Category Archives: little languages

SO, trying the new leaf

Posted on August 17, 2009 by | 5 comments

BB again had swimming, and was doing backstroke happily [with buoyancy aids]. Chris took SB to GP as cough doesn’t seem to be improving at all. only a nuisance when she laughs or lies flat, but last night i found a stethoscope and listened, and heard a number of creps! SO has antibiotics. she is well though, so ‘pneumonia’ conjures up a bit more of an alarmist position, so i am going to call it a chest infection…

Anyway, this didn’t stop her doing things, and when i got home from work she was finishing some maths and had done piano practice. BB did some maths with me, and we all went outside. monsterrabs was petted and made a fuss of, i read about the black death from SoTW2, and we all declared interesting. think i have some other books around this to pull out for SB. also read the first chapter from

which seems to have a bit of crossover with our island story with some of the alfred the great bits, and SB loved it. and we also did read together the first few pages of Handa’s Hen, a bilingual french book from little linguist [link in sidebar to fabulous language resource shop!!] and have added morning, afternoon, evening and night to our vocab. the one prob with these french books is the past historic tense they are written in! this is as we are really after learning vocab for conversation!, but as we are not in the position of declining verbs or anything, when we look at the french, i tend to pick out nouns and then transfer the verb to present tense as we would us it to talk so that hopefully the girls get used to the stem meaning something. BB is doing some decoding of cvc words at present, but as yet refuses to remember all the alphabet, so a bit hit and miss!!

much playing on the swings and in the garden whilst this going on, honestly SB is well!!

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Posted in Books, Butterbean's HE, early maths skills, General, history, language, little languages, music, numeracy, Out and About, pre reading

being normal!

Posted on July 29, 2009 by | 2 comments

i don’t really feel that i have been normal for quite a while now, and i am probably still not normal. i am still grieving for little nanny, and worrying for my sister. but have made a clear decision that life just must go on as normally as poss for the family, as i feel i wobbled a bit too much last year, with far less justification. so having had a number of exciting weekends and exciting weeks, we have settled this week to trying to be a bit more ‘normal’ and actually get some HE done!! I know, we have had lots of fab experiences which are all educational and have loved them all, but wanted to touch a reality base!

SO, chris has been tidying – well, it seems a bit like the firth of forth bridge really! BB has moved onto the next maths book – singapore earlibird 2A and is v happy with herself, and SB also moved onto the next one – singapore 3B, which seems a bit revisiony at the moment – no bad thing considering what slowcoaches at maths we have been!! She has also been doing some piano and recorder practice, and is v proud to play one of the pieces in Recorder from the Beginning: Tune Book 3. As always she is reading, and has also done a small section in each of Junior English Book 1 and Junior Science Book 1. today we have also done a bit of french, reading this book from a fab series Jill and the Beanstalk and

I read these whilst the girls were hama beading to make cards for their cousin’s 9th birthday. also – at SB’s request, some story of the world. we rather liked the imagery of mehmed’s boats in the taking of constantinople. it appears we have come to the end of the middle ages, and not really done much english based since the battle of hastings! luckilly we have other books… BB and i did some more french – spotting the picture for the word from a 1000 words book, and also some lego, whilst SB and chris shopped.

so there, a normal, boring but oh so lovely day! full of conversation, cuddles and time. now i am flickring – aaargh!! oh, and we are harvesting potatoes and beans and courgette/marrows!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, early maths skills, General, history, language, little languages, music, noises and sounds, numeracy, science, Stringbean's HE

more splashing

Posted on July 4, 2009 by | Leave a comment

today we did a lot of splashing in and out of the pool. even i went in. it wasn’t as hot as yesterday, but by the time i had hoed the veg patch, i really needed to cool down! oh, and SB cooked poached eggs for breakfast – fantastic.

last weekend apparently cousin m told sb that when he does really well, he gets a mars bar. she wanted to know what the home-ed equivalent was. hmm, we said, what do you think? so she has got the timetable idea out again, and if she does 2/3 of what is on there, she gets her mars bar. some of the splashing today has therefore been the tears when we pointed out we could see she had ticked off things she hadn’t done. claims that someone else had done that were discarded. also tears of ‘completing’ her english [section 3.1 of galore park] when i opened to find it wasn’t. it took an hour to complete it. we aren;t autonomous, but we are child led and normally we don’t have battles over what to do, and especially with wailing thrown in. but fibbing about it to me changes the goal posts. once she was done, she was all happiness and light, so it obviously wasn’t so traumatic after all.

things that sb did happily were: singapore maths – giggle at it suddenly becoming newsworthy!; music theory – having finally found again the My First Theory Book! listening to me read The Story Of the World – the Middle Ages V 2 (Story of the World: History for the Classical Child (Paperback)): Middle Ages v. 2 about the taking of constantinople and some french words about animals.

BB has also been busy HE wise. although i was tempted to ‘give them stuff to do’ and the read a book, i felt i owed it to us all to actually interact, so grabbed a science kit for BB, and she LOVED it. it is now her kit, as too simple for sb. it is a first electric kit, and she followed the pictures rather than the written instructions, with a bit of help, and made a circuit with a light, and then a motor, which whizzed cards on it and blended the colours – more excitement. but what was so fab was her total thrill and enjoyment that she COULD do it!

both girls made very glittery cards for my sisters birthday at the end of the week. am a bit stalled over what to do as a present. what do you get? hmmm. flip camera? digital photo frame? john lewis vouchers [snort!] just dunno. the cards, however, will give a lasting impression – certainly to the carpets! sb in particularly spent ages getting it just how she wanted.

we did lots of messing in the pool though. bb is being v adventurous in that not quite swimming way. sb learnt to swim by drowning under water and then standing to breathe, and i think this is bb’s technique too. she jets under water and then stands up, breathes, and does some more. she is booked into a 2 week intensive swimming course this summer [my word!] and might be able to swim after that! i love the fact that she went on that they would have to have her somewhere shallow as she had v short legs – :lol: so she does. SB is quite the water wild child, and having great fun twisting, rolling and cavorting in the water. i also got lots of cuddles. good!!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, Cooking, daubing and making, gardening, General, history, investigating, language, literacy, little languages, numeracy, SB-PE, Stringbean's HE, writing

better day.

Posted on July 1, 2009 by | 2 comments

i worked hard today at trying not to let my total lack of tolerance be so obvious. was tricky in parts, but pretty much managed, and only suspected of nipping off for a breath/sob once. and we did loads of happy things together. starting with me having to get up way too early as chris dropped mondeo in for aircon refurb. after brekkie, we tidied up the playroom, sb read Cinderella: Level 1: Learn French Through Fairy Tales [With CD] (Slangman Kids: Level 1) rather well to BB. it doens’t have a good write up on amazon, and wasn’t what i expected, but sb likes to read it, and although it has perhaps 10 words in french in it, we count it!!! SB then did some maths, where it appears she has suddenly completely lost the plot wrt to long multip and division. it took her ages!!!

BB chose to do some art out of First Book of Art she started with the fingerprint dragon – which looked really fab when she had finished, and then moved onto the paper elephant. this was incredibly over the top, with glued jewels and feathers. she had a great time. when sb finished her maths, she moved onto this art book Art Treasury and chose the project to emulate the great wave at kanagawa by hokusai, which i think worked really well. she drew waves onto polystyrene, then when happy with design, she the dug out channels in the polystyrene. she mixed up some blues, and then used the polystyrene like relief printing woodcut. obviously it worked so well that BB did it too, so we discussed related ideas of prints/engravings and got messy!! had a great time doing this.

After lunch we went out to an event organised by Michelle, and met some old and new HE people, and the children ran about having great – and noisy – fun! this was the cloth place, and a revisit for the girls, although new to me. i had my map on me in case we got lost, and on the park and ride in, sb was charged with following its route to make sure we got off at the right place [tho the get off is v obvious!!] she really enjoyed following the road names, roundabouts etc and did it v well. training her up as next mapreader in the family. we were early so they got to have an icecream treat. as well as a park and ride treat – which they always like! was a lovely, and v noisy, session!! got to do a bit of chatting, but for quite a while played with bb. loved the sarcophagus and snakes [not maggots]. SB suggested to them an ice exploratory would be fun – ice sculpture, melting and freezing etc! needless to say, bb fell asleep on the way home. we got sb late to brownies, but they were mostly messing about in the sun or sticking pictures – as she was hot and bothered she went for sticking pics. and i collared brown owl who accepted the list of 10 brownie badges, but doesn’t have most of them.

bb came home and bounced and messed about in the paddling pool. i was allowed to stick my feet in and read book, but then my feet took up too much space – !! – and i had to just watch [read book] and then we started to make a fimo copy of a henry moore family group bronze – all bb’s idea, and only in the starting bit – will be v interested to see how it turns out. SB had judo, and we all went along at the end for the certification, as she now has the yellow/white.

so, phew, that is our hot day!

Books!!
oh, i am reading these, on load from merry. i am really enjoying them.

in return i have sent The Other Queen which is ok, tho not the best of her work [nor the worst, i actually threw one of her books away], and this Azincourt , which i really enjoyed and would recommend, i enjoyed his arthur series The Winter King a lot as well. oh and also book 2!The Valley of Horses (Earth’s Children)

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, General, geography, language, little languages, numeracy, Out and About, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

hmm, lets do some blogging

Posted on June 22, 2009 by | 1 comment

last week i was lucky enough to swan off to a conference to lake como. we ate at good restaurants and learnt a lot in a good conference. the hotel was way out of town though, and getting back from the station, it was safest to walk along the railway tracks of the goods yard… not something you expect really to do! the only day out trip to belagio was lovely. I did, however, spend the entire conference getting more and more worried about little nanny, she had seemed to be getting better monday and tues, but by thurs things were not rosy, and on fri i knew active treatment had been withdrawn, and i just wanted to get home.

so having travelled all sat, i was welcomed home by a fantastic hug and cuddle from my girls. migrainous and travel sick on discussion with mum, i was encouraged [tho didn't need much] not to set straight out. so we snuggled, watched dr who, ate curry and made an early night.

not too quick off the mark to go out, and was rung to say i was too late after all. i feel dreadful that i didn’t re-prioritise things and see little nanny that last time to kiss her goodbye. prob silly, as she had slipped into a morphine sleep by saturday. but… so as no longer visiting, imposed on the manor borns to keep me sane.

we had a lovely, tho v lazy rspb walk, and have had to promise C i will do better next tine :lol: the kids appeared to have fun anyway, and bb was being particularly gorgeous really. all 3 played together without any major kerfuffles throughout the evening too, and after a lovely relaxed meal we went home to pop all of us straight to bed.

and so today, we were going to norfolk, and then not as it was a getting documents day [i have 2 days compassionate leave] and instead going tomorrow. [later and later]. so we decided to do fun things, like baking. we all got up v late, had brekkie v late, and then sb made brownies from *her* recipe book, and bb and i made a yummy choc sponge. the girls then played with silly string until it ran out. BB wanted to read a french book Lucy Cat at the Beach: Lucie Chat a La Plage (Lucy Cat) falls off perch in surprise, but agreed! SB did a verbal reasoning book and then read It’s Elementary: Putting the Crackle into Chemistry (Dk Reference) and wants to try and turn her urine into phosphorus now. :roll:

more playing, and we made pictures with light reactive paper, Sun Print Paper, which i remember enjoying as a child, and we did today. SB off to ballet, and BB and i did some pond dipping, and then retired to watch donald duck. on SB’s return, we made another cake from her recipe book Marie Claire Kitchen and had ken hom vietnames stew for dinner [SB's favourite dinner in fact]

SB and I then looked at some tiny pond bugs that i had captured with her digital microscope. slightly tricky as they kept whisking about, but she did manage to take some photos. No idea what they were. very speedy though!

anyway, tomorrow to norfolk. thanks everyone for your good wishes and thoughts, I have REALLY appreciated it.

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Posted in Blogging, Butterbean's HE, Cooking, Dance/drama, General, investigating, language, literacy, little languages, science, Stringbean's HE

not quite as planned

Posted on May 30, 2009 by | 12 comments

i had a compassionate day off work today to go and say goodbye to uncle r. unfortunately he wasn’t well enough for all of us. and when i suggested yesterday at work that i didn’t need it, i think the sobbing went against me, so i was told not to come in. actually i should have gone in, as i had loads to sort out: otoh, actually in my job i need a fully functioning headspace, so could see their point.

SO i have had the bliss of part time working this week, and i really like it! hmm, to whether i will ever manage to negotiate it for a full time thing, and then how the money would stretch, but hey, one thing at a time!

i got up late, after having listened to sb playing her recorder. when i got down, she was doing some Junior Science Book 1 [we are still on chapter one, as it is an as and when thing! we plan to skip 2 and go onto 3 in the hopes that it ties in with our june holiday], and she happilly wrote through that. BB meanwhile got out her Get Set for the Code – Book B, and in her own way chose what she wanted to do! we then read some books together, whilst SB did some handwriting Italic Handwriting Series Book D

then total mayhem as my amazon order for me arrived. i decided to treat myself to an escape route, so have bought The Clan of the Cave Bear + The Valley of Horses (Earth’s Children series) on jax and merry’s recommendations, and these Empire in Black and Gold (Shadows of the Apt) Dragonfly Falling (Shadows of the Apt) cos they looked interesting!
I didn’t forget the girls entirely, i bought SB this The Roman Mysteries Treasury as she really has been loving the roman mysteries, BB this French is Fun with Serge, the Cheeky Monkey! (Salut Serge) oh, and i also bought these!!Boomwhacker – Pentatonic Set Although I agree with Gina more = better, SB often makes up her tunes in various modal styles, and thought the pentatonic might keep this musical awareness going.

SO BB bashed away with the boomwhackers, sounding surprisingly gamelan or chinese and SB stuck her nose in the flavia gemina book!! i did some work emails. following a melt when BB got rather too enthusiastic with the boomwhackers [Gina, exactly how robust are they] she retired to watch the french is fun DVD and SB did some maths. I read loads of fairy stories, then lunchtime [late!]

Afternoon for SB and I was a long game of Puerto Rico. you can’t really play it properly with 2, but it is OK for an child and adult scenario [or even 2 children] money much easier to come by! BB wandered off into the garden with chris, and then came back for some ivor the engine.

it being sunny, we then all decamped into the garden, bb had some flower seeds she wanted to scatter across the veg patch, i had cucurbits and beans to get out, and SB was keen to help. so that was what we did this pm. not got all the beans out, as had to spend some time untangling them from each other!

girls settled down to playing and chalking [ie making shapes out of hunks of chalk just like at the sustainability. and i read Honey in a Hive (Let’s-Read-And-Find-Out Science: Stage 2) while they worked. we had dinner out in the garden, bathtime [obviously indoors!] and SB had more of Black Ships Before Troy – The Story of the Iliad

A quick yesterday summary:
SB and Maddy had a great time playing together, lots of games where got out and played, and SB loved it. BB also pottered along, either with them or with chris, quite happy. BB had a gym taster session, and was really ecstatic about that. unfortunately M’s ear started to hurt and she went home before i got in from work, and so missed the astronomy night. we, however, all looked at the moon again, and some of the stars, seeing if we could find galaxies [no - must look more at the map next time!!]

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, gardening, General, history, language, literacy, little languages, music, noises and sounds, numeracy, pre reading, science, Stringbean's HE, writing

latinetc day – mixing it up!

Posted on May 27, 2009 by | 4 comments

I didn’t do so well today. firstly, i thought we were having people come to show off their dvd, so had planned to do non-newtonian fluid mess in the garden. they didn’t come, and it was raining! and secondly, i was rather thrown off kilter by a family phone call.

luckilly, Merry came with a basket of fimo, gina with boomwhackers [Boomwhacker – Pentatonic Set] , and katy with latin games. [those boomwhackers are tempting aren't they!!] SO the children had a lovely time rotating through the 3 rooms. I was Merry’s teaching assistant today, and def enjoyed it. I was also majorly impressed by the care and effort in fimo creating. And i LOVED the boomwhackers.

Today could have been so difficult, and i did nip off to do some piano practice, and field calls, but having good and understanding friends around was really helpful. snacks and playings took place, and we had a go at extracting dna from kiwi. this was successful in the stuff i whizzed up, but not as visible as i would have liked, so may fiddle with the experiment, and we will do it again at some point. [as an aside, i am watching that human evolution progra,,e on the tv, and am rather impressed at my 6 finger touch typing skills!]

everyone eventually left at 5, and we have maddy on a sleepover. the girls all played some more, initially a variety of imaginative games, then beetle drive and then monopoly. we looked up the lso concert for next monday, and SB and Maddy had a go playing ode to joy on the recorder with me – not bad, but diff to get up to speed, so we have a back up plan of playing an A. SB then got the trumpet out, and they trumpetted, recordered and jingled through the leonard bernstein version. dinner and eventually bedtime, which SB and Maddy seem to have done without any hitches.

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, General, investigating, language, little languages, music, noises and sounds, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

a not-so-typical home ed day

Posted on May 25, 2009 by | 2 comments

well, i have finally faced up to the reality that chris is the home-educator, and i am just a facilitator [which does make me sad] BUT i do have wed and the weekend. so I am still going to blog my day, but perhaps he will do a more portico style week overview – well he might, if he blogs again!!

anyway, we start with the girls already up, SB is trying to log in to cbbc, and bb is watching charlie and lola.

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at 10-ish BB is beavering away at english type things – her book B of before the code, Book A of Getty and Dubay handwriting, and some maths – using manipulatives to think about adding up. After this, i leave her dancing to the radio whilst i do piano with SB.

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SB has a slower start, and is doing Bond verbal reasoning, which she finds difficult as she doesn’t seem to grasp spelling. SO she gets the dictionary out, and looks up all the possible words for the add a letter thing. all the others she does quickly and easily, but not this one. At least – i think – it gets her to think about spelling. we are going to have to work on it i think. eventually finishing, she and i go and do some piano practice – which she loves.

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As it is lovely and sunny, and the garden is looking desperate, we decide it is a gardening day. Chris finishes off the veg bed with rotovating [we haven't done that before], SB decides to rescue some aquilegias from the strawberry patch, and i am itching to plant out some of the seedlings.

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of course I don’t do that, I paint BB’s face!

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SB also does some handwriting, and whilst we have lunch I read some french to them, as i think it has been quite a while since we last did any french :blush:

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More playing and potting on, and i do manage to get some plants out. SB helps by planting out peas whilst i do sweetcorn and dwarf beans. BB is chasing ‘minibeasts’ = ants ‘antistons’ [aka woodlice] and slugs mostly with a mini magnifying glass.

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A sudden rush to shower SB and she is presentable for brownies, which is immediately followed by Judo. BB and I potter in the garden, sowing sunflowers and potting up the tomatoes, pressing some flowers, before giving everything a jolly good water. a snuggle with hairy maclary follows, and then a bath.

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bed time stories of Black Ships before troy for SB. BB collapses with winnie the witch. the apprentice for chris and me. thus ends our day!!

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, early maths skills, gardening, General, language, literacy, little languages, music, photos, pre reading, SB-PE, socialisation, Stringbean's HE, writing

exploding everywhere

Posted on May 14, 2009 by | Leave a comment

today was a really fab latinetc. i do enjoy how it seems to be working, as the children all get on well, and have very fluid and flexible friendships withing the groups. it was at our house – which meant that i could get up later – phew!

so we started with littlies science, top set latin [rofl!] and SB had a piano lesson with gina [poor things squished into dining room currently completely full of tent!]

i LOVED todays science session. as did the children , i think! we did volcanos – always popular. having done the first one in the kitchen, we moved outside. all the children had goes at mixing, and got me to do the shaking as the eruptions ended up reaching huge heights!! then we moved onto lava lamps – more or less the volcano mixture, but with oil on top, so things bubble up and down in it – seductively calming on the mind! we all laughed lots and enjoyed it. the big group also enjoyed it, we did talk about the science behind it and i had written out instructions for the lava lamp / fizzing potion for them in 2 teams to follow and show that they could ‘do’ the instructions. i loved them working so nicely together, sharing tasks and deciding together how to get the right volumes from the variety of measures. loved it! the littlies did french i think [i was having way to much fun with science!]

after lunch and more playing, some of the deependers and all the biff crew left, with just merry and co, us , J and K. so we did some more playing, BB got her wish and a craft going, which most of the children joined in

and the gals version.
both my ‘gals’ did a pirate from the guys kit mind you. i know my mate sells them, by they really are fab kits, enough for 4 kids per kit, and loads of ‘extras’. highly recommended.

fran, J and I worked through playing as a trio together various easy piano pieces, which was much fun. merry also joined in, and finally SB, though i did simplify for her, as she isn’t at that level yet on the recorder. we did it out in the garden for ages, and all had fun [that way i could keep an eye on craft simultaneously!]

katy returned and did some latin with the middle group and then after restorative cups of tea, it was hometime! SB had her brownies and judo tonight, and BB and i made ‘bear shoes’ for her and then she watched alice in wonderland. SB watched the railway children when she came in. all in all a totally fab day.

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, General, investigating, language, little languages, music, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

latin in the wild

Posted on April 29, 2009 by | 4 comments

today, for a change we did latin and science at an outdoor venue. was rather a good idea [not mine!] though i was a bit stressed as got stuck in an enormous traffic standstill, that seemed to have no cause when we got to the front. not quite as bad as katy, who had key problems. got there and met up with ‘the gang’ and the children played for ages in the play area v happily. then after being tempted with snack did classical studies with katy, acting out the trojan horse and one of the many greek dolphin myths. we had lunch – michelle had brought the pasta out with us, and v well received. and then we did science. i thought we should do something easy to get us thinking chemicals, so we thought of the ones we knew – hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and some of the ‘mixes’ H2O and CO2 and then discussed with piccies what makes up an atom and then a molecule. we made H2O and then ethane with sweets and cocktail sticks before talking a bit about solids, making some more molecules with molemod for the older ones, and face painting molecules for those that wished it. we began thinking of ‘valency’ [i know we are not supposed to use that word!!] this seems to be a good website btw.

the children put on a show of the greek dramas for us, and then we said good bye to those going to baby music, and the rest of us looked round the animal shelter part of it, oohing and ahing at the animals we liked [sb partic fond of the dog idea, and bb of guinea pigs] and more playing in the park with adults chatting. v grounding experience for mums like me needing a bit of grounding!

BB fell asleep near instantly being put in the car, and stayed asleep for a bit [which is why she is snuggled in my ‘whiskey hole’ [leg curl space for cat to snuggle in] at the moment as i type!! SB is reading. SB did the customary brownies and judo and then we had chips with a side order of daleks! we need to fix our conservatory and the chap came today with a quote. it is on the steep side. so to recover from one astronomical thing we went out and looked at some more with our telescope.

so tonight we looked at craters on the moon – even bb was impressed, a previous night she had been disappointed at the small size of saturn. she remained disappointed at the small size of saturn tonight, but it was so clear that the rest of us saw one of saturn’s moons!! so we were all v excited.

other than that, as a backwards catchup from me, we have done bits of recordering, piano playing and verbal/non verbal reasoning. SB has moved onto chapter 2 of her Junior English Book 1, but was distracted on looking up lotus flowers and read a book about nefret working for Cleopatra: Discover the World of Cleopatra Through the Diary of Her Handmaiden, Nefret and then about Captain Cook (Famous Lives) because the book was nearbye!

we have fimo-ed me some owls, bb a fish brooch and sb some beads for little nanny’s birthday, and also done some painting, seed tending and lots of games outside. we have also played a lot of games of Bohnanza and Castle Keep

good news that my mammogram normal. less good that my working hours seem to always increase rather than decrease. may help us pay for conservatory though!!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, Dance/drama, daubing and making, General, geography, history, investigating, literacy, little languages, music, numeracy, online resources, Out and About, pre reading, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE