On prepare la rentrée

La rentrée (or back to school in French), begins in France, much like in England the minute the school holiday begins. In every shop you will see special "cahiers", books with exercises in them designed to prepare children for the new school year and to keep them "occupied" during the school holidays.  I always find it easier to manage three children close together in age by being "busy".

Journals:

As long as the children have been able to mark make, I have always encouraged them to keep journals. Just like my mum did with me when we were younger. I love looking through them and seeing how much their writing has come along over the years.

Learning together:

Ismay is quite happy to set herself her own homework and loves using my teacher supplies.

For Mia and Eden though, this is just unpalatable, they would quite happily sit in front of the TV all day long. To avoid this, I make sure we go on plenty of outings.

Here we are at the Kimbers, I love how the children set up their own shop in the playroom and acted out shopping, right down to adding up how much money they had.

Here they are playing with Toffee. Mia is really skittish around animals, but Ismay is very confident and was able to help Mia overcome her fear.

Ismay loved stroking the sheep.

The children wanted a ride in the truck, so we got them to "earn" their ride by clearing away the logs that Jono had been splitting for firewood. We set up a very effective little assembly line and the children did a lovely job of clearing away.

Both Sammy and I share very similar health concerns at the moment, so we couldn't stray too far from the "conveniences". Sammy set up the outdoor toys and we just spent a lovely afternoon watching the children play in the fresh air.

Here we are on another trip, this time to Blists Hill. The day we went the children kept saying "this is where Nanah used to play when she was a girl".

We have been growing a range of vegetables this year. The kids have loved helping me harvest.

They have loved eating peas fresh for the pod and shelling them, although oddly, when cooked they are not as enthusiastic to eat them!

Homework:

With homework, I adopt the same policy as we had at home. My mum and dad firmly believed it was our responsibility to complete it by ourselves. Ismay and Mia are in the same key stage again so were given the same homework to complete over the holidays. Ismay rushes to get hers done as soon as possible. Mia works at a snails pace and has only just finished putting the finishing touches to hers today!

Uniform:

The thought of taking the children shoe shopping, hmm, anyone with more than one child will understand the dread I feel. Last year, being laid up after the crash, Jason very kindly did it for me for the first time (I seem to remember him coming come like a quivering wreck). This year, I found out you could book an appointment.

Oh wow, how much easier this was. I simply walked in, got them measured 

Next, it was off to Asda to buy trainers for PE and school clothes for the children. I love Ismay's expression in this picture. Totally sums up how I felt after this day!

The worst part about uniform shopping is the labelling. Thanks to the recommendation of a friend, I managed to get some stick on labels which saved me the dreaded iron on/sew on job!

Now it's the last day of the holidays, I feel really sad that I won't be able to have my babies around me all day long. I take solace in the fact that they are all so excited to go back to school and can't wait to meet their new teachers.