Category Archives: daubing and making

smiling through sunday

cos I STILL have a migraine. just so not fair. had a lie in to try and shift it and meds ++. hmm!

well, BB did some more violin prac today, spurred on by yesterdays musicality, and is def v keen on this reading thing, bringing me book after book to practice on. wish i knew where we had stuffed before the code. you never know, she might be a whole word reader at this rate! though we are sounding out. SB did a piano practice and then had her head stuffed in a book – one about a roman fort, one about why castles have moats, and a storybook.

after lunch the girls went to have their photo taken with their pictures, and then can back to do loads of fimo-ing. we are making halloween ornaments [BB says to put on xmas tree] i am wondering about having a small season tree that we can decorate as the seasons go round at the moment. not entirely sure where we would put it though. had to buy LOADS more fimo from my favourite fimo supplier. Both girls did some general playing, and then we did a little bit of the french conversation book, and SB and I did some SOTW

we then snuggled, with both girls having a go at fantastic contraptions, and then watching merlin and robin hood. i think that might be it. back to work tomorrow.

thoroughly lost thursday

which is what i was trying to find the venue for the snakes session on thursday! a slight disagreement with DH, and we made it! by the time we made it, i was feeling harassed plus plus!! but we were just in time for the littlies session, and i went down with BB whilst mum vaguely supervised craft with SB. we really liked the snakeman. and BB loved the opportunity to hold the snake and lizard, and said it was the best thing ever!! [we do know she has a thing about reptiles though!! both current and the extinct - well, i know dinosauria aren't strictly reptiles, but...] Any way, we really enjoyed our session. i think SB’s with mum was harder work as more people in the session, but she still really enjoyed the opportunity to touch and hold the snake and lizard, and would like to have had ore time. they both did get the chance to go back and meet some more of the reptiles, and also do some lovely lizard based crafts. Thanks to the organisers and enablers.

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i left early as still in somewhat of a dither from contretemps with DH, and parked in a short time only spot etc etc. when we came home, we did science – always soothes me!! SB and BB did some of the horrible science explosives kit, and i loved the lava lamp take on the volcano favourite!! Mum did more curtaining, and dad was still painting away [bless]

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we also did LOADS more HE, as the girls have been in a v productive mood! SB has loved her wizard whimstaff workbook – the first spellings one, and raced through. she is also enjoying the maths section on shapes and areas, and found chris’s tangram book, and had a lot of fun making the shapes with that. bB joined in with her maths and also pattern blocking. in fact, BB has been so keen on maths, she has taken the book to bed several times to do ‘bedmaths’ and is now on earlybird 1B. She has a much better pencil grip and easier writing effort than SB at a simialr age. most of SB’s maths was oral, but BB likes doing a certain amount of the number writing [within limits of course!] BB has also had something of a letter sound moment, and is more and more reliable in identifying the sounds at the start of words, and realising words are made up of sound sequences. she can’t recognise many letters yet, so we are still doing a bit of that, but she loves to hold books and look at pictures and say she is reading, and I have read countless books to her.

ANother thing we have done a lot of this week is french. we have done french conversations and read a lot of stories in french. i am not sure this is the best way in the world, but it suits us. it seems to mimic how we might pick up our native language, gets us comfortable with a foreign language all together, and doesn’t frighten me – who finshed with o-level only! SB and BB do it together. SInce SB only just getting comfortable with writing in english, i am obviously not going for writing and reading in another language yet! SB did piano with mum and then read loads of books, including stories to BB.

SB had gymnastics – which i haven’t got to watch before, so happy to do that! [and also chill]. i was impressed by the amount they work out, and clear to see what sb’s strengths and weaknesses are. we will work perhaps on headstands and poised balance!! [BB missed her session - oops]

wrong paint wednesday

we are racing through the blogging aren’t we! mind you, i am prob forgetting great chunks of it, and may go back and add!!we were having a lovely time, v happy to have my parents here. dad working hard in toilet [poor man] chris up a ladder priming the window with linseed, mum playing with kids and measuring for curtains. so today [as in wed] mum was in charge of morning HE whilst chris and i went to homebase to buy paint for dad to use. mum did ok with HE, sb did her maths and spelling, and a violin with mum. chris and i did not so well, after a lot of humming and hawing, we chose a lovely colour, but worried it would look dark, so did the paintmixing thing to get a lighter version. rather than a khaki green but lighter, it is, well, white wth hint of blue. not sure how that happened at all. oh well. we can get used to most things!

girls did lots of painting in the afternoon for the painting exhibition in the church. i had got some textured wall paper for them to play with as well, and i cut out some basic shapes to get them started. they both made v different pictures. SB organised the sahpes to make a village of house with qarage, flats and a windmill. BB used the textured pieces as sand, and then had dinosaurs running about at the seaside. SB decided she didn’t want to use her village as the entry, and did a very freestyle picture, building up layers of blue, anding with her tipping the palette upside down on it. she was rather disappointed the paint spread out, and it wasn’t fully dry on fri evening, but she was v happy with it.

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we then went through 2 art books looking at the different styles used, and discussing which she would like to try out. she then went on to do some more fantastic contraptions – which she is rather fond of, and BB watched some night garden. Mum near enough finished the curtains, and dad did the first coat of paint!

judo for SB – always a busy lass!!

chris may not blog?

he says he might tomorrow! so i won’t steal his thunder!!

whilst not at work for a short patch, the girls were keen to ‘do’ things. my mum had brought up some 70′s craft books i had got one xmas [from aunty doris and uncle ralph, i know this, because the tag is still sellotaped inside] and BB chose to make tissue paper flowers with me, which we enjoyed lots, though i actually did most of it! one thing i like in this book is there is a making paper bag masks bit, and the illustrated page of kids wearing them has a toddler running away wailing!! SB wanted to do science, so she did the volcano thing, and got through half a bottle of sarsons! we need to source cheap vinegar!!

also today, after measuring the temp in the kitchen at 13, the heating went on. sb and i went round the whole house measuring the temp in each room – highest 15. def cold! we had a chat about what might make rooms colder – number of outside walls, windows without double glazing etc. once the heating has got going, we will remeasure.

bB and i played no-rules draughts [i lost due to non understanding of the rules, and penalties of my pieces being randomly removed] SB read LOADS of books [including a horrid henry joke book, and we had to listen to them - groan!!]. we picked our own sweetcorn for tea, and also raspberries, blackberries and apples.

i did lots of reading. we read our emilie books [en francais] – 3 of them, and then i read loads of the goblin and ghoul stories too. SB escaped SOTW and Latin, and also music practice – though i did some piano practice.

they had toasted marshmellows on open fire for pudding – though SB burnt tongue and finger despite many warnings to be careful. bless her, she is most accident prone.

And i worked – sigh

edited to add – i forgot to add that i mended one of bb’s stretchy dinodoors with copydex and then sutures. seems to be holding firm at present, and not leaking any more little rubber balls! successful surgery

nice car

yep, thanks v much! need to work out what some of the buttons do, obviously.

had an early finish from work, which was much needed after a dreadful night sleep! SB had a nightmare and came in to chat at 3am!!

she obviously got a lie in, which i didn’t. but she was probably more productive, doing maths, handwriting and a maths experiment in the morning. when i got home she did a really lovely violin practice, and she is getting to have a really comfortable looking posture.

we were then going to do a science kit. i suggested trying out one of the young scientist club ones from the egg booklet sarah sent up with steve [thanks v much sarah - i will def use the ideas in them for the science group and am v v greatful!], but she decided to do a build a robot kit we have, got it all out and then had a strop and put it away again. fair enough. she still wanted to do science, and bb now also desperate, so she went to get an enviroment kit, and got it all out, realised some of it has to be done outside, had a strop, put it away. then got a much used physics kit out and… had a strop because half the pieces must be scattered round the house, and she couldn’t do any of the experiments she wanted to – sigh! however, she found a game and was quite happy sorting it out. then she did lots of building with our fun blox sets. BB and i did a pompom craft, as she was in a fever to do something!

we finished the afternoon with a slump infront of muzzy. i def think its improving my german comprehension anyway!!

our camera seems to have disapparated. we can’t find it anywhere. chris said he took a photo with it this morning, i am fairly convinced that i saw it beside the cooker when i came in from work. but there is no sign of it anywhere at all. humph!! SB won’t let me borrow hers either.

New Mondays, with added spice

Been a bit of rearrangement of Monday since before the summer, SB still doing ballet (3.40 – 4.25), but this is now followed by Brownies, which she started this term. Rather annoyingly there is a 30 minute gap between the two (the venues are right next to each other) which isĀ  short enough to mean it isn’t worth going home, but seems long enough when you have to go back out to the ballet class to pick her up to wait for Brownies to start. OK at the mo when we can go in playground, but in winter will need to ask ballet teacher if we can waitin the hall I guess. So it leaves me feeling a bit like a yo-yo, and SB hungry by the time we get dinner :-)

The added spice is that the Punto now has no MOT so only one car on the road at the mo, and the HE sports sessions started up again today. Luckily Helen is working just down the road from there on Mondays, so 7.45 (eeek!!) saw us all in the car. Dropping Helen at work we popped in to the supermarket to buy some stuff for breakfast/lunch. Said they could have doughnuts for breakkie 8-), but then in the car the decided to eat the Wotsits and Quavers they had bought to ahev with lunch – so a nutritious energy packed breakfast before doing sports then :-)

BB tried out the sports session today (guide age is 4-7 for the younger group) stayed in there almost to the end, though she had SB with her, showing her what to do and helping her. Don’t think she’d have been up to doing it all by herself though yet. But seemed keen to do it again, she was so pleased to be doing the same thing as Stringbean. SB was going to try out the older group as well, but decided not to after all, I think she decided she’d rather run around and play instead :-) So there was someĀ  rather noisy and raucous playing, with some grown up HE talk then headed off to the park for a bit. Helen’s text to say she was finsihing work came at the same time as the Deependers were departing, so that was good timing.

Home via Tesco’s just in time to start the above Ballet/Brownies yo-yo. BB fell asleep in car, watched something or oher and did some Fimo-ing with Helen. While waiting for Brownies to start, had a bit of a conversation about what the Scouts etc. are, the Guides, relationship between the two, why maybe the guides etc. have stayed girl only whilst the Scouts etc. accept girls as well now. She did say that she liked the idea of doing wild things with boys ! :-) AS an aside, it’s be interesting to see how the Cubs activities compare to the Brownies.

Children all in bed at appropriate times tonight, so getting things back to normal, I was going to go to bed at sensible time, but haven’t managed it. Have blogged though :-) And have discussed possible science activities with Helen for the Wednesday group

odin’s day

we are being reasonably productive at the moment. yesterday the girls had a library morning, making owls and listening to owl stories, and SB has read loads of her library books. she also did some piano and handwriting. She learnt she had got a place at gym – woohoo, and also went to the first swimming of term, she is now at level 7, so v happy.

today SB did some violin and piano. we are trying to do 15 minutes more regularly, but this is v variable! SHe has done maths and spellings as well. from the box books she chose some of the viking stories [we have viking fact and fiction, volcano fact and fiction and weather fact in there at the mo]. We also did the first chapter of minimus, realising we have forgotten too much of our sketchy latin!

BB has also done lots of letterland books [ iread them and we play search for the main letter of the book] as well as counting and jigsaws. She also played on starfall.

we all made castles and other creations out of wooden bricks for a while, and played outside for a bit too, and i read a french book with them both.

SB has done some education city science, and bB loads of the jump ahead starting maths. i was desperate to do something crafty, so eventually enticed them away with air drying clay. BB made snowmen and SB the start of the viking badges in the hundred history projects book. They both wanted to be facepainted, so i did that, but soon they wanted it off as they said it was itchy.

SB did a chromatography experiment with felt tips to see what hidden colours were there after initially identifying the pen that had made the ‘test’ chromatogram. she really loved doing this, and i think plans to do loads more. i think we might then have a go with 2 way chromatography on the ones that didn’t split well and use alcohol as the other solvent [though we don't have pure ethanol!] and perhaps see what might happen with other solvents.

a quiet time with ‘how things work’ and ‘magic school bus’ and then a castle/fairy game before tea and bed. I have started shortening SB’s judo suit.

chris has had fun with a blocked drain, and sorting camping stuff for the weekend. i love camping!

after the excitement…

… comes the eating up of spare party food – never so enjoyable!! though katy’s cheese bread that i missed on the day has been wolfed down!

chris and the girls went shopping for some non party food, and also try out a different library. SB has done maths and handwriting, and we have printed out the first Dolch set of words for her to learn how to spell. Since they are allegedly common words, we thought we could start with those, especially since a lot of them are easy!

both girls have done a lot of playing with shops today, and also castle stuff, and also being puppy dogs. SB has bee doing a lot of french knitting, and made BB a bracelet, and also some painting of kits and bB has made pompom creatures.

When i got home we did some french altogether – BB ‘woofed’ her responses – hmm. We read some viking stories, a section of SoTW and did recorder practice. Bit of playing outside, and a game of SET. BB also did some blowing on the recorder.

i am STILL flickring. i will delete duplicate photos when up i think.

RSPB walk

yesterday morning we whipped through music practices, read some french book and did some maths before lunch :wink: SB had found zoombinis cd and working through that – bit of deja vu having only just read t-birds post!

in the afternoon we did our monthly rspb walk with the manor borns – after i had had i minor strop that chris hadn’t packed my fleece – we were obviously speaking in different languages to each other again! but the weather was lovely, so no fleece required. the girls all greated each other enthusiastically, and we were on and running. we did the quarry path – as i think it is all of our favourites, but especially BB, who did us proud in walking and running. it really was a joy of a walk, good friends and happy children.

back to their house for dinner – yummy – and more children playing fun.

today i have had some lurgy, so had a sick day. i hate sick days, as i have to make up all the work at a later date, and some work is particularly challenging to retimetable. but i wasn’t safe to practice as it were. today i slept till lunchtime, had 3 hours up – bb insisted on doing reading, maths, piano and violin with me!! SB was less speedy, and did french , maths and a lot of reading of asterix! we then all did a craft kit that both girls enjoyed painting and decorating wooden bugs. SB should have done some music but i ran out of effort. she is currently watching roar.

i went back to bed as she had her gym taster session – which hopefully will give her a gym place this year. i have now got up – sort of, as horizantal on sofa instead.

too hot to blog

too hot to think.

i had the tremendous privilege of working in borneo for 2 months when a student, and spent part of that plying my future trade up and down the deepest interior of the rainforest in a motorised canoe from marudi and sibu. perhaps i was more acclimatised, but i feel hotter and sweatier and stickier than then! we have had a torrential downpour, which doesn’t seem to have reduced heat or humidity. there i always stood under the mandy to tip cold water over my head to let me sleep! [you can see i was a honoured visitor to the iban and dayak longhouses, as more commonly all bathing is done in the lovely leech infested rivers!]

anyway, it was too hot to think all day, so we did butterfly half paintings, where you fold to get the mirror image. that took up lots of day! sb also did a paint a fairy kit, and bb lots of paddling pooling. we read about camille and the sunflowers and looked at our fab sunflowers. i did a sunflower picture that we then took a print from.

we did a bit of french about clothes, but its been too hot to think, so we also did harvesting = beans and pots for tea. and i did some weeding after all.

i am now going to collapse infront of a prog about australian wildlife and hope bb goes to sleep soon – she had a siesta unfortunately!