The Plagues

On the way to school Rose started asking me questions based on the 10 plagues - which she has been studying in Bible.  It became quite an in-depth discussion.  Reflecting on it as we got out of the car, I realised that my attitude had completely changed from when I got into the car to when we arrived at school and I am convinced it was a result from thinking on the things of God, rather than wallowing in my tiredness, sense of inadequacy and re-hashing what I was teaching for the millionth time!  What a great reminder to have my mind focused in the right place at the start of my days.

Snake!

I was working on my computer when our helper started screaming at the top of her lungs.  She was really freaking out - which is fairly unusual for her - so I knew something was up and I had a good idea what it was!  I went to investigate and sure enough, there was a snake slithering through our back yard.  As I debated how I was going to attack it, it climbed the wall and slid next door over the wall.  I was quite happy to let them deal with it!  Lea said "That's good - they have a dog!"
Naomi asked what was going on but I played it down while being truthful..."Just a snake".

crucible word cloud

This is a project I gave my class to do this week - dead simple actually.  I just loaded up my notes to the website www.wordle.net and it produced the word cloud for me - in about 5 seconds!  How cool is that?  Looking forward to seeing my students' creations on Thursday.

Teacher's Curse

Last night I was suffering from the teacher's curse.  Running through today's lesson, wondering what I had not done.  I had been working on some writing last week to share with the class as part of my modelling how to write and I had been struggling with the last paragraph.   Well, as I lay in bed, inspiration hit me (this is not unusual, I have a notepad and pen by my bed for this reason).  I quickly got up, went downstairs, fired up the computer and wrote it.  I slept really well after that : )

Football Crazy

I joined Steve and the other footballers this afternoon.  I have not played for years - literally!  I have been playing with Josh everyday and been feeling my skills warming up as a result - particularly as he gets better.  So I decided to take the plunge.  It was great to play again.  However, as it has been years since I last wore my football boots and as we live in a very humid climate, as I began warming up and kicking the ball around I realised the soles of my boots were gradually falling apart and by the time I finished playing, they had disappeared! There will be some new boots in the shopping basket next week.

Gravity

My favourite conversation today was listening to Rose and Joshua discussing their twirly papers that Rose brought back from school yesterday.  She had made one and brought one for Josh and Naomi.  (Naomi: Oh, wow, you know how to write my name?"  Rose: No, Mrs. S did it".)  They were "flying" them off the top of the stairs, and they worked really well.

Joshua: What do you mean by gravity?
Rose: Gravity pulls us down.  We're not floating, Josh.

She did go on to give a fuller explanation but it made me smile.

Moo

More of the animal guessing game.  Naomi and I were playing it in the car on the way home from preschool.
Debs: Does it live on a farm?
Naomi: Yes
Debs: Does it live in a field?
Naomi: Yes.
Debs: Does it moo?
Naomi: Yes
Debs: Is it a cow?
Naomi; No
Debs: No?! How can it not be a cow if it moos?
Naomi: It's a horse.  Horses moo don't they?!
Debs: No, horses neigh.
Naomi: Oh

Place of origin

Josh: Mum, I have to tell you something Miss Zipp told me.
Debs: OK
Josh: Miss Zipp said we are from the United Kingdom....but we're not, we're from England.
What a conflict for Joshua: his heroine Miss Zipp telling him something he doesn't think is true!!
Debs: Well, we are both.  England is part of the United Kingdom.
Relief for Joshua. Faith in Miss Zipp has been restored.
Debs: So is Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Josh: What is Wales?  I don't know that.
(I don't know why he thinks he knows the others!!)
Debs: Wales is where Aunty Ali is from.  We went there when Uncle Tim and Aunty Ali got married.  We stayed in a hotel by the beach.  We have photos.
Josh: I don't remember that.  Will you take me? Wales?  That's strange.

Playing the game

Josh and I made a game board this morning.  It was just squares with numbers and he found two counters and a dice and we played a racing game to the finish.  Then he decided we needed to write the rules for when he played it with Steve.  So he told me what we needed to write.  It was very articulate and to the point.  I wrote most of the words but I encouraged him to write the sight words he knows: I, and, to.  It was really cool to do that with him.  After we went swimming he played it with Steve and they decided they would draw some snakes and ladders on the board.  It's his new favourite game (before it was noughts and crosses that we made from foam squares - he is conflicted whether to call it noughts and crosses or tic, tac, toe : D) and we've played it a few times today!

Older sister

As Naomi and I were driving up to school:
Naomi: (out of nowhere!): I have something very important to say.... I want to be an older sister.
Debs: Well I have something very important to say.... that's not going to happen!
Naomi: But I really want to be an older sister.
Debs: Then you'll have to practise with Trina and Ezra.
Naomi: OK, I'll practise with them.
Debs: (realising practise may make it sound like it will happen when she gets good at it) but mummy and daddy will not be having any more babies.

Handling it

Naomi and Joshua came to ask me something while I was washing up.  Naomi started and Josh said, "Wait.  I'll handle this".  Hmmmm.  How many times has he heard me say that, coupled with "Don't deal with it yourself...."?  It sounded very funny coming out of his mouth though.
Rose is usually the one who likes to handle things but she is struggling a bit at the moment with feeling a little excluded by Joshua and Naomi.  They are not content to let her take control of every game so have shut her out a little bit. This has been frustrating for her and she has not made good choices about how to express this - usually resorting to trying to annoy them in some way - humming an irritating tune or throwing the animals into "their space" to cite two examples from today!  I am finding it hard to help her and we had a pretty explosive day today.

Titles

I have had a trifle in various stages in the fridge this week.  Rose loves trifle so she was bugging me to finish it.  It makes me happy that she likes such a British dessert.  (Although she may find it tastes even better in England!) As we were finishing it tonight, she said, "Mum, you are the best trifle maker in the whole world."  It may not be a title with lots of honour or wealth but it meant a lot to me because I understood everything she was expressing in those words.

Birthday pics

The cake

Tshirt from Granny and Grandpa

Enjoying the Dairy Queen ice-cream

At the party

Rose and Floss

Spot the gap!  When he showed me after school
on Friday I said (rather tactlessly!)
"Wow! That's a huge gap, Joshua."
When we got in the car he looked in the rear-view mirror
and sai, "You're right, mum.  That is a huge gap!"

Better reader

As we sat listening to the Bible story tonight, Rose read the final paragraph.  Josh leaned over to me and whispered in my ear: "Rose is reading much easier".  It is true, her reading has accelerated and she is much more fluent and confident.  It was cool that Josh noticed it, though.

Nails 2

I didn't realise our son had chosen to wear flip-flops to Church this morning - with his half polished nails on full display!  I'm a little bit sensitive about it because in this country boys can be forced into a "bukla" (transsexual) lifestyle from a very young age, so I was a little concerned about what Filipinos might be thinking when they saw his nails.  But then I realised - MIGHT - be thinking.  How often do we make choices based on what people MIGHT be thinking?  Most of the time no-one cares about thinking about us, we think ourselves so much more important to others than we are!  And he's my son and I know him and I love him as he is - even with nail polish on his feet.

Nails

I took the kids to the play place at Taytay this morning as I thought Steve needed a bit of time by himself after getting up with the kids and making breakfast pancakes.  I discovered the mall has free wireless so I worked (!!) while they played after doing a small bit of shopping.
When we got home the kids disappeared upstairs and when they came down Joshua proudly showed me his painted toe nails that Rose had done.  I gently tried to point out boys don't usually have nail polish but he is a victim of only having sisters already!
When he was outside later playing football I heard him say "Oh, no, my nail polish will get messed up!"  This is what I had said to him yesterday - but I spent a lot of money getting mine done the evening before!  It made me laugh.
Then we went swimming and most of it came off anyway.

Party

We celebrated Naomi turning 4, today.   She had preschool this morning and then I picked her and her 4 friends up and brought them home for a party.  Rose and Joshua were a little disgusted with me that they were unable to attend the party but I figured this was the most low-key and easiest way of doing it.  I told them we would have a family celebration after school and that seemed to satisfy them, although Rose was a little put out that we were celebrating today when her birthday is really tomorrow!

I came home straight after teaching to get everything ready.  Let me tell you how not to host a party for a 4 year old.  Firstly, don't forget to get the icing sugar when you go shopping the day before.  Thankfully, I could send our helper out to get some because the other thing you should not do is still be cutting the shape of the cake the morning of the party!  Also, do not leave all the preparation to the morning of.  Before picking Naomi and crew up I had to go to the mall and buy candy floss to finish decorating the cake (well that sounds like I was ready to finish which I was not), and some extra bits of food for lunch.  I collected a very excited gaggle of girls - plus one poor boy who I was dropping home!  Naomi had already opened presents.  They all squeezed into our back seat and when we got home they played dress up while I made some lunch for them.  They loved their new head-dresses.

At the end of lunch my friend, Sarah, came to help out - good job, because I was still icing the cake!  She did some games with them and then we had the cake - the minimalist version: minus eyes, wing outlines and bow!  Naomi wanted the same cake as last year.  She reminded me Uncle Sam had done the bow - I had forgotten they were still here then!  But it had the candy floss so everything was good.

Then they did some more games, played a bit and it was time to go back up to school.

Wendy bought Dairy Queen ice creams for dessert and Naomi opened her family presents.

Daddy's girl

Naomi and I did a bit of shopping for her party tomorrow.  She really wanted party hats and we found these princess head-dresses which I suggest she use as party hats.  She liked that idea and we got sweets for the pass the parcel.

Steve was away for the night at Admin retreat and Rose was so excited about him being back this afternoon, Wendy said she was bouncing round the classroom in the afternoon.  You'd think he had been away for a week!

Weds joys

I love my Wednesdays!  Today I got to skype, then hang out with a friend, then have lunch with a new member of staff.  It was lovely - I do miss having flexibility in my day.  Rose had her piano lesson after school - and she told me had been very good (we had a talk before she started!).  Steve was not around so we had homemade pizzas for dinner and watched Robots before bed.