Literacy - Opening Sentence Mystery Game

Can't believe I have only taken one photo today. I've been so busy. We crammed a lot in. I suppose I didn't have time to stop and take pics.

Anyway, here it is:

There. Bet that brightened your day. I probably brightens Auntie Becca's day, at least, since that's the Christmas present she gave to Francesca. It's a mirror mosaic. We've started sticking the tiles!

Elizabeth went to playgroup with a friend this morning (who also brought her back) so I didn't have to go anywhere/spend time walking there and back. Thus, Francesca and I did loads of things.

She started with violin, with hardly any fuss at all. Then we did Maths but I didn't tell her it was maths - we just played a game called "Shut The Box" (another Christmas present) that involved plenty of addition. After a while we played Fox and Geese. Not sure if that counts as actual Maths but it was fun (until Francesca lined all her geese up round the edge of the board and none of them 'dared' to come out. Urgh. I quit.)

Then for English, we played the Sentence Mystery Game. I chose "The Enormous Crocodile" by Roald Dahl and showed Francesca just one word at a time. After each word, we thought of several options for what word could come next and jotted down our ideas. After the entire first sentence was revealed, I helped Francesca to write her own. She (we?) came up with:

"In a big, fat house at the top of the tallest, steepest hill in London, there lived an enormous, greedy, scary crocodile. He liked to eat children."

Not bad, eh? And she's already planning the next bit of the story, so at last, we have some enthusiasm for creative writing (although it has to be said that I did the actual writing - she's written a lot of thank you cards this week...) [Edit - We develop our story more here]

Once the 'work' was done, Francesca chose to do some of her mosaic and also asked me to read the rest of "The Enormous Crocodile". Then Elizabeth arrived back and it was lunchtime.

This afternoon's activity was swimming! Much excitement all round. A kind friend came with us, to help, otherwise it's not easy/safe for me to be in the pool with all three little ones, on my own. Someone always has to hold Sebastian and that doesn't leave any spare arms for teaching swimming to the girls. Within a few minutes my friend had them both swimming with their arms out in front, holding a float. Progress!