Sh

Nearly had a heart attack when Hannah's teacher said she had put Hannah's ipad in her bag on Friday and that it wasn't on her desk...luckily it must have turned up during the day because it was in her bag this afternoon. Also in her and Kit's bags this afternoon was their first lot of Year 1 homework...I chatted briefly with Hannah's teacher about this last week. At the parent information night they had basically said that homework included 2 readers, about 5 sightwords (at this stage) and a couple of other activities. Hannah's teacher caught up with e around the school - she said that she would give me alternative work for Hannah. It was a short discussion but I made it clear that I would prefer to get the same homework as the other kids plus any specific worksheets or 'extras' that she thought would benefit Hannah. I let her know that I am happy to adapt the homework to suit Hannah - or at least give her a go to see what she can do. It is what we did last year and it worked quite well.

So today the folders are there. The twins are both very excited about it all. They come home Monday and go back Thursday - so not as much time as we had last year for homework. They were both really tired but Kit got straight into a chapter of his reader. He then got a dictionary to look up some other sh words. He did the copy and cover style of writing 2 of his sh spelling words and drew a sh picture. Not bad given how late it was when we got home.

Hannah got home and ran to the musical instruments. She got into some concert attire and was obviously not interested in her homework. I wanted to try a few techniques though - to see how she and I might work some of it out. I chose a 'shaker' and she selected another instrument and brought them out to the bench where homework is done. She did fantastically!! I put the necessary letters of the 5 spelling words on blank squares of paper and to test the waters I got her to spell ship and shop. After some guidance as to what to expect and some musical accompaniment she quickly got the hang of it all and we did some very poor rapping to our sh words. Then I got her to copy shop into her workbook - with the slips of paper spelling it beside her - she did a great job! She was however very tired so after a bath and a couple of errands she and I looked at her first reader - Icecream together. Then we played with words ending in s on articpix then I let her be. Still I think that given the timeframe is tight I will try and get a bit done each morning and each afternoon - if we can get 5-10 minutes a go then I can see her managing that - I hope so anyhow - she takes in so much more than she is able to verbalise. I am glad her teacher was quite happy to try this way no doubt we'll have our planning meeting soon. She may not be able to do all 5 words in that timeframe but I think she could get 1-3 done.
On another note she also asked me if it was ok for the school to update Hannah's original letter of introduction to the whole school community and send it out to Year 1 parents - a great idea - especially as Year 1 and Kindy share a playground.