My Foot

My Injured Foot

We’ve been to some dangerous places on this trip: Himalayan peaks, secluded jungles, lonely beaches, rocky reefs, pitch-black swim-throughs, remote diving trips, not to mention trying to negotiate third-World-city traffic… yet it was only yesterday that I had my first injury. In Legoland. That’s right. In possibly Asia’s safest, most engineered-so-not-even-toddlers-can-have-an-accident environment, I managed to slip and tear a big chunk out of my foot.

Walking along, carrying a big inner tube for one of the water slides, my knee inexplicably buckled, my foot slipped on the smooth stone and just as it was flying forward as fast as possible, crossed over from smooth flooring to (ironically) a rough, non-slip one. Unfortunately, it seems that non-slip surfaces, when attacked at high velocity by bare skin, turn from safety feature to cheese grater, leaving me in this case, several lumps of foot lighter.

Now my foot is all bandaged up and I’m walking with a limp… just as we’re arriving in Singapore where there’s nothing much else to do but walk around malls, parks, tourists sights, zoos and the like. And next we’re headed to the Philippines where I was really forward to diving with whale sharks. I really hope my foot’s healed enough to wear fins within the next few weeks.

Unfortunately, Singapore is by far the safest place we’ve visited on our travels. Which probably means I should be particularly careful. It seems that it’s the safe places you need to watch out for.

 

This Is It

[Sam] This is it.

[Frodo] This is what?

[Sam] If I take one more step, it’ll be the furthest from home I’ve ever been.

Lord of the Rings

Tomorrow, we travel over the southern boarder of peninsula Malaysia, into Singapore.  As soon as we travel south of the airport, it will be the furthest from home Fergus & I have ever been.

And we’ve only been to Singapore once, to change planes, but it still counts I guess.

Of course, for the children, every step they’ve taken since we got off the plane in Nepal has been the furthest from home they’ve ever been.

And by the time we get back, we’ll have to go to Australia to get the same effect.

Why is it so tantalizingly exciting to be taking that one more step?

I’m not sure, all I do know is that it fills me with a sense of adventure and puts a smile on my face.

Homeschool

OK, to all friends who are primary school teachers, what else do we need to teach the kids in Year 4 maths?

We have done:

Whole numbers
– adding with column method
– subtracting with column method
– subtracting with ‘borrowing’ (saying ’30 exchanges for 20 and 10′) like they teach at school)
– multiplying with the grid method
– multiplying with the column method
– dividing using chunking
– long division
– long multiplication

Fractions
– adding fractions
– subtracting fractions
– multiplying fractions
– dividing fractions
– simplifying fractions including top heavy
– converting fractions to decimals
– converting fractions, decimals, percentages (any to any)
– practical use e.g. 20% off sale! How much does the £10 toy cost now?

Decimals
– adding decimals
– subtracting decimals
– multiplying decimals
– converting decimals (as above)

Equalities
– stating if values are >, <, or = to each other (including decimals and fractions mixed up)
– 100 cm is 1m; 60 seconds so 1 minute etc

Other things
– calculating the perimeter of shapes
– starting to use algebra e.g. If the square's sides are y cm, the perimeter must be 4y cm
– reading data off a bar chart
– reading co-ordinates on a grid
– mapping points on a grid with co-ordinates
– lots of converting currencies!

I think we need to do some more geometry things, can anyone give me a clue or any good online resources to help with this?

We have been using mathsisfun.com but it's a USA curriculum, according to the dept of education website, there is currently no year 4 maths curriculum – surely this can't be right?

Any help would be appreciated.