What would you do different?

[turtleglos]

Remember them days well. Wouldnt it be nice if they could stay like that forever.
Ds2 is busy planning a menu for tonight(I gave pemission for him to "cook" dinner). We are having a full 3 courses comprising starter(yet to be decided) pizza and choc pudding.I dont think we will eat for a week At least he should get a lot from it.
Slightly more than 20mins today I think

[1203tommy]

I have to agree the first child tends to be more diligent in their work. My DD2 is bright, but only visits this world from fairyland evey now and then, -my reason to start working now!!
But seriously, any interesting and good books for her to read and enjoy? Any ideas?
Any other than fairy books?! She's 7 nearly 8!
Do they VR aimed at that agge? Or just use the usual??

[turtleglos]

The Enchanted Wood,plus any other Enid Blytons you can get your hands on. The railway children is a good one to read with her,any Harry Potter(or maybe thats just my ds). I loved horse books at her age, also the chronicles of Narnia(starting from the first one). My naughty little sister, What Katy did(not that Katy ) Little women......
Find books that follow her interests and read them. That usually works best.
I could go on and on and on....

[Alice in Underland]

Don't do too much.especially going over old papers.They get bored and careless.
Keep it short and fun !

We "crammed" DD for about 10 weeks and she just scraped in to Grammar. This was very stressful for us all, though she is doing well at school.

Worked more steadily and calmly with DS who is a more sensitive child with an analytical mind. Took about 6 months from first stab at paper to doing 2 papers back to back by September.

We let him "have a go" at a test paper on this own, ID'd his weak points and worked to improve those. Main issues were vocabulary related so we did crosswords, played Scrabble and word games. Every time we came across an unfamiliar word we looked it up in a dictionary, discussed Greek and Latin roots, alternative meanings and spellings, plural nouns.
Sometimes he would astound me with knowledge gleaned from obscure sources (eg Pokemon !)

Revise all multiplication tables and play with number patterns and sequences. This really speeds them up in test conditions.

By test day both he and we were confident that he could pass. And he did.

Do lots of reading,especially Puffin "Classics" since they help a lot of vocabulary. I would read the more complex or old fashioned books to them and stop to discuss unfamiliar words or scenarios which needed explanation. Both my kids enjoyed the Moomintroll series, E Nesbitt, CS Lewis, and William Maine ( we are going back to the 1970's here) most of which I read to them. They read The Famous Five, the 39 Clues series and Harry Potter time and time again to themselves.

I really do believe the ability to read and understand the Harry Potter series is a good indicator of academic potential at age 10. Debate anyone ???

[Milla]

Funny, that, Alice, yes!!! My little one literally devoured HP. Even now they're like contraband, I see him with them and wail, NO!!! Not again. By the summer before his 11+, when 10, he had read each one AT LEAST 7x. Nothing if not obsessive. He just wanted to milk them dry and while there was still pleasure to be wrung from them, he would. Made me quite irritable, with a world of books out there etc. Mercifully he has moved on. Currently reading the Robert Muchamores. Conversant with cocaine. Moral: be careful what you wish for

[chicko-mum]

Roald Dahl & some of the Michael Morpugo books are ok for that age as well. Think DD devoured Lemony Snicket towards end of Yr 4.

[Parismum]

ds1 just missed Pates, safely into STR and happy (me too, after the stress of last 2 weeks!) He's maths-mad, very high VRQ but not so good at the literacy side. We feel bad that, having been assured by the world and his wife that 'if anyone gets into Pates, it will be him' (to be fair, no-one else from his school did either) we left it up to fate too much. Tutor 1hr per fortnight, from Easter which he really enjoyed and we were very naive about the hours some parents were putting in. DD2 in Yr3 the complete reverse, great vocab and comprehension, weaker in maths. No guidance at all from school so think we will do as most people are planning to and do more VR papers with her ourselves, starting earlier than we did with Ds1.

On the reading front, she likes Michael Morpurgo too and also Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield is a good one. I remember liking 'Heidi' at that age, don't know if that one's still around??

[livviloo]

Funny, that, Alice, yes!!! My little one literally devoured HP. Even now they're like contraband, I see him with them and wail, NO!!! Not again. By the summer before his 11+, when 10, he had read each one AT LEAST 7x. Nothing if not obsessive. He just wanted to milk them dry and while there was still pleasure to be wrung from them, he would. Made me quite irritable, with a world of books out there etc. Mercifully he has moved on. Currently reading the Robert Muchamores. Conversant with cocaine. Moral: be careful what you wish for

My DS says HP is too frightening:) but will read lots of other stuff I consider to be equally scary. He also discovered Robert Muchamore after a friend gave them to him. I didn't vet them before but discovered,like you, only later how educated he was in the fiedd of Class A drugs. He did reassure me it was nothing the life bus hadn't covered already.

He has also enjoyed some American books Nanny has sent over in particular the Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull (magical fantasy stuff) When going through the compound word list, as we did over breakfast and usually degenerated into us calling each other names "you're a brickbat" "no you're a brickbat" and falling off our chairs laughing, we noticed many that had fallen out of use were still used in the US and in their books. What is a brickbat?

[Milla]

You are.

[turtleglos]

I know you are,I said you are but what am I???