It’s been commented lately, by more than one person, that Ms R is bored. Of course, it doesn’t help that she uses boredom as an excuse not to do things such as going to sleep or as a way of getting attention when my attentions are directed elsewhere. Surprisingly, despite her apparent level of boredom, she never seems to need me when I am available. That is, when I’m ready and willing to spend some quality time doing stuff with her she is always far too busy occupying herself, no longer lacking in the mental challenges that others percieve her to need. What people are really trying to imply is that her boredom could be easily remedied by going to school. That she is bored only because she doesn’t go to school. That sending her to school would solve all our ‘problems’. Suddenly going to sleep wouldn’t seem boring if she’d been mentally challenged in school all day, expecting attention from the adults around her would cease if she’d spent all day with children her own age. Instead she’d be content to watch cartoons and would stop trying to engage (aka interrupting) in conversation with the adults around her. Sometimes I even wonder if Ms R would be a happier, more content child if I set her some work; if I made her read out loud from a reading scheme or if I set her some sums to do. So before I forget what a wonderful, interesting day we had and start printing off Key Stage One activities to do in order that she be challenged I’ll blog:
I woke up to a bang, once again believing that the Local Authority were at our front door with Social Services in tow. I really need to get this out of my head and stop waking up to imaginary bangs. It was early but I found Ms R sat on her bedroom floor drawing up the plans of our house.
It was early so I climbed back into bed to read a history book (about Celts, Romans and Anglo-Saxons) and heard Ms R wake Master R up to find ‘treasure’ by reading her map. There was no point in staying in bed once everyone was awake so we got up. Ms R found the bit of paper we were using yesterday to write words on that sounded the same but were spelt differently (mints/mince one/won etc) and wanted me to show her some more but suddenly remembered that we were seeing friends today and abandoned the words in favour of doing something for them. She designed an activity for one friend:
And made a Hama bead heart for the other.
Between all of this and 9.30am when we left the house we also fitted in breakfast and getting washed/dressed. On our forty-five minute car journey we covered various topics that started with wondering what would happen if you kept going in one direction long enough. We decided that eventually you’d end up back home again but Ms R was very unhappy with the idea that half way round the world you’d actually be upside down. I talked about gravity and the atmosphere and how even when you are ‘down under’ it doesn’t feel like you are upside down, in fact it doesn’t feel any different at all. She talked about airplanes needing lots of energy to get them off the ground and about space rockets needing fire to get them through the sky and not being affected by gravity once they are in space. I was very impressed that she knew this and had obviously grasped the concept, not sure where it came from. I mentioned about perspectives and how the way we look at things can affect the way they look. We talked about different climates and species and game reserves and she was upset that people didn’t help the animals in some game reserves but rather they were left to nature. We talked about survival of the fittest and what happened to the weaker ones. She asked what happened to their bodies when they died so we talked about water content, scavengers etc and what might be left over and wondered what happened to all of the bones. We talked about different languages and she was interested to hear the few words that I remember of Zulu and Afrikaans and later expected me to be able to speak Chinese. By the time we arrived I thought she might be out of questions but then she wanted to know what would happen to the car if we drove it into the fence post. It was a fairly study looking post so we decided that the front of the car would be damaged and this lead to discussions on the radiator and the cooling system and what a leak might mean for us.
She played for the best part of five hours only pausing occasionally to cuddle the baby, eat something or to tell me she loved me.
I was expecting a musical journey home but Ms R wanted to know what ‘beheaded’ meant and then wanted to talk about the wives of Henry VIII. I wanted to talk about the Romans and Anglo-saxons that I’d been reading about in the morning and Ms R was happy to listen and asked questions that I either bluffed my way through or promised to look up. Of course, if I was a real teacher I’d not only already know everything but I’d have known months ago that I needed to know it for today.
We had to pop into the supermarket on the way home which was uneventful except for the twitchy customer assistant who was quite bothered by Ms R moving things around on the conveyor belt. She was concerned that Ms R was mucking my order of things up but Ms R assured me she was reordering it in a better way. Like I care what order the stuff goes through.
Dinner was had and stories read. Ms R made a point of reading out loud the parents notes that were in the back of the book Master R chose. Master R was thrilled to think he’d chosen a book that was going to help him learn to read one day.
So that was Ms Rs day. Looking back over it I realise we didn’t do anything that involved numerals. Oh well, that will be tomorrows subject then 
. Master R had a very different day. I caught him this morning trying to weigh things on the bathroom scales and explained to him about the kitchen scales and where they were. Briefly I had a mental image of him weighing things on the kitchen scales and gaining immense mathematical knowledge from the experience, but it wasn’t to be. I hinted heavily that he could get the kitchen scales and then gave up realising that I was starting to hang towards coercion in my quest for spontaneous, autonomous education. He too did some drawing and some Hama beading, this time making a pattern. He didn’t have his glasses but that didn’t seem to hinder him.
him.
He slept both to and from our day out so missed all the discussions although woke up in time for a couple of rounds of eye-spy before we got home.
While out he went off and had lunch with his friend
And afterwards went for a ride
We did have at least two discussions on why it isn’t a good idea to throw stones in a car park although thinking back these were possibly rather one sided. He was later to sleep than Ms R so watched a dvd in bed and then had cuddles.