Desking

About a year ago one of our neighbours gave us a desk and the other weekend I decided that Katie would probably like this in her room as she often sits at the table downstairs to do her "learning" books.  So I tidied and changed her room about and now she has her desk below the window. She loves it.  And she loves "desking".  "Desking" is obviously anything she does at her desk.  This ranges from drawing and sticking and folding and colouring to "learning books", which are activity books for 3 -5 year olds focusing on learning to read, write and number work. 

Katie has been keen on counting in 2s nad 10s lately.  Have no idea where this has some from but I thought I would print her off some 100 square grids so she could colour in number patterns.  She got it straight away and particularly liked the pattern that the 3s made! 

This got me thinking about her "desking" and the fact that she loves to sit down and do "homework", and the fact that if she was in the UK she would have been at school for nearly a year now.  And shouldn't she be in school?  And she'd benefit from it and do so well she needs a structured learning environment. . . . But no. 

We are in a country where if we go with the local school system she doesn't start until she's 6.  And I'm ok with that.  She leads a very full life and is in no way bored.  OK, so kindergarten could use a large money input and more teachers, but she enjoys it and she is learning German and lots of other skills.  They seem to have a lot more involvement of helping to run things taking charge of what they do. Probably more structured activities are needed but she's not bored.

I also like the fact that, although she goes everyday until 2pm, I can pick her up early or pull her out for a day or whatever, whenever I feel like it.  And I have one more school year in which I can do this.  I did in last Monday. We took the day off and went on the BOB train with our friends Celina, Wendy and Nico down to Tegernsee for the day which was lovely. 

None of Katie's friends are in school and although she sometimes says she would like to go to school is only because her friends in England are but she knows it's different here. 

So, in my opinion, she doesn't "need" to go to school yet (bearing in mind Finland has the best system, UK is 6th and Germany a quite poor 15th, but 2 places higher than the US, but is doing fairly well in the world . . . )

I don't spend rigid time with her doing schooly type work. We do it when she wants to or when I suggest  it's a good time as Alex is asleep or something.  She concentrates for a long period of time.  I'd like to keep it up once she gets to school as her schooling will be in German (if we are still here of course), but  not sure how feasible that will be.  And will I do the same with Alex?  I don't know what he will be like.  He's learning to count to 10 in German at the moment.  Who knows? 

But at the moment Katie is enjoying school type learning when she wants to and she's smart.  I'm pretty sure I couldn't colour number grids when I was nearly 5.   She's not interested in "pretend" writing though and I know I was.  She has to get it right. 

Education is all swings and roundabouts. 

I'm sure I have far more to say but it was 12 hours ago when I first thought of this blog, and now I have drunk Gin and Tonic and wine and half listening to the telly . . .

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"Desking" Colouring in in 2s.