Easter Assembly + 100% Attendance

Today I had the pleasure of going along to Ababcus School to watch the foundation class complete their Easter assembly. All of the kids took it in turns to hold the microphone and tell the audience all about Easter flowers, animals, Jesus etc.etc. and in between this they sang three animated Easter songs. All of the kids looked very happy and seemed to really enjoy performing for the families in attendance.

 

Joshua is over on the right hand side wearing the yellow T-shirt and holding up his picture of a seasonal flower.

 

Joshua singing a song and performing the hand animations.

Still pictures do not really do the assembly justice, however fortunately I remembered the video camera and have all 15 mins or so recorded. At the end of the assembly 9 of the children were awarded a certificate for 100% attendance this term by the head teacher. I was very proud see see Joshua stepping up as one of the 9 kids.

Ice Skating



This time last year we were basking in glorious 21 degree sunshine, a year on and it is -2 deg C outside and covered in snow. You would never believe it is supposed to be spring. Anyway after our usual Sunday morning activities of football, swimming and badminton the boys had yet another party to attend but his time at a new venue in Southend. This party was one with a difference though and was somewhat in tune with the outside weather conditions. In addition to the usual ball park, slides and soft play, this venue also had a artificial children's ice skating ring and both boys jumped at the chance to give it a try. So Brandon slipped on his size 9 skates and Joshua his size 12's and they were off.

 



A happy Brandon making his first steps on ice skates.

Both boys initially clung to the sides of the ice skating rink.

The three Musketeers, Brandon, Joshua and their friend Zac.

Brandon seemed to really enjoy himself and didn't want to come off of the ice.

Joshua was getting very brave..........

And with the bravery came some small falls...........

And then some bigger more painful falls..........

After hurting himself on a fall Joshua decided he had had enough of ice skating. But little Duracell Brandon just kept on going.

After a very full day of sporting activities the boys both welcomed a nice big plate of party food to replenish their energy. 

Joshua never misses out when party food is around.

Brandon an Zac tucking into their party food.

You will notice in the pictures that Joshua's nose is looking much better after his little fall on the scooter last week. However he is now complaining about his cheek and teeth hurting. I have checked his mouth out and low and behold his front two teeth are loose. My first thoughts were that this is the start of his adult teeth coming through, which could still be the case. But then earlier today it suddenly dawned on me that he might have also knocked his teeth when he fell off his scooter. Either way it looks like he we will very shortly be losing his first teeth and can then join his younger brother with a toothless grin.

Red Nose Day Pt.2

Joshua really took red nose day to heart this year. Last night he was tearing along at break neck speed to overtake Brandon whilst on their scooters. Next thing you know he clips the grass verge, takes Brandon down and then does a nose plant into the floor. End result: two boys crying and one bloody nose.

Brandon now finds this hilarious and keeps saying Joshua looks like Rudolph!

Gruffalo Hunt

This afternoon during a rare break in the weather we managed to get out over to Thorndon Country Park to take the boys on a Gruffalo hunt through the woods. It was great to get outside and to be exploring through the woods with them and fortunately we had the foresight to make sure everyone was wearing welly boots as "muddy" would have been a complete understatement in describing the terrain! So armed with our Gruffalo hunting map we set off into the woods.......

 

Our map of the Gruffalo hunt.

So the King's took a stroll through the deep dark wood.

 

 

Just check out all that mud!

In no time at all we found a Gruffalo child. "A gruffalo? What's a Gruffalo?", "A Gruffalo! Why, didn't you know?".

It has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws.

 

"Good", said Joshua, "Don't call me good! I'm the scariest creature in this wood."

A Gruffalo's child is no match for my Joshua and Brandon - who's favourite food just happens to be Gruffaloe crumble!

As we strolled through the deep dark wood, a fox saw the boys and the boys looked good. But the boys were off to have lunch with Daddy and his favourite food was roasted fox! 

Anyone for roasted fox (covered in mud!).

Joshua was very proud that he was the first one to spot the fox during our Gruffalo hunt.

On went the boys through the deep dark wood. An owl saw the boys and the boys looked good.

Joshua and B both spotted the owl despite it being about 30ft up at the top of his tree top house.

You can see Joshua at the very bottom of the tree, and the owl at the very top. The owl would not come down as the boys fancied some owl ice cream!

The boys thoroughly enjoyed our Gruffalo hunt and having read "The Graffalo" and the "Graffalo's Child" numerous times they could really associate with the characters and the spirit of the book. The one character which is currently missing from the trail is the snake, but I hear that it will be coming soon. Of course the super hero of the Gruffalo story is the big bad mouse, or should I say the scariest creature in this wood. 

 

The scariest creature in this wood, chomping away at his nut.

The boys were happy to join the mouse to go hunting for the big Gruffalo.

Finally our hunt came to an end. Brandon was the one who spotted a creature with terrible claws and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws. He had knobbly knees and turned-out toes and a poisonous wart at the end of his nose. His eyes are orange, his tongue is black; he has purple prickles all over his back. But all that being said, he still posed for a family picture!



We four King's and an 8ft Gruffalo.

 

The Gruffalo said Brandon would look good on a slice of bread. But Brandon replied by saying "Everyone is afraid of me and now my tummy's starting to rumble. My favourite food is --- Gruffalo crumble!" And quick as the wind he turned and quick as the wind he turned and fled, so we went to the park and played football instead! All was quiet in the deep dark wood.

Badminton B

We all know how much Brandon loves playing badminton and he has a couple of children's play sets in the garden which have not seen the light of day over the winter period. However last Sunday we met up with Millie and Joaben over the David Lloyd and the four kids all enjoyed a good knock around with some indoor badminton on a proper court with the net lowered perfectly for children. Neither Joshua or Brandon could master the hand to eye co-ordination with a full size racquet's, but once they had the short stemmed children's racquet's they were well away.

Joshua squares off against Millie and Brandon squares off with Joaben.

I think we have found a real passion of Brandon's and might have to get him in a club once he is a bit bigger.

Brandon and Joaben got some good rallies going between them.

Joaben ready for a big serve.

Brandon returns one back to Joab's, what a great forehand.

Poised ready for his next shot.

So in addition to taking the boys swimming every weekend, I now have to go armed with our badminton racquet's so that we can knock around afterwards. Not that I mind because it is good fun and yet more exercise for me and the boys.

Red Nose Boys

Josh and B all dressed up ready for red nose day at school. Love the Grufallo red nose t-shirts.

Alpha Male

Yesterday we had Joshua's parents evening over Abacus School to find out how he is progressing and to talk to his teacher. Overall Joshua is doing very well and his teach (Miss Goldsmith) has no concerns about him. Apparently he loves P.E. classes which I was pleased to hear and also she said he excels at maths and is very analytical. He lets himself down on literacy and phonics by not trying as hard as both we and his teacher knows he is capable of. We know that he can do this stuff, he just gets lazy at times and decides he doesn't want to do it on a certain day and can be very stubborn about it. The main thing I took from this parents evening is that with his homework we need to help him writing more sentences and working on neater hand writing with finger spaces and full stops in the right places.

 

Surprisingly she said that Joshua is very loud in the class and is one of three of the older boys in the class who all seem to be competing for role of the alpha male! On several occasions she used the phrase, "Dare I say it, but he is a typical boy!". In some respects I am pleased by this as it is a sign he is popular and maybe that he won't get bullied in later years if he is settling into an alpha male role.

 

Also yesterday Tina got to have a belated Mothers Day lunch with little B at his nursery. So I had to finish work early in order to dash home and pick up Joshua from school so that Tina and B could have their meal together. Other news on Brandon is that for the last 3 days he has got himself dressed in the morning all on his own - such a big boy.

Happy Mothers Day 2013

Mothers day 2013 started with the sound of a heard of elephants running up and down the stairs at 7am this morning. This was an excited little Joshua who made four trips up and down stairs to bring his various Mothers Day presents down to Tina. After breakfast the rest of the morning was the usual Little Kickers Football Club with Brandon. However after football we had a nice surprise for the boys mum as we took her out for dinner at The Quays.

 

Tina and her boys celebrating Mothers Day 2013. No the glass of wine is not Joshua's.

A happy Brandon giving his Mummy a cuddle. He insisted on taking this yellow teddy fish to dinner with him.

It may be Mothers Day, but a Mothers work is never done as Tina chops up Brandon's dinner.

We Four Kings. Luckily you can't see the really unhealthy cookie dough ice cream pizza in the middle of the table. Me, Joshua and Tina shared this for our pudding whilst Brandon had his own vanilla ice cream boat.

The Mothers Day presents for 2013 were probably more practical than they were ladylike or thoughtful. The main presents were some new window screen wipers and some new boot gas struts for Tina's car. These presents were then topped up with some chocolates, a "Mum Knows Best" coaster, a scented candle, some flowers, a pen and chain set and a nail clipper/scissor set. However probably the best present was the mug and cookie set which Joshua made at school. He was so proud of this and sneaked it home in his school bag and then hid it away in his wardrobe.

Tina's Mothers Day haul for 2013.

So for Fathers Day 2013 the challenge is to find a coaster that now says "Daddy Knows Everything!".

World book day

What is World Book Day? World Book Day is a celebration! It’s a celebration of authors, illustrators, books and (most importantly) it’s a celebration of reading. 2013 is the 16th year there’s been a World Book Day, and today children of all ages will come together to appreciate reading. Very loudly and very happily. The main aim of World Book Day is to encourage children to explore the pleasures of books and reading by providing them with the opportunity to have a book of their own.

 

Brandon's nursery and Joshua's school supported World Book Day by encouraging the children to dress up as a story book character for the day. The boys chose their own costumes and as you can see Brandon is Spiderman and Joshua is Ironman. You wouldn't want to be a bad guy today with these two super heroes about. At school Joshua was also allowed to pick a book from the library and then he had another child from year 6 come and sit and read it with him.



Spiderman and Ironman all ready for World Book Day 2013.

Foundation Stage Interim Target Report

This week Joshua brought home his Foundation Stage Interim Report and we are very pleased with his progress. The report summarises a list of individual targets that Joshua is expected to learn before moving on to the next level of his learning. The Early Years Foundation Stage consists of:

• Communication & Language and Literacy,
• Mathematics,
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development,
• Physical Development,
• Understanding the World, and
• Expressive Arts & Design

Its quite incredible when you see the expectations of a 5 year old under each of these Foundation Stages!

 

Joshua proudly showing his first school report.

 

The "General Comments" on Joshua's report read as follows:

 

"Joshua is a bright little boy who has made sound progress this year. He is thoughtful and logically minded, and often makes brilliant contributions to class discussions. Joshua seems to enjoy learning but he does not always try his hardest, despite being given appropriately challenging work. We have talked about this in class and he now needs to ensure that he tries his best at all times in order to continue making good progress, particularly in Literacy. Joshua has lots of ideas and he enjoys sharing his thoughts and ideas with adults and peers, although he must now try to avoid calling out to allow other children the opportunity to answer questions, both on the carpet and during group activities."



Early Mothers Day meal

Tina was treated to an early Mothers Day present today as she got to join Joshua at lunchtime for a early Mothers Day school dinner. The two of them enjoyed gammon, roast potatoes and vegetables followed by crumble and biscuits for pudding. Looks like they both enjoyed the meal. This is such a great idea and I certainly don't remember doing things like this when I was at school. Fingers crossed they do the same for Fathers Day!

 

Tour de Lake Meadows

Spring is almost upon us and it is time to start getting out and about with the boys. We are off to a good start this weekend just gone with a little trip over to Lake Meadows for some footy and cycling. Both boys did outstanding and cycled all the way around the lake. En route Joshua also bumped into two of his buddies from Forest Glade Football Club.

 

Cycling around the lake at Lake Meadows.

Mother & Child

How do you keep a 4 and a 5 year old entertained when dragging them out shopping? Answer :- Anything you can even if it means letting them run around the iconic mother and child fountain in the middle of Basildon Town Centre. I am sure we could get in trouble for this given that the fountain is grade II listed!!! Woops. The bronze statue by Maurice Lambert was unveiled in 1962 and forms the central part of Basildon Town crest. It originally cost £4,000 yet a refurbishment in 2009 apparently cost around £33,000 - so now we know why our council tax money goes up each year!

 

Joshua and Brandon with the iconic Mother & Child statue (also sporting their new angry birds baseball caps ready for the summer!).

Blog Volume 4

The much awaited hard back Blog Volume 4 is finally complete. The latest and greatest edition features over 400 pages with some 1,500 colour pictures. As with the previous 3 volumes I am extremely proud of this work and love looking back at the pictures of the boys growing up. Those two boys better be really nice to their old man in years to come as I have so much material in these blog books to embarrass the them in front of their future girlfriends.

 

Learning Time & Homework

It seems like ages since we got the paints out at home for the boys to do some artwork. So inspired by Lisa's Laboratory art days we had a bit of an art day at home today. I think both boys painted about 4 pictures each and I have to say they are starting to look pretty impressive. Joshua's pictures are starting to be recognisable as he is trying to paint something specific rather than just colours splashed and spread over paper. Today he decided to paint some beach scenes with the sun, sea and sand. Brandon coloured in a very nice picture of Fin McMissile using the paint and also painted a little draft mask.

 

Young artists at work.

The finished array of paintings all laid out to dry.

Homework (aka learning time) is becoming a real pleasure with the boys as it never ceases to amaze me just how much they seem to be learning and how quickly. Brandon is a little brain box and is arguably considerably ahead of where Joshua was at the same age (and that's not taking anything away from Joshua who is pretty smart himself). Brandon can already spell and write his name and has completely nailed the first 3 sound set cards. In fact he is now learning sound set 4 and some of the word cards which Joshua has only recently started learning in his last school term. Even more impressive is that the nursery have said Brandon is ready to start reading books with words rather than picture books and have subsequently been sending him home with word books already. Joshua didn't start on the word books until he started at Abacus.

Brandon's practise with writing his name.

Brandon's first reading book with words, all about pancakes.

Joshua seems to get a bit complacent with his homework as it is often a little too easy for him and not challenging enough. We feared this might be the case and need to give him extra homework text books to add to what the school give him. Each week he school give him some focus words and sounds along with a reading book to learn. However you only need to go through these once or twice with him and they are nailed down and all of a sudden no longer challenging him.

Joshua's half term focus words were my, like, boat and night.

Joshua's hand writing tends to be a bit scruffy at times so he still uses his writing books as part of his homework.

The exercise books in Maths and English which we have bought for the boys are a great supplements to their normal school homework. Joshua seems to really enjoy working through the pages of these books as they present new challenges for him and get him thinking in different ways. For example in the English book below he had to figure out the first letter (out of two) for each of the words that describes the picture. Then he had to pick out all of the words that start with a specific letter and write them out at the bottom on the correct lines. 

Joshua's additional English homework which gets him thinking about words and letters.

The maths book is equally as good and if anything this is Joshua's weak area. He is great with the letters, sounds and reading, but does seem to struggle at times with numbers, For example he will often "put" two numbers together to make a bigger number rather than "adding" the two numbers. So if you said to him add 4 and 1 he will often say the answer is 41 and not 5. The maths workbooks seems to be helping with this problem and as you can see below he is starting to get the hang of his numbers and adding.

Joshua's maths skills are definitely improving thanks to his homework books.