School Days – measuring in maths
This week has been fairly quiet school wise. Just the normal, with the addition of me having my first flexi time off outside school holidays. That meant I could pick N up from school on Thursday as well as my usual Friday. That was exciting for him and a pleasure for me. Although it did feel like it was a bit of a waste of a day – the first half of the afternoon off spent blogging in Starbucks, then picking N up, doing his homework early for once, and baking cakes.
But onto this week’s School Days.
Whatever
This week, N’s class have been doing activities around a book called Whatever. I’m not sure that encouraging the response ‘whatever’ to everything is a good thing, but when N had homework getting them to write 2 sentences describing the rocket in the book, he’s obviously made up his own mind.
‘It has a rude boy inside’.
I’m not sure that was quite the descriptive ideas the teacher was looking for, but hey, he thought of it himself.
Maths and measuring
I’ve been really pleased with N this week in what he’s achieved with his homework. His reading’s coming on well, his writing’s looking pretty good and he tackled his maths with gusto.
This week was all about measuring. N was happy to tell me he’d been using a long ruler in class (I take it that’s a metre rule – old school). So homework choosing 5 objects to draw (round in N’s case – taking the easy option but easy to measure then) and measure them. They could use lego or pencils to measure them, but N loves my retracting tape measure so he used that. I asked him to write what the objects were, then he had to put the measurements in order which he did easily. And not once was there moaning. It really does make a difference when he has confidence in a subject.
I did wonder whether he’d have got learner of the week for his year this week, but he didn’t. His teacher was really pleased with his measuring in class though.
VIP and Star (of the tennis club)
At school N was VIP again this week. I’m loving that a) he remembered what he was given it for and b) that it was for him getting on with his work and working hard. Although N was keen to tell me that ‘it’s good that I rush my work so I can move on to the next thing’. That’s not quite the way it works Mr, you need to think it through and get it right as well.
Cheating a bit, because it’s not school, but N was also Star of the week at tennis club. They’ve decided that there’s too many not behaving, not listening, and doing their own thing even when told not to, so stickers are only given to 2 people each week for their hard work. N was the only boy to behave all session, so it was a nobrainer, but he also did good listening and taking on board pointers on his technique.
Proud mum!
No language
It appears N has now noticed children who look different to him. He came out of school the other day waving to a reception child, then told me ‘she has no language’. Eh? She’s mute?
‘She’s got no language’. Ah, she doesn’t speak english. This is really unusual where we live. There’s 3 asian children in reception, but that’s probably the same number as in the rest of the school, and a couple of children with african-american descent. I asked N what language she did speak but she just ‘has no language’. So then he decided that she has coloured skin, and wanted to know why.
This really is the hardest type of thing to explain to children, why children can all look different and have different coloured skin. I had to explain how her ancestors and maybe family were from another country or continent originally,, and people from there had darker skin and that’s genetic. Then he wanted to know why if they were from there did they live here. Sigh.
History lesson alert, with an explanation of how back in the day, after the war, Britain had a small workforce, and people from other countries were invited to come and work over here. Then they liked it so stayed, and now their children and grandchildren are from here because they were probably born here. Which then ended up being a discussion about taxes, homeless people and how they can get homes, and why people get money from the government. Sometimes a simple question from a 5 year old really doesn’t have a simple answer.
Macmillan coffee morning
N’s school are pretty hot on fund-raising, and this week was their Macmillan coffee morning. That meant taking in cakes and non-uniform day dressing in green. This year N doesn’t really have green clothes, so we dragged out a mint green polo shirt we found which he seemed happy with. I think I’ll have to get a greener t shirt in readiness for his sports day this year though, given he’s now in the green house permanently.
I took some basic cupcakes in, which didn’t really sell very well. They even had cakes left at the end of the day. N told me he had 4 cakes. I’m not sure how true it was though – he’d had one on arrival which I saw, and then he shared his best friend’s donation as well. Little piglet if that’s true! The poor school having children high on cakes and squash prior to school starting.
#SchoolDays linky
Thinking about leftover cakes is making me hungry! Do you think that if your school does a lot of fundraising, people get bake-sale fatigue? I’m intrigued at the idea of measuring with pencils because they may be different lengths, but lego sounds like a really engaging tool for maths.
Possibly. I think a lot of parents would rather just pay £50 a year in to the pot and have done with fundraising. I think though it was a new term and there were a lot more reception mums who’d baked this time than us lot last year!
It can be a really awkward time when children begin to notice differences, I think the best way to deal with it is simply to be honest.
Yes, I’d rather he heard it from me than things on the playground or he comes back asking different questions from what he’s heard at school
N sounds like he’s doing really well, VIP is very impressive. Great history lesson, i find simple questions with my 5 year old rarely have simple answers #schooldays
He’s been most put out since then with the VIPs, because they do 2 per class per day, and the last few have all been the reception children in his class getting it. According to him that’s not fair, but then here’s only 7 year 1s and about 15 reception kids.
Yes, the questions. Never ending