I really am overdue for an HE-type post on here. I'll try and summarise roughly what we've been up to.

Firstly, I'm feeling that our week is just too full to get 'enough' educational stuff done. On Monday mornings, Shannon is at playschool and Jade and I have a morning together to do a bit more organised stuff than we do with S around. I usually launch enthusiastically into getting some maths done with her, and maybe some reading to her while she plays and that seems to be about as far as we get given household tasks to accomplish, the dog to walk and Shannon to go and collect. Monday afternoons nothing much seems to happen, so I could try and plan for some more activities then.

On Tuesday mornings I have a free morning while Jade is at the childminder and Shannon is at playschool. I usually try to fit in a run (yes, still running!), going to a group at church and then about 45 minutes of mad rushing about tidying/computering/sorting/dog-walking before going to collect the girls. On Tuesday afternoons we go swimming.

On Wednesdays I'm at work all day and DH is home with the girls. Some practical stuff usually gets done on those days, e.g. lately they have made a tree for a toy lemur to sit in, they have made a wooden stable, and a set of monster feet. Sometimes if I have left directions/books out, some of the maths or other things will get done, but not always.

On Thursday mornings I go to work, taking Jade with me while Shannon is at playschool. I used to insist that Jade did Education City at some point during the morning, but she only liked to do the same easy literacy exercises over and over again and balked at doing anything else (too scary) and I've kind of given up. She usually takes books to read and plays on the Barbie or CBeebies websites. Of course she is with me, taking note of my work and getting an insight into having a responsibility to do the work that you're paid for, and she hears me talking on the phone etc, so I guess there is a good deal more background stuff going on there as well. Straight after work, at lunchtime, she goes riding with the RDA. She's doing well there and has mastered the rising trot, but of course speaks not a single word and will only give the tiniest nod or shake of the head when asked a question. She got upset a few weeks ago when a couple of the ladies started to say things like "Go on, give us a smile" and "Tell the pony to 'Walk on'". After 2 or 3 weeks of this happening she got very upset one night and said she would stop going riding if they kept saying things like that. I had to print off and summarise as much info about Selective Mutism as I could and pass it to the RDA people, and now they are worried about saying anything to her in case they upset her!!! She loves it though, and as I was a horse-mad kid and still have a lot of interest it's nice for me to be there too.

On Fridays we have a completely free day. I often like to arrange visits to/from friends in the afternoon, but try to fit in a little more formal stuff into the morning. The days just easily disappear, though, with not much seeming to be achieved.

I don't even think about doing anything formally educational at the weekends, although I could. I just tend to think of them as days when I can legitimately leave the kids to their own devices (including usually L. from next door) while DH and I frantically battle to catch up with some of the backlog of things we are trying to get done.

So I'm finding myself a bit worried, particularly about maths. She has always found it hard, and is scared of anything she finds hard, so we have had to take it very very slowly indeed. She is still on very basic addition and subtraction, with merely the slightest venture into the 2, 5 and 10 times tables (skip-counting, rather than full tables). It wouldn't matter so much, except that she is insisting that she still wants to go to school next September. And I am having fearful imaginings of the teacher tut-tutting over the appalling gaps in her knowledge.

Anyway, on a more positive note, we have bought the LeapFrog Globe which is really good and all of us have been enjoying using it fairly often. I have certainly learned a few things, as have Jade and Shannon.

Jade has also had a strong interest in WW2, and picked up a couple of books at the library a couple of weeks ago. "Under Fire - Children of the Second World War tell their stories" is fascinating and Jade begged me to read and keep on reading for most of the day when we got this. (Memo - must pick it up again and carry on!). She also chose The Holocaust which I haven't read yet but DH said he learned a few things when he looked at it.

However have various lovely resources that I really want to use but are just not getting picked up. I bought "First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind" at the same time I bought the globe, and that hasn't even been opened yet. We haven't touched "Story of the World" for months, and some living maths books (like Penrose the Mathematical Cat), games for learning, games for maths that I don't seem to find the time for. And we haven't done any proper science in yonks either. Nor any languages.

I had a brief chat with her today about her cello. She has been completely resistant to being shown or taught anything. We have a "teach yourself cello"-type DVD which she says she doesn't like. She hasn't got past bowing on open strings for a minute or two and then leaving it. I've had enough, and I've told her that I will hire it for one more term (i.e. till Easter) and if she isn't showing proper progress or learning of some sort by then, it's going back to the hire people. She immediately went and got it out and had a go, and within 5 minutes was in tears and a foul mood when I tried to show her how to place her fingers on a string to change the notes. I suspect we do not have the new Jacqueline du Pre in our house.

I suspect I just need a little bit more planning and organisation in our week and things would feel a lot better. I wonder how on earth I'm going to manage that then?

She's so excited!

We finally got round to going to Gloucester to hire a cello from the Gloucestershire Music Service:



She's really enjoying it, but absolutely refuses to take any guidance as to what to do - "I want to just do it my way!" she says. We looked at a couple of online videos but she missed the one I saw about how to position the bow and absolutely wouldn't listen to me when I suggested the right way to do it. Ah well, I guess there are self-taught musicians around!! It's probably going to be a good idea to expose her to videos and recordings of good cellists so that she can be inspired and maybe she'll see for herself the technique they are using. The other thing I'm going to do is try and set a good example of myself learning to play my bass guitar which DH bought me for my birthday last August and I have picked up and played precisely twice! This morning I've received my Tesco DVD hire delivery which is bass guitar lessons so if I am diligent, maybe she will follow suit.

Oh, and Sarah, she really wanted me to phone you to get Anna to come round and watch her!!!

Anyway, I really wasn't planning to do this:



I've always promised myself I will not let my children learn the violin - I didn't want to endure all the screeching and scratching. But faced with Shannon's longing face when she saw the little violins at the hire place, I just couldn't help but relent!!