10 reasons why my girl can't do her school work!

 My youngest is getting better at doing her school work, I just have to keep nagging and asking if she should be writing something. She would quite happily just sit there and listen to her Zoom lessons instead of taking notes and writing down her workings out. I'd like to think it's just at home she does this but I am 99% positive she needs a lot of encouragement at school too.

Over the last few weeks she has came up with many reasons to get out of her school work or to take a break. She has never got out of doing her school work, I won't allow that. It's something which needs doing and thankfully she is starting to realise this now.

Here are some of the reasons she has given why she can't do her school work:

She was hungry.

One day she was late in getting out of bed. Her own fault, she just didn't want to move. She wasn't late for her Zoom class but she didn't have time for breakfast before the Zoom call and made such a drama about being starving! It's funny if she had to leave the house to go to school I would have to force her to eat. I of course served her toast while she was on the laptop.

She didn't have a certain exercise book.

We did collect some of Ellie's exercise books from school but not all of them. She said she couldn't do some maths work because she didn't have her maths book. It was OK I had a notebook ready for her to use.

She needed the toilet.

This was in the middle of a Zoom lesson. I felt like such a teacher telling her she really should have gone before the lesson.

She said she didn't know how to do the work.

For English she had said she didn't have a clue what the teacher was talking about. I was sure she must have done something about it before and she said no. I checked through her exercise book and before Christmas she had! It suddenly all came back to her.

Her laptop needed an update.

So of course she said to me that she would have to leave the Zoom lesson to update it. I told her it would be OK to wait until after the call had finished.

She said she didn't have a lesson.

One day she said she hadn't got an email for a Zoom lesson. She had the sneaky so and so had been on her emails and deleted that email. I went onto her emails and found the email in the "deleted" folder. Grr!

Becky was playing Fortnite.

It wasn't fair that her sister could play Fortnite and she had to do school work. I said in a few years you can play Fortnite when you have days off from college. Of course Becky was winding her up so she got moved into the dining room. hehehe

She had no coloured pencils.

Ellie had some artwork to do and said she had no coloured pencils. There was no way that was possible. She got an art set for Christmas with at least 50 coloured pencils. Of course I went and found them and then she complained they needed sharpening, of course they did! It's a good job I had a pencil sharpener in my make up bag. (For my eyeliner).

She didn't know the password.

She said she couldn't log onto a certain website to do some work that was set because she didn't know how to. She said the password she knew wasn't working. It's a good job the teacher had previously emailed reminding the parents of how to log into the websites being used. I got her in there in about 30 seconds. hehehe

It's too noisy!

It's not but anyone speaking, the TV or music being on, Becky breathing, me sneezing, next door doing DIY and Stu on the phone in the dining room. Any noise seems to stop her working and distract her.

How are you getting on with the home learning?

(Ad - Gifted) Hanging Hearts for Valentines from With Love and Light.

I love pretty things, little ornaments, charms and nicknacks and I love things even better if they handmade and unique. Recently I was contacted and asked if I wanted to have a look at something with a Valentine's day theme and of course I said yes.

With Love and Light was created by Sarah Livingstone who diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014. She realised she hadn't done what she wanted to with her life and when she became cancer free decided to go for it and start a business of her own where she could be both creative and do something to benefit others too. She stumbled across the process of setting cremation ash into glass and decided that was what she was going to do!

With Love and Light offer a huge range of glass decorations and ornaments which really are beautiful and are now offering gifts for Valentine's day which of course don't contain any ashes but I am sure if you ordered one you could ask to include them if wanted!

I was sent The Hanging Hearts.... for Valentines!

Red, hanging glass hearts. Handmade and hand engraved in a wooden stand which measures 120mm x 25mm.

This is a special piece to send to someone just to show how you feel about them. As these are handmade each one is unique and has been made with love and care.

All the pieces are hand made in the studio from the first sketch to the engraving to the finished piece of glass. The wooden bases that are used come from a village nearby and are hand finished before setting the glass pieces into their bases.

I think this piece is absolutely beautiful and I think the £10 for it is a fantastic price. It feels like it is something special and I will be cherishing it for years to come. 

While visiting the With Love and Light website I noticed the NHS Rainbows which are gorgeous! These rainbows come in 3 sizes, small, medium and large. Each piece of glass is placed on the base individually with tweezers and is done so, so that the glass ‘twinkles’ in the sunlight. They really are pretty and with Mother's day coming next month they could make a lovely gift.

I was sent the Hanging Hearts for Valentines free of charge in exchange for this blog post.

What I loved in January 2021!

One thing which didn't change about January this year is that it seemed to last forever. What a start to 2021, another lockdown and home learning part 2. I'd like to say the girls have been great with their home learning but it has been hard work, especially for Ellie. For the first couple of weeks she took a lot of nagging to get any work done. It was hard to change from Christmas holiday mode to school mode. We're getting there now though. It seems easier now she knows what is expected of her.

I did a lot of complaining in January about various things but it wasn't all bad. There were plenty of laughs, smiles and memories were made.

This is what I loved in January!

Disney Plus.

At the end of December Stu got a code for 2 months free of Disney Plus from buying something Fortnite. We used the code and I have watched all the Marvel films in chronological order. I was never a fan of Captain America and I still aren't but I did enjoy Doctor Strange, I hadn't seen that before. Thor will always be my favourite though! Since then I have watched a ton of random films and the girls and I are working our way through The Simpsons.

My new laptop.

At the end of December I bought myself a new laptop. It was needed, my old one just wasn't powerful enough for me anymore. I got a HP 255 G7 15.6" Laptop from Curry's and I can't fault it at all, well apart from the enter key is smaller than my old one and it's took about a month to get used to. It does everything I ask it to and because of it I even started playing Fortnite, a game I never said I would play.

TikTok Wraps.

They are the best way to eat wraps and I saw them on TikTok. They are the only way we eat them now and we have been eating a lot of them with different fillings. To make them you make a cut from the middle of the tortilla down to one edge, fill the different quadrants with fillings, then fold it all up into a neat triangle that can be eaten as is or grilled. Our favourite filling has to be the sweet one's though. Strawberries, chocolate spread, bananas and Biscoff spread. Yum! Yum!

Learning more about school.

Over the past month with Ellie doing home learning I have learned a lot about her school. I now know what she's learning, I can put a face to the names of the teachers I previously didn't know and I have a fair idea what some of the kids are like. Before this round of home schooling I has probably only seen about 2 or 3 teachers but now I have seen them all on Zoom, well all the one's that teach Ellie. They are doing a great job and I already have my favourites. hehehe

Not watching the news.

I am back to not watching the news unless it's a press conference. It was starting to worry me and stress me out again and it really isn't worth watching. It's not like I can personally change anything that is happening in our country and around the world. As long as my family is safe, I am just burying my head in the sand and ignoring the news.

Frosty mornings.

As much as I have complained about the lack of snow here we have had plenty of frosty mornings and they are so pretty, especially since we have fields out the back of our house. The fact we don't have to go out anywhere has made me love them even more.

What did you love in January?

Our weekly meal plan! 1st - 7th February. #MealPlanningMonday

Here we are, in February already. I do like this month, there's Chinese New Year, Valentines and pancake day and it is of course a shorter month.

Last weeks meal plan went well. We ate just about everything apart from the pizza on Friday. We moved that to Saturday because I had bought some fancy one's from Iceland. The Detroit Style Fully Loaded Pizza's. Cheeseburger with Burger Sauce Drizzle for the kids and Stu and I had the  Meatball Marinara with Garlic Dressing one. They were huge and were just OK. They were rather doughy and not that full of flavour like they looked. I don't know if we'll get them again. On Sunday had toad in the hole again. I cheated and bought ready made ones.

On the menu this week we have:

Monday - Chicken casserole and mashed potato.

Tuesday - Meatball And Garlic Bread Traybake.

Wednesday - Hot dogs in buns with fries.

Thursday - Chicken Katsu Curry.

Friday - Fish finger sandwiches.

What are you eating this week?