Motivational Issues

I took no photos today! That's a shame - but it was just more of the same. It would have been shots of the children sitting round the dining table. Jigsaws would have featured, as would have maths work.

We started with violin as usual. Francesca is MUCH better at getting on with it, on her own, this week. She even shuts the door to keep out the little ones. However, there was a long period of inactivity before we heard the first notes of the scale. Goodness knows what she was doing but it threw her whole morning off schedule.

I had told her she could have my phone to watch something on YouTube as a treat, if she got her violin, maths and English done before lunch. Alas, she was only part way through maths by the time my tummy was rumbling and Sebastian was crying for his dinner.

Francesca had a cry about not getting her treat but at least she has experienced the real consequences of her inaction. I really need her to see for herself that procrastination doesn't pay off. I should know - I'm great at procrastination myself(!)

Elizabeth got loads done. Apart from the usual selection of jigsaws, she also opted to do another phonics sheet - phonemes o and c/k - and the corresponding page in her phonics workbook. Then she read a new reading book and I was pleased to see her really sounding out some of the words. Progress!!

Francesca continued with adding and subtracting 10 to the point where she can just about do it in her head, given sufficient peace and quiet. When Seymour tested her later, she got stuck on 90+10. We've not practised crossing the '100' border - only working with two- or three-digit numbers, separately. She's confident at reading three-digit numbers now, which is great. She's definitely come on this week and we know that we have to take the lesson a bit further to discover what happens at ninety-something plus ten. I'm thinking a number line might be useful, with a bit of card ten numbers long, to place on the line - where are the bottom and top edges of the 'ten'?

For English, at Francesca's request (mentioned over breakfast) she made a page of homophones. After I had mentioned homophones a while back but not succeeded in doing a formal lesson on them, she has been spotting many homophones in daily life. At breakfast she said she would like a special bit of lined paper to write down all the homophones she thinks of. And so, she made one in her English book. She's only added four homophone pairs so far, but more will be added later.

Francesca was excited to do more of her typing tutorial but didn't get much time on that, since the other tasks had taken so long. I pointed out to her that if she had finished her violin, maths and English in the morning, as requested, she would have had time in the afternoon to check her mould experiment, paint her Russian doll (another unfulfilled wish of today) and do more typing. I hope this is all sinking in, albeit slowly.

I feel ok about the amount of 'work' covered today and I feel great about the progress I can see over the whole week. At this stage, there's a lot of 'testing' going on between her and I. What can she cope with? What can she get away with? Once we work out a balance, things will move faster, perhaps.