A Break Does You Wonders Sometimes!

Eve picked these beautiful flowers and foliage from our garden for me....

We didn't intend to take a break..... lessons were planned but we all needed to not do school for a week! For starters, I had a deadline to get my Montessori 3-6 years teaching practice file completed and posted by Friday 3rd June, involving 5am starts and 11pm bedtimes! For seconds, we all had funny viral symptoms and Dewi and I felt exhausted and lethargic and the children were just 'not right'. School is never very productive when Eve isn't on top form and I am not superwoman and cannot do everything so we took a break!

I got my file completed and posted by 10am Thursday 2nd and by then we were all over the virus so spent the morning with friends at a country park, and then the afternoon chewing the fat with some home ed mums I met a few months ago! On Friday the hot sunny weather returned so we made our first trip of the season to Tettenhall paddling pool. Paddling pool doesn't really do It justice to be honest, it is HUGE, and about 80cm deep in the middle, surrounded by lovely grass and big mature trees for shade. I had invested in a camping chair to sit in and spent my time shuffling backwards into the rotating shade of the trees, whilst sewing! The girls had requested dolly swimming costumes so I cobbled two together from an old swimming costume of Faith's. A fairly Frankenstein effort truth be told but the girls were happy with the outcome!!

The funny thing about taking a break from school is that I have had loads of solid ideas about educational activities and plans that have been pottering around in the back of my brain for ages. They have just come to me one after the other and I can't wait to get going!

The other amazing thing is that Eve has begun to spontaneously pick up a book and read. She read to Faith in the car on the way back from a swimming lesson and then read all the way from the car to the door, then into the kitchen! She made some leaps that I have been waiting for, such as putting in a sensible guess at a word when she can't work it out, tackling some huge words and splitting them up into syllables. I was so blown away and happy for her. Her bed is always full of books and I often catch her looking at them after 'lights out' but haven't the heart to tell her off as I love it that she does this.... I always used to and I don't want to squash the secret joy of clandestine reading in bed! I found her another book of the type that she had read to Faith and when I gave it to her she said 'oh Mummy, it's just perfect!'..... I smile every time I think of it!!