Tuesday, 6 March 2012

Writing on the wall

One of my lessor crushing issues has today been resolved, albeit a first world problem.

Instead of swimming lessons at 5pm Monday for Sam , 4.30pm Wednesday for Joel ...we secured Tuesday at 4pm for both. I am very grateful , learning to swim is important so I accepted it when we enrolled late.

We finish school at 3.25pm . Monday and Wednesday we hang around in town till lessons start. There is no point driving home 25-30 mins only to turn right around and come back.

It made late nights and stressful times trying to fit homework / reading / play and getting dinner on the table. I lost it a couple of times with them being overtired and rambunctious . I was drowning in the chaos of not getting home till after 5.40- 6.20pm. I left home at 2.50pm.

As well the last 5 weeks my husband has been in Sydney 2-3 days a week usually Sunday to Tuesday / Wednesday so I do it all solo. I can't imagine how working families cope with this everyday.

Though they make you pay in full almost 6-7wks in advance , it is surely worth it for reduction in stress.

The centre also gives one parent a free 10 visit gym pass with swimming lessons to be used anytime during the term. I love this bonus.

In other news today I found the download for NSW foundation font. It even has a foundation dot font so letters and words can be traced.

Trying to supervise two at the same stage was tricky, as I watched one the other was usually making an illegible attempt at writing his letters, using texta or pens and sometimes incorrectly. It did not help that the example sound / picture image is not NSW font ...it has a little tail on some letters (cursive)

Sam has one eye patched for 2 hrs a day, after school,
 so he finds it more difficult to stay neat and on task without an example in front of him.

Now I can give them both a practice sheet to begin with and try to establish a better grasp on neatness and learning the correct letter formation.

Download your own here and make your own traceable printables. I also made sight word flash cards using the font. Once installed I could use it in WORD ...foundation regular and foundation dot.

I use 72p font for writing practice and 160p for sight words as large cards 4 to A4 in landscape.

It is exciting seeing them learn to recognise words and begin reading books.

How did/do you help your child with writing skills and learning sight words ?


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Posted by ♥.Trish.♥ Drumboys at 15:03
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mums the word's avatar - Go to profile

mums the word · 682 weeks ago

gee wizz what a pain to have to sit around two nights a week for swimming lessons! thats a huge problem in my book! glad you managed to get both boys in on the same night!
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Alyce · 682 weeks ago

Great job Trish!! You are such a great mum to care about them like this :)
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Nat - Muddy Farmwife · 682 weeks ago

Well done Trish and Thanks for the font link!
Hope swimming lessons work out better now.
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Sam-O · 682 weeks ago

Swimming night is horrible here. On Mondays the Munchkin bashes up his peers while they are waiting for their siblings to finish their class! It's a bad mix of kids, they rub each other the wrong way and it is just so stressful!!

I am boycotting kindergarten homework, but I am cutting out and laminating the sight words, printing out a news sheet (he chooses and prepares what he wants and I print it for him) and facilitating anything he wants to do regarding writing and reading. There are pens and paper and he is using them to practice writing. He is also loving the sight words. He keeps making sentences and leaving them for us to find. Quite funny really. I figured without me forcing the homework/practice nothing would happen.

I really dislike NSW foundation font. It may be my eyesight but it looks like spiders on the page to me. All the school notes come home in it too.
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Essentially Jess 98p · 682 weeks ago

Oh I will have to look to see if I can find an NT one. All our letters have 'tails' on the end and are completely different from anyone else's it seems.

Good news on the swimming! That kind of thing can be so stressful!
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Misha - TheBlingBuoy · 682 weeks ago

I've managed to put my 2 boys into the same swimming class, which helps. But when it's my eldest daughter's turn, it's a real struggle with the younger 3! And thanks for the links... I don't rely on any one strategy so lots of different ideas are helpful.
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Dorothy · 682 weeks ago

I had the same issue with swimming and happily handed over a large amount of money for the privilege of having both of mine in a class at the same time. As well as having small class sizes and constant skills assessment. For me it's all about stress reduction and convenience.

And I love the idea of finding the fonts and making your own cards to help with writing. I will definitely follow that one up!
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Fernanda · 482 weeks ago

Hi! I can't download the font. Do you still have it?
1 reply · active 482 weeks ago

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