Last week before this week. (With added maths)

But only if i am quick!!!! I’ll have to add photos in later as it is far too early to mess around with things like that!!!!

Tuesday was another working day mainly as we had a busy week and i’ve told the girls if they work well through November then we’ll theme all of December to Christmas and do craft, music and cookery. So that motivated them. I never worry about doing stuff like that; we seem to work well in about 5 week chunks through the year and then we tend to have lower effort fortnights or so. Over the year i would imagine that works out to be roughly the same as school holidays, just in different phases but it keeps people motivated and stops them forgetting things in long breaks.

Anyway, we got in music for all and 1 thing each before we left for gym, which was a private coaching session for the big three while Josie did Gymmies. I think Amelie did maths and so possibly did Maddy. Both of them have done mainly practical or EC maths for the last year as they had got a bit stressy over written maths. I want to bump them both up a book as the result of the year has been that they are both cleverer than a year ago – an odd but much loved effect of benign neglect 😆 So we’re whistle stopping through chapters to make sure they understand the concepts – Amelie proved she could do both column addition and subtraction this week, as did Maddy, with no problems and i (grin) cracked the problem of how to do ones where the top number is something like 600 and needs carrying across from the hundreds column. This might sound bizarre but i learned subtraction using a very odd top and bottom method which i can’t find a link for. It works (the concept being that you add 10 to the top and then add 10 to the number below on the next column) but it doesn’t make a great deal of sense, as i discovered when i tried to teach it to Fran as it relies on upping one number to compensate, rather than working with what you have got. So if you try to use Base 10 blocks, it all looks like nonsense. It does work, but it doesn’t really make sense.

So i retaught myself a (more) current method which does work but because i have a problem of never really having learned “what is going on” i found these double column carrying things a bit baffling, as i was still thinking in terms of my old method. Luckily, GP Maths1 taught me; Amelie, Maddy and i worked through it with blocks and we all concluded we now knew what was going on. Neither of them got a single one wrong anyway – i got kept in at lunch 😉

I really heart Galore Park.

What else – Fran read and did some GP English on commas and got it all right, so i guess punctuation must be magically coming right too – i have noticed her grammar has improved markedly on Facebook recently. And Josie did words and letters with me.

Then we all went out to gym and they had a great time. Met Kate with my god-daughter who was looking very beaten up – am assured it was a collision with a sofa and a cat tail pulling incident!!!! Girls loved the coaching, even Maddy who has been unsure of gym recently and they all did well. Fran was very happy to be tuck backing and somersaulting off the beam and Amelie did the move she broke her arm doing for the first time. Maddy really did well, surprising the coach (and me and herself!) and getting lots of praise.

And then we had lunch.

Wednesday we went off to Denny Abbey for a history day. It was excellent and the children all really enjoyed themselves and i was very grateful for the effort put in. That said, i do find that the “this is how we talk to children” voice that leader people use is really infuriating. I have never sat in a room of HE kids behaving badly in a workshop and it drives me mad that people assume they need controlling and give them the “if you talk, i will stop” stuff – they behaved so beautifully and it wasn’t necessary. But i guess they get far more raucous school groups and don’t expect manners from poor unsocialised, locked away home educated types.

As well as a tour around the fascinating Abbey, they did workshops on manuscript writing, tile making and stained glass windows – aimed at sort of KS2 i think, but Fran loved it most out of my lot. Funnily enough Josie (my baby!) was the one who told me all about the farm house that used to be a church the next day. I forget that at 5, Fran knew all about the dissolution of the monasteries and that Josie is that age and just as clever!!

I was fairly stressy all day as had 20 week scan in the afternoon – dropped kids with Helen (thank you!) and went off to that but thankfully all seemed fine. We also found out what we are expecting but although i have told some friends and family, i am keeping it secret here and on Facebook. You’ll have to wait!!!! Was very upset to somehow lose my photos of it though 🙁 Bad mummy. So now the great name hunt begins!

Back to Helen’s for fish and chip supper.

Thursday was another working day. Fran managed to cry over maths, music, dinner and something else, making cello lesson and symmetry a bit difficult, despite her suddenly being able to do the symmetry. No idea why she cried, other than me telling her that if she stopped standing up, sitting down, swinging on the bar, wandering off, getting an apple or trying to load Facebook, teaching Josie to read, explaining maths to Amelie that didn’t need explaining etc etc she’d get on a bit faster 🙄 My adhd daughter – now with added hormones.

Amelie and Maddy did more maths, Josie played with maths blocks and letters, they all did EC, Fran did more English, Fran did human body science using a gcse book and found it amazing, Maddy did GP science, Amelie read as she had had a bad asthma night, we all did music lessons including Josie -errr…. not sure what else but everyone was busy all day. Oh yes, Maddy worked on a memory aid for some of the words she struggles with – what, where, were, when. Will photograph. Then i dashed off to the chiropractor and then it was gym for Fran and Brownies for the rest of us.

Friday was more of the same. Josie played with maths rods for a long time and all the others played an adjectives game with Fran from GP English. Was funny listening to them. Got Fran writing a story where every noun needed an adjective – she is coming on fast now but needs more work on that sort of thing; at least it doesn’t cause stress any more!!!! Kate and Madison came round and then Max came home as we dashed Fran and Amelie off to dancing. Maddy and i went to Tesco for coats, dressing gowns etc and white pillow cases, then we went and grabbed Amelie back, dashed home, made pilgrim father costumes from Vctorian costumes, bondaweb and pillowcases in 10 minutes, repacked and dashed the two of them off to Brownie Camp. Got home. Fetched Fran. Flopped.

Saturday meant a reasonably early start for Fran’s regional gym final in Ipswich. Got there fine, did hair fine and tried a new approach for psyching Fran up as last time telling her to relax and enjoy it didn’t seem to do the trick for her. So this time i told her i wouldn’t feed her for a week unless she did well!!!! She had been despondent as her little team were all doing 2 or more events apart from her but in the end she vaulted really well and got a decent mid table result – as did they all pretty much. Loved having NattyEm and co there as support 🙂 Thank you for coming 🙂 Josie and O love each other 😆 Nice lunch out together afterwards and then a wet and windy drive home.

Sunday equalled shoe shopping for Fran (SIZE 5!!!!!), motorbike purchasing for Max and collection from Brownie camp. And flop. Again.