Well maybe just a little.

BBC NEWS | England | Hampshire | Pupils get sea-plus from syllabus

Can we all give the schools a clap on the back for a truly brilliant innovation… lol…

Had to take an exhausted, overheated, wailing Josie to bed last night, so the blogging went by the by. Its so rare for her to be bad-tempered that its a bit of a shock when she reverts to full on angry baby. Slightly horrifying to remember that Fran was like that ALL THE TIME!!!! Although not at this age but still – thank goodness i’ve not had one like it since!

TT was here for the day, which meant that i could reclaim my bedroom and start packing for the holiday (feeling horror-struck by weather forecasts atm… although, having looked at that, the wet seems to be disappearing in favour of just plain cold. Cold i can deal with. That type of cold anyway.) So anyway, i have a pile of sleeping bags and fleece and stuff downstairs and a tidy room. I also had to go to the Dentist for a checkup; aside from the two temporary fillings, i need two small other ones, so it could have been worse. I’m such a wimp over it, he was pressing my teeth with his prong thing and i was leaping out of my skin with fright. I really do NOT like lying on flat things under bright lights having stuff done to me. What a wimp.

Anyway, in the morning Fran asked to do more Nezert adding up – she really likes these but i’m struggling to explain carrying over 10′s in a way that sinks in. I’d be more than happy to leave it really but she is desperate to do it. We had rods out yesterday but even so it was a bit hit and miss. I do find it odd the way it can sink in for 4-5 sums then just go again! Ah well.

During the day TT had helped them out in the garden and they got all the potatoes topped up and various other things planted – they also ate the peas off the bushes and we had a fairly intelligent conversation about seed pods and pollen. Probably made having done the whole garden thing worth while I’m REALLY struggling with the allottment, i think i am going to have to go and just cover what remains and leave it to rot away so its in better shape come autumn. The weather is hopeless atm; either its too hot to take Josie there or too cold! Hopefully what i have planted is still alive

Maddy and i did some Explode the Code – she is doing really well at recognising beginning sounds, she is much better than Fran is at it! lol! Must bring her reading books this week so we can have quiet time doing that. And Ammi and i took some time together as well; she loves writing and i spent a bit of time showing her her name, she was doing really good “A”s – yet another different kettle of fish – i reckon i could teach her to read now if i tried.

I’m actually determined to teach her to write her own name because the one thing about nursery that has really annoyed me is the “marking making” malarky. This is the “total swing back” from writing worksheets, which were the norm at the time Fran would have gone there (which is why she didn’t.) Fran learned her name at playgroup where i think a practical approach, from leaders who were mums, meant that children learned proper letter formation with people who sat down and taught them. Now “mark marking” (they have a “mark making area”) is totally different, children are just left to approximate their name, or whatever, by coping what is around them. So if they want to write their name, someone gives them their name card and they work it out for themselves. This might be fine for most kids (or possibly not, i’ll let you know when Ammi has been!) but for Maddy it means she has learned an approximation of the letters in her name and come up with circles with sticks added into them and now she is utterly resistant to changing it in any way. Which is a mite frustrating, or is going to be. So anyway, i’m attempting to head this one off at the pass

Finally managed to get our keyboard out last night and the girls are making up little tunes on it; Ros if you swim by, i need some piano books (and i also need to ask Tony something!) – i’m sort of hoping i might be able to illicit some piano lessons out of sarah during my jaunt to Exeter!

SO much to do today – ARGH!!!!!!

BBC NEWS | Business | Tax credits backfire on families

Surprise.

Managed to wake up less than 2 minutes before Maddy’s taxi arrived today but still get her into it, fully dressed and breakfasted Sometimes i’m just too good

Today has been a bit “thingy” somehow – managed to reduce Fran to tears over a map – she’s been asking me for weeks to show her how to “draw sea” after a chance remark i made about it. So today i got her to do another Australia poster (with Aboriginal Art on it) and showed her how to colour tiny lines around the edge of the land to show sea. Only to discover her silently sobbing a fewm inutes later because she wanted to colour it all blue, not leave any white. (Ummm.. and why is this a problem? I asked. Did she think i was going to remove limbs if she disobeyed me????) Sigh.. so that went well. We also abandoned normals when it all started to go a bit mental and settled for general garden play instead.

Spent the afternoon recouping the morning and went for a swing, then collected Maddy, had a strange conversation about schools, did the dancing run and came home feeling ill.

Ants are still very impressive (hmm… photo hasn’t worked, i’ll do another tomorrow…)

Got some clay out for them in the evening. Maddy made Stonehenge (surprise)

Fran repaired a pot

Oh – and here are Ammi’s teepee’s from Friday.

Hohum. Tomorrow is another day.

Maddy is into her last few weeks at nursery, she’ll have just 3 more weeks after we get back from holiday. Today i went in to sign off all her achievements, as the class teacher wanted my input given she is home for more than half the week. I assume this is some form of baseline testing thing; it was a form that goes on to a database. Wasn’t really expecting to avoid LEA notice with her anyway but i guess that makes it impossible :/ Anyway, mostly it was filled in but they wanted to ask me about some stuff ; she’d got her scored as a child with predominantly year 1 abilities anyway, which i guess is good *assumes slightly patient expression*. I appreciated that they wanted my impressions anyway, so much more encompassing than the “handed dowen from on hiugh” approach. This particular teacher has been very pro-HE all year. We talked for a while about Maddy and she was very positive about her; did say she felt she would cope okay in school, and maybe she would, but wasn’t pushy in any way.

Then i signed Amelie’s forms ready for when she starts, which felt rather odd. She is extremely excited about it though, which i am glad about. its gonig to be a good deal easy to manage with her as the missing child than with Maddy out; trying to accommodate Fran and Ammi in one activity has proved very hard this year and its been nothing like as good as last year. I’m guess though that next year will be significantly better although i am going to have to put Ammi into some late clubs i think otherwise all we will do all day in rush in and out. Its going to make more sense if she stays for Late Club and then i collect her while the other 2 are at Ballet or Rainbows or whatever.

Fran had a fairly good day. Her main achievement was discovering Google and independently googling “book” (she got Amazon!) “cook” (she got a page of vegetables!) and “King Arthur” – she was absolutely thrilled with it! I was really pleased to see her suddenly being so aware of what is now available to her. This morning we sat down to do some sums – she polished off a page of addition very quickly – it was supposedly showing you how to split a set of numbers up logically so it was easier to add; like 6+3+7.. find the onbes that make 10 then add on to that type stuff – all far too easy (is that really year 3 stuff?) but we did a bit of it with maths rods to reinforce a concept Barbara and i talked about the other day (that 10 is actually 1 thing as much as it is 10 of something when you talk about a 10′s column) and then that led on to vertical adding again. She enjoyed that so much that i got her out a Nezert book and she did pages and pages of that; in fact, i kept finding her sat down doing more of them through the day. She also did a lesson worth of “Explode the Code” which she professes to hate but actually laughs the entire way through, is very quick at and is getting much better at reading because of. So no idea what that is about *lol* Possibly thati ‘d got into the hbit of doing other stuff while she does these things and she likes me to be with her. Oh well, whatever. The she played Lego Chess and beat it, did some sewing, played in the garden and asked to learn more on Henry. So tomorrow we are going to start out Book of Time and map out the Tudor Years.

Maddy had brought home more of her patent, finicky drawings from nursery and told me all about them – i love her art, its such a window into her head.

Ammi and Josie have played happily together all day. Josie was a good decision Oh yeah, and i’m addicted to the Ant World. Get one. All of you

Designed on the Hama bead programme by Fran and i together but actually being cross-stitched in her first ever cross stitch pattern. Its good, having bigger girls. I could get used to it. I’d probably better