It was the last day of the local art group’s art exhibition yesterday, so I decided that we were going to make it down there, and organised a family walk out. Beautiful weather – very sunny and hot again. Kids were slightly displeased about being dragged away from the ‘puter but not too grotty about it and we made it there by mid morning.
Lots of pictures to look at! Well over 200. When I glanced through the catalogue later it appears they have over 60 members. Couldn’t work out if they have a children’s section, so left my details to get further information – am very aware that Small’s drawing has plateau-ed atm, and would like to broaden his horizons and see if there’s anything else that takes his fancy.
Looking round the pictures, it was the most colourful ones that took his fancy, odd when you consider that he hardly ever includes colour in his own work. So watercolours didn’t really interest him, unless they were of children on a beach which he deemed “almost lifelike”, it was things like the still life of fruit done in heavy pastel that drew his eye. Big I think just liked looking round, and Tim was playing spot the location 🙂
Walked home via the greengrocers for me and Small and D & S for Tim and Big. Tim also picked up baguettes for lunch, which are a real treat round here, given that we bake our own bread mostly 😉 Lunch next, and then more ‘putering, it’s been fusion fall for the last few days mostly. They would really like it if we had two ‘puters they could use so that they could go in the game together, but Tim is understandably loath to install the game playing engine on his somewhat overloaded ancient laptop, so for the time being, they’ve to take turns, which they do mainly harmoniously.
Was amused to see Big pull up a map/ plan on the game, look at it critically and then decide her route before going back to the standard player view. So she’s learning about mapping and direction from it at least!
Had a long lie down in the afternoon myself after the walk set off my hip. Am increasingly getting the not-quite-attached sensation from it that I recognise from after Big’s birth – the best way to describe it is that it feels slightly out of place. It is the one that was dislocated when I was born, and I’m sure I did something to it while birthing Big (another reason why I don’t intend to get trapped on my back in a hospital bed again!) and although it’s been scanned since and there’s no wear and tear visible, it gives me problems now and then. But two paracetamol and a nap sorted it out yesterday and it’s back to just low grade aching today.
Had a break from cooking last night and did them chicken bits, although I did sneak some carrots pieces from the veg box on to the table too. Figure that has to be my long term strategy, just to make it normal for fruit and veg to be part of our diet, as sadly, it isn’t really atm.
Shower after tea for them, then more reading Kaspar
and maths before bed. Small has reached the section of his maths book that deals with regrouping, and oddly he found that this made more sense during subtraction than addition. I think the wealth of different ways they write it on a page is confusing him slightly though, he doesn’t quite understand why he’s to do it over and over. Am hoping that the workbooks and further practice will cement it for him, though he’s certainly grasping the concept quite quickly.
Big is sailing through hers. This was definitely the right level to start her at, lots of practise of things that she finds slightly dubious to rebuild her confidence. And repeating that it’s not her fault, that what I think happened was because she was too good at it at school, she got pushed ahead too fast and didn’t have time to really get the fundamentals in place. (Which makes it someone else’s fault as far as she is concerned and therefore something that she can deal with so much easier.) Not going to take either of them six months to get through these books though, so guess I’ll be putting in another order very soon!
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