Monday 22 September 2014

Day Fifteen, happy and normal - ish.

Today, as so often seems to be the case, when the children had to be up and out they slept in.  Maybe Sunday is too energetic a day for them, or perhaps they are picking up on the general societal dislike of Mondays, whatever the reason it seems that unlike most mornings when they are all up and moving well before 8, Monday mornings it's more like 9.

The younger three got up and out, enjoyed their sports session, and came home like a herd of elephants - same as usual really!

L and I looked at manipulating percentages, and later at autobiographical writing.  L had a whole pile of wacky ideas to discuss too - he spends a lot of time thinking about very odd stuff.  Blue sky thinking I guess.  Today's conversations were about reverse genetic engineering organisms. His theory is that since a lot of DNA is "switches" and many of the differentials between species are controlled by these switches, then perhaps it is possible to turn enough off / on that an organism could be made to revert (whilst in embryonic state) to a previous evolutionary level, and then, perhaps the offspring of said organism could have it's DNA manipulated to turn it into something quite different to the original subject . . .  We spent a long time rather distracted from Maths by talking through potentials.  Far more fun than percentages!  L makes connections between things that I have never thought of - I don't know if that's just a personal difference, or a different way of seeing things due to his dyslexia, but bouncing ideas around with him is a lot of fun, and we bring very different things to the discussions - but in a positive way :)

A blitzed through more maths - looking at money subtraction, chunking, and then more subtraction - once more getting her to stop once she was no longer focused was hard work.  Then we continued with Oz phonics, looked at capitals and full stops (again!), covered states of matter and read a book.

J was covering division, life cycles and scientific keys / classification.  He also worked on adjectives and handwriting practise.  He's enjoying reading "My dad has an alligator", but he is hard work to listen to.  He seems to skip every third or fourth word, although I think he's reading those silently, and he rocks and squiggles so much I can't sit near him - which is a pain as he wants me to hold the book!

M was looking at passive and active adjectives - which confused him for a while, but we got  there in the  end - then ratios, states of matter, hand writing practise and random conversation about black holes. M is still a little unsettled after last weeks events, and we have had a few disjointed conversations about friends and friendships, but I'm hoping that time will soothe his fears.

A spent most of the afternoon out with her  friends, and L is out now  at one of his weekly games sessions.

J has started a fitness badge for cubs, and is so far refusing sweets or unhealthy food  but I think we need to work on what he considers healthy (pasties instead of sweets?)

M J and A had a long discussion about a new bedtime story - they have chosen "little Manfred" by Michael Morpurgo - not a book I know, and their dad is taking a turn reading to them, so I will have to pick it up as they go.  The last Morpurgo book we read left us all in tears frequently.  Hope this one is less emotional!

Tomorrow is filling up with plans, and I hope the weather holds :)
Have a happy week folks!

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