Maths Magic

This week has been fun :) Could do with more like this one.

Emily's done lots of history, looking still at the Classical Greek age and finding out about daily life in Ancient Greece. Her summary writing (as taught by the History Odyssey course) has exploded in ability recently. She now writes fabulously clear and concise summaries of pages she's read from the history encyclopedia (or wherever), and what's more she loves doing it and always wants to do more. I'm really pleased about that, as I think the ability to summarise what you've read and to make sensible notes about it is a hugely important skill to have for more detailed study when you're older.

There's been more chemistry too, this time discovering why distilled water doesn't conduct electricity but tap water does. I've noticed a leap in understanding here too with Emily recently. She suddenly seems to have moved to a new level of "getting it" in lots of things. She's also been spending a lot of time making very funny video "documentaries" about all sorts of things on our digital camera. Unfortunately, we don't have (and can't currently afford) a proper camcorder, but it's fast making its way up the list of future priorities, since Emily seems to be showing a flair for movie direction, lol!

On Monday afternoon we had a terrific afternoon out at Normanby Hall with Hazel, Romy and Tansy. The big girls had a lovely play. Not long now until Tansy will be toddling off after them! Mind you, it was *freezing*. I'd looked out of the window at the blazing sunshine, decided "it won't be that cold" and taken us off out without either me or Emily having a coat; we both just had cardigans on. Bad Mummy. Still, we survived :-)

On Wednesday we had a lovely surprise when Jacki, Mei Lin and Jasmine turned up just before lunchtime - they were on their way to Scunthorpe museum and wondered if we'd like to go too. Of course we would! So we did :-) Emily and I hadn't been to the museum for about eighteen months or so. Unfortunately, the main section was closed as they were preparing a new exhibition, but the girls had fun looking at all the fixed exhibitions and doing all the new hands on activities and microscope work they now have laid out. We also had a picnic lunch, before coming back here for half and hour's play before tea time.

Friday was our day to go over to Jacki's. Emily spent the day with the girls in some hugely complicated made up game that they all had to invent and draw magical characters for, which seemed like a lot of fun. As far as education goes, Jacki had bought a little book from the Works on Vedic Maths - quite controversial, as I gather from that article - so she taught us all, me included, some of the "magic" strategies for long multiplication. Emily got it immediately and was soooo chuffed with herself now she can do really difficult sounding sums like 87 x 83 in her head extremely quickly :-)) A lot of the rest of the book goes on to some much more complicated maths that would probably be beyond our girls at the moment, but we shall see how we go. Meanwhile, I took along one of my favourite home ed finds of all time, the English from the Roots Up book. The girls made some flashcards of about a dozen of the Latin/Greek roots and some of their derivative words, and had fun mixing and matching to invent new words.

Not having seen more than enough of us during the week, Jacki, George and girls have also invited Emily to go with them to the Chinese New Year (bit late!!) celebrations at Gainsborough Old Hall tomorrow afternoon, so Jon will drop her off there straight after karate. She'll apparently be making lanterns, dragons and puppets and taking part in a lantern parade, so she's looking forward to that!

Meanwhile, in the rather more upsetting scheme of things, Jon had a letter from the diabetic eye screening service today. It noted that following his recent eye screening, they have noted some changes at the back of his eyes caused by his diabetes. Given his father's diabetic eyesight history (he's registered partially sighted, getting worse by the month), that was a very nasty shock :-( It made me cry and I know it's affected Jon deeply :-( Still, we're renewing our efforts to take care of his health. He has a (not eye related) hospital appointment on Monday and another GP appointment to discuss his new diabetic medication and antidepressants this week too. Sometimes a nasty dig in the ribs is necessary to stop you becoming complacent.

On a lighter note, some more news about our five moggies. Cassie-cat, despite her age, is being a darling, extremely purry and affectionate. She's not stiff at all moving around, so although she is awfully thin she seems to be bearing up well. Juliet is (finally) starting to settle down a bit more. She's sleeping upstairs in our sitting room a lot now just like she used to pre-kittens, and she's being very purry and affectionate too. Romeo is over the nasty bug he had a week or so ago and continues to be an absolute star with the babies. He spent ages playing chase with them in the garden this afternoon. Voldemort and Severus are growing. Very fast - they're almost grown out of their kitten collars now, will have to get some new ones. They're loving their freedom and spend hours playing outside every day. I think all five cats are appreciating the brighter days, as all of them, even Cassie-cat are spending more time enjoying the garden. Some recent piccies :-) Note Romeo flattened down and ready to pounce in a game of chase!