Helm's Deep

One of Declan's recent pieces of loot was the lego set The Battle of Helm's Deep. It's a big one, and Callum and Declan are having a great time putting it together (except for the occasional times when Declan gets mad at Callum for some reason and bans him).

It is enormous, and I think they will be very pleased with themselves when it is done.

Swimming carnivals

Callum and Declan have both had their swimming carnivals at their new schools. Declan decided to skip the 50m freestyle race, but was very proud of himself for coming 4th in his 50m breaststroke heat. Apparently he would have come 3rd, except he spent too much time checking his positioning against his competitors.

Callum was intending to enter two races, but forgot his towel. So he spent the whole day watching and reading, reading the book he brought with him three times! (I was pleased, as it was a book I'd been trying to get him to read for a while, and he needed to get beyond the first five pages to enjoy it).

Declan's Ray Gun

When we were in New Zealand, we found a great stall at the Queenstown markets, from Sean Boyd, junk artist. Declan was inspired, and after a trip to reverse garbage a few weeks ago, he's been working hard on creating a ray gun. He's decided it is finished now, and is very pleased with it.

Bus to school

We are just on the edge of the bus pass area for Neutral Bay (the rules are you have to be at least 1.6km  away or 1.9km walking distance). So we had assumed that Declan wouldn't get a bus pass, and we started off with him walking to school.

Unfortunately, while very direct, the route involves crossing an enormous number of traffic lights, the timing of which is set up for cars, so that it doesn't matter much how fast you walk, it will take you around 25 minutes (10 minutes in waiting time plus 15 minutes walking time).

So when Declan came home with a bus pass, he and Evan tried out the bus together, and it takes him as little as 12 minutes door to door. Declan has now proudly caught the bus to and from school by himself for a week, and is quietly pleased with his independence.

Callum is also catching the bus to school, often with his Cammeray friends, which is nice.

School Camp

This week Callum spent two days at School Camp. All of the Year 7s went off to Milson Island (in the Hawkesbury) for various outdoor activities and general bonding. Callum was very proud of himself for both going three quarters of the way up the big swing, and (more importantly) enjoying it (both of which are major improvements compared with school camp last year).

Declan missed Callum's company, but once he got back, they reverted to normal niggling within an hour or two.

In other school news, Callum's newest friend is religious, and they have been discussing evolution and its consistency with the bible. Possibly Callum gets more than his curly hair from his grandpa...

Neutral Bay Gang

Declan is loving Neutral Bay. When we ask his friends how their day was, they seem enthusiastic, but Declan always says Great! with the biggest smile on his face. On Friday afternoon they were given lollies (would never happen at Cammeray) if they could name at least 25 people in their class, and Declan was pleased he made it.

His Cammeray gang (there are seven of them) seem to have let a few other people into their lunchtime playgroup, which is nice, although I can see it is going to be very tricky for both them and the others in the class, given how close they all were before they got to Neutral Bay.

This term they are going to learn about Galleons and other 16th and 17th century ships, which is right up Declan's alley, as you can see if you check out his long running saga here (like his friend Alice, one of his ambitions is to be an author).

Settling in to Mosman

Callum still seems to be really enjoying Mosman High. I think he's enjoying all the new things he needs to learn about how to go to school. In some ways it reminds me of his first few weeks of Kindergarten when he loved telling me the school rules.

He's got to use a sewing machine (they get one per student!) spend time in a science lab, and learn to surf (so far lying down only) for school sport, as well as a day long excursion to the Zoo (which is walking distance, so may well be a common excursion for them).

Only thing that hasn't been sorted out yet is his English - so far the combination of various things means he has only been to one English class, and his english teacher isn't that happy about it.

Lord of the Rings

We first watched Lord of the Rings with the boys more than two years ago (despite it being M 15+). They loved it, especially the battle scenes. Since then, Callum has read all the books, and Declan has read two and is the middle of book 3 (and had his friend Alice telling him her favourite parts as she read them last year on the bus to school). They've also been playing the Lego lord of the Rings game lately.

So after we'd been to Queenstown, and seen lots of Lord of the Rings locations, we decided we should see them again. Evan wasn't so keen (he's not that into rewatching movies) so when he went off to poker tonight it was just the three of us.

Declan spent the whole time reciting dialogue 30 seconds ahead of each bit. Callum spent the whole time telling me how they did each scene in Lego Lord of the Rings (which seemed to involve quite a lot more slapstick than JRR Tolkein would have thought was seemly).

They both really loved it (despite being not that into the locations that we've been to), but Declan said as he went to bed tonight that he could see why it was M 15+. I think now that he is older, nightmares are more, not less likely.

Callum's maths

When Callum started going to Mosman, we all knew that we would have to find out what was happening with his maths (see here for details). But now that he is in high school, it's not a "parents just ask at the office" thing.

So we've been pleased in two directions. First, on his own, Callum figured out that he needed to ask someone, and that someone was probably his year coordinator. And he made it a priority to do so as soon as he could on his second day.

And when he did, Ms Davey immediately said, "oh, I know all about you", and told him what the plans were so far, which included him doing his very first year 9 maths class on his second day, when the rest of his class were still doing O week activities and hadn't actually started classes yet.

He came home with the news that he got 61/70 for last year's end of year 8 maths test, and that he already had homework! I was very pleased to see that in several places he got lots of marks for showing his working despite getting the final answer wrong, which was great, both to point out to Callum (see, it worked!) and that he had listened to us telling him to do it.

So far, so good.

The gardener

Grandma gave Callum a ready made fruit and vegetable garden for Christmas - strawberries, beans and tomatoes, to go with his carrots.  He also got with instructions, plant food and a watering can. He has been very thrilled with the idea, but we're not quite sure how well he will follow through on actually gardening.

Tonight for dinner, we were able to eat his first results - some tasty beans and strawberries, pictured here.

Declan starts a new school

Declan started his new school on Thursday, at Neutral Bay Public school. He was very very excited (at least partly to see his friends again), but also very nervous about the whole thing.

They started a day later than everyone else, with a special process just for the OCs. I walked up with him, and we had a special welcome just for his OC class from the Principal and his new teacher, Ms Carnegie.

When Evan and I picked him up in the afternoon, he seemed to have had a wonderful day, telling us it was Great! and showing off the smarties he had earned for learning the names of five new people.

He'd also managed to find Jane (who teaches Year 5 at Neutral Bay) in the playground, and our friend Jack, who is in Year 6. Which is miraculous in some ways, as the playground is very small. They have recess and lunch in shifts.

Callum starts high school

Callum started high school on Wednesday, at Mosman High. He went off with Evan and an enormous backpack full of all the stationery he was provided with. They don't wear a uniform, so apart from the backpack, he looked pretty much as he looks on every other day.

He came home with his head clearly buzzing from all the instructions he got about high school, but he also seemed pretty happy with how it had all gone. He knows one person in his class (Juliette, who was at Cammeray with him) and a few more in his year and in the school, who he managed to find.

He also managed to get home on the bus all by himself, which was a relief to everyone, to find three people peppering him with questions about the day.