Author Archives: HHaricot

And so to today

It should have been entirely daddybeans day, and so his blog. However, someone asked me the ‘wrong’ question and i just sobbed at work and so with permission bailed out of the afternoon as could do from home.

The girls had a bath in the morning, and when i came home they were baking BB’s birthday cake – she is having a marblecake with a tiger decoration [daddybean doing currently]. SB did a good piano prac and we did story of the world 3, whilst sorting out work stuff with the other half of my brain :) . SHe is very happy to have done 35 things on her sheet this week, predom as she wanted to have the whole weekend to play with cousins. Unfortunately, those cousins are now not coming due to chicken pox :( grr to chickenpox. However, she has chosen a good balance of things, said it didn’t feel like working too hard – grin – and was happy.

We then did some Xmas stuff preparation, and the girls made their secret santa things, now we have to see if they actually work… [then i will make mine - :lol: ] SOme tidying with assorted screeches, and I wasn’t v sympathetic as have spent the rest of the day rather too close to tears or in tears. We finished happily enough tho, playing the card game Dingo and watching Merlin before a rousting bedtime. BB is v excited…

Resources Blog – Art

I wondered what to do a quickie resources post on, and decided for art :) . Partly on the basis that I think my schooling and upbringing has left me with zero confidence in practical art myself, so i have bought a lot of books :lol: and partly because Kirsty reminded me of Harmony Art Mom, one of the 2 non UK home ed blogs I have on my RSS feed. SO here is a small selection of the books we have used a lot and found valuable :)

Beautiful art appreciation books for children

I think nothing beats going to a variety of art galleries and installations, because there you can see how big and impressive or small and detailed the various pics are. Historic houses – like Burghley that we went to recently as well, as SB was v keen to focus on the art and wants to go back. But it is also nice to pour over pictures, get ideas and inspiration from them, as SB has often done, with matisse, van gogh recently.

Artist Story Books

I have to confess to a complete love of the Anholt Stories about artists, as well as the Katie books. They can be read purely as stories or jump off to new and different directions. We have quite a few different ‘story’ books which are particularly good for BB now. The book people did some good deals on them a while back, so often in libraries.

How To… Art Books

Feeling terribly useless at art, I have compensated with books :) well, i had no idea how to use oil paints or watercolour pencils for example when the girls asked! SO some of these are ideas books from Usborne – owned by myself or friends! S0me are suggested by harmony art mom as well – thankyou.

SO go and enjoy painting, splodging and sketching, no excuses :) ALso please link fav’s in comments.

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Latinetc wednesday – exploring the periodic table

cutting out electrons, protons and neutrons about 250 of each] took way to long last night, so to bed v late and hard to get up and out this am. However, I had got everything ready apart from SB’s minimus which i asked her to add… yep, she forgot :roll: !!

We trialled the 3 groups today, which TBH I found quite stressful as a lot to say and do in a small time, the dynamics will take a bit of settling down, the middle group got a partic raw deal and i was just ready to cry. Lack of sleep on my part prob didn’t help, but I now have migraine. Will give it a few more tries as it works better for everyone else, and I really want to keep latinetc going as a strong group as it is fab.

That said, all the children had read or had read to them chapter 1 of real science 4 kids chemistry and we romped through the periodic table, protons, neutrons and electrons and then atomic mass unit and moles. I do think the 3 levels of the chemistry first chapters are all really great, and so far like the text. we did pre-k and 1 with BB and 2 with SB at home. We then shuffled my deck of elements and chose the ones to make a window decal each. For the first and last groups we read up about the elements in my periodic table book, but ran out of time with the middle group. I have suggested they might want to do that :) . i think the decals looked really good when finished. Unfortunately my camera had a flat battery, and the spare also flat. :( partic as when i checked last night there was allegedly 2/3 battery power left. Luckilly le ciel rouge took some photos and we plan to nick them from her flickr stream :)

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[tho not periodic table view :) ]

edited to add at kirsty’s request :) to make the decals we got some of that bookbinding clear stuff [loads of it] and had an a3 size each. i cut out old 10p piece size protons out of yellow see through sweetwrapper plastic that you can buy, and the same with blue for neutrons, then 1/2p size in red for electrons, which we placed in shells, but talked about the unplaceability effectively of electrons and this was just for ‘display’. we put them on one a4 side, with the protons and neutrons clumped in the middle but accurately counted, and then folded over the other a4 side, and it worked :)

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SB did clarinet [with g's as hers is in service, and sounded quite good from the kitchen] minimus, tesselating art and skoldo french, all of which she enjoyed, tho she said the skoldo now too easy for her. K’s plan tho is to race through it looking for gaps in knowledge, so hopefully a fast consolidating race will work well for her and then move on. It is nice to hear her say french is easy tho :) . BB didn’t do french – no such get out again – but really loved doing z’s tesselating art.

We had a further chat about whether we could work into the afternoon whilst G and K take children to cello some short while of something else, either a bigger craft, a bit of music theory or perhaps some singing or group music. Whilst the morning stressy for me, i need the afternoon to be a bit less intensive, so it kind of depends how pans out, but really love the group, and it would be lovely to get a good working balance. SB and L shew each other their piano skills :) , poor J got *really* attacked by a thorn bush and i drew out a thorn of nearly a cm. He was *very* brave.

SB now at brownies, and showing off baby rabbits – one of the owls would quite like a rabbit she thinks – that would be good :), we are going to have a chippery tea shortly and then SB has judo. My imigran seems to be doing a good job on migraine and planning an earlier night tonight :)

Latinetc was brought to you today by:

also edited to add, with the chippery tea we watched the wallace and grommet inventions prog, BB and i played ludo before bed, and SB played with geomags after judo and before bed. I am having an early night i think :)

Out of Phase Tuesday

Having worked Monday [and then nagged daddybean to blog about his day at home :) ] i had a phased day off today. feels nice! part time work if and when financial woes to public servants decreases a bit and therefore makes it safer is def something i would much like to do :) 3 day week would be perfect :) .

And so to today, the girls started off the day with making more christmas cards, they are really beautiful, if not necessarily christmas themed ;) SB has done a fab tree and present one that she spent some time on. BB spent a long time on one with a lizard on the outside, and you open up to a laptop inside. daddybean and i are hoping this isn’t another version of the capri sun ds trick :) . Lots of humming, singing and chatting as these got done in a very ‘isn’t this lovely’ kind of way.

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We did some story of the world 1 - middle egypt this time, and nubia. We do try and do the questions and narrations as per the activity book, but BB often gets carried away by her story telling… BB looked at the realscience for kids chemistry chapter 1, we did the pre-K and then I read the level one but simplified it a bit for her. SB and I just had time for a really good piano practice before she went out to her last bikeability session. A lovely sunny afternoon for it anyway :)

BB and I read a book and fed and played with rabbits and then watched some starwars prequel 3 before going off to swimming, where i took charge of SB and watched both their lessons before getting home. Here SB looked at her level 2 chemistry whislt sitting snuggled up close to me, and we did the questions at the end together. I think we have got moles and atomic weight and numbers sorted, tho at 9, doesn’t really matter if not. I do like the text book bit of it tho, as nice and straightforward, and being for a ‘classical’ education, has 3 levels of ability to choose from. The ‘lab’ experiment for this first chapter is a bit dull-as-ditchwater, so think can be done at home with own families, and instead we are going to do an element treasure hunt [i think] and make an element window ‘decal’ [concentrating on the first 20] which unfortunately has left me cutting out loads of blobs this eve, and therefore late to blog! I do wish the most common isotope of them had the same number of neutrons as protons, would make life much easier! Have made a list to make the decals easier to do.

we finished with watching a sarah jane on iplayer with the girls and roman mystery for SB. And all evening spent prepping for tomorrow!

remembering

SB was supporting the brownie flag at the village remembrance day service today, and we were very proud of her :) so mum and i went to the service at the memorial and the church. I have to say that the brass band went at a clipping speed! I think it is v important that our children get an opportunity to both take part in community events, but aso to think about the meaning behind some of them, like remembrance sunday and what lies behind it. last year we went to the service at duxford.

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Whilst we were out BB made dinosaur choc cookies. Dad finished painting the side door. When we came back, slightly cold, we were greeted with coffee and cookies – yum!! We did some dsing together and then played half a game of alhambra when SB leading and BB second. Mum and dad left, and I am now feeling blue :( . It is just such a hard time for us all, and being together can remind of us that.

twinkling fingers

my mother, somewhat poetically, tells me that i have twinkling fingers as i type. She is used to dad’s typing, one finger at a time, pausing to make sure the capital letters are there. i now ‘touch type’ to my own rhythm, i use only three fingers from each hand, and not the thumbs or baby fingers, this means some things i live without – capital letters :)

After a somewhat appalling night’s sleep, i got up late and hurried and chivvied the girls so we went out with mum to Anglesey Abbey national trust property to walk around the gardens and visit the working mill. i remembered to pack some sustenance, and some sketching materials, both of which were very handy :) . SB was in charge of the map, and led us down the v beautiful winter path towards the mill. There was some really beautiful planting, that took our breath away!

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The friendly volunteer at the mill soon had SB grinding the wheat by hand, and then taking us through various bits of the mill. We were lucky that they got it going fairly soon after we got there too. we then wandred aimlessly, reached the main house, which is closed in winter, and fed the troops. A meander around the formal gardens and then back to the visitors centre. We had a lovely lunch, tho the portions for the veg crumble were on the miniscule side :( , and a visit to the gift shop left us all happy.

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Returning home, chris and dad had made a start on painting the side gate, SB and i cleaned out the babies hutch and then did piano prac. SHe did some more mosaic and then played pictureka with mum, whilst bb made patterns with blokus. Chris made a delish delia recipe for tea, then we shipped children to bed and chatted.

Bedtime, will add photos from flickr tomorrow

Bye Bye Baby Buns

We were surprised in August that our allegedly 2 baby girl rabbits had made a litter of 4 healthy babies :) and at the point we found them, they had already conceived the second litter of rabbit babies ;) Skittles, the proud dad, had a swift visit to the vet, and the first 4 babies were all happily rehomed and one of the second litter also homed. This leaves 3 of the babies ready to find a new loving home from next week. These babies have been well loved and hugged, used to children giving them lots of attention, don’t nip, bite or scratch. They are part minilop and part lionhead, so not a pure breed, but for some of them, there is clearly alot of lion there, with all the furriness!

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This is where they started in the warm snuggly nest that Snowy made.
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Soon they developed fur and character
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Before long they were ready to be played with, and the love started :)
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So, anyone fancy rehoming the rabs?? they are easy and loving pets. ideally we would like to find a home for a boy and girl pair [tho you will want to neuter the boy!] and a single boy – also best neutered, and they make better lone rabs.

Lovely fluffy lionlop Black Otter Boy
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Cutie Broken Blue minilop Boy
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Adorable fluffy fawn lionlop girl
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hoping for happy homes :)

quickly blogging

my parents here, which is always lovely :) they arrived last night after being eagerly awaited by the girls – who then took ages to settle down! the girls had spent yesterday morning playing with Jax’s children whilst i was at work, and then in the aft and eve when to their serial gym lessons, except that SB forgot her leotard, so after all she didn’t :( . Piano prac and then some home ed galore park english and we watched the edwardian shops on BBC as my parents arrived :) . BB still insisted on trying puerto rico, but it is too hard for her.

Today we were all a bit late up. SB the latest again, she def has got into not liking getting up :lol: but she did her piano prac really well, and then played for mum, also did some DK project book on minerals [me looking at it for the blog below reminded her!] some of a rather too easy murderous maths workbook and then a bit of revision of the french done last time at latinetc. Mum and i did some of the dialogue with her, so that was fun :) . BB did some explode the code, and listened to SB reading Story of the World 1. we all played ticket to ride [sb won] and then BB, mum dad and I played blokus. BB and i drew. we did a fair bit of dsing alltogether – must remember to charge mine – and general chatting and bb being rather wild. finished off this eve playing ticket to ride again with dad. he won! chris and i did dreadfully :blush: lovely day :)

Resource Day – Geography

Since i no longer have any home ed to blog about :( I am going to have to regularly blog about all the lovely books I have bought, begged or borrowed ;) . This one is going to be about geography, as it is something that for ages we have read interesting books, but not something that we have included into our regular attention. Now we have started to do some more regularly, in part enthused by Kirsty and her uni degree :) .Well it is a mixture of about geography and geology!!

Some backbone texts

Only 2 this time. The first chapter of galore park starts with OS maps, and we have to help and look at other maps and make it fun to get through it to the other chapters, but actually once started, it wasn’t as hard as she thought it might be. A bit more ‘fun’ is the Letts series. These have contextualised story based knowledge and is one of the easier ways of looking at the subject. i have to say, that unlike history, where we are following predominantly a chronological history scheme with additional situational learning, here we are dotting about all over the place, just following the order of the random books we pick up :) however, spurred on by other friends interest, we are looking more at geology, and have some books to go along with that too [obviously!]. When real science 4 kids get their geology book out, we may give that a look too, as their resources are available online.

Various supplemental books/workbooks

SB has really enjoyed the DK project books, and we have had them in a number of areas. You read various facts first, then there are pages with further depth and stickers to put in, and finally at the end more of a quiz about whether you have actually learnt anything. She flits between the two and likes the mixture of page types she says. The dk rock and fossil book has also been greatly enjoyed. It also has ‘experiments’ in it which are rather fun too.

Assorted reading books

There are lots of books out there in the library, some more reading story styles, some mostly pictures, some facts and experiments, some comics and above is a selection of different ones. SB likes to read a variety of styles, as does BB, so it is useful for us to dot between different ways of presenting the same thing, but obviously some children have a more steady book style :) We have liked all of them, but have to pay special attention to those books by Meredith Hooper who has a particular way of writing and illustrating that makes these books particularly beautiful.

Other Resources
We have done lots of things with ‘practical geography’ such as geocaching, postcrossing, going fossil hunting, pebble collecting etc. We also have a few games…

Previous resource Posts
Thinking Dinosaur

History resources

Resources overview