Days off!

It has been such an encouragement to hear folks speaking about the blog!  It helps me to be accountable if nothing else and it's so good to hear other people's ideas and take on what we are doing!  Don't know how tricky it is to sign up to be a "follower" but if anyone can crack that then let me know as it seems to be a bit difficult.

Not much to write today as S has not been so well this weekend.  All the kids have been attacked by their first winter cold which has been accompanied by a sore tummy.  I reckoned it wasn't even worth trying to teach S anything today so we had a "sick day".  I have to admit that for probably the first time since having the 4 kids I really enjoyed today's "sick day"!  It happily coincided with my husband's day off which meant I could get little jobs done which included posting various things around the town too.  Not having to phone people to say where S was was so nice and he had a really good chance to rest.

Over the weekend we chatted a wee bit though and S has decided he would like to learn the 6 and 7 times table this week so that's great!  So I have spent tonight printing off numbers, number squares and multiplication tables, laminating and cutting and am all set!  On Saturday I sat and wrote out the maths curriculum for his level to get it into my head once and for all.  Interestingly enough there were several things I didn't have a clue about.  What for example is a Venn diagram, a carol diagram, the difference between a pictograph and pictogram, an R90 (and it's not an angle).... ?  I've done a wee survey of everyone who has come into the house over the weekend and not one person has been able to tell me what they all are - including our eldest who just completed that level of maths last year!!!  So - I'm not going to lose too much sleep over not teaching the names and labels of things!  Obviously I will find out what they all are and will teach the concepts but all the technical names that were scaring me somewhat I'm going to not be so phased about!!

So, we're all set now for another week.  After last week's experiments S and I have agreed that we will try to have "desk time" up until snack time where we will get things like reading, language work and maths done and then after that we will do "active learning" which are all the things he loves!  I've had a good few days off now and feel motivated again to get back into the preparation and the work with him.  Let's hope he is too!