Author Archives: HHaricot

My 13 year old has asked for an upgraded tick sheet. She wants to have stars or stickers

trying to blog contemporaneously

It is hard to know what my lovely girls will remember of their childhood, and whether this blog will alter that. I hope they remember the love, laughter, crafting and hugs, and book reading! more like they will remember the nagging and that i always have a migraine. i don’t really, but it does often feel like that, and i had one all weekend, monday i managed to carry on tho speech slurred and stuttered by it, but poleaxed again on tues, and missed a day at work/study in the smoke which v sad about as 1) good to go to, 2) cost a fortune and 3) argh to work ramifications of sick leave

Hopefully they will remember days like this, where we had fun, laughed and learnt something. Weds4ed science is coming to the end of the plants – cos my lab assistant hasn’t quite cracked a working home made potometer – has 2 weeks to deliver! So we looked at structure today, both the stomata, and the vascular bundles. We chatted a bit again about plant respiration, how it works, what the plant needs, and set off the colour experiment and then did the stomata. Most of us have done the colour a lot – but celery/carnation etc in coloured water and look at where the colour is. We contemplated the properties of a successful dye to look at this, and did quite well, and then used methylene blue on dead nettles. Whilst this was doing the works, we plunged geranium leaves into boiling water. air in the leaves interstitium expands with the heat and is driven out – the only place to do this being through the stomata, so we could see loads of air bubbles on the underside and none on the top. v effective! we then put clear nail varnish on tops and bottoms of fresh leaves, peaed off when dried and looked for the stomata on the peelings – luckilly visible. finally we cut up the stems of the deadnettles, having had some conversation about what we might find, to anounce we were wrong I love a good microscope session where it all works as planned!

SB and jfish did some french, and then we all did some more of the degas modelling project. some are painting, some still wiring with modroc to do! plan is to then dress with material. SB’s is gold – of course! and afish no longer has a horse, but a dog!

other things this week – BB has v much enjoyed another wizards academy kit. we have made batteries from coins ages ago with wodensmeet at zoes, but i thing bb to young to remember, and loved doing again. SB has returned from SOTP where she spent the weekend celebrating a birthday. SHe successfully managed the 2 train changes on her own – v proud! [tho she chicked out of asking train trolley person for chocolate frogs]. She also got back in time for her offical entrance to air cadets – which she is very happy with.

this eve i played games with both girls – yahtzee with SB and bieberband with BB, which she loves. we finished the day snuggled up watching dr who

when i was growing up, halloween really wasnt a big deal, and since it has been generally derided as an americanism in the family. bonfire night was always the big thing. however, our village does halloween really beautifully. it is simple, straightforward, safe and fun. from about 5.30 for 2 hours ish, if you have a lit pumpkin outside your door, you will have callers for treats. no tricks. if no pumpkin, no callers. loads of families are walking about with their kids. it is friendly and sociable. lovely. I am sold!

So, sb is settling into working hard. Looking at her classical civ answers it is clear we as parents need to sit with her for her to learn how to answer and get marks – a skill in itself!
This week we are hoping to finalise exam centres. I can’t quite believe how long it is taking, but know after this year all other years are straightforward , so being as relaxed as it is possible for me to be at least I have belief it is going to all come together!
Bb needs us to do more diverse and fun home ed stuff. She is finally getting her head around the concept if doing some routine things. She is working to year 4 english books and year 3 maths as we have to make sure it is easy for her so she isn’t frustrated and gives up. She is hapoy with her ks2 science. I am quite sure if she had to jump ahead it would be feasible, but she doesn’t like jumps. She also doesn’t like being pushed, and does like to consolidate. I am thinking she will have a very solid maths and English base!

half term didn’t quite work out as planned . We had hoped to have my gorgeous niece and nephew with us for the whole thing, and at the last minute found out via my mum and dad that BIL wasn’t planning to bring them after all . Deep breaths! and mum and dad brought them up on thurs, but with strict instructions that they had to be back early sat. OH well, meant i didn’t get to see them much as at work. well, now I have got the grumble/disappointment out of the way I am going to go ahead with all the good things!

So, on wednesday I was at home and we had a working morning and then in the afternoon we got to do some crafting, and with discussion we mixed chocolate and art . So we got our disposable piping bag and piped a variety of halloween shapes and words. Skulls and spiders were are best.

SB and I cooked perogies for tea, which worked really well for a change! we used a sightly different recipe, and it took us ages, but lovely cooking and chatting together

when the cousins had joined us on thurs, there was lots of playing inside and out, and they had a great time together. pumpkin carving also happend – obviously

Like many before me , I have realised my children enjoy art activities more when they are using real resources as it encourages thinking , planning and good execution.
So with Halloween coming up we thought we would look at acrylics on canvas for bright and bold, and with a stencil element. Bb choose a pumpkin as she loves carving them, and sb chose a Mexican sugar skull pattern ( going from pink girl into goth phase!)
First we painted the backgrounds – bb’s being a proper picture and sb going for a v interesting red with some black dragged look.
We then took some time to design and cut out stencils. Bb having a leaf and pumpkin face pattern – easiest to cut with a craft knife. Sb decided to keep the lines and discard the rest ( must be a special word for this kind if stencil??)
We held our stencils down and used black over the top. Everyone was pleased with their results.

I was working the mornings of the weekend and on call the rest, but luckily got to have quite a bit of time at home.
DH is in full DIY mode, turning bb’s bathroom acting as bedroom into a true bedroom. This weekend was clearing out the shower ( it will get a blog post!)
Whilst at work sb was doing bookish things and some music Prac and bb skyping her cousin ( with scintillating conversation apparently) and concurrent playing roblox with lots of laughter.
When I returned I did Latin one day with sb- we have slowed down and it is being a back burner! I did bb’s comprehension and spelling with her as she won’t do it with Dh. Both girls had a piano lesson.
The rest of the weekend was spent crafting. We did our lovely Halloween art. Mine didn’t work as I had hoped but useful to discuss thro with girls why I wasn’t happy and what I had learned from this. Bb did an acrilyc picture of a horse. After a lot of redraws and frustration that could only happily draw the head and neck, she decided to hide the rest of the horse behind a tree . One v happy daughter! The second also v happy as took 90 mins to henna her hands. Looked v good! She thinks we should take henna to Xmas camp, so will do that.
Otherwise we played games, survive and bananagrams – in English with bb and in French with sb- which gave me brain freeze!!

Only sb in here ( and she did some English and art since I took the pic and a piano lesson with me – taking to 35]. She has worked hard this week. Bb’s has got lost, but she also has had a good week. She has partic enjoyed doing the science kits with DH from the wizards apprentice, and has been less worried about English! we bought a couple of different science workbooks for her, as she likes doing things like that with minimal writing. Mostly she is learning through reading, experimenting and talking rather than formal work. We take things at her pace.

Just thought I would post a couple of pics here that DH took whilst they were trying out the wizards apprentice kit, which they ahve really liked