As I mentioned recently we've been drifting a bit and to be honest it's got the point where we were all grumpy and arguing rather a lot, so I thought we needed to do *something* about it, although I wasn't entirely clear what that something would be. After a particularly grumpy day yesterday (except for the end when we made rainbows), I made a suggestion to the girls and we all agreed we'd give it a go.
Today was the first day of our new regime (for want of a better word, although I'm sure there is one!) The main point was that we would all get up, have breakfast, brush our teeth and be dressed by 9 o'clock - quite a change as it wasn't uncommon for the girls to have lunch in their PJs. Then we had a discussion about what we'd like to do and I drew a Venn diagram of what we came up with. It included me cleaning the bathroom (didn't happen), me reading some of The Phoenix and the Carpet (did), M watching an episode of Walking with Dinosaurs (did), each girl getting 'Mummy time' (half an hour minimum when they get to choose what we do and whether it's on their on with me or if the sister is allowed to join in - we played cafés in the garden for M and The Game of Life Adventures edition for K), computer time for each girl (M did, K didn't), tidying the playroom (we've got it mostly done), piano practice for each girl (not yet, but I'm still hopeful) and a new thing, which for reasons best known to themselves the girls have decided to call 'Horace Time'.
'Horace Time' is the first half an hour or so (it ended up being nearly an hour today because K & M both just wanted to keep going) after we're up and dressed, where I make some suggestions of what they might like to do and they pick one (or come up with an alternative if they don't like any of my suggestions) and get on with it. My suggestions today were pick a workbook and do a bit (they've got quite a selection that they've been given or have chosen for themselves), have a game of Bananagrams or Pairs in Pears, or a game from Maths for Mums & Dads. Both girls chose to the workbooks and K finished off her Enjoyable English workbook, which she started ages ago but hadn't looked at in a while. M chose a Maths 'Homework Helpers' workbook and did about 10 pages of mostly addition and subtraction sums (but it wasn't always the answer that was missing, sometimes it was part of the question), the last 2 or 3 pages she came back to later after lunch while waiting for K to finish eating. K always wants to work through things herself at her own pace on her own, only asking if she doesn't understand something. M wants me to be with her the whole time and checks things with me frequently when doing this sort of thing, so it worked out quite nicely once M and I went elsewhere so K could concentrate! K would really rather I didn't look at anything she's done, but somewhat grudgingly allowed me to when I explained that if there was something she'd completely misunderstood then I couldn't help her if I didn't know about it. As it was in the whole of the book (which admittedly is on the easy side for her I think) there were 2 tiny mistakes and 1 wrong answer, which was clearly a case of not reading the question properly, which considering she did it entirely on her own with no help is pretty good I reckon!
All in all, apart from a bit of grumping from me at doing all the tidying in the playroom, the day was a huge success and tomorrow you will find us dressed and doing 'Horace Time' by 9.30am (we're not always particularly punctual you know!). Oh and K's just sat down and started to play the piano!
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