Activity Village

Looking for Pancake Day activities last month, I found a good, free resource for celebrating special days throughout the year: Activity Village.

Although it is a UK site, it also includes dates from the US and other calendars. Looking ahead over the next few weeks you can find links to crafts, colouring pages, puzzles, games and other activities for:

• Easter (12th April)
• 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession (21st April)
• Earth Day (22nd April)
• St. George's Day (23rd April)
• Teacher Appreciation Week, US (4th-8th May)
• Children's Day, Japan (5th May)
• Mother's Day, US (10th May)

Have fun!

Beatrix Potter's Birthday

Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, Tom Kitten and the Two Bad Mice are current favourites with Little Cherub, so when I noticed this morning that Google's logo included Peter Rabbit and Mr. McGregor I had to investigate ... and discovered that yesterday was Beatrix Potter's birthday.

In honour of Miss Potter's 142nd birthday (albeit a day late), I thought I'd post a few links. Lots of stuff here that I'll be coming back to with Little Cherub over the next few years.

• The World of Peter Rabbit has games to play online, colouring pages to print out and information about Beatrix Potter and her world.
• Pay a virtual visit to the World of Beatrix Potter Attraction by Lake Windermere (we visited when Angel and Star were little and they loved it).
• Read or listen to books online at Wired for Books
• The Victoria and Albert Museum has a large collection of Beatrix Potter's pictures and manuscripts. Loads of stuff online, ranging from information about Beatrix as a book designer to sketches of Mr. McGregor's garden.
• A six week Beatrix Potter rabbit trail written by Elizabeth Foss and Melissa Wiley
  
• A long list of Beatrix Potter resources from Mary G at St. Athanasius Academy
  
• An author study of Beatrix Potter designed for 1st graders
  

The Penny Dropped

... and I realised I had a handle on the differences between Montessori, Charlotte Mason and Waldorf style education, as illustrated by nature study:

Montessori: Learn to identify wildflowers using three part cards and matching cards. Learn the parts of a flower with botany puzzles. Draw and label the parts of a flower.

Charlotte Mason: Learn to identify wildflowers through spending lots of time outdoors or on nature walks. Draw them freehand in a nature notebook.

Waldorf: Learn to identify wildflowers through spending time in nature. Listen to stories about fairies and gnomes living in the flowers. Paint pictures of flowers using wet-on-wet techniques.

Enter by the Small Rivers

Because you have asked me, my brother John, most dear to me in Christ, how to set about acquiring the treasure of knowledge, this is the advice I pass on to you: That you should choose to enter by the small rivers, and not go right away into the sea, because you should move from easy things to difficult things. (from Letter of St.Thomas Aquinas on how to study)

HT: Northampton Seminarian

Gentle Learning: Avoiding Overstimulation

I was asked to expand on this one, and as I am not tackling my list in order, here goes ...

I added this to my list with only the vaguest ideas of what I meant by overstimulation. On one level it is the obvious things - too much stuff and too much screen time. Even though I think I am fairly selective with toys the number can easily snowball - already I can see this happening with Little Cherub, as it did with her sisters. I'm not sure whether I need to be more selective, or simply to be careful to rotate toys so that the number available at any one time is limited. Probably both. I do rotate things already to some extent, but find that extra stuff easily drifts out and doesn't get put away again. I have always limited screen time for little ones, but even so it is easy for more TV / DVD time to creep in. And Little Cherub is already intrigued by the computer. Arguably any screen time is overstimulating for a toddler or pre-schooler. I'm not sure I would go this far - or maybe I just don't want to? - but I do see a need to keep it within narrow limits.

On the wider level, I easily fall into the trap of too much. Trying to do too much, rushing around too much, and cramming in one thing after another. Avoiding overstimulation means slowing down, taking time to smell the roses and kick the leaves. Time just to be, without constantly moving to the next thing. I also want to achieve a quieter, calmer atmosphere. Our family is loud - vociferous and argumentative, with a tendency for everyone to talk at once. Loudly. I'm sure quiet and calm needs to start with me, and I'm not good at it.

I see avoiding overstimulation not just as a negative thing, but as something that opens up a positive way. It should allow the creation of what I think Charlotte Mason means by atmosphere when she talks of education as "an atmosphere, a discipline, a life" ... a calm space within which learning is as natural as breathing.

Gentle Learning: Yearly Rhythm

"The rhythm of the liturgical seasons reflects the rhythm of life - with its celebrations of anniversaries and its seasons of quiet growth and maturing." (Catholic Culture)

One of the most enjoyable ways of teaching religion in a Catholic family is to focus on the liturgical year. This provides many natural learning opportunities, allows the building of family memories and traditions, and helps to develop a sense of the sacred within daily life. The liturgical year is at the heart of what I am thinking of as yearly rhythm, though I would also include:

• A focus on the seasons, with seasonal crafts, books, foods and decorations.
• Traditional and secular celebrations such as Mothering Sunday and Bonfire Night
• Jewish festivals (important for us as a Catholic-Jewish family)

The liturgical year is built on a framework of liturgical seasons - Advent reflective and a preparation for the celebration of Christmas, Lent a time of repentance and self-denial before the long, joyful season of Easter (not just one day, but fifty). Ordinary Time in between is punctuated with its own feasts and seasons - saints' days, Feasts of the Lord and of His Mother, reminders of the Church, the Trinity, the Eucharist, the angels, the Communion of Saints. The list goes on and on, and this richness can become a problem for celebrations at home - it is possible to become bogged down in a long list of saints and seasons one would like to celebrate and end up either overloaded or giving up. This is not rhythm!

For the year to have rhythm it takes a realistic approach, not an overambitious one. I have fallen into the trap of swinging between overambition and neglect too many times, and I hope I have now learned my lesson. With beautiful timing - just as I was thinking about this - Meredith of Sweetness and Light wrote about keeping the company of the saints. She gives a list of resources for celebrating the saints, reminds us to start small (that's right ... small, not overambitious!) and lists a series of baby steps to keeping the company of the saints:

1. Identify Saints to be celebrated for each week and find a reading about them.
2. Locate a holy card or image, statue of Saint and a candle (or several candles)
3. Designate a prayer table or area in your home for setting up your display
   
4. Plan one activity to start: Mass, cake, tea, craft, special meal or truly, any combination of these, for the Saints, the skies the limit, but remember to start small.
5. Plan to say a prayer or begin a Novena to the Saint (or Mary) to be celebrated.

These baby steps could be used with any number of children of any age, from toddlers up. In the past I have tended to be quite successful at developing family traditions for the "big" seasons (Advent, Christmas, Lent and, with slightly less success, Easter - maybe I have shot my bolt by the end of Lent?), but have fallen apart in between. Meredith's simple framework will be a great starting point for filling in the gaps.

More on the practical working out of a yearly rhythm to come later.

PS. Credit to Meredith for finding the quote at the beginning of this post.

Gentle Learning: Enjoying Nature

I am not tackling the list from my gentle learning post in order, just going with whatever is uppermost in my mind ... which now happens to be nature, as I have just read the learning out-of-doors section of Charlotte Mason's Home Education.

Charlotte advocates spending as much time out of doors enjoying nature as is practically possible, so that children come to truly know its different aspects. I think in the past I have registered the list of things she recommends should be accomplished and skipped over the fact that these should be only mentioned lightly and occasionally, as a minor part of the time spent outdoors. The heart of her method is experiencing nature so that it becomes a part of the child.

Thinking back to my own childhood I can see just what she means. I grew up experiencing nature. My father was a farmer, so I naturally spent a large amount of time out of doors. There is so much that I knew without ever consciously learning. I knew how wheat grew from watching the first shoots to the ripe crop; I knew the feel of the ears and the taste of the individual grains. I knew a daisy from making daisy chains. I could still describe one from memory in detail - the look and feel of the petals and the stem, the way the stem could be pierced with a fingernail to thread a chain, the flower's evening sleeping habits. I knew hawthorn hedges and blackberry bushes, acorns and conkers, how to suck the nectar out of a dead nettle, and which nettles are dead and which sting. And as an adult I love nature. I am happy to recognise old friends and to make new discoveries. I enjoy keeping a nature notebook and learning more about nature.

Realistically, I can't give my own children the same experience. Spending hours outside just isn't going to happen. I'm too much of a fair weather person, a real limitation given our unpredictable and often damp climate. I also only have the use of the car a couple of days a week. The open spaces within walking distance are few and getting to other places by public transport is time consuming. Our garden is small and limited to grass and a hedge; I have black thumbs, and the few things I do manage to grow, Tevye - who is sometimes overly tidy-minded - digs up.

So how can Little Cherub and I enjoy nature together? How can I help her to experience it, rather than turn it into a lesson, given our limitations? This list of ideas is a beginning, that I hope to expand as time goes on.

• Regular (weekly?) trips to our local country park, which combines ancient woodland, newer plantations, heathland, pasture, a lake and a pond with nature study area. Aim to stay for two or three hours, not just take a quick stroll round the lake!
  
• Visit countryside and parks just to play outdoors - not always be tempted to gravitate to the playground and swing on the swings, or at least to make that only part of a trip out.
• Start gardening projects and follow them through.
  
• Turn my failed rockery into a wildflower garden. (Out of the mouths of babes: "Mummy, why are there a load of rocks dumped at the top of the drive?" "That's my rock garden." "No it's not, it's just an untidy heap of rocks.")
• Replace my ancient unused bird feeder, and fill it.
• Encourage Little Cherub to grow things (indoors and out).
  
• Keep a seasonal nature table, Waldorf style
• Modelling - make my own enjoyment of nature obvious; take out my own nature notebook again and work on it regularly.
• Read picture books with nature themes, both fiction and non-fiction. (Does experiencing nature vicariously through books count? Yes, I think it does so long as it is an extension of real experience, not a replacement for it.)
  
• Be aware of opportunities for outside time. For example, allow extra time when walking places so we can stop and smell the roses. Literally.
  
• Cultivate "masterly inactivity". Gently pass on occasional nuggets of interesting information, but avoid falling into the mindset of cramming in "education". Smell the roses. Don't analyse them!

Gentle Learning

After reading up on Montessori, making a start on Charlotte Mason's Home Education, and learning a little about Waldorf education and watching the way it is taking shape in the creative hands of the authors of the Serendipity blog, I've come up with this list of things I want Little Cherub's early years to include:

• gentle, nurturing atmosphere
• emphasising the rhythm of the year
• rhythmic days
• child-led learning
• picture books
• fairy tales and imaginative stories
• enjoying nature
• lots of art and craft
• learning about the world and its people
• avoiding over-stimulation

Over the next few days (or weeks?) I'm planning to write a series of posts expanding on these individually. Please bear with me as I think out loud!

Early years education

I am still pondering the shape I would like Little Cherub's early learning years to take. (What fun to have so long to ponder ... I can change my mind lots of times ... just think of all those plans I can make and discard.)

I have been reading Montessori books, and trying to work out what would work for me and what would not. I think taking some Montessori ideas would be good, but that diving right into Montessori is not a viable option for practical reasons - investing in "proper" Montessori materials for one child would be too expensive, physically it simply isn't possible to provide a Montessori environment (not enough space, too much clutter), and I think Montessori ideally needs a small group, or at least a couple of siblings. There are aspects of Montessori I think would suit us, though - practical life activities, some of the easier sensorial materials, the whole-to-parts approach to geography and history, and possibly the bead materials for maths.

Over the past few days I have been reading a lengthy thread about Waldorf-inspired education on the 4 Real boards. This has brought into focus the overall shape I would like our days to take - kind of Waldorf-ish in following daily and seasonal rhythms, and with a greater emphasis on art and crafts than I had with the older two. Waldorf in its entirety does not appeal to me - all that anthroposophy is a turn off, and while I like fairy tales it has too much in the way of fairies and gnomes for my taste - but the rhythm and art aspects do.

Next stop in my ponderings is Charlotte Mason. I want to re-read her ideas on early education in the light of the reading I have done on Montessori and Waldorf.

Hogwarts

Most homeschooling mothers plod through plans that, if not exactly humdrum, are enlivened by only the occasional flash of creativity. Out in the blogosphere there are a few who are in a different league ... imaginative, creative, inspirational, and willing to share the fruits of their creativity with the rest of us. Now Theresa of LaPaz Home Learning is sending her son to Hogwarts. And you can go too! She has created the ultimate Harry Potter rabbit trail and posted lesson plans for herbology, care of magical creatures, potions and alchemy here.

How I wish we were still homeschooling so we (or would that be I?) could have fun with these!

Thursday Thirteen #15: Homeschooling

I forgot to do a Thursday Thirteen last week, so this week you get a double dose (a day late).

First, thirteen things I will miss about homeschooling when the girls start school ...

1. Spending so much time with two of my very favourite people.
2. Being able to get up in the morning whenever we like.
3. Reading good books aloud.
4. Taking day trips and holidays when everyone else is in school.
5. Planning curriculum (even if I do always end up changing my plans!)
6. Getting together with other homeschoolers.
7. Snuggling at home with warm blankets and hot chocolate when everyone else has to go out in the winter cold.
8. No busy work or homework.
9. Tailoring the girls education to their needs and interests.
10. Lots of time to talk.
11. Plenty of time for outside activities.
12. Independence.
13. Flexibility.

On the positive side, here are thirteen things I am looking forward to ...

1. Having lots of time to enjoy Little Cherub.
2. Doing fun toddler things.
3. Having a cleaner, tidier house - at least some of the time.
4. Being able to go to daily Mass more often.
5. Not being responsible for teaching Angel maths.
6. Slower-paced days.
7. Peace and quiet (relatively speaking).
8. Hearing about the girls' school days.
9. Having to arbitrate in less sibling disputes (I hope!)
10. Less juggling of competing and sometimes incompatible needs.
11. Being a kinder, gentler, less stressed mother (again, I hope!)
12. Planning and implementing a new routine.
13. School holidays :)

Bubble Gum Maths

How I wish I had seen this post from Lissa at the Lilting House when she first posted it two years ago. I think it could have reduced Angel's mathematical pain significantly. I plan to stock up on chewing gum and bubble gum and try a scientific experiment when the girls start getting homework.

Personally, I suspect chocolate would have the best SSB effect.

Montessori

As I have no homeschooling plans to put together for next year, my mind has turned to Little Cherub. Yes, yes. I know she is only thirteen months old. And I learned a lesson about overdoing early education with my poor experimental first child. But still ...

When Angel was small I dabbled a little with Montessori. Read a couple of books, and started (but never finished) making various manipulatives. I did manage to teach her to put on a coat Montessori-style, but that was about it. Star came along, and somehow time to make materials and prepare an environment went out the window. I discovered literature-based learning and Charlotte Mason and forgot about Montessori.

Recently there has been a lot of talk about Montessori education on the 4 Real Learning boards, and it has inspired me to think about this for Little Cherub. This time round I have time - at least in theory - to prepare Montessori activities (buying anything more than a select few isn't an option), and should also find it easier to create and maintain a suitable environment. Space is an issue, but with some creativity I should be able to manage. If I ever finish decluttering, that is.

There are a number of things that appeal to me ...

• the emphasis on practical life activities and fostering independence. I can see Little Cherub going the same way as her eldest sister ("I do it mine self! I do everything mine self!": Angel, aged 2) and this could help to minimise frustration.
  
• the ordered environment in which everything has its place and in which the child can function freely.
  
• freedom within limits. I like the idea that she can choose which activities to work on so that she can learn at her own pace.
• the materials. Many of them look so appealing and I can see how they would be enjoyable for a child to use while also being educational.
  
• lots of ideas for learning activities, which I hope would mean a child who was busy rather than bored.
  

On the other hand I know I would never be able to be a Montessori purist as I can't resist changing and adapting. Certain aspects do not sit well with me ...

• I understand Montessori discourages imaginative play, and that bothers me.
  
• I wonder how well Montessori would work with just one child. While it would certainly give me time to prepare and present materials, and to observe her needs, I suspect it could become too intense.
  
• My understanding is that Montessori materials are presented in a highly sequential way, and my older girls - Star in particular - have often learned in leaps rather than a steady progression. How would this work with Montessori?
• Is Montessori an all or nothing approach? I know I would end up picking and choosing parts and leaving others, and wonder if this would undermine the whole idea.
  

Lots to think about here, and to plan for. I'm afraid what would be typical of me would be to jump in with enthusiasm, spend a year or so making Montessori materials and then switch directions at the last minute and never use them. Either that or to spend too long thinking and then never put the plans into action. Can I manage a happy medium? Think ... decide ... construct ... implement. Maybe.

Countryside and Cloister

I am re-reading Countryside and Cloister by Marie Litchfield, a lovely autobiography of a Carmelite nun who grew up in Somerset during World War II. She and her younger brothers and sisters were educated at home on a shoestring for most of their school years. This is her description of her education ...

My parents obtained permission to teach us at home, for which they were well qualified; and so began the 'Litchfield School' as we liked to call it. It was wonderful - we had occasional lessons, perhaps a whole morning of algebra - but did lots of reading on our own and had plenty of play. ... Father taught us mathematics, Latin and French - or tried to, I should say. Mother's lessons were the more practical ones; needlework and hand-work of various kinds; cookery, and, of course, music. I realise now that we must have been very trying, for she longed for us to play well and enjoy it. I did enjoy it secretly, but there is something about being told - or even asked - to practise that instantly puts some chidren off. I'm afraid that we were a bit uncooperative. It was Mother who guided all our reading, too, and she was brilliant at this. She knew exactly what books we were nearly ready for and kept us just a bit ahead of our capacity, so that reading became for us a continuing joy and a big part of our lives.

Homeschooling Top Tens

This thread at the 4Real Learning boards got me thinking. I can never resist a good list (or four), so here are some of my homeschooling favourites.

Top 10 Homeschooling Resources
(not including books or specific curricula)

• Library
• Internet access
• Printer / scanner / copier
• World map and globe
• Handheld microscope
• Plenty of crayons, feltpens and colouring pencils
  
• Gluesticks and scissors (lots of both. They walk.)
  
• Storage (it is all very well having lots of stuff, but you need to be able to find it!)
• CD player
• Educational games
  

Top of my wishlist is a laminator - I want to make Montessori materials for Little Cherub, and I can see myself getting a lot of use out of one.

Now for books and other specific resources, for different age groups ...

Top 10 Early Years Resources (Age 3 to 6)

• Ladybird Key Words books (both old and new series)
• The Lion First Bible
• Catholic Mosaic by Cay Gibson (I'm looking forward to using this with Little Cherub)
• How Children Lived: a First Book of History by Chris and Melanie Rice
  
• Oxford First Book of Animals by Barbara Taylor
  
• Usborne Book of the Seasons
• I is for India and other "alphabet" geography books published by Frances Lincoln
• The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System by Joanna Cole and other books in the same series (I originally put these in the age 6 to 9 list, but ran out of space!)
• I Spy an Alphabet in Art by Lucy Micklethwait, and other books in the same series. Her Child's Book of Art also looks good.)
• Usborne Big Book of Playtime Activities
  

Top 10 Primary Resources (Age 6 to 9)

• Singapore My Pals Are Here maths
• Saint Patrick's Summer: a Children's Adventure Catechism by Marigold Hunt
  
• The Children's Book of Saints by Hugh Ross Williamson
• Artists Workshop series by Penny King
  
• Children Just Like Me by Barnabas and Annabel Kindersley
• Usborne Time Traveller
• Our Island Story by H.E.Marshall
• Usborne Science Activities (published in 3 volumes, each including 3 separate books)
  
• Home Science Adventures
• Skoldo French (good for beginners, but not enough grammar in the later books)

Top 10 Middle School Resources (Age 9 to 13)

• So You Really Want to Learn English from Galore Park
• Latin Prep, also from Galore Park
• So You Really Want to Learn French. Yes, Galore Park again. Can you tell I like Galore Park's texts?
  
• Conquer Maths
  
• Young Oxford History of Britain and Ireland
• St.Therese and the Roses by Helen Walker Homan, and other biographies of saints in the Vision book series
  
• Artistic Pursuits
• The Mystery of the Periodic Table by Benjamin Wiker
  
• Blood and Guts by Linda Allison
  
• Inventing the Future by John and Mary Gribbins (History of science. I never got to use this one either - maybe with Little Cherub?)

Good news for home educators

The government here has been reviewing the law regarding home education and considering whether to impose new regulations. Given the general trend in Europe - both France and Ireland have already introduced restrictive homeschooling laws - and that the current government has turned over-regulation into an art form, I was pessimistic about the outcome. Consultation documents suggested that various changes would be made, including compulsory registration for home educated children, more intrusive powers of inspection, and possibly the imposition of the National Curriculum on homeschoolers.

The new guidelines were issued today and to say I am pleasantly surprised is an understatement. No change! Everything remains as it was, and better still, the guidelines clarify the limits of the role of education authorities with respect to homeschooling families. This should make it harder for them to overstep their legal bounds. Those of us who form the silent majority of home educators here owe a big debt to those pressure groups who have worked hard to influence these guidelines. Good job!

Read the BBC News report here.

What happened to the books?

For the first time ever, my plans for this term don't include any living books - just textbooks and hands-on activities. This is so not my natural inclination! But Angel has decided that at twelve she no longer wants to be read to, and the subjects she is working on are technical rather than literary (science can of course be learned through living books, but Angel really does do better with just-the-facts texts and workbooks). Star is also in a very hands-on stage and focuses much better on things she can be actively involved in, so I am going with the flow. For now, reading aloud can wait until bedtime for Star, and Angel (who at twelve has decided she is getting too old to be read to) can read to herself for pleasure.

Children are such a channel for learning humility. Here I am, a booklover with shelves full of lovely books I would love to share with my children, and with children who - at this stage of life at least - just don't want to learn that way.

Changing gear

It is that time of year when I usually change gear with our homeschooling to kickstart things after our customary February slump. This year it wasn't so much a slump as a series of interruptions, but we still certainly need kickstarting. We have another 14 or so weeks of this school year to go, and now Grandma's big move is over we badly need to get back into a reasonable routine. Our week has also changed shape, in that we always used to take Thursday as a light day - on alternate Thursdays we went to our Catholic homeschool group, and on other Thursdays we usually visited Grandma. Now Grandma is almost on our doorstep we can visit any time and the homeschool group has recently folded, so we now have no regular daytime commitments (after-school is another story!). As we head into spring and summer I want to get into the habit of doing all our formal schoolwork in the mornings, leaving the afternoons free. This week I have been road-testing a barebones schedule, which seemed almost too easy! Maybe I am so used to having to slot around other commitments that when we have a run of free mornings it just falls into place.

The ebb and flow of having the girls working together seems to have ebbed again. They really are not in the same place at all as regards their needs, aptitudes and modus operandi. When they work together, even if the material is appropriate to both, they niggle each other and go at different speeds. After a bit of tweaking my experimental schedule now looks like this ...

Angel - religion and independent reading daily
Monday - maths, geography (Journey North mystery class), science (reading and notebook page)
Tuesday - French, English, history notebook page
Wednesday - maths, French, science (experiment)
Thursday - French, English, science (exercise from textbook)
Friday - maths, English, geography (reading and notebook page)

Star - maths, Latin and read aloud daily
Monday - geography (Journey North mystery class), science (reading and notebook page)
Tuesday - religion, history
Wednesday - religion, history
Thursday - religion (notebook page), nature study
Friday - geography (reading and notebook page), science experiment

When possible I will still be taking one of the girls to Mass on Tuesdays, which will mean working in the afternoon, but sometimes there is no Tuesday Mass and other times we have no transport, so in practice it only works out about half the time.

Now we are getting back into the swing of things, I will be trying to post daily notes on my Bookworm's Diary blog again from next week.

Bookworm's Diary

I thought about starting a home education diary blog last year - in fact I even set one up and wrote on it for a few days before changing my mind - but inspired by this thread on the 4Real boards about "learning notes" blogs and my successful day last week after writing my goals on this blog, I've decided to try running with it. I'm intending to post my plans for the week there, and then follow up with diary notes. It's that word again ... accountability! So if you want to follow along with our educational progress, both formal and informal, visit Bookworm's Diary.

The Plan vs. Reality

A good day! Definitely the best this week, which has been rather chaotic due to a combination of my disorganisation, children having meltdowns, and neighbour kids having to be rescued from school due to various ailments (I had a car and my neighbour didn't). We managed to get through almost everything on the list ... though I have to admit that if I hadn't posted it here, I would not have got through as much.

Education

• Both
• Religion - read Saints for Young Readers for Every Day
  
• Geography - read one chapter of 52 Days by Camel
  
• History - read two chapters of Number the Stars; watch second half of 1940s House video

All done!

• Angel
• English - So You Really Want To Learn English Exercise 5.5 (use of hyphens)
  
• French - Skoldo 3 Exercise 2.1 (words with -eau)
• Geography - learn African geographic regions and/or countries

Also all done. Angel was determined to beat her score on the African countries game, so repeated it a couple of extra times.

• Star
• Geography - notebook page about Morocco
  
• Maths - do next exercise in My Pals Are Here 3A Practice Book
• Latin - copy out 2nd declension noun and begin to learn. Revise cases.
• Narration - section on young King Alfred in The Nursery History of England

Star wanted to do the African countries game too, so she did that instead of the notebook page. She also did some research on supermarket websites to see what Fair Trade products they sell for a questionnaire she brought home from Brownies (her pack are doing a World Issues badge this term). Her maths got left until the afternoon, then didn't get done. I was only going to give her half an exercise, so she can do the whole of it tomorrow instead.

Other

• Be up, showered and dressed by 8.00am

Does 8.10 count? I have to admit that if I hadn't put 8.00 in writing, it would definitely have been later.

• Do ironing
• Update accounts on MS Money
• Take Star to opticians for eye test

All done, though I didn't start the ironing until 9.15pm ... and if I hadn't listed it here I would not have done it tonight. Star has been complaining of headaches so I got her eyes checked. Turns out she is a little long sighted. Hopefully this is the cause of the headaches and glasses for reading and closework will sort out the problem.

• Play a game with Star

I promised to play her favourite board game (not my favourite!) and she started to set it up ... then A-next-door appeared and she decided playing with A was preferable. At least I tried!

• (If time) Go to Hobbycraft to buy scrapbooking supplies with Christmas gift money

I scrapped that idea. Not due to lack of time - we zoomed through all the schoolwork this morning, then watched the history video at lunchtime - but because of the weather. The whole country has been hit by gales, and I decided there was no sense in making an unnecessary journey. Instead I caught up with my financial records and some blog reading, Angel went upstairs for a rest then played for a while on the Playstation before heading out to a dance class, Star baked biscuits (cookies) - which she can now do more or less independently - and Little Cherub slept and played. This evening I typed up progress reports on both girls to send to our Local Education Authority inspector, who is due to visit us next week. He is a nice man and enthusiastic about home education, so we enjoy his visits.

All in all a good, productive day.