declared Small this evening.
He’d been asking for Brown Beaver’s phone number, and I wanted to know why he wanted it. He said that not everything had a why, and I said I thought it did. His response was that there was no why that the earth started, and I have to admit, I had no comeback on that one. So he wins the argument there.
Aren’t 6 year olds still supposed to be trying to work out the why for everything? Rather than disproving that there is such a thing. I think I love how his mind works though, it’s so sideways to everyone else!
In other news this evening Big and I made apple crumble between us – I did the easy bit of peeling and chopping apples and left her to do the crumble topping while I took Small to Beavers. Got a phonecall from Tim while I was there to confirm that I had finished the filling and immediately cottoned on that this was because Big had read the recipe and was concerned I’d left out the flour. I’ve never put flour in my fruit filling before and wasn’t about to start now, but this had left Tim in charge of a daughter who can read recipes and likes to be precise, and if she can’t be precise she’ll be dramatic. But I was a mile away so I couldn’t hear the histrionics for once 😆
As I seem to be relating the day backwards I’ll continue. Afternoon was somewhat annoying as they started it by fighting at which point I gave them both more work to do. Fed up of the bickering which so often results in one or other of them in tears, so if I have to schedule the whole day I will 👿 Which was a shame as we’d had a pretty good morning – the work spun out over 3 1/2 hours, but that was mainly because they were really enjoying the history aspect of it, yet another Great Lesson, courtesy of Miss Barbara, this time on the coming of humans. Small is particularly taken with it all, and the maps which I printed out to go with it, and we discussed it all for ages. Then he went off and drew a timeline of a possible evolution of spiders, after confirming what evolution meant.
Big loves history, so any time to discuss any historical aspect goes down well with her, and recovered the morning after a struggle with her English. The struggle this time was with the question, which I’d read ahead and thought was straightforward. What I hadn’t anticipated is that she doesn’t do idiomatic language, and so she didn’t have a clue what most of it meant. The question was asking her to work out the meanings of various idioms (eg getting into hot water, showing a clean pair of heels) and then use them in a sentence, and I suppose I could just as well have asked her to translate them into another language for all the sense it made to her.
How has she got to nearly 10 years old without me noticing this in her? She reads voraciously, but I’m now wondering how much of it actually makes sense to her. Anyway, instead of her using them in sentences, I got her into Credo reference online courtesy of Suffolk Libraries and we started looking up the idioms and finding examples of usage. I’m hoping that was a better idea than the plan in the book.
Small finished his book (The Thing from Knucker Hole) this morning and they both did their maths without too much fuss, so despite the whole thing stretching out, it felt relatively painless. Oh, and I nearly forgot them working together to make a clock face for Small to continue practising with – they even roped Tim in with that as he passed by.
So that was Monday.
Sunday was quiet – I made it out for a walk on my own in the afternoon, and Tim excavated one of the two garden sheds. The one he sorted is insulated out, for no apparent reason, so may be a bearable bolt hole even in winter 🙂 Small did demonstrate that he’s cracked telling the time by reading the clock accurately to a time that we hadn’t started work on yet 😀 He’s still a little hazy around the minutes to stage, but he’s pretty much got the principle of it down now.
Saturday was even quieter, mainly as I’d had a dreadful night’s sleep Fri-Sat and after fighting with my blog for most of the morning (and losing it has to be said 🙁 ) I retired to bed for at least part of the afternoon.
And that is where I need to go now.
Sarah says
I think if you believe in God/Creation you can answer why the earth started – well, I was always taught that it was because God wanted relationships with people, so he made the earth and populated it. Don’t know if Small would be happy with that explanation though!
.-= Sarah´s last blog ..Something I never thought I’d see! =-.
Jax says
He seems quite happy with the idea that there is no why tbh 🙂 We have discussed creation v big bang and theory of evolution, and different ppl having different beliefs – he’s interested to find out what other ppl believe, but I think he’s sticking with evolution.
I am going to double check in a few days that he knows it’s a theory and also that he knows what a theory is…
.-= Jax´s last blog ..Not everything has a why… =-.
Allie says
Flour in the fruit filling? Yuck!
.-= Allie´s last blog ..Autonomous home educators – what’s that then? =-.
Merry says
Why did the earth start? Hmmm…. i think that universe book probably does answer that, with a it started because all these molecules whizzed around, got hot, collided, gravity etc. The chemical reactions that produced a ball that produced life.
I love those books – must buy them.
tbird says
nope, Merry, that’s *how* it started (possibly? Probably? maybe?) not *why* it started….. 😉
and yeh, flour in fruit filling???? although I think my nana used to put ground rice in the bottom of pies to stop the juices making the pastry soggy?
Jonathan says
“Je n’ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse.” 😀
Merry says
Well… it’s both – why did it start? Because these things were occurring and it made this happen. Although, i also take you point!
dottie dunnam says
I wondered if you could give me more information on “Miss Barbara” and her lesson plan on “The coming of Humans”. I would like to see more of her work. Thank you.
Jax says
Hi Dottie
Basically, if you follow the link, you’ll find her site 🙂