so far this week

SB has been doing rookie lifeguard and really enjoying it. this takes up most of the morning, as at a not-quite-so-close swimming pool. by the end of the week they had done a fair bit of swimming, a fair bit of first aid and used a number of the flotation and rescue devices. i was surprised that they didn’t get some kind of certificate at the end tho. it was obviously perhaps a mini taster course, tho that wasn’t clear. she absolutely loved it .

BB has busied herself with lots of crafting and also writing. Explode the code continues to be popular, and she also had fun writing a list of words in ‘fairy writing’ copying the style of SB’s surprise sleep fairy present to her. ALso some sewing. i must ask merry where she got the big holed binca from as BB v keen to do more of it.

Both SB and BB made some lovely fimo jewelry for a friend who is off to france en famille for 6 months. SB’s took hours – literally – as she did cane work or mille fiore i think it might be called? and made some ace beads. I love how when she has an idea for a task she really sits down and concentrates. she did a great job with loads of love in each bead BB loved the bracelet she made so much that she hasn’t quite managed to part with it… BB did however make me 4 bead caterpillars and wrapped them up beautifully as an extra birthday present – awww, how gorgeous! ANd sb bought us all an icecream treat I do feel v blessed in my family.

SB has also had another pretty productive home ed week, working on galore park books as well, her writing skills seem to be really coming on now, and she makes a concerted effort at spelling as well. she has read loads, we have story of the worlded all snuggled up, she has done me loads of clarinet and viola concerts

wed was latinetc, last of last academic year i guess! lovely that merry and girls were there and we all got stuck right in. science was chemistry, using our ‘mystery’ chemical – obtained from watering our wood fire to put it out, and collecting and diluting that water… [and testing that it wasn't caustic!] we reminded ourselves on pH, what that meant, acids and bases/alkali. also using litmus papers pink and purple, and then mixing varying amounts of our acid [trusty acetic acid] and mystery alkali [almost certainly potassium hydroxide] ad showing that although our base was more alkali than our acid was acidic [pH13 vs pH3] that the acid neutralised the base such that most outcomes were neutral or acidic. and then, because i love chemstry, we added equal amounts of our base to a saturated solution of copper sulphate, this probably gave us copper hydroxide – it is certainly supposed to, but reading round the internet suggests that actually this doesn’t always do it! luckilly it did precipitate out and was rather cool all round. we then discussed solubility etc etc. lots of ‘real words’ bandied about, double displacement etc. i just want the terms to all seem familiar and normal really. we filtered the solid… science wasn’t the only thing, latin, french, music theory, clarinet for SB, and then a fair bit of art – was supposed to be nature, but BB had a wobbly, so did dinosaurs instead, and had a bit of a wobbly over that too! lovely session tho.

ANother good bit of news is that BOTH girls now have blue peter badges. SB has a green one, and BB has the ‘blue’ one [tho we agree it is white!] since she is under 6, she will get the card to go with it when we apply after 6. thanks blue peter for that bit of thought and care