Author Archives: HHaricot

Early to blog!

Am making frog-in-the-bog for tea with home grown veg on the side – that is the life! would have own eggs, but perhaps not yet!

BB is being dreadful again at going to bed, and is then so tired that she falls asleep like the dead in the day. So today we haven’t let her fall asleep – she’s been dunked in a freezing cold paddling pool in the afternoon to make sure! Whether she makes it to the tea I’m not sure, but they’re having a bath upstairs at the moment.

However, she IS being gorgeous about playing animals. Mostly lions and monkeys, which we have played a lot today. She also demanded ‘diolin’ practice – duly done for 10 seconds! Painting - 2 minutes, reading a book – hours! We have played shops and also with bricks, and a ‘find the’ game with the letter cube thing that Jax gave us – rather a hit!

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SB woke early and plugged herself in front of the TV. When I got up – at 9.30 – so not as late as I would have liked! We read stories together of brer rabbit. I suggested we did the next bit of first language lessons – the aesop fable narration, and she already new the story so happily summarised it. When I said that I could write down her summary or she could, we then spent the next hour happily writing it down, whilst doing other things – see below! [BB and I were being rather distracting though I guess, with falling down towers!]. I was very proud of her, and she was impressed too. Though she is keen to improve her handwriting, I don’t think she’s bothered by spelling as long as she can read it back.

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She then spent ages getting dressed as a princess and cleaning her teeth, and BB did lots of poisson rouge – getting rather good at mouse control, but easily frustrated when she right clicks by mistake. I have stuck a hand sticker on the left click, which usually reminds her.

SB did some brick building with BB for a bit, and then we sat together as she read me various bits from the DK picturepedia on birds. We have also been watching the life of birds in the evening, so she remembered some of that to add in, as well as the other bird books we have read. Wanting to do some flying experiments, we went to the kitchen to make different shapes, but ended up doing mostly a craft session on birds with feathers! She is disappointed they don’t fly well, so we might to the experiments tomorrow.

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All out into the garden to make the most of the sunshine, having pasta for lunch outside [v late!] and the then SB did some sudoko, BB tried to catch the fish in the pond, and then they both spent ages splashing about in the paddling pool or helping me pick broad beans and pod them for tea.

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They’ve argued over helping me make batter for the frog-in-the-bog, so lets hope it still rises! Chris doesn’t appear to have drowned them yet, so I shall quickly flickr. oh, and no chris, I won’t be doing different colours!!

edited to add photos and say, frog in bog a success, BB fell asleep the instant she had finished chewing the last mouthful. SB went on to custard and banana. We are about to play a game. We played Amazon arithmetic and happy families.

The radit anb the tetel and the focs

‘turtle bus it tac you ol bay to get to the teydel? then tay agreb to hav a ras. Sow thy ascb focs to Be the juj. the radit jumpbt in frunt ov the teltel. Then the radit fol slep. the teltl got ahed and wun’

I am really proud of that. She has summarised the Aesops fable and written it all out without help [obviously]. OK the b and d the wrong way round, but she realised this when she tried to read it out and found it difficult. The spelling unusual as well. But she has been very slow to want to write, and I am so proud of her sitting here and doing this. Handwriting and spelling will come with time now she wants to start – hooray!!

efficient education??

I don’t think it is possible to educate SB efficiently. by the time she has helped BB, seen if our grapes are ripe [no] and something more to eat, told me how nice blue pencils are etc etc time has passed very quickly! She has, however, written out a story in a book, and realisied it is hard to read back when the b and d are the wrong way round.

Now to see if she fancies getting dressed and cleaning her teeth [and then they had lunch!]

oh yes, blogging

nice to have a day off! girls woke up wayyyy too early! STill didn’t have breakfast until 11 though. before that the girls did lots of playing with gears gears gears! SB making up her own monsters, and bb fitting them together and messing with eyeballs! A spot of book reading.

SO pancakes for breakfast. then both girls did some piano practice – we had been concentrating on violin, so SB had some wobbles, but realised she still knew where to put her fingers! BB also had a go at playing middle c.

SB did some maths, BB is a bit of an addict for baby einstein dvd’s – havng quite rightly shunned them earlier [what was I thinking??] also reading books, doing Maisy’s colour book – and getting most wrong! We played animals – mostly monkey’s. if i roar as a lion she puts her hand over my mouth making a soothing shsh sound – very cute.

ermmm, general interaction type stuff. jigsaws, me flickring, girls shrieking etc. actaly will do a piccie kessie blog to tie in some of the key day things, maybe. oh, we did a bit more on firstlanguage lessons – proper and common nouns. some writing.

After lunch [obviously late as late breakfast] I agreed to take 2 desperate girls to the park. i really am not a going to the swings girl. Anyway, 2 girls loved it, stretching the boundaries on how dangerous looking they could be before i looked panicky! We were joined by school children later on, and SB and a girl started playing together. I could hear a ‘what, you stay at home?’ and SB confirmed it was the HE question! BB gor whingey, so said it was home time. SB wailed all the way home as it wasn’t fair we left because OF BB. BB fell over after about 3 steps, and I picked her up and she fell asleep in 3 more steps. sB wailed more when i suggested she carried the bag [2 drinks and 2 apple cores! - really heavy] So we frogmarched home with her wailing even more. gloss gloss.

SO she did something with chris whilst i became human again, and BB slept. she then read the usborne book about celts that i bought from joanna at Melrose – fab book, and followed the quick internet links.

[watching prison break, and am v glad we don't have a death penalty in the UK]

BB finally was persuaded to wake up, and both girls had a bath and downstairs for tea, watching bob the builder. SB and I read about the life of a roman soldier and then bedtime.

so there we are, a day! oh, and BB now asleep again – phew

oh, and i really miss bolding – i might have to restart doing it

Allegedly a counsellor

counsellor

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As seen at The Deep End

oh, and i got 17/20 smiles right – not too bad!

very tired!

well, i guess it’s poetic justice that I worked this weekend following kessingland, and its been the busiest weekend I’ve worked for ages. In all daytime and called all night. So today I decided to leave slightly early from work and have a short nap. 30 mins later, SB woke me up as they were back home.

it was sports session this morning – must ask Chris whether SB tried the older group? She loves the sports sessions, and BB also likes the careering around she gets to do with Daddy. After it, they went back to the deep end’s new abode. Chris texted this to me, but i must have been at a superlatively busy moment and missed it! Anyway, they had a lovely time, BB was frightened by a cat – we have 2!

both girls did some colouring with chalks on black card to start with – very lovely. SB did do some firework pictures – nothing like being topical! bit of a tussle over BB purposefully squiggling over SB’s picture.
We inspected the garden – i didn’t get to see it at the weekend. french and runner beans shooting up, and some flowers on the runner beans. the broad beans had loads to harvest – so we did that, as did the mangetout. the girls ate them in thier playhouse. still more strawberries and also our weird not quite plum tree – as yet unidentified, but prob if i could be bothered would be! has some ripe fruit that the girls ate. Sweetcorn looking most unhappy – far to wet and miserable for them. things in the greenhouse on the whole happy – toms romping away and some ripening fruits. BB could only be persuaded that the grapes weren’t ripe by eating one.
SB happily did some singapore maths – adding hundred tens and units, whilst BB and I podded broad beans for tea and read books. BB fell asleep on my lap eating dinner – so whisked up to bed, and we’re hoping she will stay asleep.

Sb and I read our birds book from the DK animal series – part of our book people order. She also read the penguin lifecycle book as we read the inroduction and she chose penguins. We followed this up with a bit of david attenborough and his flying with birds [or whatever!] first episode.

Thinking home-eddy thoughts, in part brought on by hearing a girl shout at her mother IN FRENCH!! what a skill. must start thinking more seriously about approaching modern languages and poss latin. [whether i do remains to be seen. hoping that the possible local jolie ronde group may get set up in the location of the possible leader's home as v conveniently located!!]

DfES guidance for Home education

go on, filll in the feedback. doesn;t take long. either do it yourself, ot use the freedom for children to grow’s breakdown

Thank you for responding to Consultation on Home Education Guidelines.

If you have requested an acknowledgement we will send one to you as soon as your response has been processed.

Your response identifier is xx.

Department for Education and Skills
Consultation Unit
Area 1A Castle View House
East Lane
Runcorn
Cheshire WA7 2GJ
Tel:??? 01928 794888
Fax:??? 01928 794113
Email: consultation.unit@dfes.gsi.gov.uk

If my number [xx!] is the number of respose they have had, it isn’t many!!

another Kessies snippet or 3

We have Chloe’s brush btw. Chloe, SB and M were playing hairdressers in our tent. SB and C discussed different parental hair brushing techniques, but we are apparently both OK at it [rofl!] M thought her parent could do with some lessons [rofl rofl rofl]

this was relayed to me this morning as I put SB’s hair in a bun, so veracity cannot be authenticated.

And I have unfolded monster’s picture of a dalek he drew for me so that I can put it in my office. Thankyou.

BB and Josie were being very friendly, and hopefully will be a good pairing in the future. Joanna got the only triplet shot though – so waiting for that on flickr!

Actually SB did play with a wide range of people, which is lovely to see considering I was always so entirely hopeless. Hero worship of Violet continues, with a secondary place going to Abbie. SO she was delighted to stay up late at the fire with Violet as well as Chloe and M. Her previous camp strong friends also remain strong friends, and she was sad that Barbara’s oldest wasn’t there.

Kessie blog

Kessingland, well, what can I say! It was really wet, we had to move the tent due to flooding, but there were friends there, and fun to be grasped!

Highlights

Children still having fun. SB played with loads of different friends over the week, few spats, lots of laughter. She did stay up way too late a couple of times!

Sparky?s was a great hit for SB this year, she hadn?t been much before, and she loved it.

Both girls enjoyed swimming ? we went a lot to warm up!

BB?s excitement on seeing a real lion!

BB?s excitement on running, jumping and falling into muddy puddles!

The valiant craft sessions that still went ahead ? we have new tie dye, bits of air dried clay, an aquabeads thing to grab from merry and some gods eyes.

SB going off with friends and their parents happily to the park and to the beach [there was a lot of swapping children!]

Friends ? for chocolate, compassion, cups of tea and chitchat ? weather permitting! Thankyou lots and lots all of you, as particularly the first few days I was lost in a work world of misery.

Meeting New Home edders

Negatives

Well, the biggest was the boggy muddy pondy field.

Rain ? though it actually was only bad a couple of days, its effect on the field was awful!

Not getting to sit out as much to chat, while keeping a loose eye on children

Not getting to know people on the other side of the boggy quagmire!

The swimming pool changing rooms [perhaps that should be higher up on the list?]

Other things

I got 2 sparky?s certificates ? one was for my dancing skills ? rofl!

My mitts and camping socks from t-bird Anni were truly fab

The new airbed also far better than the old!

Doug makes a good fire

?

When we flickr, I will link here. And I reserve the right to add to this things I think of!

back

will blog sometime. it was v wet.