Monthly Archives: May 2007

sociable sunday

I had a lovely sunday with some colleagues at their house/ garden with assorted other colleagues. one set had 4 girls in the 5-9 bracket – good fun for SB. It was a really lovely relaxing time. All thanks to the host and hostess..

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of course we had to stay off topic for as much of the time as possibile always difficult!!

Discussion wrt the fate of the NHS was universally gloomy.

Sb has read loads at home, and made a lovely hama present to take. The other girls tried to teach her cartwheels and handstands. somehow I think we have missed that key time to learn.

bloody pubs

1:30 am and still blaring forth. I know the pub doesn’t do it that often, but there has been too many high days and holidays late night music sessions.

The frantic gardener blog is back up and running

well, sort of! I am moving posts over, and the will do a photo spree!

Here it is – link also in sidebar.

Are there any other HE bloggers with a gardening blog on the side that wants a link?

A typical home ed day? Photomeme thingummy

Actually, in many respects it was. We forgot about it to start with [fairly typical!] BB woke up way to early [fairly typical] Chris eventually went down with her leaving me to have a lie in [fairly typical for the weekend!] An brought me breakfast in bed of croissants – not at all typical! Bored now with saying the typical bits!

Errr, its amazing how much you can forget. Have got flickr uploading wildly. Honestly Chris P, I put up too many photos even for me, but its much quicker than sorting them out! One day I will, I promise!!!!

playing who's who

Anyway, at sometime after 11 we started taking photos, and not at all sure what went on before that, as that was with Chris whilst I was reading the paper! But when I was surfaced enough to remember we were taking photos and also to interact, we played who’s who. BB insists on playing, so not exactly to the rules, but enjoyed! BB and I then spent some time hammering baby toys and playing with the rainbow blocks to make lots of noise, and then constructing brio and making the trains chug around [always a baby train and a mummy train with BB!]. We also did a bit of looking after and watering the plants in the conservatory.

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I had suggested to SB that she might do some education city as we have paid for it and she hasn’t done any for ages and ages. SHe fancied webland, so whilst chris got the next edition downloaded, I read a story from the barefoot book of mothers and daughters - the persephone and demeter story which SB knows well, having had a mad love affair with greek myths and legends. SB then spent HOURS on webland! Not very interesting to photo! We had also missed april’s edition, so she did all of May followed by all of April. BB also did some poisson rouge. In a moment of pure inspiration I have put a hand sticker on the left click of all our mice! She now knows which bit to click – hooray! Also getting more controlled with the mouse movt. Does have her mother’s patience though. wiggling it wildly when it didn’t go where she wanted.

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Had lunch and SB returned to do some more webland. I was bored with this, and checked the mail – hooray her new sports sunglasses arrived. [should stay on as she twizzles about on swings and cycles]. The low start of ebay price was completely overmade up by postage – 6 times the cost!!! i did factor that in though.

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BB desperate to do some painting, and SB wanted to make a princess hat, so combined the 2 activities. At least half our paints were put into pots though – gradually getting SB to take responsibility for setting out and tidying away crafts. hmm She did sort of set out, I totally tidied! Anyway, she and BB painted the hats, and then carried on with further painting. SB did a particularly beautifully coloured handprint. Eventually they declared themselves painted out, and a quick hose down and they went outside to play.

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SB and BB scootered/triked about for a bit, but SB hurt her poorly knee, so I re-dressed it, and she read a book about food through the ages with intermittent waily patches. I made them some popcorn to eat. BB played Bob the Builder, moving dirt around the garden, and generally enjoyed rampaging about, playing hide and seek etc.

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SB got fed up reading the book, and wanted to make the egyptian breads we have made in the past from the 120 history projects book. it was sold to BB as a snail cake – the word cake enticing her in from the garden to join in! SO we added mess onto mess in the kitchen, and all enjoyed making the egyptian sweet bread. BB and SB enjoyed competitive flour and butter rubbing, so there was a fair bit of loss!!

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Daddy had been to the shops btw as we were all out of food. He returned as the egyptian breads were put in the oven, and didn’t blanch too much at the appearance of the kitchen. BB being up for over 12 hours was swept off to a bath, and SB has been outside again while I have done this and put flickrs onto the uploader. We do plant to perhaps sellotape the hats up before bed, and SB has promised a violin practice of frere jaques – she will moan when she has to do it after tea, but it has been the only non-negotiable thing to do today! SO since we have done all the autonomy, its time to do the violin! I will obviously be adding photos after the girls gone to bed!

follow up! Well, I had set that up, but chris rebooted ‘puter without checking whether I was doing anything! SB did the violin with enthusiasm – and very pleased that a nearly recognisable tune coming! read britannia, and she read a young usborne readers book [and is in fact still reading it]. Joining up the hats will need to wait till tomorrow, as will eating the egyptian breads!

Links to the last 2 photomemes in the sidebar, and this one will join it now the photo’s are added. Look forward to seeing others’ photo days.

A New Ancient Egyptian sweet bread!

Being monitored

SB has been much put out by BB’s 2 year check. she wants someone to check her! I think I’ll give the Nana’s that opportunity rather than the ell ee ay. Honestly!

An out and about day

We got up and went to Merry’s house – amazingly within the timeframe I had given her! Girls all ran away to pay. I met fiver the rabbit [of course he knew i was coming with his prescience] and admire the work on the garden. Also dumped/ generously gave some spare toms and peppers and onion sets.

The stock cupboard STILL didn’t have landlocked in it, nor did it have the egyptian thing Michelle brought back from her visit – honestly!! but both are apparently on the way.

While we were there, BB counted to 10!!!! first time she has done that – usually we have 1,2,3,4,6 err 6,6,6. The older girls had a convoluted imaginative thing going. we adults packed boxes and did a minor stock tidy and lots of tea.

We all went to the mudpud group in the afternoon. Its been v quiet for the last year with the loss of Merry and Tammy, and also as there was an insurance problem. SB was really excited to go and loved it. A gardening theme. Some poor misguided organiser left me in charge of the baking – i obviously don’t flickr photos of the chaos afterwards of flour everywhere! Luckilly SB and Merry’s girls were willing helpers in the tidy up.

When we got home, SB did some violin practice – still starting on A. We all made spanish omelette together for tea – yummy. Sb was going to do some maths, but talked me into letting her have some computer time for the new webland – but I notice she is cbeebing. When I’ve finished blogging, I’ll suggest to her we play a game or 2, and perhaps read a story from the barefoot book of mothers and daughters i bought from ebay.

Anyway – we do lots of conversational ed, which rarely if ever gets blogged. But I will blog this one, as SB is concerned about money, charity and people who don’t have enough. My mother sponsors a child through some charity [well i think it is a village thing rather than an individual] and she got a letter when we were there. SB is very keen that we do something too, so will take recommendations if there are any.

Johari window time

please contribute to mine here

and also the nohari

thanks

i love elections

we postal voted – not that it will prob make much of a difference as we live in a sure fire area for not my party [as it were, cos none of them really are my party! and we had no independents or anything other than the big 3]

but i like the effort on tv to make it look interesting. really, it would be far better for tv if the votes weren’t counted until the next day from midday! you could have eurovision style drinking parties!

pottering, potting and pottying.

Well, couldn’t really think of a title!

Started the day with Chris taking BB for her 2 year check [fine] and then toddler gym at the leisure centre. She loves it! SB did her 2A maths in the conservatory whilst I potted up the final cucurbits, aubergines and peppers.. She was doing hundreds, tens and units. Raced through it until she got to the bit where she had to write them out longhand. SB then helped pot up some final toms to take to people.

BB returned and also sowed some seeds – calendula and sunflowers.We had tea and home made cookies snack. We went on to violin practice afterwards – starting frere jaques on A. Unfortunately, having moved to new size violin, SB has lost totally a sensible bow hold, and the violin is slipping to the front. I am torn between making a big deal about it and putting her off completely, or letting her slip into bad habits to put her off later! Trying to steer middle road!

Unfortunately, BB wanted to ‘do dielin’ at the same time, and because I was tuning SB’s violin at the time rather than paying her attention, she decided to repeated whack SB with her bow. Sigh. SO violin removed from wailing BB, and she was marched to library with Chris to pick up some reserved books. one of these books was about Victorian houses and their maintenance. I was rather gutted to find that the paper in the halls under the dado – now drawn on and torn in one significant place by BB – is prob original. It survives 150 years until BB! The damp from the arch window threatens it as well. We must sort that out this year. aarrgh.

Anyway, SB read some more magic tree house, and I am about to take delivery of some more books. they are really good – recommendation here! they have a 6-8 year old type of story, flexible lexicon and reading difficulty spot on for her.

Lots of playing outside as well – colder today, but both girls twiddling around on their bikes. found chris had put bricks holding environmesh directly on top of my florence fennel, and I have no more seeds. humph!

SB designed a craft activity for BB – she was really excited about it. They put glue lines on card and then glittered them. As you can imagine, glitter EVERYWHERE! But they both enjoyed doing it, and SB was very proud to be showing BB what to do, and enjoying doing it together – a proud mummy moment for me too. This is the great advantage of home ed.

More outside playing and then SB had her ballet lesson. BB and I played snap [sort of!] and read a few books, then took over the curry chris had been making. On SB’s return, we did another science experiment – this time making something appear to roll uphill, as well as a discussion on gravity and what might be really happening. When I got these books from the book people, I didn’t like them, but actually, we are quite liking the forces one. the experiments are simplistic and short and easily done.

After tea, SB played with the leappad whilst i flickred. britannia and bed.

measuring


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Originally uploaded by Scrumbledelicious.

this year, SB is hoping to be taller than the sweetcorn. She remembered this pic while we were at my mum’s.