Situational logic

We got Callum's portfolio presented to us at the parent-teacher meeting. This is a great idea and shows all his work so far. His teacher pointed out a few things he had got wrong. One of those was in a maths exercise which was to identify things you do at various times of the day. The question asked what do you do in the morning and had four different possible pictures as answers. Callum coloured in the one which has kids watching television with stars outside the window. That was the wrong answer technically. But that is exactly what Cal does do in the morning - he gets up in the dark and watches television.

It put me in mind of something I read a while ago about a flawed test where there was a picture of a telephone and a handset. Kids were supposed to add the missing cable between handset and telephone, but of course modern kids don't do it because for them there is no cable.

Award

Jennifer and I attended Cammerary's A-day (assembly day? award day? we don't know)ceremony this morning. Callum received an award for his attitude and approach to learning, which was lovely.

Listening to all the kids singing the national anthem and the school song and the seeing the school band and choir in action was just fantastic.

Egyptians

Callum has become interested in Ancient Egypt (a nice change from transport disasters of the 20th Century). We've built some pyramids and he's made himself a lovely pharaoh's ring. He's also very taken with a website that translates words into hieroglyphics - although trees the world-round are wincing at all the printouts.

Urban cowboy

It seems to be birthday season in Callum's class. Last weekend it was Juliette's party. A straighforward affair with a great animal show about reptiles.

Yesterday was Darcy's party which was cowboy themed. After pricing some proper cowboy costumes I, instead, went to Wear it Again Sam and bought a nice pair of jeans, a belt, a shirt and a denim jacket for less than the cowboy costume. Paired with Jennifer's leather bush hat and a pair of $2-shop pistols he looked the image of a modern cowboy; admitedly more Brokeback Mountain than True Grit but certainly good enough for the afternoon. He enjoyed himself and got to shoot things to his heart's content for the afternoon along with his classmates.

Modern boy

I'm not sure what brought it on, but after having a bath tonight, Callum decided he had to send an email to Cafe Bono (the cafe he and Evan usually go to in the mornings before school). So he went downstairs, googled cafe bono (he needed to ask me what the second letter in cafe was, but otherwise needed no help), and clicked on the email address on their website and typed in an email.

Unfortunately, Callum's emails at the moment consist solely of webdings (a font of pictures), so the email will make absolutely no sense to the cafe!

Declan's first report

I had a meeting with Dec's teacher at NBK yesterday and he got his first report. He's doing well on all fronts and has settled into Yellow Group without any problems. No surprise that his numbers and letters are seen as a strength and they think he's very social.

Car Talk

Callum: "You must always stay inside during an electrical storm."
Declan: "There is a storm on Jupiter."
C: "Yes but you can't see it."
D: "Yes I CAN! We can go in a rocket!"
C: "Nooooo Declan. Jupiter is made of gas."
D: "Jupiter has a moon. We'll go to the moon."
C: "We'll need bridge."
Evan: "Is that a bridge from the rocket to the moon."
C: "Noooo Evan. That's a bridge so we can visit each other's rockets."
D: "The bridge will have windows and we'll see the stars."

Knock, Knock

Callum and Declan have taken to knock, knock jokes recently. Declan's come complete with the opening line: "Evan, I've got a knock, knock joke for you.". Unfortunately Callum has memorised only a couple that make sense and Declan hasn't a single recognisable one. The current standard goes something like this:

Knock, Knock
Who's there
Fell
Fell who
I fell in a hole [gales of laughter].

Part of the problem is that it's impossible not to laugh with them no matter how lame the joke as they're having such fun telling them.

Truth

Callum has recently started understanding the difference between fiction and non-fiction. So he will often comment on something that he's just learned (like a particular fact about volcanoes), "and that's true, Jennifer". Conversely, if we're talking about Bob the Builder, or the Thunderbirds, he will comment that, "it's just a story". I'm not sure if he's figured out where Thomas the Tank Engine fits on the spectrum; really he'd like it to be true, even if, in his heart of hearts, he knows it's fiction.

Telepathy

Most Sundays, we do something with Jack (and his mum, Sue). Today, when Evan asked the boys what they wanted to do today, they were both adamant that they wanted to go and play at Jack's house. So when Sue rang 10 minutes later to ask us if we wanted to do something today, I was quite amused to hear that Jack wanted Callum and Declan to come and play at his house.

It was far too nice a day to spend indoors, so we walked the Cremorne Point walk, which was very nice. Callum was, again, very taken with MacCallum pool, and Declan very much enjoyed the stone animals in a little grotto along the way. Then we went to Manly, and Callum played a game of chess with his grandad, which was his highlight of the day (I think he's since forgotten that he got checkmated by his grandad).

Soccer

The other morning, we were watching the tail-end of a World Cup match (Croatia vs Brazil, if you're interested). Callum and Declan were quite interested, telling me the rules (you can't touch the ball with your hands, Jennifer) and asking the names of the teams. I think Griffin has brainwashed them when they spend time at his place - Griffin knows the name of pretty much every player in the World Cup.

Then they each decided to play themselves. They grabbed toy rugby balls out of the toy box, and started scoring goals with them. Callum got 12 and Declan got 11. It'll be a while before they'll be troubling the Australian selectors, I think.

Chuffing

Whenever Declan runs anywhere, he does it by chuffing. He chuffs his arms around like pistons, and mostly does sound effects.

In fact, if you are trying to get him to run somewhere, all you have to do is ask him if he would like to chuff, and he will run as fast as he can.

Sleepover

Callum and Declan went to Griffin and Isabel's house for their first sleepover last night. By all accounts it went very well. They slept in Griffin's room (Callum in the top bunk), because they decided that they had to sleep in the same room so they could talk to each other. They went to bed very sensibly, and Declan had no accidents (which we were all a bit worried about).

As usual, they both woke up around 6, but fortunately Jane didn't mind because there was a World Cup game to watch. When I got there this morning, Declan was very happy to see me, but Callum was too busy having a game of battleships with Peter to acknowledge my existence.

And, wonder of wonders, both Evan and I had 10 hours of sleep last night!

Chemistry

Evan has been reading up on simple chemistry in the kitchen. He's discovered that if you mix vinegar and bi-carbonate of soda, you get a very satisfactory fizz. Further, if you put a balloon over your mixture, you can blow up the balloon. Callum and Declan are very taken with this, and Declan in particular has been begging for further "experiments" at half-daily intervals.

Chess

We've found a computer game that teaches kids chess. Callum is loving it, and will play it at every opportunity. Tonight, he decided it was time to play a proper game, and challenged me to a game. Apart from problems with occasional Declan exuberance sweeping pieces from the board, I was thrilled with how well Callum thought through some of the ways his pieces might be threatened by mine.

Unfortunately, I have been talking too much to Evan about how hopeless I am at chess, lately, so didn't make any allowances for the fact I was playing against a four year old. I won, handily. Callum spent a good five minutes, first in tears over losing, and then continuous foot stamping and door slamming over the fact that he had lost.

I hope I haven't put him off. He immediately challenged me to another game, which is a good sign.

Zoo

I took Declan to the zoo this afternoon. We saw lots of different animals, but from observation, Declan was most fascinated by the black swan (which he saw from water level, at a nifty observation station) and the lions (who obligingly yawned and posed menacingly). When asked, his favourite animals were the giraffe and the camel, so shows how much you can tell from observation. He did insist on not leaving the zoo until he had seen the camel, though, in spite of my best efforts to distract him with tigers and leopards.

He commented that he's decided that when he gets older he would like to be a zoo-keeper. I'm not sure whether that came from noticing that there were many places that were off limits unless you were a zoo-keeper.