The kids woke up soon after that and we had breakfast and watched a little TV. The weather started out ok but throughout the day we were hit with spurts of rain. The house seemed cold because of the dark skies.
After breakfast we moved away from the TV. I had the kids get books and we started by reading some of these. Paige read a few books to us and I read some to the kids. Mathew does not like to sit down and do anything constructive. He would rather sit and stare at the TV all day or be outside riding his bike. It is a fight to get him to do much in the way of school work for me. He needs someone that is not his parent to set structure with him for learning.
After reading, I broke out the notebook. I had him practicing writing the letters F-M in upper and lower case. I think it is important to refresh his brain with some of the things he learned last year especially since they are going to be starting school after the other kids here in England. Paige worked on some more Math work.
Then we moved onto something more fun. We played the learning bingo. This is the kind of learning Mathew likes. Hands on. He does best this way. Paige of course is always up for anything so it is never a problem with her. We played 4 different games of bingo and the kids both won multiple games.
After bingo, we made lunch. The kids decided they want soup and for some reason our hand can opener did not get shipped to England. So it has been a chore to open things as I keep forgetting to grab one each time we go to the store. Instead of using a can opener, I used a bottle/ juice opener. Not the easiest thing to do but Hey, it worked! Of course it open just enough to get the juice out and then it took some shaking and prying to get the noodles out of the can.
The kids then were sent outside before it started to rain for some fresh air. Paige went on a scavenger hunt and found some neat rocks and some empty snail shells. We have been finding snails around the apple tree and the bushes in the back yard and a few empty shells. Mathew went straight to his bike and started riding around the perimeter of the house. He could do this hundreds of times and not get bored with it. While they were outside I sat in the conservatory and watched them. You could hear the rain start falling onto the top of the conservatory but you could barely see it falling onto the kids or onto the back deck. It is amazing how much noise a little rain can cause. But soon it turned into more rain and so it was time to come in.
Once inside we started with History lessons. I had Paige look up Queen Elizabeth and read about her a little but then she wanted to look up something else so I told her to look up the Heroes of Troy. Another thing she will be learning about in school here. She was much more interested in this because she found a website that told the story to music and pictures. If you know Paige, if it has to do with singing she is all about it!
Soon after this Mat was on his way home. The kids picked up the house and did what they wanted until dinner was ready and when Mat came home, we all sat down and ate. One good thing about Mat's schedule is that he is home for dinner each night. He might be gone 12 hours a day or more but with his early schedule it makes it nice to be able to sit down with the kids, say prayers together, and have a nice conversation over dinner.
After dinner, we had our nightly snuggle and movie on the couch before everyone headed to bed. Paige settled in with one of her books that she has been reading each night and Mathew and I snuggled in with a few books to read, "In a People House", "God Made Me", and "Bears on Wheels." Once we read these I tucked him in with his favorite book " The King, The Mice, and The Cheese." Both kids had a few more minutes to read so I left their lights on and headed downstairs for a bit. Mat was already in bed when I came back down. After cleaning up from dinner, I went and turned lights off.
All in all it was a pretty normal day. Nothing fabulous or exciting, just an everyday kind of day!
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