Back home

Sam came for a walk ( and talked my ears off) .

Then we all pootled over to see my parents and went out for lunch.

The following day some friends came to visit in the morning and the children went to jujitsu class in the evening. I spent most of the afternoon trying to pin them down about birthday presents. They do not understand that things need planning in advance, so it all got rather fraught..decision making not being their strong point. In the end it all got too much and I decided I would leave it and arrange things myself the best I can.

I went for a walk early before Brian returned to work.

Sam came with me and we jogged.

Whilst I showered he did some writing practice on his own and wrote about a potato.

I sat and helped him through his maths.

 

Owen did some English work. We looked at Pilgrims progress. We both decided it wasn't a book we fancied much. 

After working on his reading and comprehension, Owen practiced his writing. It's proving very hard to get him back into his routine and he's not motivated at all.

 I shuffled things around and let him do the comprehension as a teacher asking me questions ..he enjoyed that far more.

'full sentence answers please MUM!'

He then worked on order of operations

Our normal meet up was cancelled, so we headed to the park to lay with friends and go in the exercise machines.

Sam is up early the next morning and gets on with his work straight after breakfast. He has some other things he wasn't to do, so is keen to get the 'formal' stuff out of the way.

Even so, once started, he enjoys himself and sets himself more tasks.

Owen finds writing much harder so we looked at maths and he did an extra session.

Life skills.

The boys then went for an overnight stay at Brian's parents. Blokey is off work because I have some official stuff to do and we are going out to Manchester to try the Comedy Club for the first time. Our friends are coming with us, so we are quite excited.

We went into town and had ouch on our own, then had a brilliant evening in Manchester. 

Camper van, colds, the museum and coins.

Today both boys were grumpy with as they have colds. We did a bit of maths and they messed around with their own various projects.

Owen made some Hama bead creations and I helped him fix them to his bedroom door.

Blokey and I were still finishing jobs on the camper van. Him, hot water and shower system, me curtain making and general dogsbody. So the boys pootled around doing their own thing and then went out to play with their friends at the park. They both are still not well so very touchy and snappy.

The next day Sam was up at 3am, so I went for some fresh air before Blokey left for work. Both boys were finding things pretty tricksy, especially each other. I had arranged for friends to come over but their mate also had a fever so we cancelled. We managed a bit of maths before they both retreated to their respective corners of the house.

I am not sure if they will be able to go to jujitsu today, but they may pick up this afternoon. Well they went and had a good time but were wiped out when they got in and there were tears.

They slept in the next day and we're still a bit lack lustre but a little improved. We decided to cancel our afternoon plans in favour of a rest. So we headed off to the library to stock up on books. The boys did a Harry Potter based quiz whilst we were there..that went well, we got books, that went well...so maybe I should gloss over the monumental meltdown and bickering in the charity shop next door after..yes...lets do that...

..I am also glad I made the right decision about not going out later lol...they had lunch and retired to different rooms, which is the only way they can stop arguing at the moment.

The next day both boys felt much better and Owen read a passage from 101 Dalmations to Sam over breakfast.

They then quizzed each other on their understanding of what happened.

Owen practiced his writing, whilst Sam went for a shower.

Sam then came down, but was so excitable he gave himself hiccups.

This was his second attempt at writing because he wasn't pleased with his first..hiccups can be pesky.

The hiccup version.

Practicing his upper case letters.

Owen was now working on a Hama bead project.

Sam collected all the coins in the house and tried to find treasure using his book from the library.

In the afternoon we went to the Potteries Museum in Hanley, where we met some friends. We had a good look at the Staffordshire Hoard.

Sam found some pictures of coins on the Timeline.

We talked about how skilful the designs were on the goldwork.

We all had a close up look at the hoard through magnifying glasses, so we could see the finest details.

Next we went to visit the Spitfire.

Owen thinks it's hilarious that 'we painted targets on the side so the Germans had something to aim for'.

He then dressed as a frog and sang 'Mad World '.

And drew a cow.

On Friday I came down from my shower to find that Sam had set up his own work and was practicing his writing skills.

He chose a word for every letter of the alphabet.

Then he read some Sherlock Holmes on his Kindle.

Then we wrote out maths equations for each other to complete.

Owen did a Mystery Science lesson.

Then practiced his writing, using limericks for inspiration.

The next day Sam and I did a long walk before Brian went to work.