First Day :: Sick Day

If my mum was here with us she would be saying, "Well, I'm not surprised!"  Take one lone driver, a whole heap of packing and sorting, one crazy full on week and a long term health problem and you have an interesting combination :-)  Since arriving back my health has taken a dip and I'm currently dealing with an age old problem of fever, swollen glands and a painful throat.  High doses of vitamin C, garlic and echinacea are helping to keep things manageable, so we did actually manage to complete our studies today.

Pip worked on adding "ing" to verbs and the rules surrounding this concept, such as a word ending in e as in bake, the e is dropped to make baking.  A short vowel sound followed by a consonant changes from hop to hopping.  She also undertook the challenge of correcting the misspelt words in addition to writing sentences of her own. 

 In maths she was working with subtraction of numbers in their hundreds which also required borrowing.  I had to learn a new way of doing things since they don't teach maths in the same way when I was a kid!  Now I really do sound old :-)  She did really well and was able to crack the word code at the end of the page.  

She too was under the weather with sneezing, a runny nose and complaining of a headache on and off throughout the day.  At one point she lay down for a short mid afternoon nap.

Benedict worked incredibly hard.  We have chosen an Oak Meadow curriculum for him this year and so he had four subjects to tackle, english, maths, ancient civilisations and life sciences.  The lessons are displayed in an easy to read and use format with a mixture of desk and practical activities.  One of his assignments was to make a map of Africa, Asia and Europe with all the water bodies named in between and a compass rose on the bottom right hand side.  We have a wall map in the hallway and so we blu tacked tracing paper to the image and he set to, drawing around the outline:

 It is getting increasingly harder to take snap shots of him, so it is a case of grab them while we can!

A much needed chicken soup was served for lunch, jewish penicillin for sure.  I also made chicken curry with rice for tea followed by apple and blackberry crumble.  Apples from our garden and blackberries foraged by a friend on her prayer walk by the canal path.  Tradition states that the berries have to be picked by St Michaelmas otherwise the devil spits on them!  My friend shared a lovely story of her eldest daughter aged two who loved being out in the fresh air, the little one remembered a blackberry picking trip a few days previous and on a seemingly miserable day, tottered up to her mum and said, " Go a cunky side and pick a byer!!"  Translated as, " Go to the countryside and pick blackberries!!"  That youngster is now a young woman who works as a ranger for the national parks :-)

My last job for the day was to meet with another guider for the purposes of an online application for DBS clearance, which means I will be checked to ensure I have no dodgy past that would affect my working with children.  Needless to say it is all a formality but once the checks have been completed, I will then begin my Leader in Training course for Pip's Brownie troop.  Upon arriving home I spent a good half hour trying to ascertain the burning smell that was emanating from the front room!  Benedict and Dave joined in the search but to no avail and the smoke alarm has remained quiet, so here's hoping all is well :-)