Author Archives: HHaricot

I am glad to see that they have changed their minds, and are now having a parity price structure with school educated chldren. though it is optimised for school children – not sure what that means?? dumbed down? ANyway, thankyou. the pricing structure is being reviewed, however, and probably will move in a upwards direction

we had an unexpected visit from The Babs today, which was lovely, and 2/3 of her offspring, who looked at rabbits, played on the wii etc for the morning. did mean another slow HE day – and since ‘come out’ about ticklists! SB did do some galore park junior science 2 and some singapore maths 4A, and BB did some explode the code 1 and some singapore maths 1a.

B and i had a lovely chat, wishing we could change the world and the financial crisis still to come. As families with wages dependent on public sector it is a bit daunting anyway, let alone all the other bits and pieces to come. trying to be philosophical about things! we discussed further home ed things, including the real science for kids series. i dunno! think it might be nice to use the real science 4 kids level 1 for the younger group and maybe try level 2 for the older group whilst in this year of flux? do the other latinetc want to consider this? and maybe the babs or kirsty could send me the link to look at bits of it online [again!]

the kids then dd some home ed whilst i cleaned out skittles cage, he had a runabout and the big babies went in his run for a bt. then took BB to gym. she really is a tiny dot there and has so much fun and then we went to deependers for handmade pizza and pudding. a lovely evening, and enjoyed the tour of the solar power as well [sb also had gym and left new leotard there on second outing - luckilly found!]

we were somewhat depleted today for science with various children off doing other things, but it was still fun latinetc i think has been a v successful part of our home ed partnership learning/socialisation and a lot of effort and energy has been invested in keeping it succesful. so today i thought i had better be a bit more inventive in science than i have been recently.

SO we did acids and metals, following a reasonable lengthy and didactic safety spiel from me to put fear of god in the correct places! We added HCl to a variety of metals and discussed their relative reactivity, what the chemical equation was, what gas might be produced and how we can test for it. The aluminium was a woweee reaction, proper mad scientist strong reaction with plenty of H2 tested with a lit match, and we definitely heard a pop sound. The iron was a reasonable reaction, but reminded me a bit of those sludge indoor fireworks you used to be able to get. The copper didn’t do anything [as it shouldn't] . we discussed the reactions being exothermic, and did a bit of writing. The experiment was drawn from this book :

[note to self, need to buy more disposable gloves and also fine top pan scales and test tube tongs!]

Science not the only thing, i heard SB do her clarinet, K did latin with them and there was also enough time for some craft with Z and a general runabout. time for the grownups to have tea and chat too . the children ran off to the field to play. BB was particularly ecstatic to have R to play with an unexpected joy for her.

we returned home in time to move BB to swimming, sb to brownies and then SB to judo fter tea with the reptiles david attenborough. we need to find another dvd series now

I think tuesday is my ‘hump’ day, i was quite low last week, and whilst not so plummetingly low this tuesday, really could have spent the day curled up with duvet . Consequently the children had a bit of a raw deal on the interaction front, as in the morning i started off the back flickring. It is back to the beginning of august – yelp! I have put this off as this means going thro the last month when viv was alive. however, since already a bit low, thought what the ….. and have started. SO those who have seen us since august may finally see the photographic evidence.

Whilst i was holed away, SB did a nano clarinet prac [which i failed to notice entirely!], a golf prac, painted all the rest of her plaster of paris creations and the gruesome grammar book. ALso much playng and giggling with BB [which is great to hear and perked me up], a very long bath [half the afternoon!] and then a golf lesson followed by swimming lesson.

BB was a bit grumpier by my non-interaction, and did some dsing, finished her paint by numbers dinosaur, and then insisted I help her finish book 1 of the little childrens music theory. SHe had an even longer bath than SB, and seriously prune like before came out. We opened up the last of our puppet kits from play merrily – the spider one, perfect for halloween! We’ve not completed it, but done a fair bit! we then ran about abit before going to watch SB’s swimming lesson.

We all went to the lesson, not just to watch SB, who has improved a lot since i last went, but to all be there to go to the town michaelmas fair afterwards. we did this last year and enjoyed it. It is a very swift way to empty your pockets, but felt that we all deserved it! so the girls were given a quota of rides which they could swap for tat or sweets etc, and all came away thinking we had had a good time! SB def liking the faster rides. she got a bit of a buffetting on the dodgems tho as so light. BB is finally getting ride adventurous and had a fab time as well :). SHe still did 2 hook a duck instead of a ride, and chose a crossbow!!! Anyway def best part of £50 [eek] well spent.

home to a chippery tea infront of another david attenborough ‘life’ and then bedtime, as i had run out of maternal tolerance. sorting out science for tomorrows latinetc. and thankyou to nikki for this fab link for me to look at

ha ha! i do enjoy home educating. Today chris and the girls would normally have gone to a group of really friendly home educators, who i do v much like, but i’m still not feeling groupy enough to leave comfort zone home except for a few exceptions [which is why not returned to work after long discussion with gp re failure and guilt] ah bah, i am getting better tho. determinedly!

ANyway, i was woken up by bouncing children, and came downstairs to blearily find myself a nice warm spot in the conservatory [ ] and watch SB do some colouring. However, this was shattered by BB who insisted I help her finish her knight, oh well! We did, and another great kit completed – have put a few more on the wishlist.

I like this pic BB was a bit resistant to being home educated today, she prefered to Do It Herself, so did explode the code [ a little] ‘read’ the whole of a city through time in about 5 seconds [lol] ds-ed = nintendogs – blasted new dog [chichiwawa (sic)], and she named it blackie, forgot and trained it to answer to ‘love’ cue massive amounts of wailing since I don’t know how to untrain the thing. grrr nintendogs! lots of discussion over selling things to make money for dog, but needing to feed and water it etc etc, so i am calling it educational. tho admit to failing to find cookingmama anything other than irritating! hmm!! then she settled with some paint by numbers and baked a cake with me whilst SB at ballet. in between snuggles, tickles, shrieking [lots] playing with rabbits and racing around in the garden like a loon

SB is getting the hang of self propulsion in the HE department, tho really would prefer to snuggle in conservatory with a good book i think – hmm! dunno who else in our family would be doing that She did some colouring in her costume through the ages book, then some singapore maths 4a, then finished her mosaic angel, a 5 mins clarinet prac due to failure to breath still followed by painting some plaster of paris models made yonks ago [on the premise that some things need to actually be FINISHED or they will find a new life in the bin...]. We snuggled and I read Story of the world 3 about Louis XIV, then she read some of her book history of space for getting 30 things done last week whilst i tried to sort out the nintendog debacle some ds-ing and then some smelly spellings before ballet. As you can see our home ed bits are often bitesize rather than long attention span things.

The rabbits are all doing well. Skittles is def fed up with being on his own, we let him run free for most of the day, and he mostly spends that by the run and hutch of snowy and babies. however, i have noticed today that snowy paying him far more attention, and giving the big girls a little nip to send them scurrying into the hutch if they pay skittles any attention… rabbits! well, just under 2 weeks before they are all rehomed. fudge, the boy is so glorious that i think t-bird should consider using him as a stud his babies will be beautiful… i think the baby rabs have all been so adorable. we have the little babies now to watch grow up, but part of me wishes we could keep them all…

ermm, so we watched bang goes the theory and autumnwatch at teatime whilst eating the most gorgeous stew i think i have ever had. Thanks love, really, really yummy! And in animal crossing I have a golden watering can for having a perfect village

books: todays home ed is brought to you in part by

this being the third blog i write this evening, and trying to get them all in by midnight! [yep, i backdated the saturday one so they appeared in time order rather than writing order.] Today was a good day! lovely and sunny. however, we had spent all day yesterday out and about, and the girls wanted to get some other things done. SB was a few ticks short of her magic 30 for a book, and wanted to complete, and BB had invented a game she wanted me to play. SO we went into the conservatory – our new fav room! i played BB’s convoluted game [with changing rules!] and managed to win – somewhat of a shock there since i had no idea what i was doing

SO SB did some galore park junior english 1, followed by an out and about maths workbook because she couldn’t find her singapore maths [which i have subsequently done] and then some of the DK project book on human bodies. She did a short clarinet practice – with difficulty, because she has got a cold, and the breathing is hard. SHe also did a short piano prac, and declared herself ticked off in the meantime BB and I had moved onto a ‘real’ game of rubbish sorting, oh and I was taking photos for the 10/10/10 meme thingy – see below!

Having done that, we went out and inspected rabbits. the fawn one is the explorer of this group, and was again in the run, tho snuggled in the hayhole we have put in there, but i have made a leapstopper so can’t get out for a bit, as worried that really too young for that kind of leaping. let skittles out – and he makes a beeline for the family run, as he can sit under the hutch and ‘chat’ thro the wire. awwww. not so long now skittles! SB and i then played marbles – not done that for a while!

lunch, of left over jackets from last night made into sautes with fried egg and beans – a proper caff lunch! and then onto tidying no-one in our house is a particular fan of tidying and sorting, so there tends to be the usual grumpy moments doing it, especially since i was helping BB sort out tat into big and little tat boxes she did agree to part with some of it, which will replenish our geocache tattrove! but anyway, job done, more or less! so we proceeded onto craft. SB had found a mosaic craft again, and she wanted to do that, but BB just couldn’t settle on anything. after much wailing and gnashing of teeth she settled on a knight puppet craft. good thing we have so many! in between painting rounds, BB ran around with balloons and lizards in her own game, and SB revised 2 chapters of the minimus so as to be up to speed for this weeks latin . She also had a lot of fun blowing bubbles in the conservatory. Have I said that I love the conservatory??

SB snuck off to play with lego quietly without sibling and I kept said sib occupied with dsing – including the dreaded nintendogs! [BB loves that :)] and animal crossing, where I give bB all my money to make her house bigger, run around removing her weeds etc etc!

And then all of a sudden teatime and bedtime – that snuck up on us! Chris, bless him, has done lots of tidying

Today is 10:10:10, and one of the memes going around [as well as doing pi in binary, which is a bit much for me!] was to take 10 photos an hour apart. Not exactly sure why 10 an hour apart, because perhaps 1 at 10:10 10:10:10 would have been more like it. Anyway, not my meme, but i like taking photos!

SO we were in the conservatory, as the current nicest room in the house, and most of the photos are from there.

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other memers here and here

Unfortunately i was given an earworm for the day by lecielrouge from Dora the Explorer! Hence the title!!
We all met up for a day of geocaching. It was quite ambitious [for us!], with 9 planned caches in 2 separate spots, with a picnic inbetween. The day was fab, nice and warm, but not too hot. the countryside idyllic, and great company for both adults and kids. [SB and P were partic cute]

first stop was a previous fail to find, once by us and lecielrouge together [and we had 2 shots at it that time] and another time by lecielrouge on their own. We were absolutely determined this time! we paced, measured, scouted and scoured… and still didn’t find it!! ARGH! The nettles had even been strimmed! We did, however, find lots of funghi and insects! As part of our camouflage from ‘muggles’ we did do some educating on funghi and insects! so, somewhat disheartened we went to the next one.

This one was a lovely walk along the river, across a couple of bridges to a little island. the streams were v clear, and we saw some perch and just looked idyllic. i said to mrlecielrouge – i would prob hide it just there on the other side, and there it was! fab!! and even better for the girls, a tat exchange one! we placed in 2 travelbugs, mine and vivien’s – which we hope will visit Italy, USA and Canada, as places she had plans to go back to. if her children are interested, we hope to show them where her keyring visits. I dunno, it just seemed a good idea to have something non emotionally invested that could open a discussion with her in it. if it doesn’t, well my kids are looking forward to seeing where they will all go! I nearly led mrslecielrouge across to the wrong next island by misremembering where the next cache was, so we went across the ‘salmonweir bridge’ i am pretty sure no salmon here?? saw a fab spiders web, and i realised just in time to be going back the right way when pulled up on it by daddybean and the GPS!

kids starting to bemoan the lack of sustenance in their belly, so had a picnic by the historic mill. kids running around having fun together and building dens. BB was quite tired and cuddly tho, so had a long snuggle, and did wonder whether we would do the third cache,

SO third cache across the watermeadows, but a sturdy path to a magnetic micro on the bridge. found without too much angst, and more importantly, without wet feet or muddyness! All v proud of selves, and happily came back towards car. some of us got back much sooner, having been chatting away, and not realised kids had stopped to feed the cows – giggle!

A move of venue, and first stop the supermarket for far cheaper icecream! We then bailed out of doing the supermarket cache as we were way too conspicuous and thought most likely to be referred to police for suspicious activity around the bike racks! we didn’t count that as a fail to find, as more a fail to look. So the proper first was near a pub, again a magnetic micro, fairly swiftly found. A walk along the river to the next, and this one was a failure to read the opening times of the museum rather than a ftf :blush:

Better luck with the next magnetic micro whilst girls swirling, twirling and chasing on the nearby grass then re-enthused, we trekked off to another tat exchange one, found a geocoin for the first time – so big! and dropped off another 2 travelbugs of ours, SB’s ELF and BB’s The Lizard. I don’t know if ppl can see those links? anyway, will upload pics of the travelbugs shortly…

Final micro of the day in a disused cemetery, found far more quickly than anticipated. it is overlooked from 2 sides by houses, and so completely impossible to tell whether we were observed, and it is hard for 8 to look inconspicuous! SO we didn’t attempt 2, and failed to find 1, so we counted that as a score of 6/7.

The children persuaded us all v easily to come back to ours for tea and more play/chatting/baby rabbit adoration, and so a really lovely day, thankyou lecielrouge

But I had got somewhat distracted by anger with the Royal Institution. yes, that place that i have raved about for their great science lectures for school aged children, and their welcome of HE-ers. Unfortunately no more! No, instead they are charging a slight increase to HE-ers compared with school educated children, as they are concentrating on ‘mainstream education’. Looking at the events, this turns out to be a factor of 400%. not so slight!

We welcome home educators to participate in the schools programme at the Royal Institution.

Our popular programme of demonstration events operate during school term times, and tickets are available through our events calendar. We charge a small ticket fee to minimise non-attendance and we invest ticket income into the events that we put on. Home educator fees are slightly higher than those for school parties, as our programme is primarily intended for those in mainstream education.

We charge a small ticket fee to minimise non-attendance and we invest ticket income into the events that we put on. Tickets for school groups are £1.50 per person (teachers and students). School groups are welcome to combine their visit with a tour of the museum. Call the schools dept on … for more information, or to book our limited space for your students to have lunch.
Home educators are welcome, priced at £8 for adults and £6 for young people. Home educators can buy Ri membership and get their tickets for £4.

if you find this to be as discriminating against home educated children as i do, feel free to contact them!

Hmm, lets get back to the task in hand – blogging! well, we are still moving things from the normal playroom/home ed room, as the windows are being stripped, fixed and painted, and messy, dusty and full of painters, so that took some time!

girls did some home ed in the conservatory with me – SB maths and handwriting, BB music theory and explode the code. SB also did some piano prac, oh, and had a golf lesson first thing! We finally parcelled and sent off chloe’s present.

We finished watching Prince Caspian, and then having made a spur of the moment date with lecielrouge family to geocache the following day, and having just received through the post our new travelbugs, we sat and made chunky fimo keyrings for them! well, i did and SB did, but BB made a v delicate one of me [which is lovely, tho not quite so representational] and chris already had a chrisbead made previously, so that they were all ready to go out. i did stay up somewhat late varnishing them…

i have blog posts wrestling in my head to be first ones out! But it is going to be my account of the days! Yesterday we went to Merry’s and basically the girls played and we chatted [sobbed]. missed BB’s swimming lesson unfortunately SB still did judo tho. [editing to add, yes, it was a lovely day of chilling with a good friend x x we nattered, did a bit of grieving, a bit of gossiping, a bit of forward planning and the girls did playing, board games, imagination etc and BB and J were fab together and the rest got there after a shaky start which is why we were late home, as the girls voted with their feet, and I wasn't in a great hurry either]

Today I had a lazier start, with SB having slept in our bed last night, finally going to sleep at half past 1! Our book people order arrived I went to GP, and will now have to chat to occ health to see if can return without on call first. [appt arranged by work, should find out when 2moro], have some more time till can be organised, but starting to feel i could go back to the normal work bit, find my feet again, and then add the stressful out of hours bit. .

Girls and i decided to do some home ed in the conservatory, as nice and warm there. BB did some music theory and then some explode the code 1, and SB some galore park geography and recorder prac. We haven’t tried the galore park geography before, but talked about it, and SB thought she would give it a go. we did it quite a bit together to start with, as it begins with map reading, and we spent a while consolidating how to find the coordinates. once she got the hang of it it was fairly easy and fun, so she thinks she will do it again.

She also wants me to find nice italian workbook for her – argh. no hurry tho – phew! any suggestions? had a look on here, but so hard to tell! Made harder by the fact that I don’t speak Italian! SB recorder playing seems to have suddenly improved a lot as well enjoyed her playing today. BB had finished 10 ticks, so got to choose a book – a cartoon version of chaucers Canterbury tales – lol! Fab book!!

we played with rabbits and then [after washing hands!] had lunch in the conservatory as well. it is going to make a great HE space! After lunch we have got onto chapter 5 finally in Story of the World 1! [woohoo!!] for SB and BB, then started dismantling the playroom, as the painters need to go in there next BB off to gym, SB did piano prac and then we played landlock and rummy and then I took SB to gym [it is still quite an effort actually to leave the house tho]. BB returned with chris, and started to make a card for Uncle M [we forgot his birthday ::(: ] out of felt, needle felting it to make a pic, and it looks really good .

that pretty much finishes off the day. oh, dinner was watching the first half of Prince Caspian, so a change from David Attenborough!