To-tal eclipse of the sun!

How cold? It was zero when we went out today – brrrrrrr! Tempted to put the heating on to high actually, it really has been a cold winter this year, hasn’t it?

Had a house inspection this morning, which is always tedious and doubly so when you arrange it for 9.30 in the morning. I’d had another rubbish nights sleep so wasn’t much in the mood for an early start, but we did it and got tidy enough to pass muster. Thank heavens for the cleaned carpet though!

Everyone was occupying themselves nicely and Fran wanted to do her maths/english stuff so i sorted paperwork while she did that. She whizzed through the english (all about molluscs and gastropods, which she pronounced “very interesting, can we do a project?”) and, having finished the book, scored the Level 3 nicely, top level tested at at the end of KS1. Which is ironic, given how much i’ve worried! Maths was the end of the most difficult stuff and she lacked confidence really, which upsets me if i am honest – and i don’t quite know where to go with with that. She immediately asked to go out and buy more of the same books though, so clearly she wants to be able to do them. I think this is just one of these odd “bleurgh” moments tbh, probably because she is so focused on her reading. I know she can do all this stuff in some respects, but it is bothering me that she has so few reserves to call on when it comes to finding a method for an unfamiliar problem. Ah well. A huge amount of supported consolidation won’t do any harm – and if Maddy catches up in the meantime, all that it will mean is that they can work together. With a bit of luck, if i fret fully about it now, she’ll immediately do something remarkable with it and make me look foolish 😉

And for what it’s worth, even with me marking it really strictly and not giving her points for anything i helped her with at all, she still got the highest level 2 mark – which would be perfectly acceptable for any schooled 7 1/2 year old. Someone want to tell me to shut up and stop being a pointless worrywart over something that isn’t even important? Bah humbug – i think it’s more that it has knocked my confidence on how well i’m teaching her than anything else.

In the meantime a box of books had turned up from Redhouse with a variety of very girly series things in it. Fran fell on them with a glee that just about melted my heart. 20 minutes later i heard myself utter the immortal line “will you put that book down and go and brush your teeth!!!!!!!” ROFL. She’s been nose down in one at any opportunity since really. We did pop out to Tesco for a conglommeration of stuff; more workbooks, new fleece for Maddy since she lost her blue flowery one (so she gets in replaced with a £3 Tesco one!) Popped into GAME and mooched around; Maddy suddenly asked if she could have a Gameboy for her birthday next week. I might let her, it would only add up to a typical birthday spend anyway probably, if we got a reconditioned one or shopped about, so i don’t have a major issue with it. (Helen – party, i keep meaning to email, i do actually have it sorted so ping me!)

Came home and we got back to our China project – talked about the rice growing cycle, paddy fields, terraces and rice being grown in various Asian countries, then i printed off a few sheets with photos and they cut out the pictures, numbered them and i wrote out their captions. Took me a worryingly long time to get any sense out of Fran on whether paddy fields would work if they were sloped; ended up filling a baking tray with water and tipping it to make my point! Maddy’s sequencing was spot on and she’s taking in loads of stuff too; she remembers stuff about the Yellow River Valley, knew rice was a grain and guessed what modern versus ancient meant. Now they are watching Mulan and they’ve all just yelled “paddy fields!!!!” so it must be hitting the spot. I’ve cooked them egg-fried vegetables and rice and they are eating it with lollystick chopsticks 😆

I daresay they’ll spend the evening with books; i inadvertently got two of the freebie from Redhouse (by reversing through the site to change something then ticking the box again for the freebie as i went back past it again) which is a gorgeous pop up Ballerina book and Maddy and Amelie love them. I do love books.. you can just never have too many 🙂 And i’ve been ever so good – that was my first frivolous purchase since January 2nd!