Still going well and eager to learn!!

We've had another good couple of days here with both the kids being eager to do their work.

Yesterday we had to go out in the morning so didn't get any work done then and dh decided whilst we were in town at lunchtime to get the kids another wii console so they can have one each in their bedrooms so we can have our tv back downstairs which they have been hogging. Anyway when we got home and I said to them they could have the rest of today off and we would get cracking with their work again tomorrow thinking it was pointless trying to get much work out of them as they would just want to go on the wii!! J piped up then "Oh but we want to do our schoolwork!! Please can we do some?? I want to do maths!!" So who am I to refuse their wish and they ended up sitting down for a couple of hours in the afternoon after all!!

Yesterday evening J was invested at cubs. I was so proud of him as out of the 4 new cubs being invested he was the only one who had learned the promise and he spoke it nice and clearly. He is really enjoying going to cubs and they are going away for a camp at Easter and he can't wait. It will be his first time away sleeping away from home. He has only ever slept over at my parents before. My baby is growing up!! Sob!! I still can't believe he will be 10 in less than 3 months at the beginning of April!! Where does the time go??

Today we didn't start very early but once we got going we had quite a nice productive day. They started doing maths and J has now finished what I had planned for him for the week maths wise so tomorrow he is going to concentrate on his English. I am getting increasingly frustrated by the lack of clear instructions in the CGP Maths Workbooks we have been using and also the lack of practice on each different concept so after much divering I have finally gone ahead and ordered him the Galore Park Junior Maths Book 2 in the hope that it will explain things much clearer for him. This week he has been doing fractions and decimals and I have found it hard to explain about decimals to him as I don't know how I know them I just do so it is really hard to explain them to him so I admitted defeat and am hoping the new maths book will explain in more detail than the CGP ones we have been using. We can then use the CGP books for extra practice. He already does the Galore Park Junior English book 1 and enjoys it so hopefully he will enjoy this too and if its good then I will get E the maths book 1 in September.

Then the kids came up with the idea of making Chocolate Cornflake Cakes so they did all the weighing of ingredients and stirring and pretty much all of it. J wrote the shopping list of ingredients for dh to get from our local shop and they really enjoyed doing them and they taste delicious.

Whilst the cakes were setting in the fridge we got on with our history. Two more weeks and we should be done with Ancient Egypt hopefully. I like Egypt but I have just about had my fill of it now I think. It feels like we have been doing it forever and I will be very glad to move onto Ancient China, Ancient Greece and the Romans!!

We read from Story of the World 1 Chapter 4, the Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedia of World History p114 - 117 and looked up the websites linked in the book which included looking round the Great Pyramid. Next I read to them from Horrible Histories Awesome Egyptians which they love and finally J read Chapter 6 to E and I from Hillyer's A Child's History of the World.

To top of a lovely day the kids even went to bed at 8pm and went pretty much straight off to sleep. I am still in shock over that one as we have been very lax about bedtimes as when were living in Cyprus we often had to fetch dh from work at 10.30pm at night as he didn't drive and it was a 40 minute round trip so the kids had to come too. Hopefully this will continue. I have told them they can stay up later on Friday and Saturday nights but lately they have been awake in their rooms after midnight so it will have done them both the world of good to have an early night. Dh and I have enjoyed it too!!

I am still pleased with how things are going. I shall leave you with a couple of pictures of their cornflake cakes. They are really yummy!!