Lightening Online

We recently purchased The Australian Here & Now Edition of Monopoly. It’s been sitting in the cupboard unopened for a number of weeks, tormenting our children while we tried to find time to actually play it with them.

Usually we have a “Friday night Family night” but over the winter months, with being out late at sports training on a Thursday night and then having to leave early on a Saturday morning for sport, the games night went by the by.

So we brought this new game along with us on holidays, confident that without other distractions (eg a television), we’d find plenty of time to play.

However, we’ve been so busy since we left home that most nights we’ve pretty much fallen into bed after tea. It was starting to look as though the holiday would pass us by with the game still in it’s plastic wrap.

Determined not to let this happen, we snuck in a game after tea tonight.

As it turned out, I think this game will make a great caravan game. The board included a couple of places we’ve just visited this trip. The kids were having a great time looking at the locations on the board and discussing which one’s they’ve seen and which one’s they expect to see (eg on our trip next year). It had a lot more relevance than the traditional board game.

We also have a junior monopoly game which has been a great way to introduce counting money, change and so on to the kids. However, it was a bit of a jump in skill from junior monopoly to this version.

And I’m not just talking about the kids!!!

This version is all in millions and 10s and 100s of thousands. Kept my poor little brain going trying to work out the sums for that. A few more games and I’m sure I’ll be ready to be a millionaire!!!

Trailer Boy was so cute counting all the dots on both dice to work out how many spaces he needed to move. He got a little bit upset though when he got sent to jail. I think 4 is a tad too young for Monopoly. But of course, being the youngest, he has to do what the “big kids” do.

I just love the way games help kids with their learning - and without them even realising.

They had so much fun we’re now having some trouble getting them to go to sleep. I think they’re a little hyped up and a little overtired.

I’d been planning on writing some more about the various attractions we’ve been going to but my head is a little weary after such big days so it may have to wait until we get back. We’ll have to see. I’m also struggling a bit with the internet access here so not sure how often I can get online. Will do what I can as I can.

Image via WikipediaYou’ve heard me rant before about how much homework “sucks” when you’re a parent.

When Singstar Princesses mid-year report came home, I noticed that “we” failed in the homework category. Apparently our homework effort “needs developing”. *sigh*

I was actually a little bit mad about that because we had explained the home situation to DD’s teachers earlier in the year. Some things (like feeding our children) had to take a higher priority than homework.

Of course, it doesn’t help when the homework often ends in tears.

Singstar Princess had this list of Target words that we were practising writing. It was quite a comprehensive list but it said to just pick 5 at a time to work on. According to the instructions, when she got them right we needed to initial the word. When she got them right 3 times she could colour in that word on her sheet and it was all done.

At the rate we were going, it was going to take ALL YEAR to get through the 1 sheet.

Last night there was a single word added by her teacher to the top of this particular sheet of paper.

READING

DOH!!!

No wonder DD was having some trouble spelling some of the words.

She only needed to READ them!!!!

Double DOH!!!

This week she has brought home her first list of “Spelling” words to practise at home.

They are a LOT easier.

No wonder the teacher thought we were “failing” in our homework attempts.

In reading, she would have been through the whole sheet in a week.

By trying to teach her to spell the words, we were taking WAY longer than anyone expected.

I kept trying to pull out the easier words on the list because I didn’t want to knock her confidence. Although she was actually managing quite a few of the words.

I tell you what, I think we ALL deserve an A on the next report!!!!

Not sure who should get a fail on communication skills though - us or the teacher (or both).

Perhaps it’s the price the poor girl pays for having a gifted older brother. He did very little in the way of reading and spelling homework beyond reception (first year at school) because he was already so far ahead of his peers. I mean, where do you go when your 5 year old reads the newspaper, bible and encyclopedia. It doesn’t leave a lot of room for “practise”.

I wonder if the teacher assumed that her being our second child meant we should automatically know the difference between “target” words and “spelling” words??? It only took her just over a term to find out from DD that she’d been WRITING the words instead of READING them.

* image courtesy of www.jumpingpillows.com.au “I’m taking Trailer Boy on the jumping pillow“, I said to my older two children through the car window. I had promised earlier that day that I would come for a jump with them. Both faces lit up and they quickly put away their gameboy and nintendo and jumped out of the car to follow us.When we arrived the playground area was empty. It seemed that word spread like wildfire around the caravan park that “an adult was on the jumping pillow” because kids started to roll in within minutes of my arrival (yeah, I’ve just got an overinflated sense of importance ).

One girl in particular seemed to stick quite close to me and peppered me with questions and information about herself.

It started with “do you know how old I am?” and continued from there. Thankfully, while she told me her age, she didn’t ask mine!!!!

Before long, Farmboy decided that we were having too much fun on the jumping pillow and joined the rest of us. Plenty of laughter (and puffing) ensued.

Farmboy started some kind of game on the pillow and more children arrived asking “can we play too?”

Things continued along for some time, with Tami* sticking close to my side. Wanting to play and yet mostly unsure of herself to some degree.

Eventually Farmboy collapsed on the nearby grass only to end up with a pile of kids jumping all over him. That wasn’t too bad when it was OUR children. But other people’s children?

This is where things can get really sticky.

I spent half the night lying there thinking about Tami. She lived in the town where we were staying. It was a “holiday” to come and stay in a cabin at the local caravan park. With a carer. Her mother lives some 400km away. No mention of a father. My understanding was that she also lives with a carer (as in foster care).

Farmboy really struggled. She was making comments to him like “I’m ticklish too” when he was tickling our kids.

It just seems so unfair. Unfair because it was all innocent fun and yet in the back of Farmboys mind constantly was “I can’t touch this girl or it might get misinterpreted”. Unfair because what she really wanted (needed?) was a bit of attention and to feel like she was part of the fun.

When it was time for us to head off for tea. This little girl (she told me she was 9) ran up and threw her arms around Farmboy. He graciously put an arm around her in a brief embrace. She then gave me a huge hug.

Part of me wanted to pack her up and take her home with us. The other part of me was kind of relieved I didn’t have to. She was a rather draining child. I imagine she was trying to cram what might amount to a number of years of adult attention into those few minutes we gave her.

I guess it brought home to me how IMPORTANT it is that children are given attention from adults. Adults that they can TRUST.

I don’t know what this child’s future holds. I hope that the love we showed to her might somehow warm her heart. I pray that she won’t go looking for love from the wrong people in life but fear that she might.

I must admit that I learnt a lot from that 30-minute episode in my life.

The look on my own children’s face brought home to me how much they value me doing things with them. Something as simple as jumping on the jumping pillow with them meant a great deal to them (and it wasn’t a bad workout for me either).

I was stunned at how the children gravitated to the pillow with adults on there. I’m not sure if it was a novelty factor or what the reason was.

I was concerned with how quickly a young girl latched on to a complete stranger simply because they gave her a few moments of their time.

* Not her real name.

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You may have guessed from the above post (and maybe my lack of response to comments???) that we’ve been away for a couple of days. We didn’t go far but we took our camper trailer and it was a FABULOUS couple of days “off”.The kids were really well behaved and seemed to have a GREAT time. And they didn’t fight!!! Well, not much anyway.

Naturally though, it’s nice to be home!