Hello my lovelies :-)  How is everyone today?

Today has for us been mostly about Make Your Own Adventure stories.  Read this FABULOUS Rubik's Quest book with DS - he absolutely LOVED it! 

We read the whole entire adventure and he was so enthusiastic about answering all the questions and was totally gripped by the story and it's interactive-ness.  I really cannot rate it highly enough.  For a reluctant reader, and some-one who struggles with the formalised concept of 'studying' - this book was a total breath of fresh air.  We bought our set of 4 from The Book People The Book People/ Rubiks Quest Challenge books.  They also have a Geography set (The Book People/ Geography Quest book set) and an Adventure set (The Book People/ Adventure Quest book set), both of which I've ordered this evening (at little more than £1 per book I couldn't resist!).

Apart from this today, the kids have been working on their project books.  I was just about to jump in the shower when DS pipes up "Mu-um can I 'av a project book? I t'ink I am old enough now. (DD) have explained it to me, I know what to do!"  Bless him :-)  For those of you that read my blog, I've mentioned before that I bought some fab project books from Wilko's (Wilko's - A5 Project Books) - essentially they are simple A5 spiral bound books of lined paper, already divided in to sections you can label yourself.  I bought one for DD as I wanted to encourage her to 'self study' rather than rely on me to 'teach' her all the time (this has come more naturally over time, but on first leaving the school system she was very reliant on sitting and being told what to do - all day, every day).  So I bought her a project book and told her she could choose what ever subjects she liked, and use our research books, the library and the computer to research and fill up each section.  There's no time limit. She can do it as, and when, she likes.  I don't 'mark' it (that's not the point of it) but I do have a read through every now and then to see what she's doing.  The idea being that she develops a self-motivated love of learning, and along the way discovers for herself what interests her (and what doesn't :-) ).  It's working great so far.  So this morning DS decided to start one too, his first section being on - 

:-)

DD has already filled 4 sections of hers - Wolves & Dogs, Cooking, Sea Life & Science Experiments to date.  Today she started a general Animals section (as they had the animal encyclopedias out) - but also so she could write about her beloved Meerkats (her favourite animal - she genuinely adores them and cannot stand those Compare the Meerkat adverts! She likes actual Meerkats lol). 

In the afternoon we went to DD's Creative Writing class.  Such a lovely group of kids and a truly wonderful tutor. I'll be really sad when the course ends. And DS sat beautifully for the whole hour playing with his Warhammer figures. It's so good for him to be able to sit in that environment, just be around the learning and not forced to take part, he can just sit and do his own thing and that's fine.  Wonderful. 

I'm so grateful for these opportunities.  I'm not about comparisons, or school-bashing, I'm really not.  But I can't help but sing the praises of wonderful days like this.  I'm so in love with my kids.  I'm so enjoying sharing their precious childhood with them. This week I've read lots of dear friends posts wishing half term didn't have to end, that their kids didn't have to go back to school, the tears and tantrums and sleepless nights over it.  I'm not criticizing, I truly am not. That was me, I was living that life and writing those posts, for what felt like sooooooo long, and I'm glad I'm not now. That's all I'm saying. I'm glad I'm not now. Peace out y'all xxxxxx