January

And here we are, nearly at the end of it! Gosh.

As ever, plenty has been going on here. The weather has mostly been mild, so we've been out and about a lot -  to the park, on various spontaneous cat walks (aka walks round the block just before dinner. So called after Petal who was cat obsessed when younger, and we'd go out to go and spot some!).

We've been busy at karate - I've just successfully graded and got my green belt, and Petal has suddenly decided that she does karate now too. Apparently 'I'm a big girl and I do karate AND ballet'!  A couple of weekends ago I was flying solo as Papacrow, Saurus and Roo were helping Uncle J & Cousin L move, and I was taking the rest to karate. She announced out of the blue that she was going to do the class that day - she hasn't done karate for a while as she started not wanting to, which wasn't a problem of course, although I did mention it might be nice if she did some when she was older as it's good thing to be able to defend oneself. Anyway, I said that it was fine for her to do the class but that I wouldn't be able to do it with her (as I used to) as I'd have Dot.

She said that was fine, and when we got there she got changed happily, went off with Fluff, did the warm up perfectly and the whole class! She listened carefully to what Sensi said and did everything he asked (unlike before, when she'd run off and hide behind me if he looked at her!) and she's been really enjoying the class since!

Home Ed group is going from strength to strength, we had a parent's meeting recently with new parents - we've had lots of new members recently - taking over a bit with ideas and so on. We're going to do a theme once a month rather than every week, which will make it easier to make more of an effort for it, and also do a music themed session once a month. The kids have organised themselves a bit recently into more relaxed sessions with random crafts, table tennis, a lego club, visits to the nearby skate park etc, so we're going to keep that on for the other sessions in the month.

I'm starting up a toddler group, chess club and book group so they should be fun!

The monthly visit to the Animal Rescue Centre was great - cats this month - and we had an absolutely FANTASTIC trip to the panto.

We've definitely re-established daily table-time basics and they are going well, we've organised some monthly themes too and have been concentrating on Times Tables this month. Roo's been enjoying 6 word stories - give him 6 random words and he has to write a story featuring them - and Wig has been doing lots of  handwriting practise quite spontaneously, and it's really paying off. His spelling is improving too. Papacrow has been doing lots of alphabet and common word flash cards with Fluff and Petal. Fluff's getting there but the magical switch hasn't flipped yet, if you know what I mean. Petal's coming along nicely, she knows her alphabet well, and has started picking out the odd word too. Saurus is committed to maths and english GCSE, he's receiving maths tuition every Monday from another Home Edding mum (who was a maths teacher & then private tutor for years) while I do stuff with mine and her children, and another Home Edder has sorted out a couple of English groups, one of which will be at our house, and is starting soon.

We've been listening to lots of new music, The Destroyers have been a great discovery and we've really been enjoying the Now That's What I Call Disney - a two disc extravaganza of joy!

We've been working our way through the various documentaries (Alien Worlds, various animal documentaries) and cartoons we got for christmas and birthdays, and Horrible Histories as ever.

There's also been lego and train tracks and Bang! and chess and lots of reading - Saurus has got on the Cherub books, Wig's plowing through Dragon Lance and Roo has just started Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Dot has just discovered the Judith Kerr Mog books and LOVES them.

I think that's all I can remember for now... Am unsure as to how to proceed with blogging for the moment... Not sure if going back to daily recording is sustainable at the moment. I've just quit my evening cleaning jobs and one of the reasons for doing that was the various evening activities that have started up - Ballet, Karate, Cricket winter nets etc etc, so life is pretty busy. Maybe weekly? Time to experiment, review and adapt again...