Guilt and Snow in equal Measures

Well, the pictures relate to the Snow part of the day!
Guilt First.

Maths! Aaaargh! Jamie took the day off work to drive with us to the Snow Dome so naturally, in the morning, I took advantage of his presence to shirk my Maths teaching responsibilities. He taught them. He does have much better qualifications in Maths than I do and he actually likes it!

The kids were thrilled, as they always are when Dad's home and available to join in 'schoolwork' with them. Jack told me that he "really likes Maths when Dad is teaching it," and Grace said," I didn't know I was so good at Maths!" Considering how awful she is at it, that in itself is a telling comment.

Ugh! I hate Maths and the guilt-inducing fact of it is that I've superimposed my own dread of it onto my children. My passions are language, history, music, the arts and I've very successfully inculcated in my home-educated children the same passions. I'm so sad that my children aren't passionate about Physics, Design, Technology, Chemistry, Maths. It's all my fault. If we could afford tutors in those subjects we'd be fine. Sigh...

We've tried Dad Does Science Experiments on Wednesday Evenings and we've tried Catch Up With Maths on Saturday With Dad and it just doesn't work por us, they are all too tired by then. When they are freshest and have their best ICanDoMaths brains plugged in is before noon, weekdays and that's when they have Mum. Sad.

But we did take them Turbo Tubing, so that makes up for the lack of Maths Skills, right? The Snow Dome is a huge artificial indoor snow-covered slope. Jack went there snow-boarding once for his birthday and this time our home-education group went turbo tubing, which is basically sliding down a mountain on your bottom sitting in a big inner tube. Then climbing back up the mountain to do it again. And again. The kids had a blast but we couldn't get any photos of them moving inside the dome.

Fortunately, I'd had the forsight to have cooked dinner earlier in the day. A big pot of lentil and vegetable soup served with grated Double Gloucester cheese and frosted pumpkin cake for desert!

Jack then went out to a sports challenge evening put on by Christians in Sport which is based near us. http://www.christiansinsport.org/
The evening consisted of the CIS people taking masterclasses in various sports, organising the kids into teams in which they compete and a short Gospel Message or testimony from a professional sports person. They also hand out a Good Sportsmanship trophy at the end of the evening. They are VERY good events.

All in all, I preferred the snow to the guilt.