Yoga & Painting The Blues

Very good day today. We've bounced happily from one thing to the next, can't believe it's half four already.

Started off bright and early with some more of the Just Write book - more story writing. Emily abandoned writing it on their page, lol, and decided to use two pieces of A4 instead. She produced an interesting two chapter story about the kittens in the garden (yes, a recurring theme, although each story is very different) with lots of detailed description and good spelling. She's starting to pay more attention to spelling and grammar on the original now, all of her own accord. We had been just letting her write it, and then having her go back through and edit it herself for mistakes in grammar and spelling, but this latest one didn't really need that. All good stuff.

Then we had a fun hour with the Vicious Vikings sticker puzzle book. The Vikings project hasn't really taken off like the Egyptian and Tudor ones did, although to be fair I think that's because we just haven't spent much time on it. Between going out and doing other things, we've hardly touched it recently. Anyway, Emily had fun with the sticker book and wasn't keen when I suggested we could just leave the topic for a while....so must carve out some more time for Viking things.

Maths followed, and Emily breezed through some division and multiplication work. Can't say that bit was entirely grumble free, but the practice is paying off as she's getting much quicker with mental arithmetic and since she's finding it easier and gaining more confidence in her abilities, the fuss is lessening every day.

Good long play in the garden with the kittens after lunch. Jon mowed the lawn yesterday, and grass cuttings are quite this season's mouse, apparently. We had been intending to go swimming again this afternoon, but I really, really didn't fancy it (bad Mummy) and Emily has earache, so we gave it a miss. We'll start again after half term week. Instead, we spent an hour with Barbara Currie's Fun Yoga for Kids DVD which was fantastic. I've never tried yoga before, but it felt really good. There were a lot of giggles during the balances! Emily found most of it quite straightforward, and it helped that she was familiar with some of the poses from her ballet class - needless to say Mum didn't quite manage some of it, lol. So that was a good exercise session, and one that we now plan to do at least once or twice a week.

Then we got stuck back into our famous artists project, which, like the Vikings, had been suffering from lack of time. Today we read Pablo Picasso: Breaking All The Rules from the Smart About the Arts series, and discussed a couple of practical art tasks Emily might do in Picasso's style. To begin with, she chose to paint in various shades of blue as he did in his blue period. She was supposed to paint something that made her sad, but she couldn't think of anything that made her sad (good!) so she decided to paint a cold, wintery, snowy scene in shades of blue instead. Other pieces of work to follow are: an attempt at cubism (should be interesting!), a mixed up portrait, and a sculpture made of junk. Watch this space!

Meanwhile, in business news, we've had a request to supply props for the forthcoming Living TV "Top 50 Most Haunted Moments" programme, spin off from the much loved Most Haunted series. In the past we've supplied a lot of stuff to the various Famous & Frightened shows on the same channel, but this is our first contact with the Most Haunted team...who knows, could lead to other things. The only problem is they only got in touch mid afternoon, and want the stuff by Monday! I'll just put my wings on and fly over.....

We're off to the cinema tomorrow to see the Barbie Magic of Pegasus film. It might be next week that we go off to visit the new caravan in the Lake District, or we might leave on Halloween instead, depending how it goes. On Monday we're off to meet some new home ed friends for a play and a chat (*waves at Jill if she's reading*) so there's lots to look forward too. And there are soooo many things we want to get round to doing!! Read on a forum today someone saying that she thought home ed was ridiculous as her child goes to school but still gets to do ALL the things home educated children do, in his spare time. Ok....she must have more hours in her day than we do....