School days – after school clubs

This week’s school days has been uneventful.  It’s strange because it’s been calmer but N has been much more tired than normal. Add to that a horrible dry cough that comes and goes in the evenings and night, and it’s probably all impacting him and making him tired.  The one thing he’s really excited about is the his school trip in a few weeks.  We’re on countdown.

After School clubs

Luckily N’s school do lots of lunch time clubs, so N doesn’t miss out totally from having to go to wraparound care after school. He does do tennis and the OH manages to pick him up. Although this week it was cancelled. I found out that morning so a quick panicked text to the OH and it was arranged for someone to pick him up at normal school leaving time instead.

N’s decided that he wants to also try the multi-skills club run by his teacher.  I’ve seen no information about it (usually we get after school club newsletters with all the clubs for the term but this wasn’t on it. So he checked with his teacher and came home with a bit of paper with ‘4.15’ written on it to say the ending time.  Of course we have the nightmare with how to get him picked up at that time. Usually he goes to nursery for after school club, and they pick the children up at the end of the school day. But the school clubs finish too early for me to pick him up.

So it was a frantic ask around to see if any parent could pick him up along with their children and just drop him round the corner at nursery. Luckily someone’s offered, the mum of a boy in his year, so hopefully that’ll work out and it’s not too much faff for them.  Then of course, I need to remember to tell nursery he’ll not need picking up on Tuesdays but will be dropped off later. Thankfully they’re pretty flexible there, and it means he’ll still get his tea there.

Reading journal

I’m totally confused with N’s reading level at the moment.  He had moved to level 6 but after a few at level 6, he’s had level 5 Ginn (which I think are the same level), and now some random Sure Start blue level/boost books which are all based on silent ‘e’ and recognising more words by sight.  I can’t find much about these online at all, but what I did find looked like they’re further along than he was.  He’s doing quite well with them, and he’s getting a mix of length of books, and more sentences on a page.

So much of reading is about consistent practice. It’s noticeable when N has a day or two off, and even as he goes through a book.

N was put out this week when I told him the comment school had written in his book about the guided reading he’d done.

‘No, that shouldn’t be in my journal, that’s guided reading, not my reading. Cross it out’, and he struck it out in the book. It is still hard to know how he’s really doing with his reading, because I see improvement, and although he still sounds out words I know he must know, my thoughts aren’t always the same as those adults listening to him read.  Having said that, being on level 6 is the level he should have reached at the end of year 1 so I’m pleased he’s caught up, really just since September as he really didn’t do much during reception.

Playtimes with groups

It appears playtime was better this week.  He tells me he much prefers playing in big groups to smaller ones.  That’s surprising to me, but then it’s easier just to join in a group than to break into smaller ones.  I’m relieved he’s happy again about playtimes.

Writing books

N didn’t have any literacy homework this week, but that didn’t stop him doing some writing. I came downstairs one morning to find that he’d created and written a book. Well, stapled some paper together and wrote on 5 pages a story about a dog going to the moon and discovering a planet.  It was really sweet, and he even made a pocket to put a picture of the planet in.

He was so proud of it, he took it into school to show his teacher. I love that he’s so confident about his writing now, and he’s worrying less about it being perfectly spelt.  Mainly because he thinks everything he writes is correct.