SATS and secret agents

This has been a catching up kind of week so far. J tried an English SATs paper, to see how it went – reading first of all. He didn’t do as well as I’d hoped (level 4A, so fine for age) but we realised when we went through it together that it was largely because it was the first time he had done anything like that and there were several questions that he had answered but not quite in the right way. It was clear that he had understood exactly what he was reading, but he didn’t get the marks because the mark scheme requires you to answer in just the right way. A little exam technique practice wouldn’t go amiss, I think 😉 He has had a similar problem with the short writing paper – he produced a rather lovely piece of descriptive writing but didn’t stick to the brief, so much of it doesn’t count 🙁 (and we *still* need to work on consistently using capital letters!) – and the first Science paper – with a couple of marks lost because he was (correctly) answering a far harder question than they were asking! Having gone over those, I’m hoping he’ll tackle the remaining papers next week and try to put into practice the things we’ve talked about when it comes to answering questions 😆

L, watching J do papers, wanted to try too, so we had a look at a Maths Level 2 paper from 2004. Despite occasional tears and tantrums *sigh* she got through it and scored highly enough to be worth looking at Level 3 when I can summon up the courage 😆 We might try some English papers too, I think, and maybe get K to do some too, although I’m not sure whether to jump him up, drop him down or attempt to find something aimed specifically at his age. Perhaps we’ll start with the Level 3 stuff to build up his confidence and then move up from there…

We also spent a couple of happy hours doing a Sculpey kit which worked really well – there were a number of different things to make, so each child could choose what they wanted to make. After we’d baked them they spent another couple of hours happily playing tea shops with the results 🙂 Double the fun – thanks Merry 😀

Wednesday was Latinetc, but a rather depleted one, with no Beans and no Puddlechicks. We did have the pleasure of Zoe and her girls, though, and a last session with Michelle and C for a while (although you’re always welcome to come along anyway, Michelle 😉 ). No science, but we managed some French (pencil case vocab game – rather wild but fun!) and another quick whisk through Minimus chapter one for S and P’s benefit, followed by some chatting about Roman dinner parties and rich and poor households. I rather like doing half Latin and half Classics 🙂 J and J did some GP Latin too, while the others played on the field. Some Music Theory happened, I think, and some recordering, and we all ate cake (J wanted to make one for C, including a little Eiffel Tower on the top, which he made very painstakingly, and occasionally painfully, out of cocktail sticks, only to find the craft sticks a few minutes after he had finished. Ah well.) and yummy crumble, which E assured me had been made by Gina “all by herself” 😀 Zoe had brought along lovely craft idea, which all the children managed to do, some with more help than others, making little felt brooches (or stuffed toys) with buttons and beads sewn on for decoration. They were all very pleased with their efforts, I think, and it worked well because the shapes could be pre-cut and then as many or as few buttons added as child (or parent) had patience to sew 🙂 Gina’s glue came in useful too, for those who were tired of stitching 😉

Today we went to a lovely birthday party, on the theme of Secret Agents, so the children spent yesterday tea-time coming up with ideas for different kinds of agents they could be. In the end, L opted for taking an inflatable globe with her, to be a secret travel agent (sidling up to people and saying “Psst, wanna buy a holiday?) while K toyed with the idea of taking lots of pictures of houses with him to hide under a raincoat, but decided instead to dress in black and take a newspaper with eyeholes. A thought this was such a good idea she had to do it too 🙂 The party hostess had had the happy thought of providing eyeliner pencils and a mirror so that they could draw themselves false moustaches (there was even a sheet of different moustache types to try) and that was great hit with all the children 🙂 They also had secret phones with code words to work out in order to get their cake. The weather was kind to us, so lots of playing in the garden ensued (and the hosts do have a wonderful garden for playing in!) while A got to do lots of bouncing on the trampoline because it had been reserved for the three littlest guests – a lovely idea, thank you Emily 🙂