NotSheep

A very slow start this morning - Jack didn’t even wake up until after 9 - almost unheard-of for him. But somehow in the next hour we all got our act together and by 10 everyone was fed, dressed and getting on with it.

We’ve been working on times tables - I’ve been hoping to find a “better” way to learn them, but after about three years of looking and not finding anything much, I decided maybe it was time to just stuck in and do it. So Barney and George have been learning them, and while they chant them, Freddy sometimes listens, sometimes joins in, which I suppose can only make it easier for him when his time to learn them comes.

So - a bit of chanting this morning, followed by literacy for Barney, during which he learned about rhyming couplets, sonnets and haikus. I told him to write some haikus; he produced them with “HQ1″, “HQ2″ etc written in the margin. I said “But it’s hai*ku*, not hai*q*” - it turned out that HQ stood for “Homework Question” After that he did some French, learning vocabulary for talking about jobs, and played recorder. Oh, and blogged.

George also started with chanting, then did some work on synonyms and antonyms from his literacy book, looked at the same page of French that Barney did, and read about evacuees during World War 2. He also played recorder and blogged (a list of what he wants for his birthday - he’s planning well ahead! :-/)

Freddy played recorder and did some more of his book about animals, learning about the parts of a bird, different kinds of bird beaks and the differences in what they do. Then he started his new science book, reading about different kinds of foods. He also practiced recorder.

Jack spent a long time looking at the cards he has with letters on them and saying the words for the pictures - some of them were even the right words He’s talking a lot about letters and words these days. Toby was just his usual delightful self; he’s using his hands a lot now, reaching out for toys etc.

As for me, I decided that since the pain in my chest (from falling last week) was getting worse, rather than better, maybe I should do something about it. By this afternoon, I couldn’t do up the snap-fasteners on Toby’s clothes, and couldn’t take a deep breath. So when Scratchy got home, Barney and Toby and I went off to Casualty, where the doctor poked me and said “ooh yeah” and told me I had a fractured rib

Stopped at the pet shop while we were out to buy treatment for the white stuff that’s growing on our black molly, so we now have beautiful blue water in our aquarium

Got home just in time for Scratchy to take Barney and George to ju-jitsu; I promised they’d get their gis once they’d passed their first grading, so I really need to do something about that. The gis are the best part of £30 each! They have to be the proper white WJJF ones with blue stripes - I could get plain white gis for a tenner each - flippin’ expensive blue stripes those!