GRANNY’S NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS AND THE TWINS

GRANNY’S NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS AND THE TWINS

We have come a long way since two bundles arrived in their carrycots.

They are almost 5 and going to school.

They have a brother.

They still need a granny sometimes.

Lily came in as soon as she woke up on New Year’s Day with three books and a demand to have then read. ‘You didn’t read me a story last night’.

5 need to talk more about what we read.and of course I need to get them to read. I’m concerned that if I push too hard I will hinder instead of help the learning process..

I need to sit with them while they use the computer screens to help with reading instructions. We are using the Dorling Kindersley software called Learning Ladder. They enjoy the activities. They like to use the Stage 1 and 2 procramme but can’t read the instructions.

TO DO

I am looking for other similar software. Any suggestions will be very welcome.

We haven’t connected their screens online yet so I need software that can be either purchased on a disc or downloaded to a pendrive to load into their machines.

I need to devise a way to supervise homework and minimize quarrelling

I need to organize playdates.

I need to help with class activities

In short I need to get working on the business of being a Granny to two lovely 5 year olds and their brother in 2010.

Resolution  To try and do a good job.

Resolutions for myself              Improve standard of physical fitness i.e go to the gym     

                                                  Develop my writing by doing it daily

                                                    Write more social email letters

                                                     Attend to social network.

GRANNY LOOKS FOR XMAS PRESENTS FOR THE TWINS

GRANNY LOOKS FOR XMAS PRESENTS FOR THE TWINS

I am definitely old. I find the mass of consumer goods available in the malls inhibiting instead of exciting and stimulating.

Sometimes it is also depressing.

   There are huge piles of stuff but the real choices are not so many..

   I found some fun leggings in red with snow like Xmas trim. Yhen I looked for tops-white seemed a good choice. How wrong I was. The only plain white tops were school blouses. Everything else had to have pink roses or ‘cute’ messages etc.

   I tried to find toys that required activity and interaction and crafts that aren’t too difficult for my age group. There are some improved versions of paper dolls with plastic finish clothes that don’t tear.

   Junior is easier- there are so many variations of lego and he will spend many happy hours putting it together. Sometimes he follows the intended design and sometimes he does his own version.

   I haven’t bought books this time- they have access to the school library as well as Playcentre library and the turnover is fast.. The girls are firmly in the fairy world  and Junior is still happy with trains.

   Gifts for the adults in the family are harder. We all have very little leisure time with the children. Parents of course have work related social engagements. I used to read a lot but now find it hard to read my book club assignment each month , otherwise it’s skimming through newspapers and the occasional magazine.

   On the plus side Lily has made some pretty felt bracelets for her friends and we will make cards to go with them.

At present I cut coloured stiff paper to size and they use stickers as decoration and write Happy Xmas and their name. We did some cards for school friends and these are posted in the ‘Postbox’ at the school.

I plan to have a session making cookies. If that works they make good small gifts too.

END OF TERM FOR THE TWINS, JUNIOR AND GRANNY

END OF TERM FOR TWINS, JUNIOR AND GRANNY

Surprise! It’s already the end of their first term in regular school. Certainly they aren’t newbies any more. Both girls are among the good swimmers in their classes. Both get on well with their teachers. This is so important and not easy to predict.

Academically thet seem to be progressing with learning to read. Numeracy skills are harder for me to evaluate.

  Socially Lily has learned the jargon and slang of her claamates and is obviously part of The Gang. Her teacher puts it that she is contributing to class discussions. At home she is very vocal and quite bossy sometimes

Ella is communicating better but doesn’t have the free social skills that her sister was born with.

   They are both taking part in the class Nativity Plays next week. Their classmates come from very mixed roots, ethnicly, geographically and socially with varied cultural and religious backgrounds. Families were asked if the children could take part in the Nativity play. It will be interesting to see how the teachers have adapted the traditional story

   In addition there is the Xmas Bazaar to raise funds for the less fortunate. I expected that the girls would want to Shop and Shop. Probably they were inhibited by the crowds. Lily’s biggest interest was the carol singing. She stood and watched and listened, quite delighted by hearing the melodies and lyrics she had heard on CD and TV sung live. I was surprised to see an almost entirely female chorus. Two lone little boys. Perhaps the peer group see singing as a non cool activity. What a pity. Boys of this age group have the voices of angels even if they are little horrors.

   The end of the year holiday is quite short and we will go back in January to expand out knowledge of the three Rs.

   Meanwhile Junior is all eyes and ears and is learning at least as fast as his sisters. He is fiercely competitive which leads to physical battles, especially with Lily. He doesn’t win yet but will soon. He is nearly as tall as his sisters and very strong.

  The plan is to channel the strength and agility to the sports field. This morning they have gone for a first tennis lesson.

GRANNY AND THE TWINS TACKLE HOMEWORK

               GRANNY AND THE TWINS TACKLE HOMEWORK

 

   Yes. At the age of 4 ½ they have homework!

They aren’t required to submit written exercises yet but there are tasks which have to be done. They are happy to do whatever is required IF there is no attractive alternative. And is thye can have the undivided  attention of an adult. In a family with three small children this is so hard to achieve.

    They are given three reading schemes books per week and we are asked to read them with them and help them to read them back to us. They are simple phonetic words and so the interest level is quite low.

  We re also supposed to play at making words with different combinations of letters. This is not a popular occupation.

  I have magnetic boards and letters but not enough fridge space for three sets of words.

  Even more challenging is to find topics for Show and Tell.

  I suppose part of the exercise was to get them to prepare something for a known forthcoming event.

   Ella was asked to show and tell about Jack and the Bean. (They had heard the story of Jack and the Beanstalk in class and had planted beans.) I tried very hard to get her to choose  something to show.

We talked about the beans we had grown and how tall they were. We talked about eating beans – green beans, dried butter beans and kidney beans.

Interest level zero!

The evening before I gave up and went to the kitchen and found five different types of bean and printed out the story with pictures from sparklebox.com.

Given these her interest was aroused. She could tell the story of Jack and the Beanstalk quite well and could demonstrate the different beans.

She went to school happy but with Granny’s homework.

She got a star for her Show and Tell. I hvaen’t had an opportunity to ask the teacher how much parenteral input is expected.

  Hopefully Ella and Lily learned that some preparation is needed for such an avent and that if you can’t manage ask for help.

THE TWLNS ANG GRANNY TRAVEL TO SCHOOL

                     THE  TWINS AND GRANNY TRAVEL TO SCHOOL

 

 We all love our new school but the journey there is taking a lot of effort to put it

mildly.

   Our Montessori school was closer and the journey took about 10 minutes.

   Between us we could manage that fitting it into the day’s routine. I do most of the pickup because that is lunch hour for parents and involves leaving the office to reach the school and ferry the children home. Even more difficult is for parents  to get back in the car to return to work after evading all efforts to keep them at home.

   With the change of school we have a much longer commute. On days with good traffic flow it takes 15 to 20 minutes but this can be extended very considerably by a downpour, a VIP cavalcade or just heavy traffic congestion.

   My car has gone to the workshop for auto geriatric complaints and will be replaced by a van for the school run when the paper work is through.

   There is a school bus but at 4 ½ they aren’t ready to manage the bus journey just yet. We are still using child car seats because they aren’t 40 lbs yet. So they do sit still.

   I expect the drop off and pick up will be easier as they get older but it will always be a crazy round of school hours plus swimming, etc.

   It would be good to find a way of using the commute time.

    We sing and sometimes play simple versions of ‘I spy’. The van has a DVD player but that will be a problem because they won’t get out when we reach our destination.

Hand held electronic games are also addictive.

Any suggestions?

THE TWINS SETTLE INTO SCHOOL AND IT’S DEJA VU FOR GRANNY

THE TWINS SETTLE INTO SCHOOL AND IT’S DÉJÀ VU FOR GRANNY

 

  There was a lot of excitement over getting ready for the new school. We shopped for uniforms (From the school uniform shop), shoes (bought in London where they are a bit cheaper), back packs ,lunch boxes etc. Fortunately most of these are standard items. This eliminates peer group competition but of course it also stifles individual choices and eventually the development of personal style.

   Given the definite characters of the two girls I don’t see this as a problem.

   The girls are in different classes. This is school policy for twins. They felt some separation anxiety at first but have settled into their classes well.

   The overall teaching plan for the two classes is the same but the individual teaching style is different.

   We are just starting on the individual road of learning to read. I have felt quite satisfied thatthey were doing OK over this. They seemed to me to know that words are a code and are beginning to recognize some by the Look and See method such as Stop, Go and Zoo.

  My sister and I read early and my own family picked up the skill without much hassle . Te school is making a big deal out of it. I suppose that it is important that all children learn to read efficiently as early as possible.  So we have homework(aged 4)!

It is certainly logical for only one script to be used. In our house all the adults try to teach and every one has a different writing style. I have the most illegible handwriting and shouldn’t comment!

We are now committed to teaching lower case pre-cursive  script only. We have a chart of letters with a description of writing method for that character and a specimen alphabet of laminated letters.

 We are given a group of 4 letters per week for mixing and matching to make words and a pack of 5 books to read per week to read with the child.

   I only hope we don’t kill the enthusiasm for learning which is there and which was growing and developing very well.

   It does seem to me a complicated way of doing something which will happen over time given opportunity and exposure.

We’ll see.

ALL CHANGE FOR GRANNY AND THE TWINS

ALL CHANGE  FOR THE TWINS AND GRANNY

 

 

   I need a good excuse for such a long silences on my blog.

So here goes—–

1. We have moved. We now are sharing my big old house. There are still packages on my verandah wrapped in all enveloping plastc and numerous bags of this and that but we have our day to day goods and clothes sorted.

      This has been a good cleaning out exercise but we still have a lot that we don’t use on a daily basis but can’t manage to discard. I have files about all sorts of things that I,ve been involved in over the years. Do I use them now? N—-NO. Should I throw them out? Y—–yes. Have I done it ?

Why do we cling to our possessions? Perhaps as part of our self image. It isn’t only me. WE have a lot of baby goods from infancy and pretty dresses that are too small.

Books and toys are easier because we have Junior to use them. There are some outgrown items that are still useful. Some of these have been given away.

This has all taken and is taking a lot of energy and time.

 I am particularly guilty and don,t like throwing out my books or my shoes.

2. We all went to London for a holiday to visit my daughter (the twins auntie) who will shortly move to Hong Kong.

   This was a major expedition with three small children on a twelve hour flight. They were so good. It was partly the novelty I suppose. We took colouring books and a portable DVD player. We flew Air Asia so there were no meals but they were happy with snacks. The meals we ordered were not eaten well.

They did have jet lag both when we arrived and after coming back.

  The hurry scurry of London was quite tiring for them (and us) and they are too small for tourist attractions. At least they have some idea of a different country and life style

1. Back to school

The girls have left their Montessori school to join the reception class in an international school.

Junior has started going to the Montessori school. He is familiar with the building as his sister’s school.

The household is quiet in the mornings while they are at school.

More about the rest of the day in another post.

THE TWINS AND FAMILY GO TRAVELLING

THE TWINS AND FAMILY GO TRAVELLING

 

   The twins have been uprooted, spun around and have landed fairly well balanced on their feet.

  We have moved house back to my old home. The construction crew who are doing reservations haven’t finished yet so we have piles of sand in the garden and workmen mixing cement, drilling etc.

   3 days after the move we abandoned the piles of possessions and took off on Air Asia to London to visit the twins’ auntie who will be moving to Hong Kong fairly soon. This visit was planned months ago and will be the last before she leaves.

   The twins and Junior were amazingly cooperative travelers. They played quietly and slept. We took colouring books, cards and a mini DVD player with some familiar DVDs.

  They enjoyed the change of scene. Visiting the park was a success. We were near Clapham Common and so could feed the ducks and geese , go to the playground and watch the amateur football teams, cyclists, dogs etc. At least part of the interest was because this was like the story books and magazines they read which are based on urban life in the developed world. Of course we have a few open public areas here in KL but few and far between. One of our favourites has been KL /Pac.

  Back home we have jet lag problems and have  been making Milo at 1am. Hopefully that will settle with time. We have about three weeks before school starts.

THE TWINS AND GRANNY ARE MOVING HOUSE

THE TWINS AND GRANNY ARE MOVING HOUSE

 

   It is said that the stress of moving house is equivalent of a death or divorce.  We are in the midst of packing and carrying things over.   The twins will hwve a much more spacious room with better storage for their belongings. Hopefully they will learn to keep them a little more carefully.

These children have a lot  that they don’t value  things as much as if they had only a few possessions. They don’t of course have any idea about  any monetary value.  In their eyes a hair clip may be a treasure although it’s market value s <RM1

   This move will be a big change for them and in addition they will be changing schools in September and will no longer be at a kindergarten where the oldest children are 6.

Hopefully they will meet this challenge. They are both reticent about mixing with new social groups.

THE TWINS REACT TO STRESS

                           THE TWINS REACT TO STRESS

 

We all went to the school Open Day and watched the children go through their simple activity/dance routines A few children were leaders but it was well designed to allow all the children to particioate.

    Our two joined in but certainly didn’t stand out as ‘stage personalities’.to me the star was a little girl of about 2 with pink crocs who was at the front end of her line. She really danced like a pro and enjoyed the audience.

  Lily and Ella have brought home some of the work they have done this half year and they are rightly proud of it. Ella was very busy today showing me how to cover a picture with cellotape. ‘A craft’ she called it. of course we do a lot of craft work but it isn’t given a formal name.

   We have tried hard to avoid over organization of the twins day. Filling the day with organized activities keeps them busy but it takes away play time.

They have swimming lessons twice a week . We regard this as a survival skill at this stage. Perhaps they  will develop it as a sport later. They can move freely around in the water but don’t have well formed strokes as yet.

One afternoon they have music-kindermusik- not formal piano lessons. They seem to have lost interest in this lately so we will stop until after they have settled in to their new school environment.

Our club has a swimming gala twice a year. They were entered for the under 5 race across the training pool and for the family race which is a relay of three. Either two parents and a child or one parent and two children.

  Ella swam her event well and finished well. Lily jumped in but didn’t start on time and had to be persuaded to do it well after the others had finished. Never mind – everyone had a present for taking part. The noise a splashing of the relay was too much for Ella and she didn’t do the lap for that event.

 Mama swam the women’s event and won so they had a medal to take home. *erhaps next year they can swim the family race with all three children. Junior is splashing around well now.

  They were very bothered by the prospect of that gala and Ella had two disturbed nights before the day.

We have more stress coming soon. Change of schools and moving house.

Probably they will accept the changes more easily than the adults!