I'm in this weird limbo of emotional blankness right now, hence the lack of posting. There was a lot going on around (the real) Lizzie's Home for the first part of May and then Mother's Day hit and I worked myself into a tizz again. Up I went again in the wake of that, and down I came again this past weekend - the 17th marked what would have been my mother's 58th birthday. I don't think I'll be fully recovered until June - there's still the anniversary of her death (30th) and then the day of her funeral (June 6) to contend with. Honestly? May just plain SUCKS for me (with a bright spark for my own Mother's Day celebration with my kids, of course).
Most everything else is puttering along just fine. Charlie continues to be the source of both frustration and hilarity. His two favourite activities in the world include chasing the birds away from his dry food bowl outside - his brain must think he's flying, but his feet just can't keep up, so he usually trips - and devising ways to get into the loungeroom, something he's been banned from since day one. We have a great house for a dog, with tiles everywhere except the bedrooms - and the loungeroom. At six months old I guess you could say his sneakiness is akin to a 10 year old boy hopped up on red food colouring, LOL.
I was working on the sewing nook last night, with the nearby door to the tiled kitchen open so I could keep an eye on him. It was like a weird cross-species game of "What's The Time Mr Wolf?" - I'd look away, put a book on a shelf or something, and when I glanced back, he'd be an inch into the room. Again, I look away to do something and when I look back, he's in the door three inches. This went on for some time until he was fully in on the carpet, just stretched-out all comfy, a stupid dog grin on his face as if to say, "Nee-ner!" Not once did I see the little imp actually move.
Talented Hubby has returned to work after several weeks off. That man works so hard - I mean, it doesn't seem like it, since he just had most of a month off, LOL, but during non-leave stretches he works like the blazes. Apart from his day job, his joint-photography exhibition opened this week and he's expecting some sales to come from that (if you get the fancy to check out more of TH's work, you can see it here).
Kids are all doing great - Jay has his 'exam' for the nationwide literacy and numeracy testing this past week. For the benefit of my international readers, the Australian government tests each child in primary (elementary) school at year levels 3, 5 and 7 - the same test, over the same days, across the country - to see where they are 'at' with their reading/communicative and numeracy skills. The general aim is, I suspect, to 'catch' kids who are falling behind before they get too far behind, and it provides general information about how your child compares to his classmates, year level (both in his state and nationwide) and other useful stuff like that. Jay, being special needs, is exempt from participating (and so missed the Year 3 test) but this year his teachers all thought he would be perfectly fine and honestly, TH and I were very curious. By all accounts he did wonderfully well ("Mum, I finished the sums in ten minutes and they said you could have 50 minutes to complete them!") and going by what we already know about his academic performance so far, he's expected to be slightly above average, compared to other REGULAR, NON-SPECIAL NEEDS children of his age. Little man, we've had some dark days, but stuff like this makes Mama's heart burst. Mwah.
And so here I am, anxiously awaiting a text message from the Janome dealer (why a text? They offered it as an option so I took it - the library texts me when a book is ready for pickup, the Blood Service texts to remind me about appointments - thank God - so it makes perfect sense to me that a sewing machine retailer would act similarly, LOL). Soon as that baby arrives I'm all over it. In the meantime, I 'nest', preparing a sewing nook.
Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie would be so proud of me. Containers and tubs feature prominently, :P (pics soon).
(Talented Hubby just called from work. He's had a difficult start to the day. As always, I continue to be in awe of how he manages to handle it all...)
And with that, I'm off to continue cleaning. Baby (sewing machine) must have a pretty place to sleep, LOL...
3 comments:
I can honestly say I don't agree with the literacy/numeracy testing schedules. There's too much time between where someone could get so far behind. I think the old standard that we had in school was much better. We had classroom testing every Friday morning on the work we'd learnt that week. So much easier for the teacher to see who wasn't keeping up, who wasn't coping. So much easier for the teacher to arrange the next few lessons so that the work in question was gone over a few extra times until everyone "got it". of course with the over-loaded curriculums these days that probably isn't possible.We had a longer end of term test as well, and the end of year exam which showed how well you'd done over the whole year and whether or not you could progress to the next grade. Nowadays everything is skewed so that no child gets left behind, which is wrong in my opinion. If a child can't cope with, let's say grade 4, then grade 4 should be repeated, similarly if a child is advanced enough, he or she should be able to skip ahead a grade. But not too far ahead of course as that situation has it's own detriments.
As the parent of both ends of the spectrum - special needs and giftedness, two different children - I do understand what you're saying.
With Jay, we're almost always of the opinion - 'hey, if he looks like he's able to cope with it, and its what everyone else in his year level is expected to do, then go for it'. As a result of our pushing in the early years (ie, believing him to be more capable than his pre-entry psych evaluation scores had told us) he is now academically (and perhaps slightly above) working at his year level. As I said, the fact that he is even ABLE to take the LAN test is in and of itself, a reason to push for it.
Boof (who was in Year 3 last year and did that year level's LAN test) snuck up on us. After Jay, who had speech problems and a slow start to formal schooling, we kind of just thought Boof was working at the 'normal' level. Whey they started suggesting, during his Reception/Prep year (first year of 'big school' for you Americans, LOL) that he go to the Year 2 class for reading each morning, we kind of worked it all out.
His Reception teacher was the one who suggested him skipping a grade. Given that he is quite small *anyway* we took a couple of months to make a final decision but ultimately, Boof finished his Reception year then skipped Grade 1 entirely. This makes him the youngest in his class and (though not related academically) the smallest, LOL. He stands out, but in a good way. He adapted brilliantly and his test scores last year were brilliant. He'll be going into the school's SHIP (gifted) program later this year.
We are proud of BOTH of our boys :)
So I'm not against the tests at all, despite there having been a fair bit of controversy relating to them over the last few years. For us, it represents reassurance.
It's not the test itself I object to, I just wish it could be every year at every level. More frequent testing would highlight those who are beginning to fall behind as well as those that are really struggling. I'm not sure I'm explaining myself very well. I have thoughts on this that won't translate into words.
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