I'm feeling a trifle gloomy. This morning we were expecting a visit from our landlord to renew our contract and Andrew was late driving back from Logan's archery lesson with him. So I had to sit making chitchat with the landlord, which I find nerve wracking, and then when Andrew did get home, we were told that our rent was going to be raised. I think that's what's made me gloomy. Just recently, I've been trying to earn a bit more spending money with book sales and school talks to get us ahead. I've felt as if I was really making an effort to step out of my comfort zone and now it'll just be eaten up in higher rent (sigh). Sometimes it feels that we can never get ahead. However, it's just a normal, everyday sort of problem that we'll just have to deal with. I have to remember to be extra happy for wonderful blessings like a strong, healthy family.

Anyway, I've come up with what I hope will be a brainwave for schoolwork beginning next Monday. I sometimes think that although my 2 older kids love accumulating general knowledge by listening to me read and studying different texts together, neither of them are too keen on actually picking up their pencils for written work and will shy away from it whenever they can. I'm not totally happy with this because I think it is important that they can express themselves fluently and intelligibly in writing. They know that they ought to have practise, so to make written work into a bit of a game, I've devised "The Envelope" This is a normal envelope filled with slips of paper making the work into a selection process. Each morning, I'm going to have Logan and Emma take turns closing their eyes and selecting a random slip of paper. Whatever is on it will be their individual quiet task for half an hour or so.

The slips of paper include:-

Handwriting practise

A few exercises from "Practise Your English Skills"

Writing a book review

Silent Reading

A few pages of Maths

Working on their stories or creative writing

and finally, for a dash of fun, Immunity! Whoever draws out the slip of paper which says, "You've won immunity" will be able to please themselves and do whatever they please (which would possibly be Play Station for Logan and making up pretend games for Emma)  

They are both quite excited about taking this approach and I'm looking forward to it too, although I can foresee a time in the future when I announce, "We have the envelope" and they'll gripe and groan. We'll have to see how it goes.