Educationals, Creative Writing, Pools, Book Club

Weekend 31st Aug and 1st Sept
Mostly relaxing weekend after the massive workload, bath, films, wine, laziness! Oh yes...

Monday 2nd 
Quite a lot of Very Home-Ed got done, as in use of the new textbooks and workbooks for French and Maths (times in French, multiples and factors in Maths), plus a bit of poetry exploration and handwriting practice, using an extract from this poem by Billy Collins. Talked about the images of freshness, fleetingness, in this bit:
"You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.
However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air."

Also Freya had a bath and I read her my poem that I had posted on Facebook late the night before and lots of people had been kind enough to 'like'.
It was J's first Monday now he is going back to 5-day weeks, but at least we were able to watch Star Trek: Into Darkness and had houmous salad wraps and chips for tea.
Tuesday 3rd
Freya had creative writing group (Little Green Pig) starting up again (we have a few transitional weeks before everything gets going here), think she had a good session, she read me her story and I liked it, she has lovely use of language sometimes, excellent vocabulary.
Afterwards, she went shopping with 2 friends and bought a onesie, then met me in the coffee shop. We had a look in a new shop in Lewes that sells cards, stationery, bath bombs, toys, games, craft kits, storage boxes, all sorts.
Back home we watched Despicable Me and Great British Bake Off, think that was the night that J went for a lie down after dinner and fell asleep and stayed there! He was so tired.

Wednesday 4th
A day at home, Freya and I tried a dip in our pool in the afternoon as the air temperature was proper August hot still, but the water said September, possibly October or November. Got in but neither of us really got past the goosebumpy stage. Still felt a good thing to do, don't know why that is.
I put up our wall planner! Have never had one before, but things get very busy, so seems a good idea so we can all see what we're up to. It's filling up already as various start dates and possibles are confirmed.

Thursday 5th
Posted another poem on Facebook, becoming a bit of a habit!
Lovely afternoon at Pells Pool with a few other families for last splash of summer as temperatures were around 26 degrees and unlikely to get that again this year now. I didn't go in, but had lots of good chats sitting in sunshine.
Back home I did my preparation for Book Club next day.

Friday 6th
Book Club was the opening session of Friday Club. Some families are away or had other plans so we only had 7 girls. Fortunately they brought the energy of 20 so it was a great, lively session.
We started with general "what did you do over summer?" discussion of any particular trips/holidays/special days they had enjoyed. PGL came up from the 4 there that had been, which was good to see. Favourites other than that were mainly camping trips. Next we talked about what we had read, although I have just realized I didn't join in on that, and should have done. 
Then we had an early break for snackage and chat.
In the second section, we played a complicated game about the Harry Potter books (Harry Potter theme was requested by N, whose birthday it was, and seemed a good thing to do for our first session, wanting to keep it fun and light), involving Harry Potter bingo, simultaneously played with various randomized options of Harry Potter anagrams, charades and True or false questions. All of which scored Meaningless Points, which are always popular. It was lovely that everyone seemed to feel able to get straight into taking part, they were in small groups so that helped I think.
They also did a logic puzzle (the potions riddle from the first book, as solved by Hermione) and finished the Harry Potter section with more charades.
Then it was time to move on to finding out what our next theme was going to be, and our next book choice. They had to remember the last 9 charades/act-outs that they had done and put them in order and the first letters of each would then spell out the theme:
Gryffindor
Ravenclaw
Owl
Wand
Invisibility
Nimbus 2000
Giant

Unicorn
Platform nine and three-quarters

Between them all, working together, they soon got that, and we had a good brief introductory chat about the topic, thoughts and feelings about growing up and what it means to them. Then finally they took it in turns to pick jigsaw paper pieces and text reviews out of a cup to find out what the 3 book options would be ("Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret" by Judy Blume, "Every soul a star" by Wendy Mass and "Geek Girl" by Holly Smales)
Hoping they find some good stuff in those and looking forward to next time!

Poor J, as well as having done 5-day week, with days that weren't as short as they were meant to be, is working Sunday this weekend and next too. Not easy!
Curry is on its way, might open wine.