intimidating. *Pats self on back!*

Avocado has a long root and leaf tips pointing out of the top. Fran calls it a “tornado”!!!

Nothing is ever simple is it?