Dance breaks and the importance of ice-cream

7am…….. of course!

BIg, who is an incredibly precocious Just-Turned-9-Year-Old, went into full over-achiever mode and began her school work independantly at 7am. I mean, who wouldn’t do that, on the first day of the Easter Holidays that you’ve voluntarily given up to extra school-work?!?! Me. I wouldn’t.

Our day officially began somewhat later, after several hitches in signing in to various websites for the first time (Mostly because SOMEONE may have written down the passwords in the wrong order…..) After a fair few maths lessons with Oak Academy (FREE!!) on the computer by Big, while I scrambled to set up the ipads that I had planned for them to use while I worked on the computer and Small practiced her number and letter recognition alongside refining her dexterity and fine motor skills………ok, ok, she was doing a crystal colour-by-numbers thingy! We swapped, and Small took over the computer, with Big switching to the old laptop I had remembered was hidden down behind the sofa! At this point we discovered that Small’s propensity for frustration had NOT improved in recent months. After a short bout of ignored histrionics she eventually managed to regulate herself and came right back and not only finished the Ed-Place (Also FREE!!!!!) multiplication lesson she was doing, but then restarted it from the very beginning getting everything correct and steaming through another two ( with another short diversion to watch crows raising water levels on youtube like GENIUSES which is one of my favourite things ever) This was ALL worth the fuss when she walked up to me with a yoghurt at lunchtime and proudly shoved her spoon in her yoghurt beaming with “LOOK, the level rises because of the space taken up by the spoon!”

Meanwhile Big spent her time powering through ALL OF THE THINGS on Twinkl. Puzzle central. With the odd dance-break when a good song came on! She was absolutely stoked that I had let her turn off the classical music that I had on in the background (I’m sure I read somewhere once that Mozart was supposed to make you intelligent?!?) and allowed her own playlist. Which to be fair, is brilliant. I was concerned that having catchy tunes and lyrics that we knew would be distracting, but when she said that she usually finds it so much easier to concentrate on things that way, I realised that I was completely allowed to change the plan- that was literally the point! So this genius move encouraged both girls to sit and focus entirely on their work, nd then when the odd banger came on they jumped up, danced intensively until the end of the song, and then SAT STRAIGHT BACK DOWN and carried on with NO prompting. Whaaaaaat? When thinking about it, this is a totally text-book way of managing ADHD, which she will be being assessed for in the very near future. It’s almost like kids actually understand their needs intuitively a lot better than we give them credit for.

Project time.

As planned, our afternoon was spent on our “Projects”. Big had decided that she wanted to start work on what I had called “Plan a Holiday…Convince Dad” so we spent a chill afternoon raiding the house for any travel related books, and then went into town to buy ingredients for Small’s “Nest Cakes” project. (Accidentally-on-purpose tricked her into making her own birthday cake- which saved me a job after bedtime!!) At which point we decided to check out what there might be at the local library.

While the girls went off exploring, I talked the librarians into giving me a new Teacher account, allowing up to 40 books at a time, 59 day loan period and no late return fees! It took a little convincing on my part, because I had looked into it online last week – the actual Librarian had no idea that it was even an option. Or how to actually work the computer…..it took quite a while, but totally worth nagging for! I also asked about Home-Ed clubs, which they were clueless about – why aren’t people using the library anymore?!?! Having said that, there were at least 7 other people in there working or researching while we were, which I actually thought was impressive.

Ten minute lifesaver?!

The Ten Minute Tidy Alarm idea that I implemented worked amazingly! I had thought that it would be useful, as boring chores always lead to whining, aching stomachs, toilet trips and tears, and the added level of chaos contributed by active learning all day genuinely fills me with dread. However the second that alarm went off, all three of us started running around like loons until the end buzzer went off- and the place is STILL tidier than it was when we started this morning! I had planned two or three, but since we were out whe those went off, I just silenced them. I can do that.

Do you know what I can also do? Take a detour on the way back from the library to walk up the cliff and eat ice cream overlooking the sparkling sea. Because there’s no deadline, no 3pm clock chime, nothing. We can stop and eat ice-cream whenever we like.

Now I’m off to hide presents for tomorrow morning, you, go and check out your library!!