"Look What I Found!!"

"Kaitlyn the Dr found my thing today"
Bradley proudly announced to his big sister in the car after school.

Today was a follow up appointment for Bradley. Just a quick appointment to check if the Dr could find his vanishing testicle.

"Your doodle, do you mean?"  Kaitlyn asked.

No.

"No it was my tentacle!" Bradley said. "But it's only a teeny tiny tentacle. Maybe it's as teeny tiny as what Isla is"

"Isla is an 8 month old baby, I'm pretty sure your TESTICLE is smaller than her!" I laughed as we made our way out of the carpark. 

Where's All The Fun Gone?!

I've got a bone to pick with the education department...yes I know AGAIN!
Well too bad I'm opinionated and I've got upset kids!

Today is 'What I Want To be' day at school.
The kids are encouraged to dress up as what they want to be when they grow up. They had to give a gold coin donation if they wanted to dress up.

So last night Kaitlyn, Bradley and I went through our dress up box and started thinking up costume ideas. Kaitlyn wants to be a stay at home mum and Bradley decided on a zookeeper.
I let the kids stay up late while we made name tags and even got Bradley a little portable zoo to go with his costume.

This morning the kids were up early and bounding around with excitement. They got dressed.
Kaitlyn with pregnant belly, baby on her hip, sunglasses, handbag, necklace and wedding ring.
Bradley had name tag, boots, zoo animals and flanno shirt.
Arrive at school and all the kids were a bundle of excitement. They had dressed up great and all paid their gold coin donation.
Some parents had put quite a bit of effort into the costumes.

I approached Kaitlyns teacher and asked if they were having the usual parade first up to show off their outfits (as they have had with any other dress up day) and was told she wasn't sure. She was a relief teacher so I left it at that.

Then I took Bradley down to his class and asked his teacher. The reply I got was "we do literacy first thing in the morning and we can't take any time away from learning. If the weather clears up the school might decide to let the kids do a 10minute parade right before recess, but that decision won't be made until a few minutes beforehand"

So that got me mad. Yes I know it may seem childish and stupid for me to be so angry but why would a school advertise and encourage the kids to spend time dressing up and paying money and putting time and effort into costumes, only for them to say 'oh sorry we can't possibly take our eyes off learning for 20minutes to let the kids have some fun'
Well excuse me but that's bullshit. No wonder kids don't want to go to school anymore.

All the kids were all so excited and energy levels were through the roof at drop off this morning, and now my kids are upset and disappointed that all their effort was for absolutely nothing. So what?! they wore a couple different clothes for the day! Big deal!
I made Bradley a fricken portable zoo!!! I made it so when he paraded around he could show off his cool costume and look like a cool zookeeper.

The other dress up days there have been parades and even prizes for best dressed, parents have been invited to stay for the parades, music has been played and the kids have enjoyed themselves, even if only for a short time.

But today, well these days kids are too busy learning, there is too much work and too much pressure for WA to 'catch up' to the rest of Australia so suddenly our kids are worked so hard and pushed almost to breaking point. Forced to learn, playtime (especially in kindy and pre primary) has been slashed so much, pushed to always succeed and now we take away the only bit of fun they have.
Why did I even bother putting all that effort into getting costumes and making name tags, giving Kaitlyn a pregnant belly. We had a blast last night getting costumes organised and while they might seem like simple costumes I'm so mad that my kids are upset-Kaitlyn said 'why did we dress up mum, there is no assembly' what a big fat disappointment. 

Schools these days are pushing kids way too hard, taking all the fun out of learning and yet constantly telling parents that learning should be fun. So if learning should be fun why are you taking all the fun time and play time away from the kids?

Yeah that makes sense to me. . .

Stay at home mummy and zookeeper 

Shhh, Daddy's Sleeping!

Hubby is on nightshift at the moment, which is really great trying to get everyone quiet so he can sleep all day. Today we tried our best and failed absolutely miserably.
This is a quick run down of our day..

Isla started off the day in fine fashion. Hubby woke her up at 7am as normal and she comes out with her eye so swollen it was almost closed!! Must have had a fight with teddy!

Big kids went off to school, hubby Isla and I did food shopping and then hubby went to bed as he's on nightshift-all part of a normal day in our house.

After her morning nap I heard Isla in bed chatting away. When I went in to get her up she was sitting up in her cot!! Looks like someone has learnt to go from laying down to sitting up...except she can't lay back down again!

But then this afternoon. Well it got fun again.

I had been making different jams all day. I was pouring the plum jam into the jars, closed the lid and tipped the jar upside down, except one lid wasn't screwed on properly and boiling hot jam was literally spraying out the side!
I have little tiny burn dots all over my hands and my swearing and shouting had my previously sleeping husband running out to see what I had done. Oops!

By this stage I was running late for school pick up, hubby was awake now so I left Isla in bed and ran to get the kids-got there just in time! Although I think I still had dots of jam over me :-/

Coming home I told the kids daddy was still sleeping so they needed to be quiet.

Kids started off doing well. Isla decided she needed to do her first proper crawl-the kids almost started to scream with excitement but I managed to get that under control. Then Isla pulled herself up to her feet using a toy to hold on to. That was exciting but again I managed to keep the kids excitement to small squeals.

Then it all went bad. Isla head dived into the ground and started screaming, Kaitlyn tipped a massive pile of craft stuff on the floor that went crashing down and Zac started whinging to get into the bedroom.

Hubby's sleep didn't survive that.
Oh well maybe next time. . .

BOOST For Business?

Hubby is working nightshift at the moment.
So this morning while he was home and supposed to be sleeping we decided to go to the only 'cafe' in our town.

On Wednesday morning our golf club 'The Golfie' serves up coffee and cakes and turns into a stay-at-home-mummy morning tea playgroup place!

It's really nice, the coffee is decent and the cakes are to die for.
Plus it's the closest we can get to a proper coffee shop.

About halfway through my chocolate mud cake, Isla decided she needed a feed. No worries.
So I propped her up on my lap and unbuttoned a couple buttons on my top.

Except Isla was so distracted by everything around her I was constantly trying to keep my boob covered as she was whipping her head left and right letting my boob hang in the breeze.

"Hey, they should start advertising that they have skimpies here every week. Won't be fun for me but I bet the other blokes in town will like it. It will really boost the business"

Thanks hubby. . . 

When Did It All Change . . .

How are you're little ones settling in to the new year at school?

Tired? Maybe exhausted? Extra hungry? Maybe bringing home some extra attitude learnt at school? Lots of homework? Struggling to make the earlier starts during the week? Sick of making school lunches? Little ones struggling to fit in? Hard for them to make new friends? Kids don't like their new teacher? Workload too big for your kids? Wondering when school suddenly got so hard?

We've been through all these emotions and more in the last 3 and a half weeks.

Bradley has started his first year of pre-primary. So first time of full time school. All day every day. He's been tired. He's fallen asleep on his bed at 3pm. I've been jumping on him at 7am to wake him up.
But for the most part he has settled in quite well. Most of his kindy friends from last year are in the other class but he doesn't mind too much. He's made some new friends, he gets on with his work and at recess and lunch time he enjoys playing zombies and monsters with his friends from both pre primary classes. He came home and Friday and said to me "my teacher said I was a good role model today because I always pack away and do my work properly and listen when I'm on the mat" my heart sung with joy and pride.
He doesn't seem to mind his new teacher-although I'm not her biggest fan-and he really likes the education assistant in his class, she's lovely.
His teacher though, she's 50 trying to be 20. Parent information night was a chance for her to wear a short dress and show off her underwear and leg tattoos. Very unprofessional.
She gave a very simple talk about the "on entry" testing the kids do but basically said that no matter what their score or what areas they showed they were struggling in the kids would still be given the same work-she didn't say it quite as blunt as that but that's the gist of it.
Now I'm not the biggest fan of the education system in general. Because I'm a mum of a kid that learns differently and needs that extra help. So when a teacher tells us that all the kids will be given the same work regardless of ability I was quietly thankful that it was Bradley in her class and not Kaitlyn.

My poor Kaitlyn, though, is struggling with year 1 this year. Parent information night was a huge eye opener for me. The sheer volume of work that 6 year olds have to do is just mind boggling. The homework is insane: reading and spelling every single night and 4-5 activities per week. It's recommended to be 20-25 minutes PER NIGHT on homework (Bradley is expected to do 15mins per night for pre primary) For a 6 year old. Plus they do reading eggs and mathletics on computers that they could do (with a heavy emphasis on actually doing it) a couple times a week at home.
Thankfully Kaitlyn has a fantastic teacher. Parent night was a power point presentation with a different slide for each subjects guidelines. Plus rewards/consequences. Plus explaining homework, expectations, explaining the curriculum. He explained that each child would have different homework based on their abilities and some class activities would be slightly different based on ability.
Kaitlyn got her first lot of homework last night and came home with very basic flash cards and 'de-codable' books (books that use only a certain set of letters and each word and sentence is made up of only those letters) I really like these books. Last year in pre primary Kaitlyn was given books with repetitive sentences. Which were great for starting out but she memorised all the books and knew the flow of the sentences, so instead of actually reading, it was all just memorised. There wasn't much actual learning happening. I'm really happy with the way her teacher will be giving work and homework based on ability rather than the same work for everyone.
Every year I hope and pray that Kaitlyn gets a teacher that understands her and helps her. Someone that I can talk to and will support her.
So far we have managed this every year, we've been so lucky. I dread the year she gets a not so supportive teacher.

Out of all of the meetings and information and things I've heard about school this year the one biggest thing that has completely shocked me is how each different subject is taught.

In Bradley's class he has his normal classroom teacher for maths and English.
But he has a different teacher coming into his class room for: art, science, sport and social studies. Then he goes up to the library once a week with a different teacher.

In Kaitlyns class she has her normal classroom teacher for maths and English. But for science, social studies, computer, art, sport and library she has different teachers AND she moves around to DIFFERENT CLASSROOMS. Kind of like you do in high school.

When I commented on this to another parent the other day and how much the pre primary and year 1 students have different teachers and are even moving around to different classes for each subject she said to me "they are just preparing the kids for high school"

I'M SORRY BUT WHAT?? HIGH SCHOOL STARTS IN YEAR 7 NOT YEAR 1.
Why do 6 year olds need to start preparing now for something that won't happen for another 6 years!!!!!!

And even the pre primary's have different teachers. I guess they at least get to stay in the same classroom. But whatever happened to having one teacher that teaches all the subjects in primary school.

When I was in primary school (which really wasn't THAT long ago) we had our classroom teacher for maths, English, science, social studies and anything else we needed to be taught such as health. We went to library and music with a different teacher but our main teacher was the one spending the majority of time with us.
And when we made the move to high school the transition wasn't so bad. It only took a week or so to figure out where all the classes were and to adjust to moving from class to class.

Why then do such young kids need to start "preparing" now for what will happen in 6years.
If we could adjust in just 1 week-why do they need 6years!

My poor Kaitlyn has seen the enormous work load, she is very aware how far behind she is compared to the other kids and of course she's not coping with it.

Last week I was called up to the school during the day as Kaitlyn was in the office complaining of being sick. Little did I know she had been up there almost every day for a week and a half saying she was sick, or had hurt herself, she needed a bandaid, an ice pack etc etc. It seemed that whenever she was struggling to understand work or when it all got too much she was complaining and going up to the office to escape.
I was able to have a good chat to her and to the principal while I was there and we talked to Kaitlyn about asking for help or seeing the teacher if the work was too hard or she couldn't understand what was going on. Since then she hasn't been back up to the office.
But when I left the office last Tuesday I was absolutely gutted. I actually had tears streaming down my face as I walked out of the school.
How could I help my girl? What could I say or do to make her feel better? What else could I be doing at home to encourage her?
Sometimes it's so hard for me to accept that Kaitlyn is struggling. Ever since she was a toddler we have done activities at home, games, learning sounds, shapes, numbers, painting, drawing, making games, sight words. Over the years I have put so much time and effort in to her learning-and for Bradley as well. And I see Bradley thriving and learning so much and sometimes I feel like Kaitlyn hasn't learnt a single thing from all that time together.

I also found out that Kaitlyn had been making up excuses to the duty teachers at recess and lunch so that she could go and find Bradley in the pre primary play area. Being up in the big school this year means she's completely separated from her brother. And it seems there may be some separation anxiety on her behalf.

Homework last night was the typical disaster. Kaitlyn couldn't get the sounds right for a few words in the book: cue epic screaming meltdown. We didn't even make it through half the book (which was only 6 pages long with approx 15 words in the entire book). After the meltdown was over I went in to her room and laid on her bed and we talked.

I asked her how she was going, I explained that I wanted to help her. She told me the work was too hard for her. I told her I wanted to help her learn to read and write. She told me she doesn't like the work. I told her that if we could learn to read a few more words she would one day learn to read all those fabulous Barbie stories that she loves so much. I explained the whole 'practice makes perfect' thing and that I always wanted her to try her best. Even if she couldn't do something if she tried her best I would be so happy and so proud of her. She told me she wasn't trying her best that night, and maybe next time she would. We laid there for about 20-30minutes just talking. Trying to understand each other.

And then I left her to think things over while I did some reading with Bradley (who can read without even trying).

My poor Kaitlyn. Everything is so much harder for her. Nothing comes easy or very naturally for her. Every day is a struggle. A struggle to understand. To work 100times harder than any other student for a fraction of the results they get. To get up and join in with group activities. To push past and break down those barriers that hold her back.

But every single day of her life I'll fight for her, I'll fight with her and I'll love, help, support and encourage her because I'm her mum and if I don't fight for her, who will?