Apathy about various things here currently. The election, blogging, you get the picture. It’s not that I don’t care, more that there is always something else going on at the time to take attention away from it all!
Anyway, back to the point. Yesterday Frazer stayed with us for a while after the rescue operation with the spare key which was nice. He is *so* good with the kids – they adore him and he has endless patience and time for them. So they clambered all over him demanding books, attention and so on for a couple of hours. Which put paid to any plans I had for the rest of the day but was nice just the same. Before their tea Davies and I spent about an hour on educationcity doing all the science stuff for reception and year 1. He amazed me in consistently getting 100% on everything – stuff we have never particularly focused on such as light sources, plants, bits of the human body, life cycles for frogs, which animals would be the parent of which young and so on. He really enjoyed it too – I am still torn about educationcity really – they have extended my trial and I know I can fudge their security with a variety of email addresses and postcodes so I am inclined not to bother subscribing as it is pricey and I sort of feel that once he has exhausted the games he won’t bother with it again. Might see next year when Tarly is of an age to get use from it too.
We used it again for an hour or so tonight and he has now finished all the science bits, is very able on the maths and english for reception (which is what he would be) but less so on the maths and english for year one. He seems to be content to sit for hours soaking up ‘facts’ and general knowledge type stuff but when he actually needs to think instead of regurgitate nuggets of information he gets all fidgety and is not so sure he can do it so seems to rather not risk trying. Need to find a way to make numbers and letters fact instead of formulas for him – maybe it’s time to ease off the phonics and blending and go more with the recognising actual words; similarly perhaps parrot fashion type numbers would work well for him – maybe I should add some Merry style timestables around the walls 🙂
So today we had WAG local group again. We have been the nomadic home ed group of the south coast, wandering from location to location always in search of our one true home, desperate to put our camels out to pasture so to speak 🙂 Although I remain cautious and do not want to count chickens, put eggs in a singular woven carrier or similar I think we may just have found a home! The place is an arts centre attached to the local youth group premises – local council run and connexions attached etc. It is a detached building with a largish hall with a stage at one end, a small kitchen area and a couple of toilets, it has a lawned area outside which is enclosed so safe for the littlies and suitable for ball games and so on. Today was a bit mad as we were not there prior to start time to get anything set up so there was an element of kids running wild, but as of next week I can arrive first, will have my own key and can get the place set up. Several of the adults were very enthused by the space and were coming up with some great ideas which makes me feel very positive – and takes the pressure off a little too 🙂 Now we’ve found the right venue I can start to market it a bit and build up some regular attendees.
And that’s it really. My back is better today that it was yesterday but still quite twingey – I was supposed to be going to Portsmouth for a home ed meet up tomorrow but have cancelled as it would be a two hour round trip in the car and I don’t think that is wise (although the five hour trip up north on Friday night and then same trip home again on Sunday is probably not such a cunning plan either!) so Julie and I are going to soft play instead with the understanding that she has to rescue any trapped children at the top of the slide as I won’t be capable 🙂
Ooh and the last thing – I’ve started reading that book Joyce blogged about – My Sister’s Keeper. I only opened it tonight but I’m already hooked. It’s very powerful and throws open the gates for all sorts of thinking. Still not sure where I am going to end up sympathising really – if I find a side to fall down on. Think it might be one of those haunting reads that stay with you a while.
Mmm, I read that book while I was away the other week, couldn’t put it down, will be interested to hear what you think …
Comment by Sarah — 20 April 2005 @ 11:22 pm
Hurrah for your new home!
Thnk of us tomorrow in ours, hope it goes well 🙂
You going up to Manchester then? We’ll be at Jax’s if you’re anywhere near …
Comment by Alison — 21 April 2005 @ 12:19 am
will do a review when i do – as long as you do too Sarah.
Argh, I was trying not to think of all the people we would be close enough to visit anyway Alison, let along giving me more temptation to ‘nip’ across to Sheffield! The weekend is looking manic as it is. We are planning a longer trip up soonish and will try and do some blogger visiting that time.
Comment by Nic — 21 April 2005 @ 7:46 am
lol, well have a good and manic weekend, and I will expect to see you here in Reading one day soon!
Comment by Alison — 21 April 2005 @ 10:42 am