Week 37: shooting competition, school production, forgotten homework

Shooting competition

OH takes J to the shooting competition that he had been invited to take part in a couple of weeks previously. The results are, apparently, fairly dire but then what do you expect from a 10 year old who is the size of a 7 year old, trying to handle a full size rifle ?

Apparently it’s a one-off competition, and I’m still not sure of the reason for it. But he has great fun, and it’s conducted in a completely safe environment at the local shooting club. I don’t think there are any plans for a replay so I can breathe easy again.

School production.

All the letters about this production, named “Catwalk Barbie Mix” had baffled me (plus ca change). J had told us that his class were doing a couple of raps. C claimed not to be taking part in it at all, but was instead doing a winter show. ?

It’s certainly nothing like any school production I ever took part in. Co-ordinated by the Handarbeit teacher, it comprises approximately 12 very short sketches, involving different parts of all the classes, and with a finale involving all of them. It’s staged in the foyer of the school rather than the hall, and C is right – he is in a winter scene, which is basically one of his friends dressed as a snowman (poor thing – it’s a boiling hot evening) and all of them dressed up as if in winter and dancing round. J’s class do 2 raps. The other classes do a mixture of catwalk, parading, dance and mime to music. There is very little live music and no singing.

No matter, it’s intriguing, and clearly a lot of work has gone into it, and the children all thoroughly enjoy themselves.

J forgets his homework.

Friday morning J is very distressed to realise that he has handed in the book he was reading that he is to give a presentation on this morning, and from which he had to read aloud to the whole class a short paragraph and the back cover blurb. He is exhausted and in tears with worry – his Friday teacher is a tough cookie.

He had been set this German reading book of about 150 pages to read and then tell the class about on a specific day in the future, some 2-3 months ago. We had set about this overwhelmingly huge task in a way that would make Flylady proud: we worked out how many pages there were to read and how many days he had to complete it in, and then factored in a few less days to allow for occasional slip ups in the routine. And then he had set about reading it, 5 pages per day. At the end of each reading session, he wrote a single sentence (in German) précising what had happened in those pages. Somehow, he finished the book 2 weeks early. Woo hoo !

But without remembering that he would need the book for his presentation, he had handed it in, and it had then been taken by another class member. So I suggest that he rings the school friend and asks her to bring the book in. She does. Thank Goodness for the phone tree. But I also tell him that he needs to go and find his teacher first thing and explain what has happened so that she knows.

Test cancelled.

After all that last week, this week’s vocab test is cancelled due to the entire class being absolutely shattered after their production.

But instead they will have summer holiday homework of learning vast tracts of vocabulary. Deep breath………. And exhale…………