Self sufficiency

Lately Abigail has been resisting parental efforts to get her changed on time, eating on time, leaving house on time etc. Last night Priscilla accidentally stumbled upon a possible solution.

Pascale was ready to leave the bathroom after being washed, dressed and teeth brushed by Priscilla. Abigail was enjoying her bath with toys. Priscilla said that she and Pascale would wait for Abigail in the bedroom while reading books, Abigail can join us when she is ready.

Some time later Abigail appeared in the bedroom, smiling and in her pyjamas etc. Her teeth had been brushed. Priscilla discovered that she had hung the bath toys on the bath spout to dry and had let the water out of the tub.

A few nights back Abigail helped to take down the washing as we returned from an afternoon in Rozelle. She and Pascale had had a little play and shared a finger bun after school. Abigail stood on a milk crate and took down towels and clothes, throwing the pegs into the basket.

This morning Abigail started to dress herself as soon as she awoke. She had seen the school uniform that Priscilla had laid out on the sofa and this prompted her into action. Unfortunately she couldn't convince Pascale to change out of her bed clothes too.

Craft Area

For the past few months Abigail has had to share her craft area with an increasingly art-active Pascale. The two work areas are encroaching on each other so that sometimes it is full of craft stuff and no workspace can be seen. Then the girls have done art/craft on the puzzle table in the dining area.

Yesterday as we were tidying a great mess in the living room left by the children in their pre-breakfast play, Priscilla noticed some chairs and large cushions set up as tables in a rarely used corner of the room. She suggested that the table currently holding the keyboard be moved into that corner? Abigail immediately said yes. She helped to move stuff off it, and then carried one end of the table to manoeuvre it into place. Then Abigail put a large piece of cardboard onto the table and proceeded to make some craft. At last, a separate craft area for herself, free from Pascale "accidentally" drawing/cutting her work.

The Magic Wave

Abigail and Pascale created a drawing together while playing on the deck. There were bits of coloured paper and felt stuck onto a piece of B1 paper and some crayon marks.

Abigail said that it was a picture called "The Magic Wave", and proceeded to write this across the top of the artwork. She then said that she wanted to write a story about the magic wave. (Agreed to do this after school).

Upon returning from school and after having a snack, Abigail proceeded to write her story. She used a blank piece of A4 paper with line guide paper clipped to the underside. Then she illustrated her story with colour pencil drawings of the wave and its mother, each with speech balloons. Finally there was a title page written on a separate sheet of paper, layout was in the middle rather that upper left justified or top centre location as she had done not so long ago.

A day or two later, Abigail took this project to school to show her teacher Miss Clarke. Unfortunately Miss C was away but her substitute Miss Dee read the story to the class and showed them the picture. Thus Abigail got her fix of being noticed.

Tornados

During a reading session of the National Geographic first atlas between Abigail and Priscilla, there was a page on America and some facts. One of them was tornados in the mid-west, complete with picture. On a later day the book was one on famous paintings, one of which was "John Brown" or something, a big chested man with flowing beard and flashing eyes and a tornado in the background. This brought the first tornado encounter back to Abigail, she named it immediately.

The next night at bedtime, she confided in Priscilla that she was scared of tornadoes. "Are there tornadoes in Australia?" No. "Can tornadoes kill people?" Yes, if things get blown around and hit you.

Luckily Priscilla had borrowed a children's encyclopedia on various things including tornadoes and volcanoes. Abigail might read on this during her morning reading time immediately after she wakes up.

Gifted

This term Abigail is going to the Creative Thinkers' Club on Fridays with K-2 children. One day she remarked that she was special. Why? She was the only kindergarten child in the creative thinkers club. Priscilla remarked that other children eg. Xavier may be asked to go there too.

Then on the weekend Edith remarked that Abigail told her she was going to do some Year 2 work - but that this was supposed to be a secret. Priscilla trying to bide her time until FJT informs us - if they do that is.

Clay and sewing

Further adventures in clay, Abigail happily stayed after being dropped off at the ceramic studio. She took her unfinished clay tile and sat down to do painting, sitting opposite the same girls as previous weeks. They are sisters Ella and ?, Abigail waved to them in the car when we left.

At home Abigail decided to copy the plan to make a handbag from felt, taken from a craft book. She tried to use PVA glue but the edges were not sticking. Decided to sew instead. Made a good job of it, helped by some PVA working. After turning the handbag inside out Abigail started to sew some fancy heart shaped buttons on. Wanted a buttonhole - por por did this for her.

Hair trimmed

For the first time in over a year, Abigail's hair was trimmed. While Gung Gung took photos (to the amusement of the hairdresser) Abigail sat very still, mesmerised by the cartoon on the salon's portable DVD player.

Her brownish ends of hair were snipped off, and Priscilla instructed to add moisturiser to her hair as it was dry and brittle. The hairdresser James then did up Abigail's hair to show how it might be, to not hurt Abigail.

Reading groups: parent helper

Today Priscilla became a parent helper in KC. She was asked to help a group of children to identify a sight word from some written on cards, and then to write a sentence on the small A3 whiteboards using that word. Two other mothers helped with worksheets and reading from poster, 2 teachers aides were there as well as Miss Clarke.

Happily Abigail was in the first group (Lions) that Priscilla helped (probably 3 of the "best" readers). The others were Connor McMaster and Xavier. Xavier was very flamboyant and confident, getting ideas and writing quickly tho' spelling is not always correct but he fit all 3 sentences onto his whiteboard. (I have a woolly coat. Come to my woolly coat shop. Something something are scary.) He wants to draw as soon as he has finished his sentences.

Connor is slow, silent and almost only observing not really concentrating on writing but wanting to draw. His ideas come gradually. Abigail likes a lot of space on her page, and is at the bottom of the board when 2 of the 3 words have been presented. She is between the boys in speed of forming her ideas. She is involved with writing and doesn't want to draw.

Then the reading groups were rotated and now Priscilla had 6 of almost the "worst" readers. They managed to recognise the sight words but had trouble thinking of a sentence that contained that word. Once Priscilla suggested a sentence they started writing but all had problems making the letter shapes even when told what to spell. Luckily there were alphabets laminated onto the table tops that they could copy off, once they found which one it was! Gradually the children gained confidence to change Priscilla's sentence with words they wanted to use. (My cat is fat/black/skinny). Marcus didn't even want to write, altho the word was "car" which he smiled at (Big car/cat/fairy).

Then Miss Clarke rang her hand bell to signal the end of the writing. The children were told to stand behind their chairs ready for morning tea, and to thank the parents for helping. Priscilla hugged Abigail before departing and handing in her visitors' badge to Connie in the office. 45 minutes had elapsed.

Shapes

The kindergarten class has been learning about shapes. Abigail mentioned that a sphere is in "3D", and other shapes are too: cone, cylinder, cube. Priscilla tried to explain what "D" stands for, using examples of a line, rectangle, box. Every now and then Abigail will talk about 3D and spheres eg. "what is a star? a far away sun. Stars and suns are spheres."

Volcanoes

Lately Abigail has been asking interesting questions about earthquakes and volcanoes. She even had 2 nightmares about earthquakes and asked if Australia gets them. Priscilla had borrowed a library book on this subject showed Abigail the diagrams and photos. Abigail was interested in the tectonic plates, PP described them as being like jigsaw pieces for the world sphere. Then Chris suggested watching YouTube videos of volcanoes, firstly Mount St Helens which was quite spectacular. Both she and Pascale were eerily fascinated by the story of a photographer who was outrun by the as cloud but they found his camera and footage.

Abigail spent nearly an hour watching the various quality videos, fascinated by lava flows, billowing smoke, spitting lava fireworks of Mt St Helens, Etna and Kilauea. Then she agreed with Chris' suggestion to do a project on Volcanoes, to put the whole thing into a poster format. She started by drawing/interpreting a photo of the remnant cone of some volcano in Brazil using glitter glue for the lava spits.

Clique

Abigail mentioned that Noah from KC wanted to be part of the girls' group as they played in the playground at FJT, but Mia Otter said that he couldn't. Priscilla asked if Mia was the boss of the group? "Mia is the queen, I am the boss" said Abigail.

She also said that she tells people in the playground "no hat no play", and she and Mia used to play at being police, telling people off for doing the wrong things.

Mia and Paige, whenever they see each other, hug and sing "Mamma mia!". Abigail does not like this, and steers clear of those two whenever it happens.