Feeling a bit drained.

Today I have been feeling, understandably I think, rather drained.  We've still done quite a bit though.  K & M finished off their monthly tidying and cleaning of their bedrooms and also did the weekly household jobs that they chose (each cleaning a loo and sink).

K seems to have been shutting herself away somewhat over the past couple of days, partly because she has been working on 'secret things' that she is making and also doing sudoku on the tablet.  She and M are very different in how much time they seem to need to themselves.  M definitely prefers more company and although K loves having friends to play with, she doesn't have the need for it like M does.

Over lunch, I mentioned to K that we hadn't done any more of the maths book that we've been working through (on and off) for quite a while, and since we were due to move on to 'division' I talked to her and M about that.  I asked them if they could explain what division is, which with the help of some of examples, they described as sharing.  I agreed that this was one way to look at it, but suggested that you can also see it as how many times you can take a number away from a total.  I asked what happens when you divide a number by 1/2 and after some thought, K said that you would get a bigger number and with some examples both girls seemed to get it.

M was somewhat moany this afternoon and didn't like any of my suggestions for things to do, so I told her that I was going to look at a book and she could join me if she liked, but that I was going to look at it anyway.  I chose this book and she rather grumpily snuggled up next to me, but did engage for quite a while before we got side-tracked.  Before then, however, we talked about patterns, algebra, shapes, different symbols for writing numbers (Roman numeral - on our clock, Chinese symbols - on our mahjong set) and the importance of zero for the system we use now.  When we got to square numbers, M decided she wanted to play 'a square game', so she drew a grid of dots and we played the game where you link adjacent dots and try to complete squares, when you put your initial inside it and whoever has the most wins.  From there M wanted to play 'man', this is remarkably like 'hangman', but neither of my girls like the idea of the hanging part, so, instead of the gallows, we just do a more detailed drawing of the man.  We also had a couple of games of Forbidden Island. 

Next week is 'bring a friend' week at korfball and M had decided she'd like to ask A, who lives across the road, so we popped over to give her the invitation and stopped for a play and a cuppa, before coming home for tea and then K had Scouts.  She has decided that she would like to go to the district camp over the May Bank Holiday, having had a look at the email about it and seen that archery is one of the activities.  While she was at Scouts, M, A & I watched David Attenborough's Natural History Museum Alive that I recorded a while back.