Wednesday…

A morning of normals: Singapore Maths first for J and M, a revision exercise which turned out to be more English than Maths for M as it involved putting numbers from words into digits and vice versa. After a few instances of fivety and similar I got K to write out the numbers from one to twenty, then thirty, forty and so on up to one hundred, one thousand and one million. For K it counted as Maths and handwriting practice, so he was happy, and the resulting poster is now on the kitchen wall for M’s future reference 😉 Meanwhile L opted for Music Theory
J did Tutpup on the computer for a bit, L played the piano, K and M played the Loto game M had brought as a present for K when he came, and then M joined J in playing on the computer while K piano-ed. And then we had a snack and I threw them all outside, where J remembered that we had a fresh coconut waiting to be opened by whatever means necessary (although I did remove the cold chisel and offer an old screwdriver instead 🙂 )
I had a parcel to collect from PO (possibly M’s piano music and medical card; equally likely to be some nice BF tops for me) but somehow never managed to round up enough children at any one time to get there. Finishing off the online shop I’d started yesterday didn’t help, either…

Crumpets for lunch, then Ryvita when the crumpets ran out – not easy to explain what either of those are, but M seemed to like them anyway 😉 While we waiting for the crumpets to toast we did the first couple of lessons from Latin for Homeschoolers (there’s been a lot about it on the local list recently so I thought we’d have a look – we got as far as nauta sum/sum nauta and even ego sum nauta/nauta sum ego/ego nauta sum) and then it was time to get everyone into the car to take K for his long-awaited, eagerly anticipated first cello lesson. I obviously didn’t quite manage to convey the sense of hurry to M, as we found him sitting happily in the annexe playing a toy guitar while the rest of us were running round like headless chickens looking for him in the house 😆 Still, we were only 30 seconds late, so not too bad, and E was going first so K got to sit and watch her lesson before he had to worry about his own. We passed Gina on the way and A said with great joy, “It’s Gina! I love Gina!” which boded well for getting her to stay at Baby Music with Gina while I nipped back to watch the end of K’s lesson and get some idea of what he’d been learning – helpful given that I know even less about cellos than I do about violins! I don’t think a week has gone by without A asking if it was time for her baby music, so it was slightly annoying that she spent much of the time asking for Mummy milk 🙁 I guess it takes a while to settle back in, even when it’s something you love and have been dreaming of doing again! M and J did Draw Write Now while A, L and I were in the class, or at least I think they did; I haven’t actually checked their books yet 😕 Next time I need to get organised and take something along which they can do with the other J as well, but for now it seemed best to have something where M knows exactly what he’s doing without needing any help. His handwriting is beautiful (and very French) – I’m hoping it will rub off on J 😉

Gina had a gap after that so came back to ours for a cup of tea and a quick chat, which was lovely both for the chance to chat and for M to meet E and J – we do such a lot with them that it’s good to have an informal meeting first, then tomorrow he will have a few friendly faces before being thrown headlong into the Victorian day at Tots and Nots. I think J and J must have got their heads together at one point, as M came and did his piano practice – I’m glad he felt able to do that rather than just sitting and feeling that he had to join in, or worse, feeling left out.

After Gina had gone I suggested to J that they could get out a science kit and by chance (or design?) he chose one on flying (I think an older version of this) and he and L started to put together some of the bits. I went out to help and L invited M and K to join us, but apparently they both said Science was boring… only to wander down a few minutes later to see what was going on and then get completely drawn into what we were doing 🙂 A loves balloons, so the simple experiment of blowing up a balloon and then letting it go was a thing of great joy to her, while M was fascinated by the air screws. K was upset that L and J had already made the 2 planes, so he helped me with the kite instead, and then they all went off to the field to throw flying discs, try to get the kite airborne, whoosh the planes around and twirl the airscrews without fear of landing them in the roses where the spiders are (M learned that word very early on; there are a lot of spiders about this year and he doesn’t like any of them!) while I got tea. While they ate we talked about the science behind the kit – why did each bit fly? J didn’t quite agree with the kit explanations – I think he has read up more about it than they included – so we may need to look into it a bit more deeply soon. At least it fitted well with the sycamore helicopters from the other day 😉

Unfortunately Bob was held up at work, which made things very tight for getting M and J to Cubs. We were about to set off en famille (as it were) when he finally made it home, with 2 minutes to get there and a 10 minute walk to accomplish in that time. Just as well, really, as Bob was down to be a parent helper for that session anyway. They ran and managed to only be about 5 minutes late! It was a games session, which apparently M really enjoyed, although he had trouble explaining to some of the others that he didn’t know how to play French cricket even though he was French… J liked the baby lacrosse they did, and it gave me a chance to reminisce about my schooldays 🙂
L just managed to keep her promise to Christina by squeezing in some violin practice before bed, but decided to leave reading until tomorrow, as she was getting tired and crabby and that’s always a bad way to start, we find. K had computer time, which made L stroppy until I suggested she could do Tutpup while K read to me, and she won the first two games she played 🙂
J and M got in and ate a second tea while we talked a bit about M’s time here so far. He said swimming was good, grinned hugely when I asked about violin and whether he would like to carry on, grinned even more hugely about gymnastics and nodded vigorously for Cubs. Presumably we’ve got the activities fairly well fitted to his likes then 🙂
Quick violin practice for the big boys (I had to persuade M to stop :lol:) and then Bob took them up to bed, where he usually takes a few minutes with M to look through his English book, but I think tonight decided sleep was more important.
Oh and we have a letter to M’s family to post tomorrow morning, which he produced this afternoon and which reminded me that I need to email Jacques and let him know how we’re getting on. I’m assuming that if there were any problems M would have told me (although I have been trying very hard to stick to the “I don’t understand French any more” he still knows he could speak to me in French if necessary; I just might pretend not to understand 😉 ) but there’s still that slight feeling of what if he’s just bottling it all up (as his maman said he tends to keep things to himself)… I’m sure Jacques will tell us of there’s anything we need to know though…