Reading eggs, outdoor day and FaceTime

Harry had his first FaceTime 'date' with my sister yesterday morning. We are going to make this a regular weekly slot, mainly with the aim of connecting with his family more, but also to practise speaking and conversation skills. He really enjoyed it. We also had French class yesterday, a play in a very windy park with friends and we finished our James and the Giant Peach activities for the week.

I re-subscribed to Reading Eggs this week for Harry and he completed a lesson before we went out today. One of the activities was reading the instructions for completing a monster, such as green eyes, yellow teeth etc. Harry worked through Reading Eggs for 2 years from around age 3.5 and he always enjoyed it. This is part of the reading focus we are having at the start of this year, with the aim of him becoming more fluent and confident. We also use the iPad apps, including eggy words (sight words) and eggy alphabet (a fun game for Harry but I will use this alongside Peter's letter learning).

We spent most of the day today at Gibside, a National Trust property, with some friends. It was fairly mild and the children had a great time for 4 hours! It was a fabulous end to our first normal week after Christmas.

Not too cold for ice cream! 

Harry ended the day completely worn out after also having his first enjoy-a-ball class of the year. We went straight there, just calling home quickly to pick up his trainers. He has been doing this class for over 2 years now and still enjoys it. The class is designed to work on all ball sport skills and I like the general nature of it, as the skills will transfer across several sports in the future when Harry decides what he wants to pursue. It is also great fun, helped hugely by a fantastic coach and is good exercise. Peter will be starting the pre-school class after half term. 

I have really enjoyed getting back into our rhythm this week, although we have missed Stuart. I feel so lucky to have this life!