I have been thinking a lot lately, it must be my age (I have verifocals now you know), and I have finished up in a confused state about our home education and where we are going.....the kids seem less keen than ever to do anything and I can decide whether to do structure or not....now I have to say this isn't the first time I have had niggling doubts about structure v's unschooling but at the moment nothing seems to be working and the kids are really unenthusiastic about everything except playing in the garden oh and scouts! It's so very frustrating....perhaps it's the nice weather that is distracting them!

Anyway, regardless of their lack of enthusiasm we have done some work in the last two weeks....DS1 has finished the book they were working on with their English tutor and they enjoyed it immensely. We are trying to choose they next book for them to work on but have hit a brick wall....the stuff that Year 6's are doing in schools are really lame at the moment....they have been reading above that level for the last few months and doing really well with it but the books for older kids can have more mature themes running through them that we don't really want them to be reading at the moment.....very difficult, if you have any ideas please let me know!We are still working through the Scholastic Maths Lessons books and the others are either doing phonics or Nelson Thornes for English depending on their age. DS2 is still not reading fluently and seems to keep forgetting all the rules...grrrrr

A friend that tutors occasionally is going to find some time to teach the two little ones maths & English inshaAllah, which will take a huge weight of my shoulders alhamdulillah. I am also going to be teaching DS2 & a friends daughter English using the book Stig of the Dump.... I didn't read it in school but it has rave reviews so I am looking forward to reading it with them inshaAllah. Whilst I am doing that, the other sister will do some math with the little ones mashaAllah.
I am hoping that the change of routine and a few planned field trips will light a fire under them again inshaAllah and we can get back into a good HE routine inshaAllah.
The boys have also just come back from camping with the scouts alhamdulillah. The older boys had to put up their own tent and do their own cooking and cleaning mashaAllah, am just trying to get them to transfer their newly learned skills into the house work here lol. They had a great time and met lots of new people....DS1 has decided he wants to stay in the scouts (Network Scouts apparently) until he is 25 and then become a volunteer and help other kids....inshaAllah Allah ta'Ala will grant him his desires if they are good for him inshaAllah. They also learned how to build and light fires....a skill I don't want them to bring into the house inshaAllah, lol.

We also found this cute little fledgling sitting on our doorstep mashaAllah. The nest is under the tiles on our bay window so we couldn't put it back and had to leave it on the floor at the bottom of the bay. We watched from the window after hearing the mum/dad chirping loudly at the bird and saw the mum coming to feed it and usher it into the bushes for safety, mashaAllah it's amazing how Allah ta'Ala puts love and compassion in animals hearts.