Happy New Year...I hope

Well, here we are. 2012. Last year was a bit manic in some places and calm and lovely in others. We had a good Christmas with lots of visting, lots of visitors, lovely food and too much alcohol. (That bit was me, not the kids). For the first time in my life, I realise that I have to do exercise to keep in shape and maybe stop eating quite as much chocolate and cheese as I have this last month :0(
Anyway, in the spirit of new year, new beginnings, we're back into learning mode with new enthusiasm - from me at least. Actually, we're always in learning mode, but in our house, when I say, 'Let's get back to work' it means 'Let's get the maths books out'. And so we did, yesterday, for the first time in what seems like ages. They behaved as if it has been ages too even though it's probably only been two weeks. My maths-head Boy seems to have forgotten how to add up one digit numbers but can spot multiplication/division connections at ten paces. The Girl, meanwhile, seems to have forgotten every single times table going and wants to reread Sir Cumference and the First Round Table and get on with some Geometry. I think she's a bit fed up of the section she's been doing in her book and wants something with more pictures. It all got ever so slightly emotional for a few minutes there and reminded me why we don't do school holidays.
Personally, I wanted to go easy after that so I picked a new Five in a Row book to do. Easier for me that is because it's all planned out for me and they enjoy the stories and activities too :0) We're rowng The Duchess Bakes a Cake and learning lots about castles as we go. I'm thinking a visit to the Royal Armouries might be in order either later this week or sometime next week. I'll do a more detailed post about this row when we've finished it :)
They both got some science kits for Christmas (thank you Father Christmas and our lovely friends) so today -after maths and FIAR - they got a couple of them out and they started to make fish eggs and perfume. This involved lots of shaking containers - while watching Merlin..... (goes with the castles, see?) In fact, one solution took so long, we're waiting for it to dissolve overnight as an alternative to my poor Boy shaking his arm off for 20 minutes or more .... both options being given in the instructions which we didn't realise until I read to the bottom of the page and he'd been trying to get all the powder to dissolve for a whole episode...
Boykin has therefore announced that he's doing science BEFORE maths tomorrow - so there ;0)

After that, we went for a swim. (See, I was serious about the exercise thing.) Well, actually it was a fun swim. Which was lots of fun but didn't really involve lots of swimming. Ho-hum!

Things they want to do this year:
A cooking/food/gardening project
More workboxes
More Science
Less History (I don't think so!)
Less Maths (No Way!)
More swimming and walking (Yes!)