Money Matters

It's never too early to start teaching children about money. Last week we had a gentle introduction to the evils and joys of money.

As with most things, it was driven by my sanity being at stake.

As we stood in a shop for the thousandth time with one boy or another insisting he had enough in his money box at home to buy the Pokemon / Lego / book / cuddly toy in front of us, I'd consider gambling with my own money.

Should I lend these mini people the cash - do they really have enough at home? Do they have honest faces? Do they know that I'll probably forget I lent it to them? Am I being hustled? Will I be clawing back repayment of the 60p debt in weekly instalments? Should I charge interest? Will I need a spreadsheet for this? Why am I making this so complicated?

Thankfully GoHenry have come up with a simple solution for forgetful mothers like me and the kids now have their own pre-paid debit cards. GoHenry is for children aged 8 and up so we're bang on for using their joyful services. If you fancy it, you can link their weekly pocket money to chores and if the tasks aren't ticked the pocket money won't get paid. Now that's motivating..

There's a monthly charge but for us it's worth it as the lesson in responsibility and practice in handing their own funds is worth its weight. Even better, the children feel about 6 feet tall.

When we went for our first 'use our new debit card adventure' (who says HE isn't exciting) .. the nice lady at the supermarket couldn't quite believe they were allowed to check out and pay for items themselves with their very own debit card and very own (very secret) pin.

The cards came with a price - the boys had to endure a one hour lesson on money skills with me before the cards would be issued and so we covered interest, savings, loans, pin numbers and debit vs credit cards.

I left pension planning for next time.

For brilliant teaching resources for all levels :
https://www.barclaysmoneyskills.com/Information/Resource-centre/School-Children.aspx

The 7-11 pack has a brilliant board game at the end of the pack.

The Joy of Long Division

The first step to teaching the boys long division was to teach myself long division.

I'm sure I did it at school at some point but that was at least a decade (*cough* or two) ago and it turns out that's it definitely nothing like riding a bike.

Step 1a : Google the topic and print out step by step instructions
Step 1b : Print out drill sheets and sit at the kitchen table with a garibaldi and a coffee
Step 1c : Check facebook a few times and empty the dishwasher
Step 1d : Do about 4 sums before declaring the invention of the calculator the best thing since sliced bread

Step 2 : Teach the boys long division

Here's a neat little trick to help them remember the steps :

Daddy Division
Mummy Multiplication
Sister Subtract (or in our case Stevie the cat Subtract)
Brother Bring down (if we've had an argument with our brother, we can substitute Bailey the dog)

So for example:

Then repeat, by saying Daddy divides 29 by 3 and writes the answer on the line .. and so on.

As soon as there's nothing for Brother (or Bailey) to bring down, whatever we're left with is the remainder.

(Thank you BBC skillwise and Explore Learning)

Crime & Punishment

On a car journey last week I drove past a guy on the pavement who threw some litter casually into the road and the boys had to endure my rant that it was the "worst sort of lazy, selfish behaviour", "low standards", "no respect for himself or others" and "if you're going to be a criminal at least do it properly".

Always eager to please, K cheerfully comments that "If I was a criminal I'd do it properly and rob a bank ...." "... or burgle a house" adds W helpfully. I spend the next 10 minutes explaining how there are much better career options than criminal mastermind but they've seen Despicable Me so I don't think they're buying it.

So we had crime on the mind (hopefully not dreaming up more ways to be an evil genius) while we did a bit of craft and W came up with a cool robber design for a peg person. Just to be clear being a robber is definitely not cool, but W's peg person was.

He set about making a prison for his robber. As we chatted about prisons we ambled onto escaping which led us nicely to the Great Escape which took place 72 years ago, on the night of 24th March 1944.

The co-incidence of the date was too good a history opportunity to pass up, so we did some WWII revision and took a quick tangent into the Jewish faith, persecution and brain washing.

Using the fabulous resources from the National Archives, which are easily adapted to suit upper and lower KS2, we looked at Belsen and eye witness accounts from the liberation. It's a perfect platform for exploring human reactions to cruelty, hunger, trauma and the logistics of war.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/sessions-and-resources/

We read an interview with a now elderly Auschwitz SS guard who escaped prosecution to briefly explore the difficult issue of holding individuals to account decades after an event. It's heavy going for an 8 and 9 year old so we only touched on it lightly, but I was amazed that the boys were able to articulate thoughts on something so ethically complex - they recognised it wasn't a black and white issue and felt that what he'd done with his life in the intervening decades might be relevant.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/spiegel-interview-with-a-91-year-old-former-auschwitz-guard-a-988127.html

Cheering up was needed and it was too early for me to have a gin so we moved onto the headline topic : the daring and wonderful great escape from the camp at Sagan. We thought about the practical problems of escaping and looked at the ingenious ways the escape committee managed to conceal their efforts, shore up the tunnel and make civilian clothing.
We used this history of the great escape, plus it has a handy quiz at the bottom :
http://www.historyonthenet.com/ww2/great_escape.htm

War and imprisonment never have a happy ending so it was fitting that only 3 of the escapees made it to the UK, 23 were returned to the camp and 50 were murdered on Hitler's direct orders. The boys could hardly believe it and looked genuinely crestfallen; we're too used to the good guys always beating the odds in stories and films.

To finish off, we looked at images and plans of the tunnels and the boys reconstructed hut 104 and 'Harry' tunnel in Minecraft.

An unplanned topic and fairly heavy going but we covered a lot of ground and had some fantastic discussion. So it's not all doom and gloom.

Except for peg robber. He's serving life.....

.... for pinching things.

Normal Week?

It's felt like a rubbish week.

Nothing untoward, just the usual minutiae. Now throw in a major work pitch, a vet visit for the cat, social and family engagements... Juggling is such a confidence killer. It's a wonder circus performers can keep a smile on.

I've limped to Thursday with FAILURE blazoned across my forehead because the kitchen is a mess, the children's nails are dirty, I haven't organised that birthday present to be posted yet, I should really wash the car, the dog needs his vaccination boosters, the oven has broken and I haven't chased the electrician etc etc and to top it all off, most heinous of all, I am convinced that I haven't done enough 'school' with the kids.

I hit the imaginary pause button - which conveniently generates a scone and a cup of tea - and did a reality check on our school week.

What has actually happened since 9am Monday?

Maths, ICT & science
Online maths lesson, every day
Explore learning session for English and maths
Long division revision and practice (W)

Column subtraction recap (K)

Science morning - human body theme with gross science

Programming - Flappy Bird computer game

Geoboard shapes app

'About Me' powerpoint (inserting text & images)
Endangered animals research & creating a poster

Literacy, art & music

Group reading, Firework Maker's Daughter
Exercise on Expanded noun phrases (K) & conjunctions (W)
Synonyms (K) & more conjunctions (W)
Creative writing lesson (W)
Literacy tutor (K)
Independent and aloud reading
Verbal reasoning practice (K)
Daily, new vocabulary and spellings

Piano lesson (W)

Art - glitter patterns, peg painting and colour mixing

Life skills
Hamster care - researching treats, cage cleaning, design & build maze tunnel systems
Trampolining
Parkour (K)
Cooking basics - independently making boiled eggs and beans on toast

8 point compass readings

Money skills lesson - debit cards, credit, interest and savings


That's not just okay, it's plenty.

I think I've earned another scone.

Maths is Fun

Exploring maths apps today - the ones below are ideal for consolidating fractions, angles, area, tessellation, 2D shapes and symmetry work. If we're ticking boxes then it's also a winner for ICT and art.

But who cares about that when you can make cool patterns?

http://www.mathlearningcenter.org/web-apps/geoboard/

http://www.mathlearningcenter.org/web-apps/pattern-shapes/