Parent Teacher Interview

20 minutes with Miss Clarke reassured the parents about Abigail's progress and what more can be done to push her academically. She is reluctant to do extension work if it is noticed by her peers. Miss C said that gifted children usually start to want to be different / do different things in Term 3.

Abigail may be put into year 1 reading group soon, probably with the 2 others Xavier and Connor. Her maths book is neat and filled with information about longer/shorter as well as mathematical functions.

Computer based puzzles used at home for extension: tried some tonight. Abigail went for the Find-a-word first, then re-ordering sentences. Tried the counting by 5s game but reverted to the class intranet games that she was familiar with. After over an hour on the computer she was not reluctant to put the computer on standby and come to dinner.

Public Speaking

Given a week's notice, kinder parents were to prepare and coach their child into a 2 minute speech in front of an adjudicator, part of the public speaking semi-finals for the region. What??

After parental outrage, the teachers said the children didn't have to give a 2 min speech, just memorise 3 sentences and repeat standing in front of the class. Abigail delayed discussing the speech , managing only to nominate the topic she wanted to to. So Priscilla just wrote a list of possible sentences and left it for Abigail to see at breakfast time. She picked 3 sentences and re-wrote them, but didn't set about memorising. Today after school she mentioned that some children had made their speeches but she didn't as she couldn't remember hers. No desire to try tho.

Tonsils again

Abigail had a sore throat and one look at her tonsils revealed the right one to be swollen again. She stayed home on Monday, visiting the doctor who said it would subside and to only give Panadol for relief. On Tuesday it looked as if she was having another day at home, but after breakfast she was rolling all over the living room and picking a fight with sick Pascale. Parents asked her why she was doing this: "I don't want to be bored". Immediately got her dressed in uniform and off to school. She was happy to go. Got a late note but other kids didn't even look up from their work they were so engrossed. Miss Clarke just gave Abigail a book to read until the kids were ready to start their next activity. On pick up from the school Abigail confirmed that she was happy to be at school.

Love Monster

After returning from 2 nights sleepover at Por Por's place, Abigail immediately got to work at her craft table. She drew a love monster ("how do you spell monster?"), a pig like face with a giant smiley teeth and red tongue next to it! She signed it and dedicated it to her parents.

Then she drew a rosette and ribbon with "love monster" written on it. Might make a good t-shirt design!