Times Tables, Number Bonds and an Easter Egg Hunt!

We took it easy over the Easter break - and why not, the weather was marvellous! - but have since managed to start work on Number Bonds and some new times tables - 5x and 10x, most notably. This renewed emphasis on times tables have proved difficult for both boys (Indi rarely listens in, as she does with other topics, but usually reads comics or looks bored while we're reciting tables) but after some stressful moments, something of the inherent patterns of mathematics seems to be filtering through. These moments were also interspersed with more fun activities such as stencilling - good for improving pencil skills and coordination in young children - and counting with coins and buttons.



It doesn't help this process that I was excruciatingly bad at maths myself as a child, dreading my maths lessons and barely scraping a basic qualification in the subject. Since then I have realised that my grasp of maths is far more advanced than I ever dreamt could be possible, probably because I have gradually learnt to apply it to everyday life over several decades. But I am nevertheless trying to instill a sense of enthusiasm for mathematical patterns in the kids ... no reason for them to suffer as I did, since I'm sure that consistently poor teaching, especially in a relentless system which takes no notice of those who struggle, must have been responsible for my own horror when it came to maths, as I am now able to cope quite well with daily maths. Indeed, only the other day I managed to add up a whole stream of numbers in my head and make a quick percentage deduction while the young girl behind the counter, whose machine had broken down, struggled to keep up!

So my plan is for the boys to enjoy some of these early maths activities and hopefully never feel the way I did about sums!

To this end, the boys' understanding of Number Bonds is coming along nicely. For those unsure of the terminology - as I was, initially - a Number Bond simply means those basic addition and subtraction sums which help us do mental arithmetic. Like knowing instantly, for example, when making any sort of calculation, that 5+5=10 or 3+4=7 or 2+3=5 etc. These basic sums are like the building blocks of mathematics. Knowing that 3+4=7, for example, automatically implies an understanding on the minus scale that 7-3=4 or 7-4=3. This pattern can then extends to all numbers, large or small, such as the obvious £7000-£4000=£3000 and so on, ad infinitum.




On a more exciting level, 3 chocolate Easter eggs for 3 small children adds up to a great Sunday morning.

As always, following a long-held family tradition, I organised a domestic Easter Egg Hunt. This involves deciding on a series of places round the house and garden for clues to be left, plus a final resting-place for the chocolate eggs themselves, then devising the clues which will lead the children eventually to the eggs. In previous years I have been forced to read the clues out loud to the children as they were found. This year, however, their literacy skills are such that both boys were able to decipher the clues - kept short and very basic, for obvious reasons! - and dash off to find the next clue without much help from the watching adults.



The chocolate eggs themselves had been hidden next to the shed. Which is also where our nesting duck currently resides, who was not best pleased by the sudden, very noisy intrusion of three over-excited small children. But her hissing fit was shortlived, as they quickly grabbed their eggs and departed to eat them in the kitchen ... another successful Easter Egg Hunt had been concluded!

Spring in a Warwickshire Garden

Apart from the last 48 hours, the weather has been glorious here this past week - that’s for the benefit of browsers from the US, and I know you often read this blog because my stats tell me so - and we have all been out in the garden, dibbing and hoeing. Or more specifically, mowing the lawn, getting rid of nettles from amongst the daffodils, tidying up fallen leaves and branches after winter, plus of course sowing some new seeds and watching them grow.

We are very lucky to have a fairly large garden here. But no greenhouse, which is a constant disappointment. Unfortunately, our house is only rented, so putting in a new greenhouse would be pointless extravagance, as we would have to leave it here when we eventually move on. Instead, this year I’ve purchased a small plastic zip-up ‘tent’ greenhouse to house tender plants and new seeds. And we have wasted no time in getting the first seeds of spring into seed trays and buying in a few small plants for later pot displays!


Sowing the Seeds

I’m more of a veg. and herb gardener than a flower person, though I do love some of the more lush and colourful perennials. For vegetables, we sowed Spinach and Little Gem lettuces this year, since space is limited. Here you can see a tray of lettuces about one week to ten days after sowing. The warm weather seemed to bring them out in no time!



We also sowed nasturtiums, which have done nothing, and parsley, which has also done nothing. In past years I’ve had no trouble getting parsley to germinate, probably because I have always been, as the old saying about germinating parsley goes, the one ‘wearing the trousers’ in my household! But I must have become a bit weak-wristed and girly in recent years, because the parsley seed tray is still blank and bare three weeks after sowing.

But never mind. I went out at the weekend and bought a large pot of curly-leafed parsley which is now spreading happily in its new terracotta pot outside the back door.

Here’s the spinach, three weeks after sowing. We thinned them out and will just use baby leaves from the big tray, growing a few of the others on in large pots. The spinach seeds had been treated with some chemical nasty so only I handled them, but the kids each had a turn distributing parsley, nasturtium and lettuce seed over the trays, watering them, and covering them with a thin layer of compost.



Most of the garden is laid to lawn or taken up with spring bulbs and perennials, so planting vegetables in open ground is impractical while we are still renting.



New Broom, Old Leaves

This is the first year that the kids have been big enough to help out substantially in the garden. They loved it, eagerly sweeping and digging and collecting leaves, weeds and fallen branches from trees. Even three year old I. joined in, using her brand-new set of pink plastic gardening tools.



M. had one of his ‘moments’ when he splashed a tiny - and I mean tiny! - amount of water from a watering can onto his jeans. He then insisted on rolling his trouser leg up -- and doing all his jobs with his trouser leg rolled up for the next hour, just in case he could still feel that tiny spot of moisture. Sometimes he’s so sensitive about things like that, he reminds me of the Princess and the Pea story about feeling the tiny pea through twenty feather mattresses!




The Great Runner Bean Experiment

I recently splashed out on a £12 book of photocopiable Key Stage 1 science worksheets from an imprint called No Fuss. Some of the worksheets reminded me forcibly of experiments I did back in primary school myself, so it was amusing to try them out with my own children!

The first sheet we’ve done from the book is a Runner Bean growing experiment. As you can see, we filled plastic or glass pots with damp tissue or paper, then squeezed a runner bean seed between the paper and the wall of the pot. The worksheets - which I sadly can't reproduce here due to copyright restrictions! - allow the kids to record the progress of the beans at a few days’ interval each time, drawing what the growth looks like, measuring it with a ruler and recording that measurement, plus dating each examination of the bean -- presumably so we can draw a graph or represent the rate of growth another way later.

Here are the beans on the day of ‘planting’ them.



And here, photographed today, is the Best Bean in Show winner, which happens to belong to D., whose bean root measured 3 cm -- as compared to M.’s paltry 0.6cm and I.’s at a more respectable 1.8cm.



Needless to say, this difference in size has done nothing to improve M.’s temper today, which was irritable and defiant as soon as he rolled out of bed. After the runner bean shoots had been measured, he spent nearly an hour hiding under a large plastic bucket in the garden and refusing to come out.




Learning Al Fresco
Of course, one of the best things about this new-found sunshine is that we will once again be able to work outside for a substantial amount of time every week.

The kids’ desks and chairs are fully portable, which means we can shift them outside into the sun or shade at a moment’s notice where they will be able to paint or make models or play musical instruments for as long as they wish in the fresh air. Working with worksheets and pencils outside is rather trickier as our garden is a little exposed to sharp winds blowing across the fields - we’re deep in rural Warwickshire here and the low hedges round farming land are no use as windbreaks. There’s nothing more annoying when working outside than trying to write with paper flapping everywhere.

Still, if you stick to colouring and glitter-glueing a small paper plate, with your spring bonnet held firmly in place with a piece of elastic, you should be okay ...