Progress

Am really happy to report there has been a major shift in lessons with Ira and he's getting stuck in more and we have fewer dashes around the garden and escapes to the nursery school playground. He is motivated by the promise of a sticker if he does his work well and it really seems to be the trick. I hope I'm not speaking too soon but it is a great relief. Still struggle to get him to speak and read. He much prefers hands on stuff and writing.

I went to the Jolly Phonics workshop last week and it seemed to be a more sensible way of teaching reading with sounds rather than sight reading. It is jolly expensive though to get all the books and the extra materials - definitely a bit of a money making gambit. I'm learning lots though and was good to go along to it.

Making some progress with Scott and Alberto too. Poor Scott doesn't seem to have many friends at school. We wrote a letter to someone he would like to be friends with as an exercise. I suggested maybe he gives it to the other child. I get lots of hugs from Scott and Ira has now taken to pulling me down at the end of his lessons and planting a great big kiss on my cheek - I nearly fell over backwards the first time he did it - not quite sure how to take it.

Went to a friend's birthday brunch at a fairly new restaurant in Chisi called Teta on Saturday. The cooked breakfast was good and I liked the blueberry and lemon cake we shared afterwards. They had very interesting decor, particularly in the bathrooms. Going to a violin evening at Casa Mia restaurant on Saturday.

The interesting Teta bathroom, with a singer sewing machine base.

Teta's old fashioned cashier.

Momentary Breakthrough

I nearly fell over backwards this morning when Ira came bounding up for lessons all on his own. I asked him where his bag was and he gleefully went back and got it and came straight back. He put it away and and got out his objects for sorting all on his own and so the lesson proceeded for a good half hour until the spell ended and we went back to square one with him running out of the classroom and trying to play catch me under the washing on the washing line outside. At least no bolts for the nursery school playground. He did eventually come back and even sat on my lap to hear the story. It was a breakthrough and may we continue with more of that.

Coming into school my supervisor accosted me and wanted me to pay up for my replacement last week. Following friends' advice I said what were legal rights. She said well she would need a doctor's letter which I said I could get. That seemed to make her take a step back and we left it there.

With my grade 4, I had to explain to his uncle that dyslexia makes word recognition difficult. He said he had thought it was just a matter of discipline. I am going to a workshop on using Jolly Phonics on Thursday.

Have a potential English as a second language student from Pakistan who wants to prepare for his IELTS exam in a month's time. He conveniently lives literally round the corner from me. He wants to go study electrical engineering in Manchester or Australia.

Hippo Pools

Road trip out along potholed roads,
Miombo woodlands and dombos.
Rivers winding and churning away
To the bush and tranquility.
Vistas of green and muddy river
Butterflies flitting and the grasses a quiver.
Firelight and braaied meat,
Starry skies hard to beat.

Just increase your meds

This past week I had a bit of a dip again. Part of it was due to the frustration of not being able to seek expert advice on Ira and his autism and then for his speech impediment and partly I think it was also premenstrual. In any case it resulted in one day not being able to get myself out of bed to school. I did let them know. On Thursday I managed to go to the ministry training on following the correspondence school for grade one. Most of it was in the manual and a lot was in Shona so I didn't find it particularly useful. We were given a letter when we handed in work on Tuesday saying we needed to give $5 towards snacks for the bring and share! On the day they demanded instead a $5 registration fee.

When I went back to teaching Ira on Friday I was told that if I miss another day of school I lose the job. I was asked what was wrong with me and I said I get depression. I don't think the person understood the severity as she said oh she gets it too but can force herself to carry on. I told her I was bipolar and she said oh, well couldn't I just increase my medication when I felt low? Not only am I not allowed to miss a single day of school I have to pay out of my salary for the person who replaced me. The only consoling thing was that apparently Ira missed me and on Friday when it was someone's birthday in the nursery school he apparently had a plate for me and said he needed a slice for his teacher.

See you in a month Runbo!

Well Runbo will be on his way to China now and soon will meet his baby brother. Our planned picnic didn't quite go to plan as he was a bit upset about saying goodbye to his cat Chilli who is going to stay at his dad's factory while they are away. We did semi play dinosaur snap with the cards I made and munched ginger nougat biscuits. Runbo told me his "soupcase" was all packed and ready to go. We somehow got onto talk about his milk teeth and I told him they would start falling out when he was six and he would get new ones. With glee Runbo told me his new ones would be just like T. rex's. I did point out that T. rex had ones the size of bananas but this didn't faze Runbo. I am going to miss him while he's away and just hope meeting baby brother goes well.

Feeling frustrated with what to do with Ira. Am going to keep reading up on autism and what I can do. It is thwarting that his parents and my supervisor won't even consent to him seeing a speech therapist. I met with another friend who is helping design a syllabus and curriculum for Cross Over and she reckons the reading syllabus I'm using should have more phonics in it. She's going to pass on some materials to me. On Thursday I'm supposed to go to a workshop on the government correspondence course. Hoping it doesn't go on all day as I have two other students later in the day. I have to submit the first set of work done by Ira to the ministry on Tuesday.

I had my form 3 student this morning and we looked at the introduction to Macbeth and why Shakespeare uses the witches. I had my grade 3 student yesterday and had forgotten how much I enjoy teaching him. He has severe dyslexia and has forgotten his times tables over the holidays when he went to his mum in Mozambique.

After teaching this morning I went to the depression support group get together and we sat and coloured in mindfulness pages. Sadly my friend hosting's father died this afternoon. It's now bucketing with rain. The Save River has been in full flood which is amazing.

Runbo's Secretary

Yesterday and today were not great with Ira. We went back to him not looking at any of the words for reading and having to make a deal for him to colour in. Apparently he did get diagnosed by the psychiatrist I suggested as being autistic but his parents feel it was too quick a diagnosis and don't believe it. His parents and my supervisor are also not interested in him seeing a speech therapist. This does make my job hard. I am particularly struggling with reading and sounds. At times he can speak but at other times he clams up.

Runbo came running up to my car today when I arrived to say his puppy had been sent to a home as Runbo needs to go to China. He is beginning to get excited about going to China and seeing his mum. We read the big brother book and the one on Chinese New Year again and then Runbo put me to work. He had a whole lot of people he wanted to make cards for. He cut out different sized and shaped pieces of paper and I was instructed what to write and draw. He wanted a card to his nursery school teacher Pippa saying Pippa he must go to China. Then one to his best friend at nursery school called Mindi asking him to still play with him. There were happy new year cards for his mum, dad and granny and then I got a card. I was to write to myself "Thank you for teach me" (I tried to correct it to teaching) and draw a secret picture to myself. I told Runbo I am going to miss him while he's away and sweet boy, he immediately replied he was going to miss me too.

I gave Runbo the choice of what we're going to do for his last lesson tomorrow before he goes. We agreed on a picnic in a den with his dinosaurs. I have some dinosaur snap cards to play with him. I'll take some biscuits - his favourites are Oreos and then Wedgewood nougat ones. Yesterday and today I had some new Chinese sweets. I think some might be for new year. One was called a sugar coated haw which is like a toffee coated hawthorn with sesame seeds. Then I've had fulingjiabing which is a sort of agar jelly coated in rice paper. Today Runbo had what was like a crystallised carrot and I think mine was either pear or apple. At first I thought mine was ginger but it didn't have much taste. It would help if I could read Chinese.

Toffee coated hawthorns.

fuling jibing rice paper jelly cakes - traditionally for Chinese New Year

Five stars to Ira today

So pleased to say that today Ira outdid himself. He read some of his words (a first), he coloured in, enjoyed using the sand tray for writing AND he finally did his news picture for me and did it willingly. There were other moments where he was not such a happy camper and I had to resort back to bargaining. A friend of his from last year who is a year younger than him has come back to nursery school and is now Ira's playmate again. I can say doesn't Ira want to be able to go play with Jayden? If he does such and such and then this then he can go. It does work when he is crouched in the corner and won't budge. Definitely needed this as was beginning to lose heart as it felt like I was pushing an elephant uphill with one hand all the time. When I drove out at the end of the morning Ira leaned over the picket fence and said bye bye and he'd see me tomorrow.

I came home over lunch and looked up on how to do binding for a quilt. Found the video below and going to try finish the overdue baby shower quilt for my to-be-godson. Once I've finished the quilt my next project will be to try do a quiet book for another friend's baby girl.

Discovered Runbo is a little scared of dragons. Although I pointed out that the Gruffle in the Puddle Lane story I was reading him looks a bit like T. rex, Runbo said no T. rex doesn't breathe fire and Runbo doesn't like the idea of fire blowing. OK, will need to change to some different books. Runbo asked for more T. rex stories but I think we need to go with something different to increase his vocabulary. Runbo did like the book on Chinese New Year. We sort of made a Chinese lantern today but need a stapler as the glue we had wasn't very strong. Since we couldn't continue with it without the stapler Runbo asked me to draw different dinosaurs for him on pieces of card. The T. rex was for him and his daddy and then the pterodactyl was for his mum. I asked him if he was now a big brothersaurus but he said no, he's a T. rex. He said he could take his card dinosaurs to China on the aeroplane on Saturday but not his plastic ones. I quite fancy drawing Runbo sitting on an aeroplane with his various dinosaurs peaking round at him from different places like the overhead locker and seats behind. Will try work on this idea.

SaveSave