Tuesday 6 September 2011

FIRST FEW DAYS BACK

Well it's two days in and we are slowly getting back into the routine of home ed. Callum wants to concentrate on Science this year and have a dip in and out of other stuff. I've insisted on continuing with basic maths and him working through his literacy books though AND he has his Arts Award to finish, but most of that is now done (I just need to upload it).

So Monday dawned nice and sunny and he was up by 8.30am. He made me a cuppa and brought that and his maths and literacy into the front room. He zoomed through his one page of literacy and then attempted the 3 variety sheets of maths. I must point out that the sheets have approximately 50-80 questions per sheet, but he only has to do 5 per sheet a day, so it may sound a lot, but it isn't really.

Discovered he'd 'lost' the 5 times table (again). So have searched out some basics of that and will spend a week going over it all. What is it about times tables, he gets them, then he forgets them. However, he can do division!! Which, to me, does not make sense.

We were then supposed to do some science, however, it all kicked off out the front. Well, I say kicked off, I happened to spot 2 guys and a girl over the road hovering around a car, wasn't sure who they were, but then noticed one of the guys had his forearm up in the air and noticed there was blood running down it. Was just going to open front door to see if he was ok, when a couple of Police walked down the road.

Apparently one of the dogs over the road had bitten him. Needless to say that Callum was much more interested to watch what was going on than to go and do science and, admittedly, so was I. We have a bit of a dodgy guy living opposite us who is well known to the police, he has a Staffie (not that I have anything against Staffies as I know people who have them, but they have become a status symbol for those who want to have a hard looking dog without the size so I'm always a little wary). The women next door also has one, although that one has only appeared over the past week.

It turns out that the woman had ordered her dog to bite this guy. The bloke living opposite had obviously been outside at the time also because he legged it leaving his house open. The Police kept going into the unlocked house to check for whatever and the guy who had been bitten kept shouting that it was the woman and that she had gone downstairs to the flat below. He ended up losing his temper just as the ambulance turned up and ran off up the road with his mate running after him to try and calm him down. As I've said, it all kicked off!!

The woman was found and was talking to the Police, then her and her Staffie went off in a car with another guy. The Ambulance drove off as the victim didn't want to be treated. The Police loitered about for a bit, then secured the open property, waited to be recalled and then disappeared. This had taken over an hour from start to finish and had raised some lovely discussions on behaviour, control of animals, racial discrimination, the role of the Police force and how not to behave.

Later on the guy over the road return, but was promptly arrested and taken off in a Police car. Not seen either him nor the woman since.

So... Monday we covered maths, literacy and Citizenship! hehe

Today, the day dawned wet and windy. Over a cuppa in the kitchen we gave our thanks that we home ed and did not have to do the walk to school in the weather. Poor kids that did.

Maths went fine as did literacy. Then it was science. The experiment Callum wanted originally to do meant going outside and that wasn't going to happen so we decided on attempting to extract iron from breakfast cereal instead (Richard Hammond's Blast Lab Messy Mess Kit).

We managed to make a lovely mess in the kitchen but did extract some very very small black dots of iron filings from the cereal (Cheerios), so worth doing.




This afternoon I wanted to watch a movie I'd recorded and Callum was going to go upstairs and play, but he asked if he could watch the movie with me. When I say that it was The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas you may understand why I was a little apprehensive. But I thought, why not, he needs to know what happened and this may be a 'safe' option. He sat and watched it and I explained some of the basics of what was happening and he watched it until the end. If anyone hasn't seen it, be warned, it is emotional, but very good.

Callum was amazing. He understood it and was pleased that they didn't make it a happy ending. He actually said that he wished they would make more children's films with more realistic endings rather than the sugar coated ones you tend to get. I'm not sure if his Asperger has shielded him from the true horror of what had happened (I'm sure the lack of empathy that ASD people tend to have did), but I'm glad he appreciates the message and subject. He saw it as facts, whereas I saw it as an emotional rollercoaster.

Cya

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