Tangrams, A Story and The Best Marble Run Ever

Sebastian was feeling better today. He ate breakfast and he left my side. I'd go so far as to say he went off and played by himself. I do believe we even heard some singing. But then again, I heard him singing when I was on the phone to NHS Direct in the middle of the night when he had a temperature of 39.9^oC, so all we can probably conclude from the singing is that he has musical tendencies.

Elizabeth went out all day. Thank you, Thank You kind, lovely friend.

And Francesca...

Speaking of musical tendencies, it was time to do some violin practice. She started her morning promptly... by building a fantastic Duplo house. Yes, quite.

I was distracted, of course, by Sebastian, teeth washing, putting away the breakfast things and, heaven forbid, my own cup of tea.

Francesca said she simply couldn't start violin without me. A likely story(!) And then she was so engrossed in her house-build, I let her finish it. But that was a mistake.

After that, she grudgingly got out the violin and said it would be better if I just left her to it. Which I didn't, of course. There followed an ugly half an hour complete with fully dramatised eye-rolling, sighing and the customary foot stomping, during which she played two scales and about 16 bars of music, pretty well, actually. Eventually.

She IS improving. All this effort is paying off.

Even so, it was a relief to be able to move on to English.

Francesca continued her story. She has set herself the task of writing a story based on "You Are Special" by Max Lucardo.

She is at pains to point out that she is not copying. She has, indeed, changed some of the names and she is writing from a different perspective. Anyway, I'm delighted that she has decided to do some writing and today she has added two more sentences. "I was going to do three but this one's a really long one."

Not sure if you can read this but look how much she's done! I'm really impressed with her effort on this task. It's lovely to see her motivated.

We could really do with a margin down that page, couldn't we?!

After that, it was Maths. First, Francesca used the Mental Maths app on my phone to practise her 2x and 5x tables. I really think she's getting the hang of it! Then I gave her some tangrams to try.

She really took to it. I thought she would be defeated when she found it challenging but she kept on trying and she did succeed.

After lunch it was art with Abuelita, in which more amazing masterpieces were produced. Sorry, no pics yet.

When Elizabeth came home, we built the Tallest Marble Run Ever - it was so tall, some of us had to stand on furniture to reach the top.