Airfix

After watching James May's program on Friday, the boys decided they wanted to try Airfix - an old fashioned toy where you put together aeroplanes and tanks out of pressed plastic.

So we walked into town and bought one each - a Spitfire for Callum and a Kittyhawk for Declan. They made them with Alex and Lucinda when they came over for a play this afternoon.

Interestingly, even though Alex is obsessed with aeroplanes, Lucinda and Declan were much more successful at actually finishing their aeroplane (pictured here).

Principal's award

Declan got a Principal's award at school yesterday for "imaginative and creative ideas in sentence work!"

Here's a picture of him holding his sentence. He said he got inspiration from Beast Quest and Jenolan Caves.

Titanic

Longtime readers of this blog will know that Callum was once very obsessed with the Titanic. Well he's still interested, and SBS had a show the other night with new information about all the things that went wrong the night the Titanic sank.

While watching Declan's swimming lesson this afternoon, Evan helped Callum create a mindmap about it on Evan's iphone. Not a bad summary, I thought.

Sleeping aids

Tonight Declan called down, quite upset, because he didn't have either his blanky or his current cuddly toy (a koala), so he couldn't go to sleep. I was a bit surprised, because although he still likes them, I hadn't realised they were necessary. In the end, just the koala was enough (which is just as well, because none of us knows where he put the blanky this morning).

Callum likes his blanky, too, but he largely uses it to put under his head so that he doesn't sweat all over the pillow. I doubt if he needs it go to sleep.

Neanderthal man

I came home tonight to Evan and Declan having a serious conversation about Neanderthal man. Declan was trying to understand why humans had outcompeted them, and how we actually knew that humans had been better competitors.

When Evan explained that the archeological evidence suggested that the Neanderthals had been pushed to the edge of Europe, then Spain, then disappeared, and the evidence suggested that humans had eaten them (among other ways of killing them) Declan was quite shocked.

The conversation had started from Declan's teacher telling Declan and Evan something slightly wrong about the history (that there had been some interbreeding). I was pleased that Declan is still willing to believe that we could be right about something; his teacher hasn't completely supplanted us yet.

Climbing the doorway

One of Declan's favourite pastimes continues to be climbing up the doorjamb (previously blogged here). He has now got much more sophisticated. In the downstairs doorway (between the dining room and kitchen) he will now:

• do star jumps into climbing position on the door
• practice his tae kwon do punching while holding on with his feet
• and climb so high that he is looking through the window above the doorway

His uncles would be proud.

Meeting the teacher

This morning Declan showed me his classroom, as I dropped him off at school. He was standing around waiting, and his teacher came up, just as the bell rang. I introduced myself, and she told me that she was loving teaching Declan. She loves the way he wants to tell her all about the books he is reading and the new things he has learned. Very nice for me to hear, as he tells us absolutely nothing about what is happening at school!

Swimming carnival

Callum had his swimming carnival today, in which he competed in the 50m freestyle. He came second in his heat, after leading for most of the way. His comment was that he ran out of oxygen at the end. Even though he tried to tell himself that he could breathe once the race had finished, he still found himself having to take enormous breaths every time he breathed.

A pretty good result.

Spelling

Homework started this week, and with it, spelling. We were quietly pleased to see that both boys now have the approach Callum had last year - a pretest, which continues until you've got a certain number of words wrong, and then you only have to learn those words. Callum's words (that he got wrong on the pretest) this week include resuscitate, phosphorescent and camouflage.

Declan's include precision, intervention and concise. And I was pleased to see that Declan spelled recycle, observe and disposable correctly in the pretest.

The Black hole of Calcutta

Also known as the playroom.

Callum and Declan have had ugh boots (which they know as "inside boots") for a couple of years now. But for the whole of last winter, Callum didn't wear them, because he had lost one of them. Yesterday, while setting up a tent in the playroom, Callum triumphantly emerged with his second inside boot.

So this morning, in the middle of summer, temperature 22 degrees (95% humidity) Callum is wearing his inside boots.

Freezing

Callum has been experimenting with freezing things. Two nights ago he made an "iced lolly" (a term I'm pretty sure he made up) which was a block of ice with a paddle pop stick in the middle of it.

Last night, he put a Star Wars sandtrooper in a cup and froze that, and had a great time commenting as the sandtrooper gradually emerged from the block of ice on thaw this morning (he got lost on Tattooine, and then transported to the Planet Hoff, where he got hit on the head, then more snow fell on him, and storm troopers marched over the sand and it turned to ice, and the sandtrooper became embedded in the ice).

Tonight, they both got into the act, with Declan freezing his favourite toy from our Europe trip - googly eyes - a rubber octopus like creature, and Callum trying a storm trooper for variety.

Beast Quest

Declan has lately become addicted to the Beast Quest series of books. A week or so ago, he read the first one in 24 hours. He was immensely proud of himself - and I think he may have enjoyed the book also. Since then, he has become increasingly addicted to the books (not just proud of finishing them quickly). Last night I had to tell him to stop reading at 9 pm, after he got thoroughly scared by the exciting story. And he started out wanting to read some to me, but changed his mind when he realised that he would be slower reading out loud than reading "in his brain".

It's lovely to see him obsessively reading.

New teachers

Callum and Declan now have their new teachers and classes for the year. Callum has Miss Sinclair, and is in 5S. He's very pleased that one of his good friends from 4C, Brendan, is in his class. And Declan has Miss Stephenson and is in 2L. Declan's little cluster of friends from 1H has been broken up, a bit, but he still has Nicolas Palmer and Patrick in his class with him.

So far, it all seems to be going well.