We had quite a chilled day today. Woke up late and the kids seemed in the right mood to 'do' something and so I decided we'd do some maths and english. Connor especially is quite resistant to working at it usually but is much better when Darren is around. He happily sat and worked his way through a page of maths, english, some spellings weve started to practice and a couple of pages of his Book. Sophie did her maths,english and some handwriting. They were amazed what they had got done in just an hour. I'm really pleased with the way the work now and are happy to sit down. Connor is really pushing on with his reading of his own accord. He hates 'chunking' but is getting the hang of combining his sounds although this still needs work. Often he really amazes me,he read the words 'completely' and 'mystified' tonight....a couple of weeks ago he was struggling with fairly easy four letter words. I think the storyline featuring bottoms getting bitten and sardines stuck up the noses of incompetent pirates is spurring him on!!

They spent a while on the playstation before lunch. I went off to work and Sophie came in with me.She told a couple of the kids she already knows that she is home educated and they said that was really cool... they werent so enthusiastic at the thought that she'd spent sunday morning 'working' but one reckoned that the positives she could think of ( esp getting lunch when she felt like without queuing for ages) would make it worth it!

We got home to find Darren had put up an IKEA unit in the bedroom we'd bought to go in the living room! It works really well and I have somewhere to put books, photos and ornaments in the bedroom :)! I have to resist the urge to go and spend money I havent got on them!
Sophie spent about half an hour before bed reading 'Harry Potter and the Philosophers stone' aloud and was really pleased to get to the end of chapter 2. Her teacher in school would never let her read what she describes as 'interesting books' because she hadnt finished reading what they wanted her to read... while her friends were allowed to read Harry Potter, Michael Morpurgo etc, books Sophie only accessed when they were done as parts of whole class based work. I'm starting to see how and why kids get switched off reading in schools, especially when they arent 'allowed' to read things considered 'too hard' for them. I can see the improvements already and am so glad she had something which meant she 'had' to have a go.Shes realising she can do it.
In the meantime the 24 hour a day rainfall shows no signs of stopping so Im planning to take them out more this week regardless of the rain if we dont go and 'do' something I think we'll all go loopy!