Yep, that’s right we’ve been to a kid’s birthday party today! And if we have to suffer that song in our heads for the next week then you lot can too!
My turn to rise early with small people today (although the smallest lounged around in her bed ’til nearly 9am on account of being up with Daddy past 2am!) So Davies and I enjoyed a bit of one to one. We got out a space hama kit and he made a pretty good start at following the pattern onto the board with a bit of guidance while I sorted the beads into colours into the new storage bead box. He managed about 5 or 6 rows before getting bored – tbh this is not really a Davies type activity really so that was quite a good effort. He also had a couple of underplayed but quite impressive lightening bolt moments when he started talking about adding and taking away totally unprompted – talking to himself about sums like ‘I need four, I have two so I need to add two more’ – okay baby steps but somehow when I was not paying attention the concept has snuck in there and is ready to be built as we go 🙂
Then Scarlett appeared closely followed by Ady so I disappeared to get dressed and although I did do a bit of work for Ady I’m not really sure where the morning went exactly. I did cut Davies’ hair, which meant both kids ended up having a bath which probably took up an hour or so, but anyway, we barely got out of the house by 1pm on the way to L & L’s birthday party.
It was held here a big soft play and football place. Pretty similar to every other soft play venue and birthday party I’ve ever been to (makes me realise how good a kids’ party offering we used to put on in Manchester actually – and why it was such a big part of that business), and not really either of our two’s scene but as Ady and I were both there they enjoyed a run around and got bolder towards the end when they walked off holding hands to try themselves out on the bigger stuff – they are a good team really – Davies seems to gain confidence by having a baby sister to protect and watch out for and Scarlett is the fearless one who leads him onto higher and steeper places just because she needs his help to get to them. Lovely to watch 🙂
Davies was a bit disappointed not to sit next to L when they had their food (L had saved a seat for Davies to sit with him when they had gone into the side room earlier for a drink and to blow out candles, but for the main food he was sitting with his two school friends), but he ended up sat next to L (2yo girl) instead which he seemed quite happy with. Ady sat in the corner with Scarlett and both children ate all their food and were very impressive with their pleases, thank yous and no thankyous to the people serving the food.
Home again via Tescos and the kids continued to run round like loons until we forced them to bed around 7.30pm. I bought a magnetic reward / incentive board thingy from ELC ages ago with the intention of using it with Davies for educational / learning achievements and goals and this morning we also found time to do that. It has space for 7 tasks each day to ‘win’ a sticker/magnet for with a running total at the end of each day and each week. Together (and mainly him actually) we have chosen:
Went to sleep last night (has to be rewarded the next day really that one doesn’t it!)
Ate my dinner
brushed my teeth
got myself dressed
helped tidy up my toys
Have not been naughty
and finally – the real reason for getting it out:
learn a letter – he had to know the name, the phonetic sound and be able to write it, today for the sake of ease we did ‘a’ and he already is writing it better than ever before. He has of course attained all seven magnets today and as I have been wanting to start some sort of pocket money type thing with him anyway we have decided to give him 20p for every day he gets every possible sticker. At the end of each week he can tot up how much he’s got and decided whether to spend, save or half and half with it. I have also told him that there will be occassions when he can ‘earn’ more money for stuff when he is helpful. I know this is not always the best way of motivating children but I think there are enough tangent educational spin offs from it that it is worth a shot. We’ll see 🙂
Tomorrow we are going into Chichester so I can sort out my new mobile phone – I think I have decided on this one
and I need to sort it all out without the small people ‘helping’. It also gives me ample opportunity to spend my Lush voucher too:-)
I once heard Alison’s justification for motivation by money and it made it seem completely right and altogether honourable … I think there is plenty of value in it, actually!
Phone looks nice, I’ll have to have a play at Melrose 😉
Don’t recall reading that but I’m thinking that it will teach him that moeny and therefore material stuff can be earned (valuable life lesson or not dependant on your viewpoints!), a bit of the value of money, the choices involved in spend or save, the literal value of money in counting how much he has, a bit of respect for what he already has and what he might get in the future and the plusses of the good behaviour and learning done to earn it in the first place. Win, win I reckon 🙂
I like the sound of that Nic is it still available at ELC? And re the letter about schools below put it in the bin (again) LOL They may think you have ‘gone away’.
I’m rubbish at ever actually giving them the money though! And so the motivation quickly dwindles as they realise they haven’t got anything, lol.
But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it:) I try not to offer them money for things I’d want them to do anyway, but I think I did offer Tilda 5p per Bob book to get her over the initial “can’t do it!” bump – obviously never gave her any actual money at any point …. and I seldom remember to pay them for their chores either …. I’d be such a crap employer, lol!
I like soft play sometimes when we are at risk of killing one another, as I do get to sit down with a book and a coffee, but I really hate parties in them. It’s all such low quality, mostly, and nothing to make the birthday child feel special, as most kids there seem to be regular attenders.
C and M each have a money box with a little bit of money in but they are constantly taking it out and using it in games, then losing it around the house, or filling the money box with all sorts of other things.