Perfectamondo

Both are the boys are now very used to the concept that they have to do a bit of homework every night. Typically this is done straight after dinner whilst they are both already at the dinner table and typically they are not allowed on the Wii or computer until homework is done. Brandon’s homework usually involves doing his sound set letter cards, reading his nursery picture story book and then practicing some letter writing in his letter book. Joshua’s homework usually involves reading a story book, then he normally has key words and sounds to practice writing. This week he key sounds are ar, ai, oo and his key words are said, look, market and too. He seems to be struggling a bit with the market word. To make Joshua’s homework more challenging sometimes he has to hunt around the house and like for an item which has one of his key sounds in it, other times we play a game where you take it in turns telling each other to find a specific word in his reading book. This week’s book that he is learning to read has some very challenging words for a 5 year old, such as skipping, painting, etc.

A couple of weeks ago Joshua had some comments from his teacher that he was reading his book more from memory than sounding out the letters. He only ever bothers with the sounds when he gets stuck on a word and I thought that was exactly how you learnt to read. So I was somewhat disappointed with the comments from his teacher that almost implied he had to take a backwards step with his reading. This week his comments are very different and he has been praised for reading very well and for remembering a lot of his key words as well as sounding out words that he did not know.

Whilst I am very pleased with both of the boys development at school and nursery, one of the things I struggle to come to terms with is that their teachers / key workers get to spend much more time with them than me. I would like to think the boys see me as a role model and try to take after me in many ways, yet lately it seems they are picking up mannerisms, expressions and behaviours more from their teachers and I guess this is only to be expected when the teachers get 6 hours a day with them and I get 2-3 at best. Within this 2-3 hours we usually have to fit in dinner, bath etc so actual quality father-to-son time is probably only 30 mins to an hour each night. However unless I win the lottery or Tina suddenly get a high paid job and I become a house Dad then this scenario is not going to change much.

 Anyway each family as their little quirky expressions that they use and two which I have passed onto the boys lately (which I think are quite funny) are “perfectamondo” and “fibbanarchi”. “Perfectamondo” is pretty clear as this is what I say to them if they have done something very well (or perfect). “Fibbanarchi” is our little expressions for if someone is telling fibs / lies. I know these words are not in the Oxford English dictionary and I probably should not teach the boys things like this, but it is funny to hear them use such words.