School days – the one with random clothes and pancakes

So far we’ve not had many missing item occasions since N started at school.  Even at nursery we usually tended to find anything that had been mislaid or forgotten (well, apart from the Each Peach Pear Plum book (affiliate link), which I think did turn up 2 years later, but I’m still waiting on my friend who works there to get it back to us)

But over the last week at school it’s been a different story.

Random lost and found

After coming home on Friday with an extra pair of PE shorts in his bag (the name didn’t match any children in the class) I should have realised we’d have a fun clothing week.

On Monday N came home from school after playing tennis, dressed in his PE t shirt with what I thought was his old hand-me-down school sweatshirt.  He told me his polo shirt was wet hence he was in his PE t shirt.  Not a problem I thought.  On Tuesday I went to put his PE t shirt back into his PE bag, spotted his joggers hanging on his peg, his PE bag on the floor and his trainers strewn across the floor nowhere near his peg/shoe tray.  I retrieved them, but noticed there was no sweatshirt around.  Yes, the one that I traipsed round everywhere in town looking for a plain dark sweatshirt that was in the right size.  I knew I should have bought 2 of them.

N seemed very vague and said it was around, but god knows where otherwise he was going to get cold doing football later in the week.

I then picked him up from after school club to find a bag with his previously wet school polo shirt and jumper in.  It turned out that the previous day’s jumper was a spare school one and I’d not even noticed.  So I need to remember to wash it and return it rather than putting it back in his drawers.

To top off the school clothing week, his new school shoes are totally wrecked already after a week.  I don’t know how he scuffs on the top of the shoes because they’re only worn in the classroom and not outside.  Someone’s been playing on the floor obviously and crawling around.  I’m not impressed because that’s another pair of nearly £50 shoes wrecked without him being anywhere near growing out of them.  I guess I’ll be colouring the scuffs in with black crayon in the meantime.

Tennis love

N does make me laugh.  You might remember last summer I took him to a local tennis club open day where he refused to try it or speak to the coach, and would only throw a ball for me to hit until I would let him go to the park next door.  But he seems to really enjoy tennis at school.

The coach from last summer is the same tennis coach that comes into school, and N seems to have claimed him for his own ‘because I know he’s Andy mummy, and L (his best friend) didn’t know him before’.

So far I’m not that clear on what they’re learning, but they’ve been playing games, hitting the ball and having it thrown for them to run and hit.  I’m so pleased he’s found a sport he enjoys (so far), and hopefully he’ll want to carry it on – maybe I’ll have to find a course over the summer to have a go at, although I’m not sure how the logistics of that would work with me working.

If his performance flipping pancakes shows what he can do with a tennis racquet, I might have quite a good player on my hands.

Pancakes

Like many other schools, N’s had a pancake race.  The day before I had to decide which of my pans could be taken into school (named!), and whether I could be bothered/have enough time to make 1 pancake before school.  I decided buying pancakes would be easier, and he could always eat the rest as snacks or for puddings over the week (we always have homemade for pancake day, so there would be no passing ready made ones off as real ones to the OH).

Talk about food waste though – 10 pancakes bought, 1 used, 1 ancient frying pan dug out of the cupboard.  I’m sure it would have been easier for 3 parents to buy a pack of pancakes each and donate them to the class.  At least one girl took the remaining pack of hers back to after school club where all the kids ate them after tea.

I’m not sure what the race entailed because N told me who won it, that all their year raced together, and the winner won because he was the first one to flip the pancake.  So it’s a bit of a mystery.  I think N must have done a lot of pancake tossing because by the end of the day, he was flipping his pancake (still not eaten thankfully) perfectly into the pan again.

After eating 4 lots of pancakes that day, he’s already asking to have them again for tea sometime soon.

God save the queen

This week I’ve been hearing N singing something a little unexpected.  He’s never sung any hymns before although I presume they sing them at assembly being a CofE school.  But one evening he was singing God Save The Queen.  And accurately – the correct tune and words which I was quite impressed with.

I’ve no idea why.  N told me it was sung in assembly, but that seems a little odd because they’re not studying the queen as far as I can tell, and it’s not her birthday yet.  But I suppose it’s quite a helpful song to know.

3 times a VIP

Yes, N was VIP again a week after the last time and not just once but 3 times (well, he didn’t have a sticker on Wednesday, saying there were none left, so we’re assuming he’s telling the truth!).  So that’s now 10 times since he started in September.  He still can’t tell me exactly why, but his explanation is that he was doing ‘good busy work’.

He was really pleased that his cousin was also VIP for his year on Friday, which meant they both got to sit together at lunch on the VIP table.

Star of the week

When I picked N up from the school church service on Friday, he was chuffed to tell me that as well as being a VIP again, he was also Star of the Week, for his love of learning.  His teacher also told me he’d been doing really good writing this week, so all that practicing at home off his own back is helping things along well.

Next half term they’re moving onto their next stage of phonics so more of the 2 letter phonics, although I think they’ve been doing some from the rhyming phrases N’s been coming out with.  Maybe he’s going to be a lover of words like my family have all been, because N’s certainly enjoying telling me about them and repeating what he’s learnt.

<div align="center"><a href="https://bubbablueandme.com" rel="nofollow" title="Bubbablue and me"><img src="https://bubbablueandme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/School-days-badge-Bubbablue-and-me.jpg" alt="Bubbablue and me" style="border:none;" /></a></div>