Billy Goats Gruff

Lasting about a week, W did a literacy unit based on the Three Billy Goats Gruff. We started by reading the story, then there was character analysis, a formal complaint letter to the council about harassment from the goats and an alternative ending. The big task which was to create a cardboard theatre and write a play script to perform.

W threw himself into the art aspect and created a background and bridge. A short diversion into perspective resulted in a river which flowed beautifully into the distance and loads of sheep in the fields. We used cutouts from Twinkl for the characters which we hot glued onto skewers.

Play script writing can be a challenge in KS2. The inclination, from years of reading and listening to stories, is to describe and explain. Play writing requires an abstract view; W had to step out of the story and recast himself from describer to director - delegating the job of story-telling to his characters and scenery.

The start point is identifying and understanding that plays happen in scenes not chapters (which are typically set out by time). For plays, the location takes priority and each location change will determine the scene. We have to identify:
1. Location of this scene
2. Characters in this scene

After that, we start the dialogue with a new speaker on each line. It was a challenge to convince W that we don't need to say 'he shouted' after the words as we're using direct speech (but confusingly, without the speech marks). Stage directions (shouting) can be added in brackets.

Writing plays is a specific skill. It feels clumsy and flat to strip a story down to only what is said and requires faith that what's on paper will spring into a magical masterpiece when it's brought to life on stage. Accents must be decided upon, lines and their expression practiced and entry/exit timings perfected.

None of those things happened in our play.

The stage doors fell off, the troll entered facing the wrong way, W dropped the script, I forgot my lines and the bridge collapsed.

It was a triumph. 5 stars.

Much Ado

Continuing our Shakespeare theme we decided to re-try the Globe with seats this time, thanks to a half price offer on tickets for 946 (Morpurgo's The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips). Although it's not Shakespeare it had the same cast so it all felt warm, fuzzy and familiar as we sat in the upper echelons with the snazzy cardboard visors to help shade the sun.

It didn't have the charm of the yard but there were fewer tired legs and we had a clear view of all the action with no pillars to peek round.

My preference would still be the yard : at £5 a ticket it's exceptional value for exceptional theatre, but perhaps only for age 10+ and it's worth getting there early to secure a spot front and centre of the stage for the best experience. It's a balance - getting there early means standing for up to an hour longer but in return you'll get a better view.

My other tip is at the interval (if you haven't been organised enough to take nibbles) - keep hold of your ticket and nip out to Costa which is right behind the rear theatre entrance for cheaper snacks and shorter queues than the Globe refreshment stands.

Given we'd had a side view of A Midsummer Night's Dream and W struggled with standing for so long I was completely delighted to find that the final show at the Globe will be broadcast live by the BBC tomorrow. To watch the same actors perform the play again it from the comfort of our own sofa will be fabulous and the kids loved the story. What's not to love about a naughty fairy and a man called Bottom with an ass for a head?!

Link here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/h2vwgfPvGVLTZ95BWL6Yxf/riotous-and-celebratory-a-midsummer-night-s-dream-live-streamed-in-a-world-first

Midsummer is a modern adaption by Emma Rice with traditional language but a visual focus on costume, colour and a re-imagining of conventional Shakespearean theatre. Helena is re-cast as Helenas; Hermia wears Cath Kidston pyjamas.

It's a fantastic contrast to Much Ado About Nothing which we saw last week at Clivedon Manor. Performed by a classic all-male troupe, Much Ado was performed outside (in the pouring rain in our case!) for an authentic experience. 

K is the perfect age to grasp Shakespeare's presentation of the strengths and weaknesses of human nature when it comes to love, betrayal and trickery. W is a little young to follow the dialogue but if there's a sprinkling of slapstick and a lemon sherbet he'll happily sit back and absorb the atmosphere and laugh at the physical comedy, even if the kissing bits are 'weird'. 

We've done Much Ado, Twelfth Night and Midsummer so we've covered enough of the comedies - the boys feel the same as they've asked to see one of Shakespeare's "fighty" ones. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to prep them for Hamlet... maybe next summer.

Varying Sentence Length

A simple, powerful demonstration of how varying sentence length improves writing and speaking. A lovely example for auditory learners - google for images of this quote for a visual version with sentences colour coded by length.


“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. 

Now listen. 

I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”

― Gary Provost

Abstract

Matisse's work appeals to my two. W loves colour and minimalism. K loves detail and technical balance. I wanted the boys to create an abstract piece of art and I was curious to see what they'd come up with without guidance from me and while sitting next to each other.

W takes his lead from K in many things but when it comes to art he sets his own path and isn't influenced by his big brother. We spent some time researching Matisse and getting inspired by some of his later cutout work. Shape and colour are the joy of Matisse - he also knew Picasso and they were both friends and rivals. K was drawn to 'Bees' and W to 'The Parakeet and the Mermaid'.

Art is best interpreted by the viewer, so I cordially present :
K's piece : "Static" inspired by technology and a badly tuned TV.
W's piece : "Abstract"inspired by woodland and a strawberry mousse for lunch.

Both available for general sale, signed and authenticity assured, for £5m each from the Fridge Gallery at my place.

Thoroughly inspired, we headed off to The Tate a few days later. We stuck to the abstract gallery as there was enough there to keep us busy. Highlights were Dali and Picasso but the whole experience was cool and unpretentious and the variety of artwork was diverse and engaging. We'll be back to explore other areas. It was fun to chat about what art is and how things are valued by how much people want them. 

The Tate sits right by Shakespeare's Globe Theatre so we watched a Midsummer Night's Dream from the Yard. It's cheap but standing for 4 hours was tough going on little (and big) legs. We'd pre-read the play and the boys kept up with the story but we were hampered by visibility and missed a lot of the physical jokes because of a pillar in our line of sight. We'll return when the boys are a bit taller or save up to pay for seats!

Then we ate crisps, stalked pigeons on the lawn and chased bubbles on the edge of the Thames - just in case we were getting a bit up ourselves. 

Finally a cheeky Picasso from W - with a small diversion into genetics! He drew me and S, then cut the faces and swapped parts so each face is half mum, half dad. K is on the right, W on the left!

Art imitating life.

The Complex Verb Universe

Verbs don't sit into nice little boxes. There are rules and exceptions around everything from tense to first/third person, plurals to perfect form.

I could go into excruciating detail to teach the boys but I'd have to learn it all myself first (yawn), they would be disengaged (yawn again) and the impact on their written and spoken grammar would be minimal. So what's the point of learning forms, tenses and grammatical tools?

In a nutshell it's to make sure that what you say conveys what you mean in the most elegant way possible. It's also great to be able to alienate friends and family by correcting a grammatical faux pas :
"I think you mean whom, not who."
I think you're off my Christmas card list.

Demonstrating an understanding of grammatical constructs through fluent, interesting and clear sentences is important. Being able to define and explain grammar is not.

Today we looked at three useful verb types that help us with meaning, with a little help from the Mr Men and Little Miss books.

Imperative verbs are provided by Little Miss Bossy. They tell you what to do which is brilliant for instructions, recipes and warning signs. We used a recipe book to brainstorm imperative verbs.

Modal verbs belong to the auxiliary (helping) family of verbs, which support a main verb. Modal verbs indicate certainty, possibility or a lack thereof and so they are supplied by Mr Jelly who is often unsure. They can help indicate the necessity or likelihood : should, won't, can, must. They're useful in debates, requests and nagging small children to brush their teeth properly : You MUST brush your teeth or they WILL fall out.

Powerful verbs are excellent for story telling and helping the reader or listener to imagine a situation; provided by Little Miss Magic as they add that special something to a story. They're used all the time in fiction but also pop up regularly for emotive and dramatic reasons in news reports.

Powerful verbs also provide a useful link to synonyms : I ran down the road.
Sprinkle the magic to hint at context and deepen meaning :
I bolted down the road / I flew down the road / I raced down the road / I sprinted down the road / I bounded down the road.

I don't know any adults who can confidently explain the entire verby universe - maybe it's just not a topic that comes up much at parties. I'm not expecting the boys to; by far the most important thing is that their correct use becomes natural.

The best way to achieve that is to speak well, use rich vocabulary and read often and aloud. For good grammar you need an ear for the right sound.

Rhyme and Reason

Rounding off this poetry section I wanted to focus on rhyming couplets. Free verse is great but there's something satisfying in finding a rhyme. Less satisfying when the word is 'hamster' or 'spider'. Wasted a bit of time on those.

Rhyming couplet poems are prolific; we read lots for laughs and then looked at whether we can spot rhythms which sound best and why (tip: if the number of syllables is one different between the two lines it doesn't tend to flow).

Inspired by Grizzly Tales and the idea of morals in fairy tales the boys came up with a character called Billy with big eyes (no, I'm not sure either) who is cruel to animals and gets his just deserts.

There's a charming definition of poetry which is "the best words in the best order". We start with a brainstorm : a big board of words, rhyming pairs and ideas and then we pick out the best. Saying the couplets aloud helps choose - some just sound better than others.

W comes up with the name and K sets up the back story. W questioned K's premise throughout - why would a boy who is teased for having huge eyes be mean to animals? It's a leap, but I like K's logic that the big eyes hint at what might become of Billy later.

They managed to include an onomatopoeia (W's new favourite word!) with 'whizzed', rhyme, some sense of rhythm and alliteration (big brown bear).

A true team effort, here's the finished poem :

Silly Billy

There once was a boy called Billy

With big eyes which looked rather silly.

Because he was bullied by everyone

He started to hurt animals for fun.

At the zoo he stole a small giraffe

Then had a laugh when it took a bath.

In the woods he caught a big brown bear

At home he shaved off all its hair.

Billy took his neighbour's snake

And baked it into a birthday cake.

In the desert he found a cheetah

And roasted it inside a heater.

He woke one morning, my oh my,

Billy had turned into a fly.

As he whizzed around the ceiling

Billy got a sinking feeling.

He tried to find a way to flee

Bu a spider ate him for its tea.

Free Verse : Best Value Poetry in the Curriculum

Free verse can be engaging and funny so it is the perfect start point for two boys who wailed 'I hate poems' as soon as I put it on the timetable.

They were easily swayed thanks to the likes of Michael Rosen, Kit Wright and Mandy Coe.

Free verse is defined by its lack of rules. Without the constraints of rhyme and a fixed rhythm, there are no distractions from other interesting poetic devices : we focussed on imagery, line breaks, alliteration, repetition and onomatopoeia.

First stop - The Magic Box by Kit Wright.
A fantastical poem with an easy to follow structure. Alliteration, imagery and onomatopoeia all feature in the first 2 lines so it's packed full of useful examples. We read it twice and then brainstormed what could go in our magic box - focussing on feelings, smells, tastes and sounds as well as things. The boys wrote their poems and then typed them up for display for a sneaky bit of ICT.

To say they were proud of them would be an understatement.

Next lesson was deeper into nonsense with Don't by Michael Rosen, who uses repetition for impact. We covered the way reading a poem aloud rather than in your head changes the feel and impact (link to slam/performance poetry) and watched some YouTube videos of poetry performances. We brought in elements of rhyme within phrases and I wish I could share them here but any poems that include lines like 'Don't put a plum in your bum' and 'Don't burp' are best kept offline. Thanks boys.

If I say there are no rules I can't be surprised that they produced rude poems. Hooray for freedom of expression.

Their 'Don't' poems might have lacked the charm of their Magic Box attempts but they did present them as a performance for Dad in a mini slam poetry jam.

Using the theme of 'Don't' we imagined a friend in a fantastical situation (the boys settled on : locked in an iron room and hair on fire) and wrote them a helpful postcard of Dos and Don'ts for a literacy link.

There's always scope for a bit more silliness so this week we'll move onto rhyming couplets with poems by Marian Swinger and Hilaire Belloc covering metaphors, similes, personification and some Spoonerisms from Michael Rosen.

Resources:
Michael Rosen compilations are terrific fun for browsing
Roald Dahl Revolting Rhymes are a classic
The Works, chosen by Paul Cookson, is a great one-stop compilation and includes lesson plans at the back

Our favourite onomatopoeia examples : buzz, crunch, pop, whizz, bang. Roald Dahl is the master of using these, especially in The Witches and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The Black Death

What killed 1/3 of the population of Britain in the middle ages?

It sounds like a bad cracker joke but it's just our intro to our topic. There's nothing like starting the new year with pestilence and agonising death.

I like a bit of context with my history, so we started off with a timeline to get a rough feel for where we were parking our history train on the recent-human-history timeline.

Timelines are a bonus as you can cover quite a few historical periods or events while surreptitiously sneaking in some maths with negative numbers and do some cutting and sticking to boot. We cover BC and AD, major and minor ticks and identify our (humbling) little centimetre of our own personal history. Cross curricular link: Maths, number lines.

The boys cut out pictures to represent the major time periods like stone age, middle ages, Tudors, Victorians and so on and stick them on, marking the periods they covered. "Why was the Stone Age so long?" I ask. "There are a lot of stones." Fair enough.

Next lesson, we talk about life in the middle ages and begin to explore the Black Death and how many people in Britain and Europe died. Cross curricular link: European geography.

Lesson 3, we look at causes, creating a flow chart of how the plague spread and talking trade routes and shipping. We explore the ideas people had at the time about the cause (angry God, planets, bad smells) and how the poor were worst hit and why. Cross curricular link: Science, flow charts / RE, beliefs.

Lesson 4 was symptoms. We act out the stages, with apples under our armpits and give ourselves the dreaded black spot.

Lesson 5, on to cures and the bizarre and disgusting ideas (like exploding frogs and dead pigeons) that were popular at the time. Cross curricular link: Science, medicine, germs, hygiene.

We look at persuasive writing in advertising and briefly divert into how humour, glamour, alliteration, rhyme and catchy tunes and slogans can help sell products. Cross curricular link: Literacy. The boys come up with their own crazy cures and design posters to sell their wares. We have a bit of fun with ageing our paper with candles and tea bags. Cross curricular link: Art.

Some persuasive writing tips are to use exaggeration, flattery and to start off with a question. K's opening gambit on his poster is perfect "Have you got the Black Death? Don't worry - the new Black Cream is in town and it will cure you in minutes!"

"Guaranteed to prevent death, or your money back!"

Finally, the short book "The Plague, a cross on the door" about a boy whose master dies from the plague was a perfect round up. Cross curricular link: Literacy, reading and listening.

Next stop in our British history scheme for this term : Tudors...

Let's Eat Grandma

It's an old one, but a good one. The importance of punctuation.

Dictionary Challenge

It's a challenge to make book-work seem relevant to children. We so rarely pick up a dictionary or use an encyclopaedia when we have google at our fingertips.

I'm part of the transition generation who were taught book-skills but didn't use them much by the time we entered work, thanks mostly to the internet and all the hilarious cat videos it brought us.

Knowing how to search for information, even on paper, undoubtedly supported the acceptance and use of technology that blossomed in the 90s and 2000s. A decade on and the ability to search through an index is not yet obsolete: it translates onto screens in the form of timetables, menus, sub-menus, alphabetical and numerical ordering, contents pages and (my personal favourite) the lengthy PDF document which never quite navigates how you want.

Any skill that helps you sort, locate and order information is more relevant than ever, at a time when the quantity of information being produced every minute exceeds imagination http://aci.info/2014/07/12/the-data-explosion-in-2014-minute-by-minute-infographic/

We tackle the dictionary work at year 3/4 level lightly with a view to keeping it fun; we go on a treasure hunt for words between words, find a few definitions and learn some new vocabulary along the way.

If there's ever a global catastrophe and all internet communications are down, we will be the ones laughing as we confidently check our spelling, from apocalypse to zombie...

Keeping Up

Does a comma ever go before an 'and'?

How do you do long division?

These issues both came up this week and I had to look up the answers. I can hazard a decent guess but am I sure? Is my long division method perfect? Are there exceptions to a grammatical rule?

If I'm not sure then it's not good enough : K&W want to know for certain. My boys love rules so I have to be definite as they'll hang on to anything I tell them and quote me months or years from now. "But Mummy, while we were driving to the shops at Christmas time when I was 7 and wearing a blue jumper you said that all the drivers in <insert a town name> were idiots......"

Big responsibility.

It's a useful learning angle : you don't have to know everything, you just have to know how to find the answer. Which sources to trust, how to filter information to focus in on the thing you want to know, how to decide what's important, how to assess exceptions and differences in method or opinion.

Our days would be disjointed if I had to look up every tiny point and with an 8 and 9 year old I'm relieved to say I can handle most questions confidently. But the cracks are appearing : the questions are getting tougher.

What's an 8 year old doing learning long division? I don't think I learnt that until secondary school but here he is, doing it in line with his National Curriculum level and getting upset when I show the doorstep method that I know and love.

"It's not like that Mummy - there are boxes underneath! You have to take away!"

I battle on trying to show my (perfectly valid) method and we descend into tears because it isn't exactly what he's been taught. We take a break and decide to try again later when Mummy has had a cup of tea and found out exactly how the long division extended method is taught.

By the time I find it, print it, try it, understand it and am ready to teach it I'm also certainly ready to declare it utterly stupid because the doorstep method is better, even if I did see it described on the internet as 'old fashioned'. The cheek.

Keeping up is small tangent with a serious implication. I wouldn't want to teach secondary level outside of the subjects for which I'm trained. Sometimes it's the small things that set your path.


PS: About those commas .... http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/020204whencommabfand.htm

The Simple Joy of a Postcard

Post Crossing is fabulous; it's simple and delightful - send a postcard to another human being and receive a postcard from another human being.

If you're looking for learning opportunities there are plenty: stamps, handwriting styles, addresses, geography, language, postal service, titbits of cultural information from far flung places.

We just love it because it makes us happy and it has a lovely literacy leaning.

Our fridge is covered in colourful postcards from all corners of the world.

Firework Night

A quieter week. Just as we got a chance to (metaphorically) breathe after a fortnight of car accidents, boiler failures and eye-wateringly-expensive van services (AND my hair dryer broke - please send help), we have now all caught colds and so find physically breathing difficult.

First world problems. 

Despite the crippling agony of the common cold, a little extra time for me to plan goes a long way in terms of how much we get done in a day... and we're on fire today, which is useful as today is Bonfire Night.

Here's the afternoon topic plan : 

Starter : Bonfire Night mind map

Introduction : Firework safety quiz

Main : History, dates, key characters

Key learning point : Persecution then and now

Wind down : Firework poem

Plenary : Wordsearch

Follow up - the Firework Maker's Daughter story

Most importantly, the real fireworks are on Saturday!

Quiet Reading Time

I'm pleased with myself today. It's like when I discovered that if I store all my various sized tupperware pots with the lids on I can save, cumulatively, 20 or so swear words and about 2 hours of my life every year. Genuis.

I spent all morning rushing pillar to post between the boys - K insisted on being at his desk in the office, W at the kitchen table. There had been bickering so the set up was in all our interests. Except possibly mine.

Anyway, we were doing a spot of literacy with W doing compound words and K working on inference and I was going from one to the other with the beginnings of a stitch. We finished quicker than I was anticipating and had some dead air to fill. In a moment of brilliance I declared it was quiet reading time.

2 minutes, a cuddly toy, some blankets and a pile of books later I had 2 kids happily snuggled up on the sofa.... and I had a whole HOUR. An entire 60 minutes of perfect peace. I made lunch, got some work done and had a cup of tea that I actually drank while it was hot.

Why haven't I done this before?!

Reluctant Reader

W is my reluctant reader. It's not that he can't but if something doesn't have a definite purpose he'll skip it, thanks all the same.

It's an ongoing challenge to find opportunities for him to experience reading for pleasure. Sometimes it happens spontaneously and I am delighted - like when he discovered a Simpson's comic in a waiting room. He didn't want to leave! 

Here are more ideas for reluctant readers :

1. Making a snuggly reading space with cushions, blankets and toys who love to hear stories.

2. Treasure hunts - reading a clue to get to a prize is very motivating!

3. Your page / my page - W would get disheartened by how long a story would take so we do a page each.

4. Reading together (literally). The sound of my voice helps model expression, encourages W to use a louder voice and gives a starting sound to any tricky words.

5. Sign up to the summer reading challenge at the library.

6. Non-fiction is your friend - fact books or strategy books on topics that W finds interesting are a winner.

7. Embrace younger books. W has a board book that he bought with his pocket money in reception and he loves to read it, even though it has about 20 words. As a reading experience it's pure joy and reading easy material has a profound effect on confidence.

8. Screen reading is fine. Games, instructions, articles, news - it is still reading. It doesn't replace the quiet joy of a book in the sunshine but it does count.

9. Write your own. Staple paper together, get the kids to do the illustrations and write or type the story they dictate - it could be something that actually happened or imaginary. It's so cool to read a story about yourself. Be crafty and include vocab from their spelling lists.

10. Remember it's the skills not the literary prowess. Whatever W is reading he'll still get the key skills of absorbing, analysis and understanding. I read novels and biographies. S reads guides and articles. We're both prolific readers but we enjoy different things.

If Music Be the Food of Love..

.. play on.

The weather was kind and so the play was indeed on - and it was fantastic!

Surrounded by the reassuring sound of champagne corks popping and a sea of Waitrose picnic food, we picked our spot and then passed the time cartwheeling across the lawns and eating our tea while I tried to conceal our haribos in the infinitely-more-becoming mint crumbles bag, bought specially for the occasion.

The play was performed by a traditional all-male troupe which adds to the fantastic confusion of a man playing a woman who is disguised as a man. It's asking a lot of a 7 year old and a 9 year old to follow but our pre-reading last week really paid off.

As the play opened and the first infamous line was delivered with gusto W expressed his confusion at ye olde English language with an embarrassingly loud 'HUH?' while dramatically shrugging his shoulders. I reached for the Fox's glacier fruits like a child-shushing ninja.

K was mesmerised from the beginning and it only took a little while for W to get drawn into the rhythm of the play with me whispering the main character names as they appeared on stage. As the farce continued apace we passed notes to keep abreast of the story line. Amazingly, both kept up although evidence suggests K was briefly distracted by the glacier fruits..

We laughed ourselves silly when Malvolio appeared in his yellow stockings. We were on the edge of our seat during the duel. The boys loved Feste the fool's lute playing and singing. The teenagers in front of us giggled every time the word 'bosoms' was uttered. It was pure joy.

And posh though Waddesdon Manor is, you can still get a Smarties ice-cream during the interval.

The boys may have consumed a week's worth of sugar in one evening but it was well worth it. As I tucked the boys in at 11pm, a final thought from K :

"I like Shakespeare Mummy"

So do I darling. Why this is very midsummer madness.

Back in the Game

We saved the week!

Friday was a big pile of awesomeness topped with a cherry of brilliance.

We managed (despite a few internet issues from the preceding rubbish-week) to do our maths first thing and then the boys made their own lunch - that's home ec right there - and we headed out for a swim. Sorry, PE. Which happened to be swimming. Conveniently it's the same pool where K used to have his school lessons so how's that for continuity?

After that we had a bit of a lunch break and then hit literacy with a big Shakespeare-shaped stick. I would say BOOM but I think that's implied.

We read the charmingly accessible Marcia William's version of Twelfth Night. Not to miss an opportunity for a bit of cutting out, we picked out the main characters, made some cute little red hearts and visually tried to keep track of the bard's star-crossed, cross-dressing, love-struck chaos.

W (very much a web-thinker) grasped the story better than K (logical-steps thinker) which is no great surprise but I was chuffed to bits that they both kept up as Shakespeare wrote some great plays but it's probably fair to say that the under 10s weren't his target audience.

There's an outdoor production at a local stately home next Saturday and I'm hoping our bit of background work will make the live production a blast while we picnic on the lawns. Idyllic.*

O, had I but followed the arts! (Twelfth Night 1.3.94)


*Success on Saturday is by no means guaranteed. We have read a very short kids' version of Twelfth Night. The weather may or may not be wet and/or cold and/or windy. The play is authentic - so the boys won't understand most of what is said. It's 2 hours long (see previous note about wet, cold and windy). I'm still willing to give it a go but I am taking a lorry-load of sweets and I'm not promising the boys won't end up playing Angry Birds on my phone.

Grammatical Errors

The back of a yoghurt is an unlikely place to find cause for complaint but as I emptied the boys' lunch boxes I spotted a very bad joke on the packet:

What's a vampires favourite fruit?

Punchline aside there's a serious problem in this horror story... and so begins the case of the missing possessive apostrophe.

There's an art to complaining. Sadly I'm not very good at art. I've emailed my grammatical concerns to Yoplait with a helpful image to illustrate the issue and how seriously I'm taking this affront to the English language.

Neck-tarines.

Brilliant.

PS I know I urgently need to see a hairdresser and/or put some make up on but I have no time in the day now. The best I can do is whack on a pair of fangs.

Snow in July

After our wilful abandonment of the timetable earlier in the week, it was time to knuckle down in the blissful sunshine. Cultural obligations require me to point out that it's far too hot and it won't last so we have to prepare ourselves for (moaning about) the grey weather which will undoubtedly blight the great British summer.

This is a perfect time to learn about rain and snow.

I'd covered water cycle with K earlier in the year so it was revision for him but a new topic for W. We found some fantastic little wheels for showing stages of the cycle and with the sunshine outside our water cycle experiment was a breeze. Which was good because it's been really hot today. Too hot really. I mean would a few degrees cooler be too much to ask?

W's commitment to the experiment was admirable as he put 3 Lego people onto his island with a cheerful comment that if everything went well they'd be drowned by tea time. Slightly sinister but then this is science.

We learned how snow is formed, which is roughly the moment I realised I have NO IDEA HOW SNOW IS FORMED. I get the gist; it's made of tiny ice-cubes carved by the cloud elves, but when K asked why some water vapour falls as rain, some hail, some sleet and some snow ... I blagged it with a response about air temperature but the smart cookie spotted my lack of conviction and requested further clarification.

I turned to google, the font of all knowledge, finding a nice summary and some precipitation I never even knew existed. I thought snow pellets were what you fed to snow rabbits. http://www.theweatherprediction.com/preciptypes/
In a nutshell it's all to do with the bands of temperature in the troposphere.

The Met Office is good too, this is their area of expertise after all, and they have a handy video although there's nothing in there about the cloud elves.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/snow/how-is-snow-formed

A few cut out snowflakes later and a brief diversion into hexagons; then we learnt about similes and metaphors before tackling a quick acrostic poem on Snow. Literacy side notes on what creative writing is and identifying occasions where similes/metaphors aren't appropriate.

I asked W why snow was naughty as a naughty boy. "Because it's cold."

OK then.

Teacher Friends

I have very wise friends. They're also better at baking than me, have tidier houses and always have gorgeous hair. I wish I could hate them but I can't because they're just so darn wonderful.

I spent today with a fabulous friend who also happens to be super-experienced in education. As usual I learnt A LOT. Some people are such naturals they can't not teach - even when she's meant to be popping over for tea and cake I'm getting a top quality education in child development.

She mentioned Home Education months and months before I realised she was right and it was something our family should consider. I pick her brilliant brain for ideas and potholes in my plans. We talked about issues EHE kids face if they integrate back into school, about how school supports (or doesn't support) high level pupils, how to structure literacy teaching and equivalences in terms of number of hours of hands on teaching.

There are a few tweaks to be made in the next couple of weeks. As well as peppering our days with writing up science experiments, filling in reading diaries, etc we need more focussed literacy. Every week or two we'll try out having a story day where we focus our full attention on creative writing, aspects of SPAG (spelling punctuation and grammar) and handwriting. I'll let you know how it goes!

The focus element is really interesting. The teaching at home is so intense that K & W are missing out on the sitting-for-an-hour training that normal school gives them. We achieve more at an individual micro level but the shorter bursts are different to the rhythm of a large class. External provision is helpful on this one with Explore Learning giving them a solid hour of classroom style work. It doesn't replace the practice and group work element, the latter being one of the biggest EHE challenges.

The best thing about good friends is the confidence they give you. Having someone on your team to cheer you on, shout advice, motivate and inspire... especially when you're tired and starting to doubt yourself... is invaluable.