Tag Archives: children

childhood, parenting, parents, party bags, Uncategorized

Children’s Parties – No More Party Bags Please

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Party season has arrived again in our household.  My eldest has just had her 7th birthday and most of her class are spring and summer born babies so we now have an endless run.   In her book bag today I found 3 thank you cards, some written by the child and some by the parents.  What will I do with them?  Look at who they are from and put them straight in the bin. To the mums who spent hours writing them or the poor children who have been made to sit for hours signing their name, I am sorry.  Though I agree that it is right that children should be grateful for what they are given, when they go to so many parties is it really necessary that we get a thank you card from every one?  I’m probably known as the ungrateful or disorganised mum because I don’t send them.  At the weekend we visited friends and my daughter decided she wanted to write a thank you card for them, this one was written because she decided it was a thoughtful thing to do rather than because I had told her to do so – surely that means far more.

Women’s Hour today discussed  children’s parties and most of the views expressed were either that they were a huge headache both financially and in terms of organisation, or that they were a thing that the parents relished organising.   I have a friend in the latter category, who will throw a party at the drop of a hat, hand making everything to fit the theme including party clothes and food.  A part of me would like to be like that but time and inclination hold me back.  Besides which,  I’m sure my children would be just as happy with a trip somewhere nice and a shop bought cake.  We have tried various things from overcrowded parties in the house, hiring a big hall, not having a party but taking a few children to the theatre and this year an ice skating party. My 2 year old is yet to have a party as she doesn’t really have enough friends to justify one .  Parties in the house are far too stressful for me, the combination of noise, overcrowding, mess and organising food is a nightmare.  The big hall party was fine on the day (a joint party with 30 children) but organising what I was going to do with them, sorting food and all the things we needed to entertain them took a lot of time and energy.  The last 2 were relatively easy.  Ice skating with a group of  7 year olds was surprisingly stress free.  The children had a lesson and then were given penguins to hold to help them balance if they needed them.  There were plenty of adults around to help out so that even the 2 year olds had a turn.  The food was prepared by the venue and all I needed to provide was the cake. Party bags included a free ticket to come back and ice skate – so much better than the usual tat (though some of that was still there).

Why do we feel the need to provide party bags at children’s parties?  We all hate the little bits that come out of them that usually end up scattered around the house.  Some people  substitute the bags with presents but all children somehow expect to come home from a party with a present  these days. When we were kids this was never contemplated, if we were lucky we came home with a prize from a game.  Even pass the parcel now has a present in every layer – I remember the days when each layer had a forfeit rather than a prize.  My children so don’t need anymore stuff.  Call me a humbug, but I’m not going to do it anymore and hopefully lots of like minded mums will join in the boycott.

books, childhood, children, early education & play, literacy, Michael Morpurgo, Random Thoughts & Life Stories, reading, Richard Dimbleby Lecture, Sir Ken Robinson, teaching, uniqueness, writing

Who touched your life when you were a child? – Michael Morpurgo’s Richard Dimbleby Lecture

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I have finally managed to watch Michael Morpurgo’s Richard Dimbleby Lecture.  How refreshing to hear someone from outside of the world of Education recognising how undervalued the Early Years profession is.  The lack of financial reward and status means that many of the UK’s brightest individuals are discouraged from entering the Early Years profession.  Working with our youngest children is one of the most important occupations of all, as Morpurgo put it

‘a pound spent in the early years can save ten pounds later’

Thank goodness some of us care enough not to desert the profession.

The lecture also decried the target driven education system we have in this country.  When everything relies upon targets and league tables it is easy to forget about the individuality of each child and how their needs can be met.  Morpurgo explained how  in New Zealand children enter school on their 5th birthday, thus allowing teachers time to get to know each child individually , rather than having a class of 30 all arriving at once. Also in Finland, which comes 2nd in the OECD World Education rankings, children do not start school until they are 7 years old.   With an education system built on targets and children starting school at such a young age we are setting our children up for failure.  No wonder we  keep seeing headlines about how boys are failing to read.

Morpurgo argues that the most important part of a child’s education is building trusting relationships, focusing on the unique qualities of each child. When teachers and adults are passionate about a subject, be it reading, music, sport or science they enthuse children to enjoy those things too.  This reminded me of Sir Ken Robinson’s book ‘The Element’.  In this he talks about how each of us have something that we excel at , that we enjoy and is at the core of our very being.  Many of these things are discovered by perceptive and enthusiastic adults when we are children, others of us do not find our ‘element ‘ till much later in life, if at all.

There are a number of people who helped me to find a passion.  My mother read me books, took me to the library and showed me that books were special, instilling in me a love for reading.  The primary school teachers who first put me on the stage in school shows and sowed the seeds for a love of performing and my secondary school English teacher who recognised my talent for writing and called me her ‘shining star’ helped me to believe that I could.

It also made me think of another thought I had earlier in the day as I taught my eldest daughter to play clock patience.  I thought about all the things my grandfather taught me to do when I was young.  Not only clock patience, but how to make a paper hat and paper aeroplane, how to play pick up sticks and two little dickie birds with pieces of paper on your fingers – things that I hope I remember well enough to pass down.

Working in Early Years Education I am sure that we touch children’s lives in many ways, with the experiences we give them, through listening to them and sharing their worlds and understanding their needs.  In some ways it’s a bit sad that few of the children we teach will remember the influence we had on their lives, they wont cite us as someone who touched their life, but I’m pretty certain we did.

For a full transcript of the Dimbleby Lecture    http://www.michaelmorpurgo.com/news/read-michaels-dimbleby-lectur/

 

books, children, reading, review

Hooray for Kindle!

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kindle My most useful recent purchase has to be my Amazon Kindle.  As part of a de-clutter my husband suggested selling/giving away our room full of books and replacing the ones that we really like on a Kindle.  I wasn’t really sure at first but it has been just fabulous.

I often find myself downloading pdf documents that I think might be interesting or useful for work and then they sit around on my laptop without being read.  Occasionally I will read a few pages before my eyes get tired from reading on screen.

Now that I have my Kindle all I need to do is email them to my Kindle email address with the subject ‘convert’ and they are instantly transferred to my Kindle in an easy to read format.  Now I can sit and read them like a book without having to print them and they are always to hand.  I can organise them into folders so that I can find them easily and there is even a function for defining words that you do not understand (very useful when reading journal articles).

When I’m bleary eyed I can change the size of the text and the unlit screen isn’t harsh, but slightly brighter than a standard book. I could happily read by the light of the fish tank when researching a few nights ago.

I’m hoping that as more books become readily available I won’t have to carry piles of books or study with a stack of books next to me.  They will all be contained in my little slimline friend.

We are even considering buying one for my daughter’s 7 th birthday – she is such a bookworm .  I could make some much needed space in her bookcase and as an able reader who usually reads alone, she would be able to look up anything she didn’t understand. I think  this would bring her reading to another level.  Though stopping her from ordering endless books on my credit card may be an issue.

And as an added bonus you will be able to subscribe to this blog on your Kindle in the next few days.