Chops Progress Report and Plans

I've been looking back over my previous plans for Chops and it's amazing how far he has come in such a short time.

Out of interest I've had a flick through the EYFS guide that I have to see what they'd expect him to be able to do and in all honesty, he would laugh if I gave him stuff at that level to do. There are a few things that we are yet to cover - symmetry, 3d shapes and other peoples cultures - but symmetry I already had planned as part of a butterfly/spring theme next week.

In terms of literacy, he got a pack of magnets today which were the 45 high frequency words which children are expected to know by the end of reception (summer 2013 for him). He knew 41 of them already and gave the others a good try. There are also a lot of words in the Y1/2 packs which he knows too.

We got him a clock last week for the playroom which includes the number of minutes past plus quarters and half aswell as the usual 1-12 so he's been trying to decipher that this week. He can reliably tell the hour and half hour now and is getting to grips with quarter past and to. We played the Hickory Dickory Dock board game today to make the most of his interest. He's fascinated by what Daddy was telling him about the clocks changing, more sunny evenings and a later bedtime - for one day at least!

I really love being able to work at his level without worrying about anyone else. I love challenging him too and seeing the sense of pride when he realises what he's capable of.

I just can't imagine doing this kind of observation/reviewing/planning for a whole group of children in school. Hats off to my teacher friends - how you find time to actually teach when doing all of this I just do not know! Relieved my records are purely personal and for the boys to look back on.

Over the next few days I'm continuing with the Spring theme. I have ideas in my head for the life cycle of a butterfly. Plus we collected a lot of twigs at the park last week for making a nest so we need to find time for that.

He's enjoying spot the difference/maze type puzzles at the moment so I'm going to hunt out some more of those.

Then just the usual games, reading, random pages of workbooks and answering the gazillion questions he comes up with every day. I really love seeing the progress both boys are making and am very excited about seeing where their interests and talents take us next.

Batcaves odd or even

The Chops has a range of 'work books' for literacy and numeracy which I've picked up when they were on offer in various places. We probably do 2-3 pages a week on average between them all.

Yesterday the page he picked was about odd and even numbers. We had a chat about them, found them on his number square, he did the activity and then we played a batman/riddler game where there were cars that needed rescuing into 2 batcaves and you could only find the riddler if you knew if the number of cars was odd or even. It was simpler than it sounds! Anything superhero related goes down well at the moment and the theory seems to have sunk in.

Will probably try to repeat the activity with a star wars or soldiers theme later in the week.

Workers Wednesday

I'm not sure what it is about Wednesdays but as usual yesterday Chops decided to do some 'table work' after lunch. He did a couple of cutting sheets which involved chopping up bugs and pretending to squash them, a writing sheet, a few pages of a reading workbook and then played the magic cauldron maths game. I can see his confidence in reading and maths brimming but he's not so sure about writing yet! Like everything else though, I'm sure once it clicks with him he'll be flying with it. He seems to go from 0-100% with things so quickly rather than trying things that he can't quite manage. Reminds me of me as I'm still not happy trying things if I'm not sure I can do them!
Roly is still babbling incoherently and being generally mischievous in the best ways possible! He's loving books about animals at the moment.

Next steps...

Not all of these will be done straight away but here are the musings of a girl who needs a plan (for any horrified he-ers reading, he only does this 'adult-led' stuff when he feels like it and we do have plenty of time to 'just' play, honest!)

Literacy
- continue learning the digraphs from jolly phonics (ar was successful pirate themed so try to think of more like that if poss)
- practice pen control (wipeable flash cards, worksheets from twinkl etc. Aquadraw, drawing)
- do more pages in our alphabet book

Numeracy
- carry on practising addition and subtraction
- keep talking about money/units of measurement/time/fractions of stuff as he's interested (getting time game and play money for Xmas)
- find activities that involve counting to higher numbers

Advent
- need to my plan my Christmas activity bags like last year (crafts/visits/activities)

Also more fine motor control stuff (scissors, modelling, jigsaws with smaller pieces)

That'll keep us busy then along with the usual groups/board games/books/games we play. Good times. We're all definitely happier when we're busier, focused and sticking to our tv-free days.