the mundane

Having said that we don't get to see a lot of what goes on in the hospital here is a little of what we are up to...

Sarah is learning about American currency. Tom's maths homework has been about money this week, counting pennies, counting up in tens...ok so the homework did suggest doing this with US currency I admit, but not having any we made do with good old pounds and pence that I have lying around. It was all going quite well, or so I thought until today when he brought home his maths book. The task at hand was to identify and then do some simple maths using the pictures of US coins. A brief moment of panic, when I realised that the coins don't have numbers on like ours and I have no idea what they are. So instead of admitting that I ask 'so do you know what any of these coins are?' And the reply 'of course, this is a penny or one cent, this is a nickel or five cents, this is a dime or ten cents, this is a quarter or twentyfive cents'. It is always great when they reply with that tone that says 'are you really stupid?' Anyway, good job Tom, you will be coming shopping with me everytime I am in the US next. (although I must have survived there before without having known what the coins were - probably that useful piece of plastic in my wallet has a lot to answer for).

Tommy has been setting up netbooks, having waited ages for them to arrive, he finally had them in possession yesterday, and has since barely been seen since while he has been getting them set up to give out tonight - for pics of the high schoolers receiving them and seeing that being a maths teacher has moments of making people smile, not just the hospital staff, see another friends blog:

http://jacobsenjourneys.blogspot.com/2010/03/netbooks.html

Josh has been playing with his fire engine, which will not have any more pieces to fall off soon, having wet wednesday with a very restricted amount of water and having the odd time of being taught about the Romans whether he likes it or not, thanks to having a big brother who does not quite 'get' that he is only just 3. Oh and is sleeping much better now, we are really grateful that our friends have been praying about his nightmares - thank you!!