Mission accomplished!

For several days I've been working on a menu plan, and not just any old plan but a 4-week one! I've tried to keep it frugal, balance it nutritionally, include fish at least once and preferably twice a week as recommended, increase our fruit & veg intake and introduce one or two exciting new dishes to our ordinary repertoire. I've considered which days I'm normally at home to do lengthy preparation, and which days often require something pretty instant. And at last, it is done! It also includes a weekly shopping list which does need some amendment, as I actually do a major shop online at the beginning of the month and get everything non-perishable, and then I need a weekly list of the short shelf life stuff after that. But anyway, it's fab knowing what's for dinner, and not having to think about it! We'll just have to see how well I do at sticking to it because it is not uncommon for me to get something out of the freezer the night before, put it in the fridge overnight to defrost, and then end up not using it the following day for some reason, usually lack of time or inclination to properly cook, then forgetting about and having to throw it away!

We had a good HE day yesterday. It started well, with me still lying in bed musing on what we might do that day, and wondering whether to get Jade to practise a bit of letter writing/formation. She was downstairs with DH while he had his breakfast, and after a little while I heard her asking for help as to which way to write a 'd'. DH wrote down examples of both 'b' and 'd', and shortly afterwards she came to me with a piece of paper on which she had written "Mummy and Dady, I (heart) you". So, no need for any further writing practise then!!
We started by going to the 'HE bookshelf' and I asked Jade to choose what she wanted to do, and she pulled out some maths workbooks. She wanted to start with the really easy one so I went along with it for a while and then persuaded her on to the more appropriate level stuff. After she practised writing down the numbers, we moved on to 'odd and even'. I demonstrated with a box full of magnetic letters, asking her to share them out between us, and pointing out when there was an odd one left over and when there wasn't. We got a piece of paper with two columns headed 'odd' and 'even' and she started to write down under which heading each number went. She was enjoying it and asked to do more even when I was ready to stop.

That's a fairly quick explanation for something that seemed to go on forever and certainly raised the intensity for me, because she didn't grasp the idea instantly and I kept having to ask her to think again, while remaining very calm! So I gladly called a break after a little while and then received a string of lengthy phone calls so their free-range playing went on for an hour or more. Then we had a quick lunch and got Jade ready for her afternoon at school, where she had great fun in the 'dance' class doing firework movements, which she enthusiastically demonstrated to me when she got home. While she was out I prepared the evening meal .

Later on, she was combining the odd/even thing with the brief explanation (well, that's all it needs!) of syllables I did last week, and she was sounding out words, counting the number of syllables, and then proclaiming whether the number was odd or even! After dinner I didn't want to do the various active things she was suggesting, so I proposed we played Snakes & Ladders, which we did very enjoyably (except when Shannon kept running off with the dice!). Jade played with very good humour, celebrating when she won 2 games, of course but also taking it in very good part when she lost 2 games. And then I had to insist that we stopped as it was bedtime!

Today has been just plain busy. We were out promptly this morning to help my Usborne recruit with her first toddler group event, which went extremely well. Jade and Shannon both happily played with the multiplicity of toys! Then back home (Shannon fell asleep in the car) for lunch, a quick rest and then out to swimming with the HE group. Both girls are gradually becoming more adventurous in a very autonomous, gently testing their own anxieties and finding them to be groundless, kind of a way! Jade took off her armbands and splashed and jumped about a fair bit without them, which she's never done before, and Shannon positively forced me to tow her about on her front and back, only holding her hands, which she wouldn't do at all 2 weeks ago. Back home for a bit of CBeebies and then dinner, after which the large Tesco delivery arrived, and then more Snakes & Ladders.