Star of the week

First swimmer of the week, now star of the week. When Daddy picked Wuffy up from school last night he found a certificate in his bag which said that Wuffy was star of the week for week ended 9th October for “asking interesting questions” He eventually wheedled out of him that he had been presented it in assembly

Not surprised about the reason as Wuffy is a boy of questions, so many questions it makes your head hurt but we always try to answer them. His latest discussions with his Daddy have been about the Punic Wars, he is totally obsessed with Romans at the moment and watches Roman DVD’s (meant for adults) all the time

 

MSc

I received my MSc result today. My dissertation was marked at 80% and I am now the proud owner of an MSc in Nutrition and Food Management awarded with distinction

 

School

They seem to be pumping up the pace at school. We have been told that Wuffy needs to have his reading book in his bag every day and that reading books get changed every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  That means we need to make sure he reads it to one of us every night of the week.  He also brought home a two page maths homework on Friday, we did it all but it took about 50 minutes which I think is a lot for a 5 year old. I feel a bit like I am back in school!!

This morning I had to take him to school at 8.30 as he has been selected to have extra support.  The leaflet we got said “extra support” and “acceleration programme” which seemd a little odd to me so I rang the school to ask why he had been selected and what they are planning on doing in these sessions.  The teacher rang me back and seemed astounded that someone had rung to ask about it, I got the impression that it’s not what parents normally do (I am very happy to not be a normal parent ).  In any case she said that Wuffy is a bright boy but needs his confidence boosting and that is the aim af the sessions. When I dropped him this morning he was the first to arrive so it will be interesting to find out what he did.

 

School

Wuffy says he likes his new teacher and class. We had been trying to prepare him for the chnage that he would face jumping to year 2 and I think we over did it. In reception class it’s all about play with short carpet sessions for the focussed learning. Whereas the year 2 class involves sitting at a designated table and I suspect more direct teaching, we had warned him about this several times because we knew it would be a big change. After his first day he said it wasn’t too bad he didn’t have to sit at the table all day (as he thought he might) but that they were able to get up and play .  On Thursday he came home and said he had to read to his teacher and she was impressed with him!! He brought his reading book home on Friday so clearly they are geting straight into reading.  also on Friday he had a sticker on his top which said “Bon effort” he had had his first ever French lesson.  He said he really liked his new class

 

All done

Well the dissertation was handed in almost two weeks ago. I thought I would feel relief when I handed it in but actually I just felt exhausted. Since then we have been camping for a week so I am even more exhausted.

Wuffy went back to school today. We are slightly worried about how he will get on as he is one of the children they have put into a year two class rather than a year one class. We were told that he would be bored in year one and needs to be challenged. I think he was a little worried about being with so many older children but there are about 7 year ones in the class so he isn’t alone.

I will post some holiday pictures when I get a chance. The MSc means I now have a years worth of tidying and cleaning to catch up on in the house!!

 

Still Busy

I started out so well and as term went on I seem to have crashed as far as the blog is concerned.  I always find that each term is like this, it starts full of enthusiasm, lots of ideas and energy and as the term goes on just getting to the end of each week is an acheivement.  Only a few more classes left and I get a two week Christmas break Everyone at work right now is saying how tired they feel. It’s our department christmas night out tonight and I have a 9.15 class tomorrow

I’m going to try a little catch up next week.  I was thinking that I might post a few sample lunch pictures, especially as if Wuffy had a lunch he liked he then asked for it the next 5 days so there are many that are the same.  We have had a few days recently of nothing at all being eaten, followed by a couple fo days when his box was emptied.  I am beginning to accept that I have no control all I can do is pack food and then feed him on a night. I think the tiredness is getting to him now though.

School and glasses seems to have done him the world of good.  His drawing has improved immeasurably and he actually wants to draw now which is something he has never wanted to do in his life before.  Also because they are doing phonics at school he is now reading words all over the place.  Wherever we are he wants to try to read signs and such He had built up such a resistance to what you might call “school work” before he started school we now realise this was entirely due to his eyesight, but he loves school and seems to be learning at a pace he is happy with.

I managed to hit both handin dates for my MSc coursework Just one exam in January, two more courseworks and a dissertation and I’ll be done. Although I have really enjoyed it it will be such a relief to finish.  Full time work, part time MSc,  small child and two lots of professional marking a year is really too much!!

I think I might have a catch up photo post as well, I still haven’t posted any birthday pictures.

 

Wuffy things

Wuffy had to go for an eye test this week.  He has now had his glasses for three months and we have seen a vast improvement in what he can now see.  We went to a different optician this time and Wuffy wasn’t really as cooperative as he could have been.  Although he read some letters there were plenty that he said he couldn’t see, we know from home that he can read letters of that size!!  The upshot is that he has been referred to the hospital.  I’m actually quite pleased about this as I would rather he saw someone who specialises in children as they will have different testing techniques that should tell us the true extent of his eye peoblems.  There is no question that he has very bad eyesight but it’s probably not as bad as the optician we saw this week thinks.

Yesterday was harvest assembly at school.  Last week I told Wuffy that I wouldn’t be able to go because I was teaching he said “write a letter to your big boss telling her that she has to let you see your kid singing in the hall”.  We agreed that Daddy would go and watch him and he cheered up.  So yesterday afternoon Daddy dutifully went to the school and watched the assembly.  He said that Wuffy sang his little heart out which was good to hear as he never sang at the nursery concerts!  They finished well before 3 and the parents were told that they could take their children home if they wanted.  Daddy went to Wuffy’s classroom to pick him up and Wuffy immediately accused him of not coming to watch him sing.  Thankfully after Daddy described the assembly Wuffy decided that Daddy had been there after all.  We suspect that his eyesight meant that he just couldn’t see his Daddy.  The teaching assistant told Wuffy that she had seen his Daddy there.

I have been tired and busy this week so I haven’t uploaded the lunch pictures yet, I will.

 

Wednesday 1st October 2008

Well it’s October and it really feels as if autumn has arrived, it’s wet and cold.  So Wuffy took soup today made with the pumpkin he insisted we bought at the weekend

pumpkin soup

wholemeal bread

cucumber and potato hoops

pear, grapes and raspberries

homemade bear biscuit

juice

He ate most of it, but strangely not the cucumber.  He didn’t eat as much bread as he would normally eat with soup either.  He was picked up by Daddy today as I was at work and the message that was sent home by the teacher was “less soup”. I only gave him what I know he would eat at home but he didn’t eat that much of it.  I am going to talk to the teacher tomorrow because not only are we worried about the lunch issue but we are worried about the friends that Wuffy is making, he says he doesn’t know anyones name and as he is a very sociable child who makes friends easily we are concerned.

He told us that after the part time children left at lunch time he was the only child in his class this afternoon as all of the other children had stayed at home to celebrate Eid.

Finally, just because, here are the biscuits in all their glory, I did the one eyed man

 

Explaining to children

We have been wondering if explaining why we are vegan in more detail will help Wuffy accept the need for packed lunches.  He knows we don’t eat anything from animals because they are our friends and we don’t want to hurt them but is it the time to be a little more graphic?

We are at a bit of a loss of how to persuade him that packed lunches are what he has to have.  Nursery always cooked special food for him and I think he is feeling a bit left out as all of his friends eat school dinners.

If anyone has any advice or can recommend any good child friendly books or DVD’s we would appreciate it

 

I somehow managed to become a committee member on the school PTA tonight!!

 

Busy, busy, busy

We’ve been a bit busy recently so I’m behind.  Normal service will be resumed shortly.

We spent all day on Saturday in the garden, building a slide, chopping down blighted tomatoes, ripping old felt off the summer house roof and creating a container for all of the leaves that are falling. 

On Sunday Wuffy and I went swimming, we try to do this most Sunday mornings as Wuffy loves water. After lunch we went on the School Walk.  We were given a sheet of questions with directions, we had to follow the directions and answer all of the questions.  I gave up on how many chimneys on the roof of the old hall and wrote ‘lots’ .  We were the second group back so wuffy walked quite fast considering that most of the others were older children, although everyone did set off at slightly different times but all within a few minutes of each other.

On Sunday night Mummy and Daddy went to Halifax to see Kate Rusby in concert.  This is the first night out we have had since Wuffy was born!!  She was very good, we are sure that Wuffy would have liked it but he is still too fidgety to take to something like that.  We are planning a trip to the Cambridge Folk Festival next year which we think may be a better environment to introduce him to live music. I have to say though that it was nice to have a night out without him

 

His Aunt and Uncle looked after him and they said he was very entertaining and he never stopped talking until they put him to bed.  Typical that for his Auntie Susan he went to bed with no problems, he doesn’t do that for Mummy and Daddy!! Not that he is badly behaved, he just tries every delaying tactic he can think of.