Category Archives: Butterbean’s HE

wrong paint wednesday

Posted on October 18, 2008 by | 2 comments

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!!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, DIY/ house renovation, early maths skills, General, history, language, literacy, little languages, music, numeracy, pre reading, SB-PE, Stringbean's HE, writing

Touristy Tuesday – ely

Posted on October 18, 2008 by | Leave a comment

whilst dad started with the diy – thanks dad! decorating our downstairs loo, and chris got sorted to do some windowing, mum said she fancied going to ely. again the girls raced through home ed stuff, violin prac with mum, maths, handwriting, and wizard whimstaff spelling books that i had got and SB loves and is racing through. Also some french story and conversation, and reading of a castle book.

so off to ely, and the girls got strict instructions on how to behave in a cathedral. so we were totally shocked to open the door and find 800 screaming primary schoolers!!! at least it was free entry. they were having a day on the victorian restoration – which was interesting. SB had a bit of a wobble [well, it was a wobbly day for her] because the children had worksheets and she didn’t – and they were the most boring worksheets imaginable!! oh well, on walking around, whilst the kids had their lunch break and were like wild animals chasing around, we noticed all the brass rubbings out and about, so the girls spent a happy 30 mins brass rubbing, whilst mum looked about more. we went and had lunch at pizza express and wandered about, including cromwells house.

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home in time to take SB swimming – she is getting really good, particularly at backstroke.

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, DIY/ house renovation, early maths skills, General, history, language, literacy, little languages, music, numeracy, Out and About, pre reading, SB-PE, Stringbean's HE, writing

Appley Monday

Posted on October 18, 2008 by | Leave a comment

my parents arrived on monday, much anticipated and looked forward too! due to their likely early arrival we were up, and the girls v eager to see them! lots of cuddles and getting settled in. SB and BB showed the maths they had done, and SB did a piano practice with mum. Actually, all week they have been keen to do a lot of the HE ‘normals’ which i hope reassures my parents a bit!

in the afternoon we went to a local tour of an apple orchard with the owner. it was delightful. we were near the front of the tractor, so SB, mum and i plied him with questions between stops, and he told us the history of farm and family, planting and varietal changes, beekeeping etc etc and was charming. SB took a lot in, and both girls and adults enjoyed sampling the fruit!! he has planted lots of apricots, and is hoping potentially for a small crop next year…

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back by skin of teeth to ballet and then brownies – what a busy day!!

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, Dance/drama, early maths skills, General, language, literacy, little languages, music, numeracy, Out and About, photos, pre reading, socialisation, Stringbean's HE, writing

i should be doing my tax return!

Posted on October 12, 2008 by | 11 comments

but i hate doing the buggers, can’t use their website – i used it when first set up, forgot password, and somehow can’t be re-entered… and i have never filled out the self emplyed bit before, and it has all sorts of questions i can’t answer! i earnt about £1500 self employed over a year, and spent about £800. but the form has all sorts of weird bits in it!!

so i’ll blog instead. got up late, girls watching monsters inc, had shower [took ages to brush hair], did violin practice with SB – haven’t practiced for ages so lots of wails and gnashing of teeth there. read some books with BB, then lunch, and both girls did some maths and SB handwriting whilst BB did some french story with me. SB then did french conversation. i realsied what she actually got upset with on wed [or so she says] is that she couldn’t spell to write car experiment on the paper and thought j and chloe would laugh at her. no idea why, and chloe had j spell experiment for her. i will print it next time though. She does have entirely dire spelling though, and absolutely no way of working it out. since her reading is so fab, i am a bit of a loss as to why she can’t spell car… but we will make an effort to do diolch words spellings, as we let them slide a bit. i’m not overwhelmed by the fact her spelling is so bad if it doesn’t bother her, but if its going to make her wail and be miserable, then she has to learn!!

lots of running abour wildy, playing with kids k’nex and bb doing counting buddy blocks with the maths manipulatives and they wanted to go out roller skating. we got about 20 m and had to return for a wee stop :roll: but the next attempt far more successful. beautiful day for it too, and the churchyard has lots of slopy pavements to practice on. also a bit of gravestone investigation as well. should have taken the camera, as the light on the church was gorgeous, oh well! its not as if we don’t have a few photos tucked away!

returned when girls worn out, snuggled and read books – including a bit of SOTW as we have slipped a bit in it – it only takes a few seconds, but somehow… and a quickie recorder practice as well. watched a quite dire spanish lyrical video – bought ages and ages ago. but girls liked it, so i face booked!! yummy tea, and then bedtime. i am enjoying the pirates of pompeii reading to sb at the mo, and she read me some arthur in return.

PS, i am bolding again. i really miss it when i don’t do it!
:smile: oh, and BB bought me flowers :smile:

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Posted in Books, Butterbean's HE, early maths skills, General, history, language, literacy, little languages, music, numeracy, Ponderings, pre reading, Stringbean's HE, writing

blogging early to go to bed early

Posted on October 8, 2008 by | 1 comment

we are having a run of dreadful nights with the girls, and its not doing their mood much good either. cue exaggerated behaviours from us all! And having negligible sleep, i also had a migraine – grrr. luckilly i caught it so early that by mid morning the meds were in full working order.

wed group at deependers we were slightly late due to migraine, but not bad, and the big’uns got started with their latin, and the middlies with science. they were wild but happy making cars race about. snacks and then middlies french and big’uns science. i was really pleased with how the science went today. they had so much fun making a force meter that TBH it took up most of the session. they were v good at doing it, and appeard to have much fun! then we looked at making an experiment up to look at friction, and rather than using a slope, they decided to blow the cars – and we measured how far they went on sandpaper, carpet and table. next time we will make our antigravity devices and have fun with slopes.

lunch came just in time, as SB was emotionally flagging, and remained a bit up and down for the session. she had baked cookies all by herself for the meeting, and they had all been eaten up. Some french was looked at, and then free play before coming home [all wailing!] i decided some r and r was required, so BB chose german muzzy after i veto-ed mr men, and then toy story 2 after tea whilst SB and judo – which she still loves. she now has her head in a book and soon bedtime for her, as i think todays upsets related to disturbed nights.

busy day tomorrow. beans have group, then BB has a gym session, the after short gap, sb has a gym session. BB is ecstatic at having gym again after this break. we decided whilst singing loudly all the way home in the car that we need to do more family fun swimming, and SB would like to try perhaps the odd horseriding – something i think chris has been planning to organise.

BB is being a doggie a lot of the time at the moment. she is often either a dalmation called spotty, or a little red dog called… clifford!!

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, Cooking, early maths skills, General, language, literacy, little languages, Out and About, SB-PE, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

messy party part 2

Posted on October 6, 2008 by | 3 comments

we obviously weren’t too dreadful guests, as we went back to the second messy party at the deependers yesterday. i was at work in the morning, and being called in the afternoon, but luckilly didn’t have to go in. a bonus babs and family were there too, lovely to see them again as well! also some local HE. this time the messy stuff was in the tent [lucky as the day started off v rainy, but it did improve] babs had got some geli baff – weird stuff. i couldn’t get at all messy in case needed to troubleshoot at work. SB got messy eno0ugh for the both of us, in fact she prob was The Most Messy! thats my girl!! certainly was great fun, and nice to have opportunities to sit and chat while children have fun.

[btw chris's thunder is blogging about team read, there are some photos on flickr. girls will be in newspaper etc]

Home and i finally finished fantastic contraptions – woohoo!! read more pirates of pompeii to the girls.

today i was knackered as called at night. but came back from work in tieme to say a quick hello to sb before her ballet and brownies. BB and i read books, leappadded, looked at a dog book and a dinosaur book [her favourite things!!] before picking more sweetcorn, beans and broccoli from the garden for tea. [have offered spare broccoli seeds to Nic...] we have rousted about and snuggled under duvet with the clangers. sb should be back soon, and we must do a quick bit of latin and i need to sort and resource session 2 on forces[a page in sidebar] for wed.

chris might add the things he has done with girls to his blog post – if we are lucky!!

the totally grr bit of today :cry: and :rant: was that some old chap was in a dizz whilst parking car at work and forgot to put his handbrake on :evil: – rolled back into my back bumper, all bent and scraped. havce only had the car for 11 daYS :cry: However, it being NCP, the people there had seen it, and couldn’t move his car so bollarde etc, and put warnings on his and mine and did an incident form. he went and fessed up [though otherwise i would still have had numberplate] so will get chris to chase up tomorrow. still sobbing!!

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, Dance/drama, gardening, General, little languages, music, numeracy, pre reading, socialisation

chris may not blog?

Posted on October 5, 2008 by | 4 comments

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

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, gardening, General, language, literacy, little languages, Out and About, pre reading, science, Stringbean's HE

nice car

Posted on September 26, 2008 by | 1 comment

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.

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, General, language, literacy, little languages, music, numeracy, pre reading, science, Stringbean's HE, writing

science wednesday

Posted on September 24, 2008 by | 2 comments

well, latin and science anyway! we managed to get up and nearly there on time – the girls and i would have managed it, but chris stopped to buy apples at the orchard! latin kicked off with revision of what has gone before, as last term things got a bit rusty! at present latin etc is 4 family strong, and it has smallies, middlies and big’uns. the middlies did a quick bit of science on energy, where to find it, and what it might be whilst the big’uns did the latin. a fruity snack and a run about, and the groups swapped, so the big’uns did science and the middlies did french. SB is a big’un, and BB in a bit of a gap between being a smallie and a middlie, so a bit of a loose cannon really. she’ll be a middlie with me for science, and a smallie prob for french. maybe we can get something hands on and crafty going on that she will stick with too.

we did energy anyway. it seemed to work well. we did lots of investigating and looking at things, and the kids have their sheets to go home with and stick in a book! so the session 1 worked well. think session 2 will be even better – and must gradually shape that up!

plenty of nice food and lots of play before we set of with michelle and chloe for the monthly rspb walk.

we adults agreed that it was probably the least enjoyable walk we have done there, though SB with her revisionist history thought it had been great, and couldn’t remember that every single one of the children had had their stand off waily moments [BB>SB>C] poor bb’s trousers kept falling down, leading to 2 nasty falls when running. SB got herself into a wrong side of the bed kind of mood, and had to be gently cajoled into joining the living, at which point she got the wrong side of a bramble… but we kept on. us adults [well mostly me, and maybe michelle] were totally unimpressed when the 1.6km walk ended up not a nice circuit, or going anywhere, but at the road! humph. somehow, back at the carpark the girls all recovered their jollies and played really beautifully for an hour – prob the cause of revisionist history!

we came back, quick tea for SB before judo – which she does really enjoy, so that’s good. BB and I had a snuggle and watched ‘the snowman’ before her bedtime.

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, General, language, Out and About, SB-PE, science, socialisation

New Mondays, with added spice

Posted on September 23, 2008 by | 8 comments

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 is  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 some  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

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Posted in Butterbean, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, Out and About, SB-PE, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE