Author Archives: HHaricot

Last day of the hols

well, feels like that here with 6 long days ahead. SO we made the most of playing today.
SB has really been enjoying the Jane and the dragon series on TV, so will prob buy some books for her. She read some felicity wishes today, and assorted early readers.

Chris and SB went for a bike ride on the quieter village roads, learning how to indicate and turn right – she thought it was fab. Chris said she was riding really nicely – all that scootering has given her extra balance. not that her balance on 2 legs is that brill always!

BB and I sowed some runner beans in modules, counted them – in her own fashion, and played outside while they were out. When they came back we had crumpet pizza – yummy.

The whole day was spent outside. the girls wanted to do something messy, so we did papier mache around some plant pots to paint and decorate when dry. They then wanted to get wet, so we got out the old paddling pool [now deflated and puncture! But it was enough to hold a bit of water, and when BB’s cube slide ended it it there was much fun and mayhem for the rest of the afternoon!

As I went in to make dinner [moroccan ish stew!] I cage SB and BB the face paints, so they painted themselves. SB was particularly gorgeous [though the picture will be cropped for general consumption! While it cooked we played spraying with the hosepipe – always a favourite!

Chris planted some of the potatoes – pink fir apple, again wy late, but hopefully will do something. They’re through cardboard boxes, hopefully to keep the weeds down.

A bath – and they really needed it! BB fell asleep nearly instantly, and SB and I played games before bed, SHe is such a sweetheart as she made me a flower display as a present, and hidden in it was some chocolate for me.

Anyway, I have had a lovely break, but don’t imagine I will blog much in the next week!

sorting the crops

today has been a good gardening day. I put in some more peas, finally put in the onion sets [way late!] cleaned out some of the greenhouse and started potting up the tomatoes. I was helped [sort of] in these tasks by both girls at various different stages. so some of the onion sets are upside down, and some roots detatched to some extent from peas. however it is all a good learning experience. SB also dug up one of our leeks from the garden – i am proud of the leeks, first time they have been successful. I also sowed the first french beans in modules. Chris put some more of merry’s boxes over unused veg bed. The pear tree – and most of the fruit trees still alive – are covered in flowers. I’m hoping that this year will be a good fruit and veg year. i think the last year we truly did well was when SB was 2!
it has been an outdoor playday – the girls playing hide and seek, races, climbing etc etc and helping me. i have been narrating stories, races etc for them to do whilst gardening and then joining in with hide and seek. SB has read to me several times, and also to BB. I read both girls the cat just so story [prob my favourite one].

We did some painting outside. SB painted a house – putting her ‘sign’ in the picture as well. BB mostly painted herself – so an outside bath in order too!!

reading the money guardian

never too young to start!! [photo to follow]

Babies

Had a lie in this morning, and overheard SB and BB playing with their babies. SB calls the gorgeous corolle doll from Bead merrily ‘Annie’. I could hear her giving instructiosn to annie on climbing stairs, with BB mirroring the instructions – same inflection and everything.? they loved the babies, gave each others a hug – all in that gorgeous little girl way. V cute

fossicking

today we went fossil hunting with the not-so-local group! it was really good fun, at a brickworks. the ex quarry is a nature reserve, and a fossil section. We mostly found ammonites, belemnites and gryphaea. How cool is that!

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We all enjoyed it. SB met up with old friends – including the quietly noisy crew. All were amazed at how many fossils there were. BB liked finding ‘something’ though she was the first to find the gryphaea – a snail she said. Lots of geology and dinosaur conversations in the air!
After quite a while, we moved on to do a bit of pond dipping. BB caught a fish!! SB caught a fair number of bugs.

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SO I texted Merry, and we popped round to cheer her up. Though SB in particular was not very cheery – mostly at a loss due to lack of the older girls I think. BB and Josie more happy though BB was a bit violent at times – aargh. We should have taken cake, or grapes – better for the throat. Lovely to sit and chat. Also had a look in the bead merrily stock room [ and a box before it even got in there – mostly to fish out some little cutters for SB] and came away with this as well.

Home for a chippery tea and a UNO marathon. While having the chippery tea, we looked again at the oil and water, and this time counted how long it took to seperate enough for us to see a faint line, and then to see a strong demarcation – though still a bit mixed. 14 for the first and 20 for the second.? BB fell asleep in the car and declined to wake up. No doubt will do any minute now! Got to Robert the Bruce in Britannia. As an aside, SB has devised her own heraldic banner – will photo and flickr. She is very proud of it.

gifted and talented

rage – just lost a whole post on gifted and talented. be very glad – probably karma as i have ranted so much today.

points of rant -

1.nomenclature – gifted and talented vs average or struggling

2. there being a national register of gifted and talented children

2.not being frank that what labour wants to do is reintroduce setting/streaming

3. pretending that individualised option is a reality in most schools

but mainly the words!!!

but doesn’t this

General Characteristics of Gifted, Talented and More Able Pupils – he or she may:

  • be a good reader
  • be very articulate or verbally fluent for their age
  • give quick verbal responses (which can appear cheeky)
  • have a wide general knowledge
  • learn quickly
  • be interested in topics which one might associate with an older child
  • communicate well with adults – often better than with their peer group
  • have a range of interests, some of which are almost obsessions
  • show unusual and original responses to problem-solving activities
  • prefer verbal to written activities
  • be logical
  • be self taught in their own interest areas
  • have an ability to work things out in their head very quickly
  • have a good memory that they can access easily
  • be artistic
  • be musical
  • excel at sport
  • have strong views and opinions
  • have a lively and original imagination / sense of humour
  • be very sensitive and aware
  • focus on their own interests rather than on what is being taught
  • be socially adept
  • appear arrogant or socially inept
  • be easily bored by what they perceive as routine tasks
  • show a strong sense of leadership
  • not necessarily be well-behaved or well liked by others

sound like characteristics that lots of HE kids you know have? And isn’t it sooooo meaningless in the HE world of individualised education!

oh, and blogging for the LEA

I don’t think so! I might agree that these pages may help us write a report if we are minded to do so, I don’t intend to point to the blog either. LINK

anyway, grump grump privacy, grump grump commenting anonymously, grump grump at tone and because I can!

but I don’t do it that way

in the singapore maths, for 43 – 27 you would say there were 4 boxes, 30, 13, 20, 7 and get to 10 and 6 = 16.

Sb suddenly said to me, but mummy, I don’t do it that way now, I say the difference to 10 is 3, and another 3 is 6 when i take the ten [you get the drift?] so I think she must now have cracked it.

How do I love thee? let me count the ways

obviously I haven’t, as looking at my 2 girls today, I just loved them. But I guess that is a phrase that pops up now and again! I think at the moment they are one of the key things keeping me moving of a day. Being rung by work was a downer moment!

Anyway, another lovely day spent mostly outside. SB has done loads of starfall today [obviously inside!] and was very taken by the greek myths section – Mummy we’ve read these ALL before. [at least 60 billion times darling, luckilly I love them too] she could pronounce the names correctly too. She helped BB with cbeebie-ing as well. BB got bored with this though, so she and I sort of played ‘don’t wake dad’ with good counting to 5. She won’t press the button though, as she doesn’t like it when dad jumps up at her – fine at one of us though!

We moved on to reading once the imigran had taken effect for me – some more of the polar bear Magic Tree house [SB in love with the series] and then looked up traditional inuit lifestyles in some native american books we have. I read some more stories from assorted barefoot books to both girls.

We then piled outside and the girls ran around and I pushed BB on the swing. We had lunch and then a tin of pineapple [considered a HUGE treat]. Then – drumroll please – SB FINISHED MPH 1A!!! on the revision section, she still needs some work on subtraction across the tens [ie 43-27] but is pretty much there most of the time. BB and i were spotting bugs, bees and talking to the goldfish.

So some more running about and playing hide and seek – ably helped by BB [ mummy's over here]. then we planted up SB’s flower garden. SB and BB bailed out of digging fairly quickly- the soil was too hard! Its funny that the archaeological dig hole gets bigger and bigger. [both found dinosaur bones and flints today - cavemen. hmmmmm]. Anyway, i dug loads of holes [while they dug for treasure], and SB then planted up beautifully, and watered in. She also sowed up some more of her veg patch – a row of carrots and some onion sets.

Chris came back from the supermarket and made us berry smoothies and muffins for a snack – yummy, and dug a patch of the veg bed over. They all then played wild things, and i planted out the peas. I’ve been impressed with the germination rate in the propagator its near 100% of everything so far. I think that’s ‘cos we had the temp up a bit to start with all the harder to germinate seeds, and have now reduced it. The temp control I think has made all the difference. Even the florence fennel has all germinated.

Unfortunately ‘real’ gardening was cut short as BB hurt her wrist in a wild round and round. I did wonder whether it was broken. She did want a bath though, so as a deferring option we had a bath, at which point she played using the arm, and weight beared on it, so I was reassured.

She fell asleep very quickly after the bath – which was a bit weird as before tea. SB enjoyed some ‘only child’ time with 2 parents attention, playing outside, some more starfall and the lots of UNO. She did wake up though as Sb went to bed – sigh!

SO another lovely day. we are slipping a bit with the home ed – well, the music, language and story of the world! SB is so racing ahead and loving reading though that i don’t want to artificially cut that short, and i do want her to have plenty of play time. She was still on about heaviness of liquids at teatime – balsamic vinegar vs wine!!! we may have to do an experiment [there is a bottle of water and oil sitting on the windowsill, but she wants more layers]. hmmmm still, should be able to add 10 mins music practice [though it takes 15 to get ready etc etc].

Anyway, more britannia at bedtime – which led to quite a chat about prince of wales, the welsh language [which i demonstrated badly!] and the tie in with castle rising that we visited not long ago.

oh, and I forgot the great potty disaster – BB likes having a potty outside so she remembers to use it (mostly). I was helping SB with a sum, looked around and BB was on the potty, most clearly doing a poo, but not having made sure her dress was hitched up at the back. At least we were outside.

Now watching grand designs vid – lovely. Fossil hunting tomorrow is the plan.

first day of short break!

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. was just so nice to have some relaxing days off in a row.

got up at 9 as chris off to collect a bed from little Nanny. SB was already doing lots of webland [which she has always liked - been on the upper age this year]. BB was playing skittles.

After a while, BB and I played with lego instead, SB read another chapter of he polar bear magic tree house, and having got stuck on the word caribou, we then looked in a polar animals book. it is sooooo fab to have a reader, who reads most of it out to you, much easier with 2 now!

Both girls decided they were ravenous, so we had lunch before 11! Then we got dressed, did nail varnish [take note of how I learn Nic!] and piled outside in the sun. we slipped slapped and slopped [or whatever that australian advert was] and rampaged about a bit, swinging and climbing a lot [whilst singing at top of voice - poor neighbours - well, not the pub]. I read an inuit folk tale [in the spirit of the today's theme!] and SB read some more of the polar book. She also did a fair bit of the 1B revision pages of maths. Both girls also did a lot of splashing in water boxes [we haven't sorted the pool yet] and BB wore herself quite out, so fell asleep in my arms.

Chris returned with bed, and SB carried on splashing on the whole. We had a discussion wrt tea, and she agreed to try something very mildly thai spiced, so thats what i did, with wild and red rice. She loved it. Next time will increase the intensity of the spices, as when she had seconds, she had the more spiced version. SB cbeebied and read to BB, and BB and I read some books.

Finally bedtime, with the britannia and usborne young readers routine. So we had a lovely day. SB is reading like mad, we have lots of wide ranging conversations about all sorts – like what is the heaviest fluid – i made a guess for mercury – so we discussed that it isn’t just a planet/roman god, and she remembered that it was in shi huang di [sp!] burial in Xian. mind you, I am not entirely sure what the heaviest liquid [at room temp and sea level pressure!!] is. ANd so I think we do have a very interactive education – I just need to have google in my brain!

i have very happily watched the apprentice, and will gently relax on the sofa.

Not forgetting Gordon Ramsey of course!