This morning we did various things including:
Playing some games on the BBC bitesize literacy and numeracy that Michelle linked to yesterday. Davies was okay but not particularly interested in the literacy ones, which I could understand as they were sort of boring and a bit testing for the sake of testing but he loved the numeracy ones. Which actually were equally testing for the sake of being testing but he gets numbers way more than he gets letters. He can do reading but gets no real sense of achievement or enjoyment from it whereas numbers do seem to be something he sees the logic in and mean something to him. Now clearly these tests were aimed at his age group and he certainly did no better than would be ‘expected’ for a child his age but it was really interesting to note that having done no ‘formal’ maths work at all – he doesn’t even know what the word maths means, he was doing the ‘really hard’ levels on some of them with ease. There were some with decimal points to put in order with the numbers 5, 5.5, 6, 7 and 7.5. I explained it very briefly once and off he went, he said ‘oh hundreds!’ when some numbers in the 200s appeared and put them in order too and then did loads of questions with question marks in various parts of the sum with relative ease turning sums round to work out the answers quite happily. Most surprising, although it perhaps shouldn’t have been was how competant he was with currency on a game where you had to work out what coins to give to pay for various things. He was also good with one that had 2d and 3d shapes, again certainly not something we’ve ever talked about as a maths concept but when it talked about cones, cylinders, lines of symmetry and the idea of something being 3/4 shaded those were all terms he was familiar with in other contexts so he got them straight away.
We downloaded the Bamzookis toolkit at D’s request while we were messing about online but got bored of it fairly quickly and stopped playing with that.
I rang the dentist and have an appointment arranged for Monday about my filling. It has since fallen out twice and finally broke in half tonight so I have it packed with a temporary filling from a kit we got from Boots earlier today which seems fine and will hopefully last the weekend okay. Boots was great actually – deals on offer a go go! For under £15 I got my dental emergency kit, mouthwash, three tubes of non-mint flavour toothpaste for the children both of whom gag at the very smell of mint let alone the taste and a packet of disclosing tables on their 3 for 2 dental stuff offer, two packets of hayfever tablets on their buy one get one free and a free sample of Hay Max nasal balm for buying hayfever stuff. Then I got a £5 voucher for spending over a tenner which we went back in and redeemed for a £5 tube of posh handcream :). We did lots of talking about various products for sale in Boots and then went next door to the shoe shop to look for cheap black shoes for Badgers for them both and had a discussion about how flashing light slippers work including me knowing what LED stands for and impressing the bloke stood near us :).
Once home I made some chocolate chip rockcakes as we had nothing remotely nice to eat in the house, we had crumpets for lunch and then Lucy and The Rs arrived.
We’d not seen them for a few weeks due to general busyness all round and quite possibly it was absence makes the heart grow fonder for the children as they all got on really well :). There are times when the dynamic between the four of them is trying but it was a lovely few hours with Lucy and I managing a proper catch up and the kids all getting on well together. Ady came home in the middle of it all and stayed in the garden with them.
Scarlett and I went round to Rainbows where they drew round their feet and did pictures on them of their favourite things. I seem to be a bit of a fixture there now with several of the girls greeting me and coming to play catch with me in the playbreaks, which actually is fine. I think I like children, I just don’t want to be in charge or responsible for them. On the way out Scarlett noticed something slithering along the alleyway and it was a slowworm – quite a big one. This was great as she has recently seen both adders and grasssnakes and has been very keen to see a live slowworm (although we have talked about how they are neither snakes or worms and are infact legless lizards) so she got to see one properly in action tonight which she was thrilled about – I know, odd child :).
Bath time for the children followed by stories while Ady tended to the many (1o!) birds all now outside.
Tomorrow I’m off straight after work to London for an overnight stay meeting up with friends. I am quite giddily excited about this as it is only my second ever night away from the children since having Davies and I will be seeing friends who I adore but don’t get to see much of in real life. It will be less than 24 hours but knowing I’m going away leaving the children with Ady and they are all looking forward to the various treats he has planned for them means I can truly relax and enjoy myself which will be fantastic :).
The numeracy ones were far better than the literacy ones but once I told her she was at the end of KS1 she wanted to know she can do it all (though only bothered at hardest level towards the end). She had to ask what literacy means.
As we don’t follow any structure here either it is interesting that without any directed “teaching” kids can just absorb these things naturally. A teacher friend did say 2 years ago not to teach Clo as if she should ever decide she wants to go to school she’ll find it difficult if she’s ahead of her peers. (or will her teacher find her difficult to teach? ;-)).