Sunday, June 25, 2006

Science project Part IV


avocado seed
Originally uploaded by Crit Chicken.
A silly face to boot! As you can see the root of the avocado has grown all the way to the bottom of the jar. The seed is split almost all the way around, and if you look into the split, you can see where the first leaflets are forming. I reckon that when they emerge it will be time to pot it up.

In other science news, there is an annual science competition here, and D'Arcy's class entered it with an exploration of 'sinking and floating' - what sinks? stones, clay - what floats? duplo car, pine cone, malteasers. They had a great time with their experiments and writing it up. Their works was rewarded with a 2nd place. The ceremony was on Friday night, and D'Arcy was one of the 4 students chosen to attend to receive the certificate. He's pretty proud of that.

This last week at school was also reports and portfolios. It was great to see more of his work than usual - especially for his dad, who doesn't get to see as much of it as I do - he only takes D'Arcy to school two days a week, and he doesn't get to stay and help in the class. No surprises in his report. This is the first year that the teachers have had to grade the kids formally, and D'Arcy's teacher is not happy with the system "how do you grade kindies on PE?" but she did well. I've been staying in touch with her about D's progress anyway, so we already know where he struggles (motor skills in general, reading/writing) and what his strengths are (caring, interested in the world and numbers in particular) so we're happy with the first half of his first year. Parent/teacher interviews this week coming, so more opportunity to hang out with the lovely teacher!

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Letter to Aunty Laura


Letter to Aunty Laura
Originally uploaded by Crit Chicken.
This bit is on the photo's page at Flickr, but it didn't come with the photo like I expected it to , so here it is again.
"The text reads: 2006-16-6 at the top, then there is the top half of the pic, which was kind of a practice run. Underneath the squiggly line is another "greehouse" (yes, it's a pun) surrounded by tree ferns and love hearts and next to a pond, containing a cat-fish. Below that is more text: To Laura, luv fom D'Arcy. The R and A from Laura had to be shifted on to the next line, and so got tangled up with the D'Arcy. 'Luv' and 'fom' are his own doing, I had to tell him how to spell Laura. Let's see how it goes down."

Well, I think she liked it,. I haven't heard definitively on that yet. Oh great, as soon as it looks like D is occupied with the Lego and I sit down to update we get "Mum! I'm bored" followed by "what can I do?"
So this will be short then.

Sorry the pic is sideways, I decided not to flip it, so that it would be bigger, and then realised that it's a bit hard to read.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

The writing on the fridge


The writing on the fridge
Originally uploaded by Crit Chicken.
I finally found the 'magnetic poetry for kids' set that I bought many years ago, just in time. D'Arcy created this sentence himself, though he needed help to read some ofhe words. I went through a few generations "I jumped down into the lava" was his first idea, but the word "lava" is mysteriously not included in the set. The next attempt replaced "lava" with "love". That stayed for about half an hour, until he realised that there was "water". I explained to him that I'd roughly sorted the words into categories "things" "doing words" "describing words" "question words" "people words" "little words" (which are conjunctions, prepositions, and endings - like the 'ed' on "jumped").
It is a fairly hard way of writing stuff 'cos of the constraint element (not all the words you want are in the set) but it's hard to know how to modify it so that it is still relatively easy to use, but also flexible.

We've been playing a lot of checkers lately, mostly D'Arcy and the beloved, and suddenly we've been playing cards "snap" and "go fish" and I'm currently being hassled to play again, so I'll see you all in blogland later!

Monday, June 12, 2006

Science project Part III


Science project Part III
Originally uploaded by Crit Chicken.
The avocado root is still growing strongly (you'll be able to see it better it you click on it and go to Flickr) but no sign of leaves yet. I plan to put it in a pot when the leaves finally appear. D'Arcy is still interested in it all, and we check out its progress most days when he is here.

Not lungs - a butterfly


Not lungs - a butterfly
Originally uploaded by Crit Chicken.
Yay for a long weekend. We haven't achieved much, but it has been nice to have a day off and get some boring housework done. D'Arcy enjoyed fireworks in the rain on Friday night, and he did a few more with his dad on Sunday night. The beloved and I plan to set some more off tonight and frighten the neighbours.

Text of a relevant letter D'Arcy is going to write when he gets back to my place on Wednesday...

"Dear Queen,
I hope you had a lovely birthday. We had fireworks.
Love from D'Arcy"

We all live in a Lego submarine


We all live in a Lego submarine
Originally uploaded by Crit Chicken.
It started out looking like a space station ("what's that mummy?") but he decided in the end that it was a submarine. There were some Lego Vikings piloting it too, but they didn't make it into this shot. There is a plank to make your enemies walk, and LOTS of guns.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Catapault


Catapault
Originally uploaded by Crit Chicken.
D'Arcy and the bleoved were talking about catapaults last night, and D was trying to explain something to the beloved. He finally said to me, "can you get me some paper please? I need to draw him a picture". He drew the two catapaults pictured. The tiny one on the right was first, and then to elaborate, he drew the massive one, which seems to've ended up with only 3 wheels, but we get the idea. I like the cognitive leap to using a diagram to explain something to someone else, which is very new.

I also managed to fool him into eating a whole heap of vegies last night (but I don't think he'll be fooled for much longer) by making his favourite 'farty soup' ...

Method:
Fry up some alliums (onions, garlic, leeks) and some zingers (ginger and turmeric). Toss in as much chopped up brassicas (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts) as will fit in the pot. Cook 'em down a bit, then add some good stock, and some salt and some garam masala (clove, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, cumin , coriander, pepper) and cook until the brassicas are all soft. Blend until it's an unidentifiable mush (try to ignore the unappetising colour) and add some milk (or coconut milk) to thicken it up a bit. Serve it with yoghurt, fresh coriander, lime pickle, and sit back and wait for the results. Hell, if you were really sick you could add some Jerusalem Artichokes too.

Actually, it's not that farty, the name appeals to D'Arcy and if I told him what was in it, he'd never touch it.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Parrots


Parrots
Originally uploaded by Crit Chicken.
It's that time of year and the King Parrots have been visiting our Chinese Elm to eat the seeds. They come in family groups and hang all over the tree: sideways; upside down; inside out (well, not really). The photo doesn't really do this guy justice. He is almost orange on his head and front, and fantastically emerald green on ihs back and wings, with blue under his wings. And he is huge. They have a single note whistle and they chat to each other in parrot all the time. I love watching them feeding, there's something relaxing watching groups of birds hanging out.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Yay for Public Education


Alphabet Song
Originally uploaded by Crit Chicken.
D'Arcy is coming along very well at school. Reading and writing is going well, as is social stuff. This is the first time he's shown interest in arranging the fridge letters into the alphabet, and he did it by singing the song. He can recognise all the letters (with still some confusion between p/b/d u/n w/m - which shows that he's still reflecting things in his head) and knows what sounds they make. I was chatting with his teacher yesterday morning, after I'd done one-to-one reading with the kids, and we were talking about the difference in reading levels between all the children. There is a very wide spectrum, from some who are a bit below D on the recognition scale all the way up to totally independant readers (can read and understand newspaper articles). There is one child who has improved out of sight in the last few weeks, and the teacher and I were talking about how exciting it is to witness that kind of transformation. It's an interesting picture of what "reading-readiness" is. Suddenly this child is ready to read - no longer are they doing that "I can't read. You read it to me. I don't want to read it. I don't like it" and it is fascinating. I love it.

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