Still going...

It's fortunate that there are no penalties for late starts in our 'school', because we didn't manage our agreed start time today, because M & I popped to the Co-op for some bits and pieces before we settled down to work this morning. 

We started off with looking at M's latest installment of our shared story, which was rather shorter than her first one, but very accurate with no spelling mistakes and just one random capital letter which M found herself when I suggested she check it.  She's still insisting on writing letters with tails above the line, so I got her to write a few g's, j's, p's, q's and y's, which she did a bit reluctantly.  I don't think there's a lot of point in persuing this for the moment, so we'll leave it for now.  I quickly added my installment, because M wanted to carry on and then she wrote some more while sitting in the garden while I hung the washing out. 

While we were doing this, K was continuing with her grammar workbook.  We talked a bit about it on the way to the park, while M was having her piano lesson.  She is still very reluctant to let me have a look, but did tell me about a mistake that she'd made, but spotted herself, when she initially filled in 'an owl' in the sentence 'As fierce as ______.', because the next sentence was 'As wise as ______'.  In the course of the conversation about the workbooks I explained that I wanted to see what she was doing as well as how she was doing and asked what topics came up.  So she pointed out that she'd already told me about one of them, 'smiles'.  I was initially slightly puzzled, but it clicked very quickly that she meant 'similes' and we both laughed about it, but she's insisting on continuing to call them smiles!  I also took the opportunity to talk about the difference between similes and metaphors. 

K at the park.

M turned her ankle yesterday, I'm not entirely sure how, as she was on her way to the bathroom at the time, so I bandaged it up for her today because she was still hobbling this morning.  I don't think it needed it, but it made her feel better.  She was very grumpy when I said it would be better to stay and play a game while K had her piano lesson though.

Before piano, we continued with our book and also read another section of the guidebook I bought at Kentwell, about Tudor gentry.

After lunch, the girls were helping with dry up, when our friends E, C, L & J arrived.  We often go to the park when the weather's nice, but unfortunately J has an unfunny broken humerus, so partly because he couldn't really go on things like the others we didn't today.  I was let into a secret today (which I had already worked out pretty much), that K, M, C and a couple of other plans are planning another play to perform at Asfordby.  M has been working on her costume over the past few days and that and some questions that the girls had asked me had given me clues as to what it might be.  While the girls shut themselves away to work on this, E, the boys and I had a game of Forbidden Island. 

After they'd left K & M told me a bit more about the plans for the play they're doing and how parts had been allocated, which didn't sound entirely fair.  We had a bit of a chat about friendships generally and standing up for themselves when someone insists on always getting their way.

Thursday evenings is Scouts for K, so she went off to that (we lift share with friends and neighbours).  Happily A was home at a reasonable time this evening, and at M's request, the two of them went to the park and played some cricket.  He's been ridiculously busy and stressed with work lately and that's not going to change for the next couple of weeks at least and he's going to be in Berlin for most of next week, so it was really good that he managed to find time for this, because M really struggles when she doesn't get quality time with him.  They both came home smiling and a bit hot and sweaty, which was really lovely to see.