Today began as a lazy day. After all that geocaching yesterday, we wanted to rest a bit. Sylvie caught up with her 'Media Studies' over breakfast (which, at her request, consisted of pasta, a slice of corned beef and a couple of slices of cheese, all sprinkled with salt and washed down with a drink she specified as needing to be part orange squash part apple squash.).
She watched 'Howl's Moving Castle' again while I started to re-read the book - Diana Wynne Jones is one of my favourite authors and Howl's Moving Castle is one of my favourites of hers (my all-time favourite is, and always was, 'A tale of Time City') - and considered whether I can a) afford to take Sylvie to the first Diana Wynne Jones convention ever that is happening this June (I found the information by chance on her web site while hunting for one of her books on Thursday) and b) whether I can persuade her daddy that it would be a great idea. I've a suspicion that b) would be a lot easier than a) at the moment, especially since I gave him my copy of 'Fire and Hemlock' at the weekend and he stayed up far too late last night to finish it because he couldn't put it down!
At the end of the film, Sylvie cried a little, claiming it was 'sad'. I cuddled her and pointed out that it was a happy ending really, but she pointed out in turn that the music over the credits was sad - apparently this was what she was reacting to.
She noticed the book I was reading and asked if it was Howl's Moving Castle. I said it was, and explained that the book and the film are very different - the film maker had altered quite a large amount of the plot so while some characters, situations and places were easily recognisable, some of it was so different it turned them into very dissimilar stories. Sylvie was interested, and asked me to read her some of the book, so I read two chapters to her and we found ourselves doing 'English Literature' as we discussed the some of the differences and similarities to the film.
Sylvie had just moved on to more 'Media Studies' - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe this time, when grandad arrived with her cousin to drop off something for me. Sylvie's cousin hadn't been well again last night so was off school, but he seemed a lot better than yesterday and was looking forward to helping grandad try and fix his (ancient!) tractor. They seemed less than impressed to find us still in our nightwear!
After they had gone, we had lunch and then I got out the Keyword Reading scheme books. We haven't looked at these for a good month or more - Sylvie read the first book twice a while ago and then refused all suggestions that she look at them again so I haven't brought them out for ages. Today, though, she had mentioned not being able to read the title of 'Howl's Moving Castle', so I thought she may be interested again. She pulled a face, but when I said she didn't have to read the whole book if she didn't want to, she suddenly became very interested in 'Reading', but demanded the next book rather than the one she had looked at before, so I pulled out 1b and she set to it willingly.
I love this reading scheme for her, it suits Sylvie perfectly! The books tell little stories with beautifully painted illustrations on one page and the words on the other, so I can tell instantly if she knows a word or is looking for a picture clue by watching her eyes and where they are focussed. She isn't confused by phonics, something my highly visually orientated daughter really has trouble with, as it uses whole word, and the books are designed so that words are introduced gradually and repeated as often as possible in one book, then the next uses the same words but organised differently to tell a different story in the second one, perfect for a child who loathes repetition. More words are introduced in the next book, and so on.
I was surprised by how easily she read the book, considering it has been so long since she read the previous one and she has never read this one before at all. She read the first few pages without any help and the next few only one word - trees - completely threw her. Two words, 'the' and 'dog' she needed a couple of tries at - 'the' she had trouble with the last time she read so this didn't surprise me and 'dog' I suspect she didn't immediately recall because frankly Sylvie would be very happy to wake up in the morning to find dogs no longer existed - she is not a canine lover! All the rest, even the names of the children which I had expected her to have trouble with (names are not high on her list of things that are important to remember!) she read easily and seemed surprised, but very pleased with herself, when I pointed out how many pages she had read without help (her mind was fixated on the 'trees' she hadn't been able to read I think).
She wanted to stop after 6 pages, so we packed the books away and Sylvie engaged in 'Free Play' while I got Davy, who had been very interested in the 'Reading' and had attempted to eat the book a number of times, to sleep. Once he was in bed, Sylvie and I went outside into the garden for 'Outdoor Activities' and 'Gardening'. Since it was a beautiful, warm day I wanted to tackle turning our luscious dandelion-covered hayfield back into a lawn and Sylvie was keen to use her wendy house for the first time this year. We got dressed for this - Sylvie chose to wear only the top half of her fireman dressing up outfit which just about acted as a mini-dress!
It was very hard going as the grass was so long, so I only managed to get about half the lawn done before Davy woke. While I did that, Sylvie 'cleaned' her wendy house (by spraying it liberally with water from her plant mister), watered the flower beds and reacquainted herself with her pavement chalk. She asked me to draw her a hopscotch after a while, then after using it a little asked if I could add a 'zero' onto it. I was busy, so I told her to try it herself, which she did. The box she drew for the zreo was a bit too small for her foot, but she was pleased with herself! she helped me trim the edges of the grass too, bringing out the small secateurs and asking if she could help, so I set her to trimming the long bits around the base of the washing line pole.
When Davy woke, Sylvie came inside too, claiming it was getting chilly. She indulged in a spot more 'Media Studies' until daddy got home, when he became the focus of attention for both children. I made a dinner that introduced a new taste to Sylvie - pickled beetroot. I have never served that up to her before and her reaction on seeing it was "What IS That?!" in a horrified tone. She was not impressed. Not only was it a new food that was suspiciously vegetable in nature (we avoided calling it a veggie but she was well aware it wasn't meat!) but it also spread 'red stuff' around - she was very displeased to find her potato turned pink where it touched the beetroot. when it came to tasting it, daddy made an error and suggested she lick it first. We don't usually do this because she uses it as an excuse for not trying food, claiming she has already tasted it and not enjoyed it. She has been pretty good about food lately though, so daddy forgot and Sylvie took advantage, refusing to take an actual bite.
She also refused to eat the potatoes, and stomped off to bed in a huff. This occured after she was told there would be no pudding for her as she had left so much of her dinner - she knew this would be the result and decided she wanted to go to bed instead but was extremely miffed when she was told that niether of us was availible to take her just yet as we still had pudding to eat even if she didn't.
She told us "I am going to my room and I'm going to shut my door!" (this drew laughter from her parents as her door is currently impossible to shut due to the amount of clutter she has gathered in the doorway) She followed this up with "One of you can come up and read to me when you are ready!" I went up after dinner, to find she had partially shut the door by moving the clutter around to make walking across the rest of her floor very tricky. She was fast asleep.
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