Today was the first day back to nursery for Amelie – at about midday i suggested it, she looked doleful and i finally decided that spending half the morning persuading her to do something she half wants and i don’t want is really, really silly. So i phoned up and withdrew her. Phew. There, i hope, ends my dealings with “the system” because i have no intention of sending Josie and very much hope no one else dabbles with it either. It has been a waste of time and although i suppose it is perhaps good she tried, it hasn’t been good for any of us. Enough now.
This morning passed with normals; started Fran on ETC (please note i have added abbreviation page!) Book 5, which she is now easily capable of. She seemed to quite enjoy the word puzzles in that, it is sort of low level verbal reasoning i suppose and pootled away at it quite happily. She read me a book, did some GD letter practise and then we set about a bit more maths, carrying on with some review pages…
“100-42… 100-40 is 60, so then 60-2? Fran? Fran?”
“Ummmm…68…”
“oh really, so what is 60+8?
“Ummmmm…76.”
ARGH. Mental maths 😆
Got that ironed out in the end and went on to go a fair bit of quick revision; i did laugh after but at the time i wondered if i had been kidding myself for months she could actually add up at all!
Maddy was great, read, wrote and added beautifully. Then they all castled, Jolly Phonic’ed, ate and played on the computer while i gossiped with kate. Amelie is very into the CBeebies site now and the other two are remarkably gracious about letting her on and helping her when she needs it. Oh yes, Fran has finally cracked knitting, so she did a few rows of that, with minimal rescuing. Being told Big and B could knit was finally enough of a motivation to concentrate!
Kate raised her eyebrows high enough to shame me into cleaning the kitchen so i scrubbed it, shined the sink and moved things about so it works better. It feels much more spacious now. While i was doing that the kids all used the oil pastels and the Usborne books – Fran ended up doing lots of quite successful colour mixings with them and Maddy had fun too. Amelie filled a lot of pages with dark blue, apparently for Buttercup. (!) Reminded me of The Fast Show a bit… “black.. black.. it’s all black…” – anyway, it was fun. Must look for some more projects with those- Alison, didn’t you have some good sites once?
I’ve read to them again and parcelled and finished and posted the Ed Report – now.. what next. Blast it, the tax return…
Big has gone to bed poring over a my first knitting book we picked up recently – I think she has plans…tax return is my this weekend project 🙁
Good for you on making the nursery decision, bet you feel much better now it’s dealt with one way or the other 🙂
Well if it is, could i tempt you with doing me an invoice for last february? 😆
And possibly charging me for a couple of years worth of PoP 😉
And yes, much better 🙂
sounds like a harmonious day at the puddles! we are going to cambridge on sat do you want us to pick up some more magic maize at elc?
I have http://www.kinderart.com and http://members.aol.com/mrsspyboy/beginners.htm
not ExTC any more then – rofl!
we have a wuery for you about follow ons to the faraway tree – ? 5 children and it?
Thanks tammy but i think i will get some from Baker Ross, it is quite a bit cheaper 😉 Thanks Alison 😉
Ha, found it! Chris/Helen – knew that ages ago I wrote a bit of a list of books we’d read to P&M when they were young – http://www.home-educate.me.uk/parent1/obadiah/?p=131 might give you a few ideas 🙂
Funny enough I’ve made the same decision about Titch as her initial enthusiasm evaporated and I it seemed wrong to have to persuade her.