First day back

Sort of a productive day yesterday, although the kids had several fights. We read some history. (I need to make our next time line; we have come to the end of the Classical period and are about to start reading about the early Middle Ages.) Josiah and Tessa made lists of everyone they'd like to make Christmas cards for. This may seem terribly well organised; it's just that if it's left till the end of term, Josiah, who doesn't enjoy writing, will have a miserable time getting them all done, whereas if he does one a week, he is likely to have fun. He likes to make cards on Inkscape, taking considerable time over them.

Tessa began work on her Christmas cards immediately, making two beautiful cards, and went on to write postcards to her penpal and her cousins in Nelson while Josiah wrote his climbing diary. Their big plan for the day was to finish recording the sound for their Lego stop motion movie. I'm not sure whether they succeeded or not; they certainly spent a long time speaking into the microphone at the computer but I think for much of that they were just making weird noises to see what they would sound like when played back.

Today Josiah is at his Technicraft Class. I've read with Tessa from a book about writing and from a couple of history books of her choosing. She rejected at first my suggestion to play the Multiplication Snake Game for times tables practice but when I got it out myself to practise the presentation, she joined in and seemed to derive mild enjoyment from it. My next plan for Tessa's maths is to present some activities with negative numbers.