Some gentle days

I had hoped to go out and about somewhere on Sunday, but U had a bad cold, with a temperature, so we stayed home. The boys and H went out for their weekend cricket.
So we've had a gentle few days, alhamdulillah. The garden is under control, more or less, and there is not much else I can do to it for a few weeks, except keep the weeds in check, so I've actually spent time in the garden just sitting with the children.
Over the weekend I found some of the Usbourne Young Puzzle Books. They are just right for Ia at the moment, if I read them to her. They are stories, but on each page there are simple puzzles, like mazes, or spotting hidden objects in the busy illustrations. The boys liked reading them to themselves until they were about 8.
The girls got sticker activity books today and have spent lots of time arranging the stickers on the scenes. Ia did some workbook pages in the garden, and, so she could do something similar, U traced over some letters in a book of her own. We also read books in the garden, then each girl spent some time on the computer. This was all in the afternoon because they had spent all morning playing in their room.
So morning was time for R and J to do their work. As we are looking at the period of European voyages of discovery in the Traders and Wooden ships project I decided to read a chapter on this from an old history textbook I still have. It seemed like a good time to slot it in as the history repeats and extends what they've already been reading.I had to simplify the language a little as I went along, but I'm getting the hang of doing that now! This was one of my favourite periods of study, but it makes so much more sense now that I have a better understanding of the Muslim history of the same period.
Also today R and J have done some division, Quran, wider reading on people of deserts and mountains, an ICT worksheet and some work linked to the tafsir of Surah Al-Adiyat.