Month of Firsts 14

October, while busy, has felt like a quiet month of firsts for us.  It’s included lots of bike rides, visits to the park and elsewhere, school and more, but very little in the way of big first achievements…or so I thought until I started listing them.

As the supermarket says, every little helps to make a child feel like they’ve made an achievement, so I love to celebrate even the little things.

In October, N

Was Learner of the Week

For the first time, N was Learner of the Week at school.  He’s been VIP a couple of times which is about living the values and showing good classroom etiquette.  Learner of the Week shows me what he’s been achieving.

In N’s case it was joining in and having ideas on their Sea Creatures topic, listening well for the sounds and just generally good endeavour.  I was really pleased – it means his name’s in the weekly newsletter, and he came home with a certificate for it.  Of course, N was more excited about being a VIP because that means getting into lunch first, sitting at the special VIP table and having it all set out for them.

Sang at Harvest Festival

The school held their harvest festival, and each class performed a song or poem.  N’s class sang dingle dangle scarecrow – he’d been practising it all week before, and I wondered if he would sing along.  He did, but stood behind the boy next to him throughout the performance.  It was really sweet to see.

Had his first certificate presentation in assembly

At N’s school they have targets at their different levels in maths and literacy.  Each time the children show evidence of each task on the list, it gets ticked off, until they hit the level and receive their target certificate.  All of the reception class hit their first one in October (I was amazed because I know N can’t do the majority of the literacy ones, until I realised it was more about them settling in for the first one), so they had a special assembly where they had to go up and receive their certificates.  Luckily friends went to see their children, so took some photos of N for me.

I think it might be a while until he gets his next one.

Went to holiday club as a schoolboy

During half term, N had a couple of days in holiday club.  He’d chosen to go to his old nursery school rather than his day nursery’s holiday club.  Of course on the day itself, he then wanted to know why he wasn’t going to the other one to see his old best friend there.  Ahh, would be nice if he made up his mind.

They had a good age mix on the first day he was there, although he said on the second there were quite a few nursery age children. How accurate that is, I have no idea.  But he came back having created lots of halloween crafts and enjoying spending the day there.

It’s such a relief that there are 2 options for him for holiday clubs.  While it’d be great for him to do sports clubs during holidays when he’s older, they never open longer than 9-2 or 3pm, which doesn’t work around working hours.  The alternative is that he’ll spend days with his dad on the farm, but then it generally means at times of the day he ends up being dumped at Granny’s or his aunt’s until he can go out again.  I begrudge that a little because if he’s not with his dad, then I could have taken some time off to spend with him or doing holiday club rather than being left wherever he can.

Made his own lunch box

For holiday club it meant remembering to pack him a lunch box again, although they cook tea for them.  The first day I made his packed lunch, but on the Friday I went downstairs in the morning to find he’d chosen a lunchbox, and filled it.  Not full of rubbish either, but full of what I usually pack – sandwich, yoghurt, cucumber chunks, soreen bar, and fruit snack.  I just needed to include a proper piece of fruit and fill his water bottle.  He’d even cleared up after himself so I was very impressed.

I love how independent he is with food.  I think him being baby led weaned really helped set him off, because it was always up to him to feed himself.  Then at nursery they were encouraged to get their own breakfast and at home we’ve let him serve his own veg and potatoes (although he does try and steal all of the broccoli and cucumber given half the chance!).

My own first this month was getting to go out to a customer for the first time in this job.  It was part of a training project I’ve managed, and the colleague who was due to go couldn’t so I stepped in as our company representative.  My current job is very much office based, I don’t get out and about that often which does suit me with managed  school drop off and pick ups.  But it was really good fun – it almost felt like being back in my old food industry (I worked in it for 15 years) and working with those types of people again rather than a lot of academics which there are in my current industry.  It’ll probably be another 2 years before I’m let loose again, but it was a nice break from the normal everyday project work.

If you have your own firsts this month, do add your link below to Month of Firsts.  I’d love to read them.  I’ll happily share as well so do visit anyone else who links up.