After the post this morning we retired to the kitchen for some more maths. Small did another 20 additions with the base 10 blocks, and we found what level he begins to struggle at, so now we know where we need to be working 🙂
Big was another story. We’d been doing fractions at school, so I ran upstairs and printed off a number of fraction worksheets from a rather good site that automates worksheets for you. Unfortunately, I appear to have judged it totally wrong, and when I gave her what I considered to be the easiest sheet, I was horribly wrong. It turns out that she doesn’t really understand equivalences, or not in terms of working them out if you haven’t got set ones and a whole load of insets in front of you. And she doesn’t really understand basic mathematical operations, nor have a good grasp of number facts.
🙁 I knew that it wasn’t good from our work together last term, but I hadn’t realised it was that rough for her. We had an hour or so of wailing, stropping, screaming, shouting and storming out of the room, and eventually we compromised on some work on a timestable, and the wailing, screaming etc etc moved topic on to the fact that she couldn’t find any socks to wear to go out. Hohum.
I’m still finding it a lot easier to be calm with the wailing than I was last term when I was getting it at school with other children to deal with too. I know we’re only on day two here, but I feel in control of myself, rather than hopelessly out of place and running to keep up, so I have every confidence we’ll get there in the end. I shall be pondering our mathematical direction and probably writing up some more about it soon.
After all the wailing and the scrubbing of the extremely smelly shoes, (I gave up in the end and he wore wellies) we went into town. Big had seen dolls in a charity shop yesterday, and it turned out she was right to want to go back in a hurry, two had gone already. The megablocks set that Small had been ogling had gone as well, but he was satisfied with a Troll game, and eventually Big made a choice and came home with another china faced doll. Can’t say as I understand the fascination, but she loves them.
I was very restrained and saved a whole £2 – I had hardback versions of Shaman’s Crossing
and If I Pay Thee Not in Gold
in my hands, and I put them back on the shelf. I figure I ought to stash that money away, but I think I’ll just keep track of it, along with anything I make from selling books we don’t need any more.
Got home and gave up on the saving money for the day when I finally registered for my OU courses. I’m doing MST 121 and MS 221 which together give me an HNC apparently, as well as putting me well on the path for my degree. 🙂
Big and Small disappeared upstairs to play things with dolls when we got back so we still didn’t get any science done. I’m thrilled with how well they are playing together atm, so I’m not really into the idea of interrupting. I was cross later when I discovered that Small has already managed to lose the protractor from the geometry set I bought him yesterday (£1 in tesco, and it includes a stencil with loads of science type shapes in it, and even better, it’s exactly the same as the one I made him leave at school, much to his dismay!). That was slightly after I was cross when he attempted to bite my hand for no apparent reason after getting himself all excited at bedtime.
This evening I’ve finally got the christmas tree down, and the cat has hobbled round the room looking shocked after coming back from the vets following his desexing operation (well, that’s what they refer to him as now, male, desexed 🙂 ). I’d have felt slightly guilty about it had I not found concrete evidence of his spraying habits in wet form on a carrier bag shortly after I dropped him off there, as it was I very nearly rang them and told them to do it without anaesthetic. 👿
And that was day two. Gosh I’m writing a lot here again aren’t I?
Leave a Reply