Telling Tales

Ferdy loves stories. He spends a lot of his time in the world of stories, be it Star Wars, Greek Myths, the Moomins, Beatrix Potter, Roald Dahl, Lego Star Wars... In fact, if I need him to listen to me (he doesn't listen to me very much), starting my sentence with 'Once upon a time' will often guarantee his attention. And he has become such an expert at concocting stories, I cannot discern if they're fact or fiction. Apparently in one of the school church services all the teachers dressed up as Star Wars characters; and all the new girls in his class are called Emily, Bemilie, Gemelie and Shemelie.

But despite this, he is not keen on reading. And we've been worried that making him read books will destroy his love of them. So we're trying to work out ways for him to enjoy learning through stories.

It was a rainy, cold day this Friday (sorry blog is late due to half term) and we attended assembly, then did what we often do when it's rainy: visit Derby Museum. They had an exhibition on WW1 and although it wasn't that kid friendly, we looked at the medals and Ferdy told us all about what the women did during the war (worked on farms), which he'd learnt at his school trip to the Arboretum.

But the best bit is the nature gallery. Not only is it full of unusual stuffed animals like a pangolin, echidna and a sun bear, but it also has a whole array of animal books and other resources. We read an encyclopedia on reptiles, a book about insects and a story about animal habitats.

Then it was time for some drawing. Gil drew an eagle, I drew a zebra and Ferdy drew a stick insect larvae.

Using the Encyclopedia as reference for stick insect larvae

And we played with the story cubes for ages, Ferdy even read all the words without realising he was reading.

Once upon a time there was a parrot, and it hunted an octopus with eight legs, but the octopus only wanted to play in the jungle (peals of laughter).

Back at home they wanted to do playdoh. All in all a good day for those fine motor skills. And perhaps we'll try and write a story with story cubes soon.

In other news, our letter to Luca has arrived! It only took 6 weeks and 5 days.

It ain't like dustin' crops, boy!

In Star Wars IV A New Hope, Han makes it clear to Luke that jumping into hyperspace is no mean feat; it requires precise calculations, without which they could, 'fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova'.

Ferdy is finding that learning to read and write, and to concentrate and follow instructions at school is also no mean feat. His gross and fine motor skills are taking a while to develop (we mustn't forget that he didn't walk until he was nearly 2) and without those everything is seeming pretty tricky. And when you are five years old and you are bouncing too close to those supernovas, whilst your peers  are navigating around them easily, I imagine that you may start to think you will never be able to do it!

For me it's really hard to know when I should (gently) push him (or not so gently sometimes - I make him read a whole book and write something on Fridays and it can be quite a battle), and when to leave him to go his own way.

This Friday was a great example of how when left alone he not only produces something surprising, but he also seems much happier doing it.

He's been watching Numberblocks at school this week and asked if he could watch it. I agreed when he suggested he write down all the sums that they were doing. Which he did! Every single one.

We then went off to our forest school. I had been thinking that maybe we should concentrate more on gross and fine motor activities on Fridays but decided we'd leave things to chance a bit and just focus on enjoying ourselves, as Ferdy was really keen to be out today.

But was I inadvertently performing Jedi mind tricks? He spent quite a lot of the morning picking up leaves with plastic tweezers to clean up the mud kitchen.

 

He really enjoyed himself today, and there was a male helper who he got on well with, they did some bug hunts, collected leaves, climbing etc. Both he and Gil love it when there's a bloke teacher or helper; they're often are more willing to do things for themselves and be more grown up, and they chat more.

Not the best example of being grown up but he had a fun day!

They quickly reverted back to babies though when I realised I'd forgotten my wallet and couldn't buy them ice-creams in the cafe, is there a collective noun for boys having a tantrum?

At home we threaded pasta necklaces for my Padmé costume (I seem to have been allocated the rather flattering role of Padmé at the Star Wars party I didn't know we were having), and Ferdy wrote 'take me to Tatooine as fast as you can'; a very useful thing to be able to write when you are negotiating a long and difficult journey into hyperspace.

The Great (Clone) War

In the trenches with the British army

We are trying to do a big trip at least every 1/2 term, and Ferdy is just about to start learning about WW1 so as an introduction we decided to go to to the Imperial War Museum in London.

Our trip began after school on Thursday when we got the train. The boys were most excited about two things: eating supper on the train and having a sleepover in Francine (my Dad)'s flat because, 'it has no stairs'.

The next morning we got the DLR to Bank, then the Northern Line to Elephant and Castle, and then walked, or to be precise, bhangred (is that a verb?) to the Imperial War Museum.

Ferdy learnt a bit of Bhangra at school on Thursday

The boys know a lot about war. They know that the soldiers were called Storm Troopers, that the leader of the army was Darth Vader... Oh wait a minute, wrong war.

Despite the fact that there are more parallels between Star Wars and WW2, Ferdy had quite a good understanding about how different countries and people come to fight each other ('like in the Clone Wars, Mummy?'). And something that the IWM does so well is to encourage the visitor to try and comprehend what it must have felt like to sign up and fight at the front, and particularly to survive in the trenches.

Luckily for me Ferdy was too small to sign up.

Ferdy is under 5ft 6 inches

But Gil managed to do so well in his medical and fitness tests, his age and height were disregarded...

Ferdy was fascinated by the model of the trenches:

And there are lots of anecdotes and stories about individual experiences which intrigued the boys. Particularly evocative was our encounter with the silhouettes of the soldiers going about their daily trench activities (see top picture) and hearing the sound of the planes flying over and a tank starting up. We were a little terrified of the thunderstorm and gas attack but managed to find a space to shelter from the rain, unlike a lot of the poor soldiers.

tl clockwise: looking at an army tank; reading the Kid's Guide;
meeting the soldiers in the trenches; Tirpitz the pig.

Both boys also loved the stories about the roles various animals played in the Great War. Ferdy's favourite was the story of Tirpitz the pig, who was rescued by British sailors off a German cruiser that was sunk off the coast of Chile. The sailors named him Tirpitz (after the head of the German navy) and kept him as a pet.

When we'd had enough of WW1, unlike the soldiers, we were able to distract ourselves with coffee and crisps in the cafe, and then we also had a look around the WW2 gallery. I must confess to getting a little bored of the game we had to play repeatedly pretending we were a family sheltering from the bombs in the Anderson shelter.

'Tell us a story Mummy we're scared, we're scared'

On our way home, we read a great book about being in the trenches, and the boys were surprisingly tolerant about the fact that we had to sit on the floor for almost the whole journey; perhaps after their own experience of trench warfare they realised that there are worse things in life to have to deal with.

Two WW2 fighter planes joined us on our journey home

Do we reap what we sow?

It was Harvest Festival at school today, and it felt like autumn was well and truly here.

We just had time to go to the library before lunch, where Ferdy chose 13 books and read me bits of two, and all of Bob's Bobble Hat. He finds it tricky to identify between b and d so we thought it might help.

Ferdy has only started reading to us this term; he really hasn't wanted to read any of his school books and we haven't pushed it as he loves stories and books so much we haven't wanted to jeopardise this. He's a bit more willing to read now, although he finds it very frustrating how slow it is to get what's happening in the story. And he mainly uses a combination of looking at the pictures and guesswork to work out the word, only resorting to spelling it out and phonics knowledge if he really has to!

Seeing as he'd been singing all about the fruits of the harvest, we decided that we'd have some corn on the cob for lunch. Ferdy and Gil did the prep work whilst I had my coffee.

Looking for corn on the cob in the fridge

Ferdy even tidied up every little strand of the cob that fell on the floor... He'd get a sticker for that at school. Instead he got a thank you; my (stingy) version of a sticker.

We talked a bit about boiling point whilst the corn was cooking, and then decided to go hunting for different coloured leaves. I had located some books on the changing seasons, and my aunt had given us some cards about different types of trees, but, despite watching a video of how the changing seasons affect apple trees and woodland habitats, Ferdy was not engaged today. I think that somedays he is either tired or just not receptive to learning (or is that my excuse for boring him..?) and there is no point trying to enforce it as he just doesn't seem to take anything in. At this point we need to get out.

I took a few of the cards along with me so that we could look at deciduous and evergreen trees.

But I can't guarantee that anyone was looking or listening.

After our (rather grumpy) woodland walk, the boys made some beautiful leaf paintings. Oh and the next day I heard Ferdy going through the tree cards and working out which trees we have in our garden. Perhaps these Fridays are all about planting seeds rather then instant results.

By Ferdy

By Gil